New Perspectives for Media Education, Theory and Practice

Abstract

The development of information technologies and new electronic media has changed the classifications of classical educational media taxonomies: new technologies change the practice, and renew the educational usage. In order to integrate these new media, media education must modify its approach, its framwork of theoretical reference and its methods. The article develops first of all the theoretical framework which acts as the conductor to the new training of instructors in the field of ‘Media and Informatics’ (Department of Psychology and Educational Science, University of Geneva, 1996–97). It is principally a question of redefining the concept of media based on Anderson's work on communication theories: a medium is above all a human activity which has been brought to completion. From this follows such concepts as texts, discussions, course, presentational systems, areas of social interaction, etc. From a methodological view point this idea implies first of all the separation of the different aspects of the mediatization process, so as to then carry out an analysis of their interactions. In the second part, the article presents first of all an operational model which allows the application of this framework to media, and then a look at some work carried out by the students working on this new programme. The article then turns to the analysis of the coherence between a theoretical model and the conditions for its application within a programme of training.