Abstract
Through a textual analysis of four episodes comprising the 2019 ITV 1 psychological thriller Cheat, this article explores a fictional representation of the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education (HE) setting in a television drama. We discuss our analysis in the context of growing marketisation of UK HE, where academics are increasingly viewing students as powerful consumers. We focus on one of the central characters, final-year undergraduate student Rose Vaughan, and the staff with whom she interacts in a fictional HE institution – St. Helen’s College. This article engages with the following themes: ‘The powerful student consumer’ and ‘The commodified academic’. Insight gleaned through the textual analysis of this dramatised depiction of UK HE allows us to attempt to understand how both students and academics might be navigating the neoliberal university and negotiating place and status as (paying) students and (commercial) academics. Although heralded as powerful student-consumers in much literature, our analysis of this television drama shows how students can potentially disrupt the united front often attempted by HE institutions, but ultimately are faced with a ‘the house always wins’1scenario. Our article offers an important contribution to the psycho-sociological literature into how the television drama depicts that the student experience has been transformed and impacted by HE’s marketisation. This includes a reconsideration of how the television drama portrays what it means to be a student, by exploring how one student is conceptualised, understood, and represented in the psychological thriller.
Highlights
In the past 20 years, the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education (HE) environment has changed considerably, mostly due to marketisation
Cheat provided us with a rare opportunity to explore the circulating discourses surrounding current UK HE through a depiction which entails a close focus on one student navigating this landscape
Aside from the plotline of Cheat leading to her being a murderer, the character of Rose has many characteristics which could be deemed problematic in the evolving UK HE system
Summary
In the past 20 years, the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education (HE) environment has changed considerably, mostly due to marketisation. At the beginning of the series, we see Leah – rather fittingly – deliver a lecture to her final-year undergraduate students on the topic of power, control, and coercion. It is evident through Leah’s interaction with her student Rose that their relationship is strained and sets Leah on edge, demonstrable between the duo’s body language when around one another and their conversations early in the series. This is notable when Rose is summoned to Leah’s office to discuss a suspected case of plagiarism. The series becomes a ‘whodunnit’ murder mystery, including Leah’s husband as the fatality
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
