With RMIT being kind enough to give us all Labor Day off (which I spent nursing a hangover and binge-watching Lost); our usual Monday Lectorials were removed, in place of extended readings – focusing on David Gauntlett’s “Making Media Studies”.

Gauntlett’s readings appear to carry forward with the idea we have touched on twice so far in our lectorials about the shift of media studies to be more focused on the self than on general theories.

Gauntlett’s approach to media studies, is therefore, more hands-on. It is about learning by ‘doing’. This links back to the reading I undertook in week one on Newport’s “10,000 hours to mastery” blog post – and using these 10,000 hours efficiently to become a chess grandmaster. If we are to become strong contributors to media in society, we need to use our time meaningfully – and how more efficient than to practice in a hands-on way; rather than purely theory based.

Similarly, Gauntlett’s excerpt on the knowledge we “need” appears to be more practical – particularly the emphasis on knowledge of how to make a difference.

This style of learning appears to appeal strongly to the idea of ‘me-dia’ we have discussed at several points of this course so far.