Cultural studies critics miss the point

Keith Windschuttle's attack on cultural studies' relevance for journalism education (The Australian, 25 March 1998) is characterised by a simplistic genealogy of cultural studies and conveniently elided the contribution to journalism education made by crossover works on media and popular culture written by scholars working outside the academy such as Catherine Lumby (1997) and Mark Davis (1997). Windschuttle's concept of "cultural studies theory" is made monolithic by a selective version of its Frankfurt School antecedents and an assertion that it is blind to the practical exigencies of hard news reporting.