Media Studies History Throughout the World

Australia 

Media is studied as a broad subject in most states in Australia, with Victoria being a world leader in curriculum development. Media Studies was first developed as a study area in the early 1960s in Victorian universities. Film studies began in secondary schools in the mid 1960s and by the early 1970s Media Studies was being taught in secondary schools. Most notable in curriculum development at secondary level were Peter Greenaway, Peter Dodds, and Trevor Barr - who developed one of the first media text books 'Reflections of Reality'. Also notable was John Murray with 'The Box in the Corner', 'In Focus', and '10 Lessons in Film Appreciation' (1966). The subject became part of the Higher School Certificate in the 1980s and is currently a strong component of the Victorian Certificate of Education.

The VCE course covers Unit 1 - Representation, Technologies of Representation, and New Media; Unit 2 - Media Production, Australian Media Organisations; Unit 3 - Narrative texts, Production Planning; Unit 4 - Production work, Social Values, and Media Influence. Media Studies also forms a major part of the Primary and junior Secondary curriculum and includes areas such as photography, print media, and television. Victoria has the leading Media body known as ATOM which also publishes Metro  and Screen Education magazines.

Other states that teach Media are South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland. The Northern Territory also teaches Media in secondary schools. The subject does not appear to be taught in New South Wales. 

Germany 

In Germany two main streams of Media Theory or Media Studies can be identified.  The first large flow of media theory based in humanities and cultural sciences as the Theater scholarship ("Theaterwissenschaft") and German language and literature studies widens since the 1960s. In this orientation, the Media studies in Germany today mainly developed and established. 

As one of the first publications to this new direction is by Helmut Kreuzer, published the study Literature Studies - Media Studies(Literaturwissenschaft – Medienwissenschaft), summed up the units of the "Düsseldorfer Germanistentag" 1976. 

The second stream is comparable to Communication Studies. Pioneered by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in the 1940s this stream studies mass media, its institutions and its effects on society and individuals. 

The term Wissenschaft however, cannot be translated as studies straightforwardly, as both science and humanities equally fall under it. Accordingly, German media theory combines philosophy, psychoanalysis, history, and science studies with the media specific research. 

Medienwissenschaften is currently one of the most popular university courses in Germany, with many applicants mistakenly assuming that studying it will automatically lead them to a career in TV or other media. This has led to widespread disillusionment, with students blaming the universities for offering highly theoretical course content. The universities maintain that practical journalistic training is not the aim of the academic studies they offer.

India 

The media industry is growing in India at the rate of 20 percent per annum. Together, entertainment and media form the country's sixth biggest industry, with 3.5 million people working in it. Within the next 4–5 years, the industry is expected to gross eighty thousand crores (800 billionrupees) annually. 

With a view to making the best use of communication facilities for information, publicity and development, the Government of India in 1962-63 sought the advice of the Ford Foundation/UNESCO team of internationally known mass communication specialists who recommended the setting up of a national institute for training, teaching and research in mass communication. 

New Zealand 

Media Studies in New Zealand can be regarded as a singular success, with the subject well-established in the tertiary sector (such as Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato; Media Studies, Victoria University of Wellington; Film, Television and Media Studies, University of Auckland; Media Studies, Massey University; Communication Studies, University of Otago). 

United Kingdom 

In the UK, media studies developed in the 1960s from the academic study of English, and from literary criticism more broadly. The key date, according to Andrew Crisell, is 1959: 

When Joseph Trenaman left the BBC's Further Education Unit to become the first holder of the Granada Research Fellowship in Television atLeeds University. Soon after in 1966, the Centre for Mass Communication Research was founded at Leicester University, and degree programmes in media studies began to sprout at polytechnics and other universities during the 1970s and 1980s.

Media Studies is now taught all over the UK. The topics span from magazines to films. It is taught at GCSE and at A level, and the Scottish Qualifications Authority offers formal qualifications at a number of different levels. It is offered through a large area of exam boards includingAQA and WJEC. 

USA 

Mass communication, communication studies or simply communication may be more popular names than “media studies” for academic departments in the United States. However, the focus of such programs sometimes excludes certain media—film, book publishing, video games, etc. The title “media studies” may be used alone, to designate film studies and rhetorical or critical theory, or it may appear in combinations like “media studies and communication” to join two fields or emphasize a different focus. 

Examples: The New School in New York City created the first Media Studies Program in the country in 1975, The Paley Center for Media inNew York City, Comparative Media Studies at MIT, Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago, Media and Cultural Studiesat the University of California, Riverside, Rhetoric and Media Studies at Willamette University and Media Studies in Communication atKennesaw State University. The University of Southern California has three centers for media studies: the Center for Visual Anthropology (founded in 1984), the Institute for Media Literacy at the School of Cinematic Arts (founded in 1998) and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism (founded in 1971). University of California, Berkeley has a long established and highly regarded interdisciplinary program formerly titled Mass Communications, which recently changed its name to Media Studies [4], dropping the pejorative connotations which accompany the term “Mass” in the former title. Until recently, Radford University in Virginia used the title “media studies” for a department that taught practitioner-oriented major concentrations in journalism, advertising, broadcast production and Web design. In 2008 those programs were combined with a previous department of communication to create a School of Communication.In 2004 Bernard Luskin of Fielding Graduate University establised an EdD program in Media Studies and a PhD program in Media Psychology with a concentration in Media Studies. Courses in Media Studies were started at Touro University Worldwide in 2009.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_studies