Media U: How the Need to Win Audiences Has Shaped Higher Education

According to Mark Garrett Cooper and John Marx's book "Media U," universities are media institutions that have used new media technologies to cultivate audiences and convey their message about higher education, research, and campus life. The book explores how the research university has sought to inform publics and convince them of its value, and how media engagement has brought the American university into being and continues to shape academic labor.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 21 August 2018
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Are homecoming games and freshman composition, Twitter feeds and scholarly monographs really mortal enemies?

Media U offers a thought-provoking reevaluation of the evolution of American higher education, highlighting the notion that universities function as media institutions. Mark Garrett Cooper and John Marx trace the historical trajectory of media and academia over a century, contending that the primary objective of American research universities has been to cultivate audiences and persuade them of their worth.

Through a comprehensive examination of media history and the academy, Media U demonstrates how universities have embraced new media technologies to convey their message about higher education, research objectives, and campus life. The demand to establish an audience permeates every discipline within the university, shaping its structure and defining its division of labor. Cooper and Marx explore how the research university has endeavored to inform publics and persuade them of its value to American society, spanning from the early twentieth century's emergence of football and Great Books programs to the midcentury communications complex linking big science, New Criticism, and design. They also examine how universities have adapted to the co-option of 1960s student activist media and the reception of MOOCs in the early twenty-first century, alongside the latest promises of technological disruption.

The book delves into the complex dynamics between universities, national commitments to equal opportunity, and corporate capitalism. It also examines the intricate relationship between democracy and hierarchy, raising essential questions and providing valuable resources for reimagining the university and addressing its future. By examining the role of media engagement in shaping the American university and its ongoing impact on academic labor, Media U offers a comprehensive perspective on the evolving landscape of higher education.

Weight: 486g
Dimension: 153 x 228 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231186377