About

 This blog collects very short excerpts from academic articles, as well as links to articles that are related to the study of media. 

The target audience for this blog are students studying media studies, cultural studies, communication, film studies, and related subjects such as sociology, English language, and so on. 

The primary intention of this blog is to introduce the reader to the joys of reading academic articles in the most straightforward and accessible way possible. While this blog focusses on collecting and distributing very short excerpts from academic books, a simple citation is included, and readers are encouraged to explore the book it came from and the author who wrote it. 

While it could be argued that stripping down an author's work to bite-sized chunks is reductive (and of course it is by it's very nature!) I believe it is liberating. Academic writing can be intimidating and even exclusionary, with entire books assuming you have studied in detail other books. This blog offers a jumping on point, and is especially useful to students who have come from a non-academic background or have had bad experiences with hard theory. You have to start somewhere. 

You may be set readings as 'homework', with the implication that this will be discussed as a group activity in a subsequent lesson. However I encourage media students to dig in to the readings and resources available, and to read a little bit here and there of what interests you. 

The very short excerpts hosted on this blog adhere to copyright rules and regulations, and are presented in an educational context, with the express intention of encouraging students to engage with academic books. I am a critical theory and cultural studies nerd, and almost every excerpt on this blog is taken from my own collection.

This blog is a sister blog to my A-level media studies blog, which is far more focussed on teaching 'the subject' than the 'wider reading' that be found on media micro readings.