Obstacles to the DeveloPm~t of Media Education in the United States

American Educational Culture and Practice 
Because the U.S. is also relatively isolated geographically and culturally (e.g., we see relatively little 
foreign media product), it is more difficult than in Europe to entertain the possibility that we need to 
examine ourselves or our cultural products. In the U.S., popular culture products are more likely to 
be taken as natural phenomena than would be the case were we constantly exposed to the television, 
news, and film products of other countries. The long-standing ethnic, racial, and religious diversity 

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Obstacles to the Development of Media Education in the United States, by Robert Kubey, PhD 
 
First published in the 
Journal of Communication 
Winter, 1998 / Vol. 48, #1 
3 
within the U.S. population, although arguably the nation’s greatest strength, inhibits the ability to 
gain consensus on numerous issues, particularly those that pertain to controversial aspects in the 
socialization and education of children. Local school boards are numerous (New Jersey has more 
than 600) and unusually powerful in the U.S. (Apple, 1996; Considine, 1990; Silver, 1997). This is 
at least partly linked to our multiethnic, multiracial, and multireligious make-up. In 1890, a newly 
immigrated Irish-American parent in Brooklyn might well have found it disconcerting that her 
child’s primary school teacher was Italian, Jewish, or German. Such differences helped fuel the rise 
of powerful local school boards. Put another way, it is generally easier in more homogeneous 
countries for parents to cede power to an educational authority, because it is assumed that teachers 
and administrators share the same sorts of background and values. 
For these and other reasons, it is difficult for Americans to consider, let alone embrace, national 
educational policies (only 4% of educational expenditures in the U.S. come from the federal 
government). Furthermore, U.S. teachers are not treated as knowledgeable professionals, as they are 
elsewhere. According to Australian media educator Peter Greenaway of Deakin University, teachers 
in the U.S. are treated as low-level “process workers” who need to be given textbooks and told how 
to teach by others (personal communication, May 15, 1992). Elsewhere, teachers often have more 
autonomy and responsibility, and the teaching innovations, which are often a hallmark of media 
education, are more readily enacted. Similarly, in countries where most people are reasonably 
comfortable with a more singular national identity, and with, for example, a strong national broad-
casting service (such as the BBC or Israel Television), making federal educational policy on most 
any subject is substantially easier to bring about. The Israeli Ministry of Education (1993), for 
example, agreed that media education ought to be developed. A curriculum was commissioned, and 
2 years later it was widely available. 
Why is government action important? Once a state mandates something educationally, subsequent 
hurdles become easier to surmount. Suddenly, there must be teachers, there may well be standards, 
and a whole bureaucratic process swings into operation, In England, the fact that media studies 
became an accepted area for advanced-level examinations legitimated the area as few other 
developments could. Most every leading media educator in England with whom I spoke considered 
it to be a very significant step forward. In contrast, consider what happened in the late 1970s when 
the U.S. government invested a few million dollars in piloting “critical viewing” curricula through 
four major grants at the preschool, elementary, middle and high school, and college levels.
In 1979, Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire got wind of the grants. Famous for his Golden Fleece 
awards to governmental agencies that he alleged were wasting the taxpayers’ money on silly 
boondoggles, Proxmire went on the attack. Boston University, a site scheduled to receive a $400,000 
grant, was the target. Responding to Proxmire’s press release, a Boston newspaper ran a highly 
dismissive headline and story a few weeks before the Dallas Cowboys appearance in the Super Bowl 
about the “Department of Education giving a grant to their 
friends 
at Boston University 
to teach 
college boys how to watch cowgirls on TV’ 
(italics added; Frank Withrow, then a director of the 
Division of Educational Technology, personal communication, March 3, 1993). 
Things got worse when Proxmire appeared on a radio show with the Boston University project 
director, Donis Dondis, who explained that one of the many things they wanted media education to 
accomplish was to help college students better understand the political implications of what they 
saw on television. Dondis allegedly added, “for example, Senator, I believe you had a hair transplant 

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