Looking Back and Looking Forward

The 50th anniversary of one of our most respected journals is not only a time for congratulations. It is also a valuable cue that we should stop hiding behind the defensive posture of being ‘a young field’ to remind ourselves, and others, of what are now rather venerable and important traditions of scholarship. When the founding father of British social science, Herbert Spencer, published his seminal (and surprisingly profitable) book The Study of Sociology in 1873, he was prompted in part by his irritation at what readers would find in press simplifications. For example, ‘In newspapers, they have often met with comparisons between the numbers of criminals who can read and write and the numbers who can not; and finding the numbers who can not greatly exceed the numbers who can, they accept the inference that ignorance is the cause of crime’ (Spencer, 1887: 361). The new science of society, he hoped, would correct such facile media generalizations. Serious study for employment in media occupations was not much later in developing. In a report for the 1892 annual meeting of the national Institute of Journalists it was agreed that proper examinations were required for would-be journalists, including questions on the first book of Euclid, Latin translation, and the geography of the British Empire (Bainbridge, 1984: 55). We have moved on from then, though journalism education in universities in the UK, at least, has been a relatively recent development. But the rigorous and elaborated scholarly analysis of the media and the culture they disseminate has had firm institutional bases in British universities for nearly half a century. We inhabit a field perhaps a little overly concerned with examining its roots and prospects. The anniversary of a journal is a moment for celebration rather than introspection. Two thoughts follow. First, let’s stop being defensive. For several years in the 1990s I was the chair of the UK subject association for the field. In that time, I devoted much energy to responding to often hysterical denunciation of media research and scholarship appearing in the press and political debate. One newspaper, for example, reported that, ‘Thousands of GAZETTE: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATION STUDIES