Critical pedagogy and media education: a theory in search of a practice

This paper provides a critique of recent theoretical work on ‘critical pedagogy’, focusing particularly on its relationship with media education. The first part of the paper questions critical pedagogy on several grounds: its synthesizing political and theoretical ambitions; its neglect of educational practice; and its evasion of questions of power and authority. It concludes by considering the implications of recent criticisms of this approach in terms of classroom practice. The second part of the paper considers the ways in which critical pedagogy theorists have sought to engage with media education. It questions the pedagogical relations which are established by such writers’ critical practice, and the theories of the media and of learning on which they are based. It contrasts these arguments with approaches to media education developed in the UK and elsewhere, focusing particularly on the relationships between pleasure and ideology and between theory and practice.