Art for art’s sake? A critique of the instrumentalist turn in the teaching of media and communications in UK universities

This paper charts the turn in the UK New Labour government’s (1997-2010) creative industries policy from an early focus on encouraging wider access to the arts to an increasingly instrumentalist emphasis on self-funding and the generation of wealth from intellectual property. The paper demonstrates the effect of this policy primarily through the case of the teaching of media and communications in UK universities. Focusing on the Skillset Media Academy Network (SMAN), the authors ask whether this is both the best approach to teaching media and communications in UK universities and appropriate that many of these courses appear to be solely geared towards preparing graduates for jobs in the creative industries.