Dear Martin, and other colleagues
A small point, which might be pertinent.
SCCCMS and then MeCCSA certainly took up the cudgels on behalf of production courses in the late 1990s, when HEFCE was genuinely confused about how to place such education within the four-band system of funding, but it was not done alone. MeCCSA was invited to the HEFCE table to discuss this, but so was AMPE. As an AMPE exec member I joined colleagues from MeCCSA to push for proper recognition for high cost courses, and as part of an invited panel we together assessed a number of HEIs provision, allocating it to Band B, C or D as appropriate. Later this was simplified into Band C. Later still, most AMPE members recognised the main purposes of AMPE had been achieved, and to progress we would do better to join up with MeCCSA itself.
My point is that associations like AMPE don't emerge for no reason, and they may have a beneficial effect overall. We would do well to establish more fully why a BAFTSS is desired now, and what MeCCSA can do to support members that feel such a move is needed.
Best wishes
ian
-----Original Message-----
From: Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martin Barker
Sent: 23 June 2011 11:24
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A Response to BAFTSS from Members of the MECCSA Executive
Dear colleagues
I've hesitated about saying anything in the current debate over BAFTSS,
because I am clearly very much an "interested party", having been involved
in helping set up MeCCSA over a decade ago, and having served on its
Executive Committee for some years. But I thought it worth saying
something more about the history, because I think it is important. I was
actually reminded of all this by attending the memorial gathering for
Michael Green that happened a few weeks ago. Why? Because Michael was one
of the people who, along with a few of us, made the very first attempt to
create a national network of people broadly in "our field" - and of course
exactly what "our field" is, is the issue now. The first attempt at it
came in around 1974 (forgive me if my date recollection is not perfect on
this), with the Cultural Studies Network. It was small, fragmentary, but
very important in beginning dialogue, sharing experiences, and -
importantly - on occasion speaking up on behalf of colleagues in public
controversies. After a few years, the CSN transmogrified into the
Association for Cultural Studies and thence, as people realised the
artificiality of various lines of distinction, into the Association for
Media and Cultural Studies.
During those early years, a good deal of film studies stood apart, letting
a lot of the speaking be done for it through the BFI and Screen Education.
Of course that was important, and the BFI did particularly valuable work
in getting various aspects of the media incorporated into school
curricula, but it did mean that the field was always divided. But
national events were pushing us, and the impulse for field unity came as a
result of national agencies warning us that if we didn't get organised,
and unified, we would lose out.
This came to a head, as I recall it, in the late 1990s. Out of those
warnings came the wonderfully named Standing Conference for Cultural,
Communication, and Media Studies in Higher Education. (Andy Medhurst must
have hated the name, although we did our best to make it sayable by
referring to with deep irony as 'Schisms' ...) Where AMCS was based on
individual membership/participation, SCCMSHE took on the format of
institutional membership - because it was essential that we could speak in
organised fashion on behalf of the field. SCCMSHE in its relatively
short life opened doors to agencies, got it accepted that the field should
be represented in debates, won a Panel in the RAE, dealt with the QAA.
When it merged with ACMS, after a year or so of debates and discussions
between the two organisations, to become MeCCSA, that brought together for
the first time into one organisation a commitment to discuss and debate
academic issues and also public/policy issues in our field, and a capacity
to speak out on all kinds of issues affecting us. For instance, who now
remembers the threat that production courses within our sector would be
graded at the lowest level for funding? It was SCCMSHE and then MeCCSA
that took on that battle and defended a higher Band funding for our field.
That is one example of something that simply could not have been achieved
without a single national voice for the field. When Benchmarking was being
done, it was SCCMSHE/MeCCSA (I forget if it was before or after the
merger) that ensured that the field definitions were broad, inclusive, and
protected the wide range of approaches and interests in our field. And so
on.
I have been involved in all these attempts since the early 1970s. It's
never been easy, and I would never say that the record is unblemished -
who could? But the long struggle to create a national organisation for
our field is one that people should not forget - nor what we are in danger
of losing if we split now.
So, to the issue on which I do have a personal view? The "field". What I
am sensing in some of what is lying behind the creation of BAFTSS is a
sense of separateness, indeed specialness, of film studies. There is a
long intellectual tradition behind this. 'Film theory' has long claimed a
strange ontological status for itself. OK, the title is stretched to
television and screen studies. But it's ironic that this should be
happening just at the time that the specificities of cinema are being
stretched and strained as never before with the wide and large emergence
of 'Alternative Content' - that is, the beaming of all kinds of other
cultural forms (theatre, opera, ballet, music, sports) into cinemas. I'm
not saying that there aren't some questions and topics specific to film
and television, but the same can of course be said of radio, press,
journalism, new media, magazines, etc, etc. What I am sensing is a weird
re-run of the 1970s. It will be sad beyond measure if colleagues in film
studies (which is surely where the motive force for this development is
coming from) think that they can secure themselves by pleading
'specialness'.
I'm near the end of my career now, although I hope and intend to stay
involved while I can with MeCCSA because it has been invaluable. I have
always strongly encouraged my doctoral students to become involved in
MeCCSA and to go to its Conferences - and to follow my practice of
attending at least one Panel entirely outside their own studies, because
it reminds just how wide and interconnected are the issues which
colleagues in our field deal with. The MeCCSA AGM isn't everyone's
favourite way to spend 2 hours, but it is open and democratic as it is
possible to conceive. I will also continue to go to specialist
conferences on topics and areas that particularly engage with my own
research interests. But I don't kid myself that these can somehow
substitute for having a broad unifying organisation that links and speaks
for all of us.
Martin Barker
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MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. Membership is open to all who teach and research these subjects in HE institutions, via either institutional or individual membership. The field includes film and TV production, journalism, radio, photography, creative writing, publishing, interactive media and the web; and it includes higher education for media practice as well as for media studies.
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MeCCSA mailing list
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To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1
-------------------------------------------------------
MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. Membership is open to all who teach and research these subjects in HE institutions, via either institutional or individual membership. The field includes film and TV production, journalism, radio, photography, creative writing, publishing, interactive media and the web; and it includes higher education for media practice as well as for media studies.
This mailing list is a free service from MeCCSA and is not restricted to members.
For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/
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