Media Form School – A Plea for Expanded Action Orientations and Reflective Perspectives

Media-related rhetoric plays a remarkable role in the context of school (re)forms, whether the arguments are euphoric or skeptical about media. On the one hand, there are reminders of the need for sheltered spaces and developmental tasks for children and adolescents, for the detailed differentiation of literacy as an educational task, or for maximizing equal opportunities. In these cases, media are mostly seen as means of learning, education or development advancement. On the other hand, debates also deal with the development of adequate infrastructures for learning and teaching with more-or-less «new» media, media-based school development projects, or the implementation of e-learning strategies. Here it is striking that, on closer observation, innovative efforts frequently turn out to be structural-conservative administrative measures which fail to address the contemporary media-anthropological, media-epistemological and media-cultural challenges. The focus of the article is on school-based monopolies of education and information. It explores expanded perspectives of reflection and action-orientation in light of the theory of medial forms.Media-related rhetoric plays a remarkable role in the context of school (re)forms, whether the arguments are euphoric or skeptical about media. On the one hand, there are reminders of the need for sheltered spaces and developmental tasks for children and adolescents, for the detailed differentiation of literacy as an educational task, or for maximizing equal opportunities. In these cases, media are mostly seen as means of learning, education or development advancement. On the other hand, debates also deal with the development of adequate infrastructures for learning and teaching with more-or-less «new» media, media-based school development projects, or the implementation of e-learning strategies. Here it is striking that, on closer observation, innovative efforts frequently turn out to be structural-conservative administrative measures which fail to address the contemporary media-anthropological, media-epistemological and media-cultural challenges. The focus of the article is on school-based monopolies of education and information. It explores expanded perspectives of reflection and action-orientation in light of the theory of medial forms