Documenting Education 1

1. Documenting Education 1
Mass media accounts of education and the documentary film
2014

2. Reflection so far
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Power of the media to manufacture consent!
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Representations of Education!
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Considerations of language used in reporting

3. Documenting Education
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Mass media documents, or gives an account of,
education in a variety of ways!
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Produces an archive (see Herman and Chomsky, 1995)!
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Focused on ways of arranging or ordering the facts!
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Documentary Film is one means of documenting
education

4. Documenting
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Various forms of documentaries, but media
documents education in other ways!
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Wallace (1997: p. 148) “The output of the mass media
is a key resource”!
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Variety of news values informs reporting!
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Selective & sensational reporting empower and
marginalise interest groups

5. What is Documentary?
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Aufderheide (2007):!
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A documentary is not a movie - except when it is!
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A documentary is not fun - except when it is!
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About real life - but not real life

6. Documentary Storytelling
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“…factuality alone does not define documentary
films” (Bernard, 2011: p.2)!
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Facts are arranged via a story (ibid)!
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Need to understand the narrative of a documentary how is the story being told?

7. What should documentaries do?
“At their best, documentaries should do more than help
viewers pass the time; they should demand their active
engagement, challenging them to think about what they
know, how they know it, and what more they might
want to learn” (Bernard, ibid: p.3)

8. Forms of documentary
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Public affairs documentary - host & narration!
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Public information films (Government propaganda)!
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Advocacy!
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Historical!
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Ethnographic

9. Examples of Documentary
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Government information films (e.g. Tomorrow is
theirs)!
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Investigative documentaries!
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Policy analysis (e.g Panorama, Dispatches)!
Features of education systems !
Fly on the wall documentaries

10. Tomorrow is
Theirs - 1940
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Ministry of Information!
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Examines the provisions for
secondary school education
during WWII
01

11. Learning to Live
- 1941
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Originally British Children at
School!
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“For in Britain every child
however poor carries a
university education in its
satchel.”!
01

12. Charley Junior’s
Schooldays - 1949
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Central Office of Information
for Ministry of Education!
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Sought to explain details of
education reform!
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Mood of post war optimism !
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More opportunities for the next
generation
01

13. Media Representations
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“all media stories elicit socially constructed meanings
between text and reader/ viewer” (Goldstein, 2011: p.
545)!
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Text and images are not neutral but news is reported
as uncontestable and uncontested !
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The educator needs to enter the debate, and challenge
assumptions made about education (Goldstein)

14. News Values
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Galthung & Ruge (1965)!
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“how do ‘events’ become ‘news’?” (p. 65)!
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12 factors relating to newsworthyness

15. Discourse of Derision (Wallace, 1993)
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Media inform public opinion & inform politics!
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‘canker of progressive education’!
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Myth Creation!
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Context Stripping!
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Media Production Process

16. References
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Aufderheide, P. (2007) Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press!
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Bernard, S.C (2011) Documentary Storytelling: Creative Nonfiction on Screen, London: Focal!
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Galtung, Ruge (1965) ‘The Structure of Foreign News: The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and
Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers’, Journal of Peace Research, 2(1):64-90!
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Goldstein, R. A (2011) ‘Imaging the Frame: Media Representations of Teachers, Their Unions,
NCLB, and Education Reform’, Educational Policy, 25(4): 543-576!
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Herman, E.S and Chomsky, N (1995) Manufacturing Consent: the political economy of the mass media,
London: Vintage!
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Wallace, M (1993) ‘Discourse of derision: the role of the mass media within the education policy
process’, Journal of Education Policy, 8(4): 321-337!
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Wallace, M. (1997) ‘Guided by an Unseen Hand: The Mass Media and Education Policy’, in Watson,
K; Modgil, C; Modgil, S (eds) Power and Responsibility in Education, London: Cassell, Chapter 14