Epistemic foundations, disciplinary intersections, and the politics of knowledge: Perspectives from knowledge and knowing in media and film studies By SteveConnolly, London: UCL Press. 2025. 194 pages. £20.00 (paperback). ISBN: 978‐1‐80008‐249‐6

Steve Connolly's Knowledge and Knowing in Media and Film Studies is an ambitious and deeply reflective exploration of the epistemological foundations of two subjects that have long occupied a contested space in education. This book is a project devoted to rethinking the nature and purpose of knowledge in contemporary schooling. The book sits within a distinguished intellectual tradition that has interrogated the disciplinary structures underpinning school subjects. Where previous volumes have focused on established disciplines such as history, geography and science, Connolly's book turns to what he describes as ‘non-traditional’ subjects: Media and Film Studies. This shift of focus is significant. Both subjects have struggled to establish themselves as legitimate areas of school and college study, often positioned on the margins of the curriculum. Connolly addresses this directly, noting that the absence of a clearly articulated knowledge base has ‘left Media Studies and Film Studies in weaker positions in schools and colleges than some other elective or optional subjects’ (p. 10). This uncertain status helps explain why they remain hugely celebrated by students yet mistrusted by policymakers. Connolly's project, therefore, is not merely descriptive but existential. He sets out to articulate what counts as knowledge within these fields and, in doing so, to offer an epistemological justification for their continued presence in education. The book speaks directly to ongoing debates about ‘powerful knowledge’, disciplinary thinking, and the tension between knowledge and skills that have dominated educational discourse over the past two decades. Connolly is well positioned to address these issues. A former teacher of English, Media and Film Studies and now an academic in education, he brings to the task both classroom experience and theoretical acumen. His central question of ‘What do we mean by knowledge in Media and Film Studies?’ is pursued through philosophical reflection, historical reconstruction and curricular analysis. The result is a work that is at once scholarly and practical, addressing teachers, teacher educators and policymakers who must grapple daily with what it means to ‘know’ the media. At the heart of Connolly's argument is the claim that Media and Film Studies require a distinct epistemological framework that cannot be subsumed under conventional models of ‘knowledge-rich’ or ‘skills-based’ education. He contends that both subjects have been mischaracterised by policymakers and, at times, by their own practitioners: either dismissed as lacking intellectual rigour or defended in terms that fail to capture their complexity. Against this backdrop, this book proposes that Media and Film Studies are, in fact, deeply concerned with knowledge, but that their ways of knowing differ from those of more traditional disciplines. Also, Connolly draws upon John Furlong's deceptively simple questions: ‘Where are we now?’ and ‘Why are we where we are?’ to frame his inquiry. He examines the historical and institutional trajectories that have shaped Media and Film education, tracing their development from the cultural studies tradition of the mid-twentieth century to the policy reforms of the twenty-first. In doing so, he reveals how these subjects have continually negotiated the boundary between popular culture and formal knowledge. The central contention is that Media and Film Studies constitute ‘epistemologically exceptional’ subjects: eclectic, hybrid and resistant to reduction. The book is structured as follows: Chapters 1 and 2 establish the conceptual groundwork, situating Media and Film Studies within the sociology and philosophy of knowledge. Chapters 3–5 explore how knowledge is structured, recontextualised and enacted through key concepts, canons and production practices. Chapter 6 addresses the policy discourse surrounding media literacy, while the concluding chapter, Chapter 7, argues for a new, pluralist epistemology that reconciles creativity with cognition. Connolly's theoretical framework is deliberately interdisciplinary, combining insights from sociology, philosophy, cultural studies and curriculum theory. His most sustained interlocutor is Basil Bernstein, whose distinction between vertical and horizontal discourses and between disciplines, fields and regions provides a vocabulary for understanding the epistemic instability of Media and Film Studies. Connolly uses Bernstein's notion of recontextualisation (the process through which knowledge is transformed from academic disciplines into school subjects) to explain how Media and Film education emerged from the academic fields of communication and cultural studies but evolved distinct pedagogical identities. Connolly's book also engages with Michael Young's concept of ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young, 2012), though Connolly ultimately challenges its applicability to his subjects. Whereas Young's model privileges disciplinary coherence and abstraction, Connolly argues that the knowledge generated in Media and Film Studies is inherently contextual, negotiated and creative. He draws attention to the ‘pedagogic recontextualisation field’ (the space where teachers, examination boards, and professional associations shape curriculum content) and shows how this field has produced distinctive frameworks such as the ‘key concepts’ model and the integration of theory with production work. Philosophically, Connolly invokes Gilbert Ryle's distinction between ‘knowledge that’ (propositional or declarative knowledge) and ‘knowledge how’ (procedural knowledge), as well as Paul Hirst's ‘forms of knowledge’, to interrogate the nature of understanding in these subjects. However, he resists the temptation to align Media and Film Studies with any single philosophical camp. Instead, he proposes a synthesis: a model in which declarative, procedural, aesthetic and creative knowing coexist. This methodological pluralism reflects the book's wider argument that epistemological diversity is not a weakness but a defining strength of Media and Film education. One of the most valuable sections of the book is Connolly's examination of the political and policy contexts that have shaped debates about knowledge in England. He situates his discussion within the decade-long campaign for a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum championed by policymakers such as Michael Gove and Nick Gibb. Drawing on documents like The Importance of Teaching (Department for Education, 2010), Connolly shows how these reforms privileged content that could be easily codified, tested, and standardised. This is an agenda underpinned by the ideas of Hirsch (1987) and cognitive load theorists John Sweller (2016). For Connolly, Media and Film Studies sit uneasily within this paradigm. Their objects of study such as media texts, technologies and cultural practices are dynamic and context dependent. Their pedagogies often value interpretation, creativity and production. Consequently, they resist the epistemic closure demanded by standardised assessment. Connolly does not romanticise this resistance; instead, he argues that it requires a more sophisticated account of knowledge, one that acknowledges both the conceptual and the contingent. His critique is incisive yet fair: he recognises the appeal of a stable knowledge base but insists that such stability must not come at the expense of epistemic authenticity. The historical dimension of this analysis is especially illuminating. Connolly traces the genealogy of Media and Film Studies to the intellectual currents of British Cultural Studies, highlighting the influence of Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall, and Richard Hoggart. These figures, along with institutions like the British Film Institute (BFI) and the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS), championed the idea that popular culture could be a legitimate object of study and a vehicle for social understanding. Connolly demonstrates how this egalitarian ethos rooted in the notion that ‘culture is ordinary’ continues to inform Media education's commitment to inclusivity and relevance. At the same time, he acknowledges the tensions it creates with more traditional conceptions of disciplinary rigour. A distinctive strength of Knowledge and Knowing in Media and Film Studies lies in its treatment of creative production as a form of knowledge-making. Connolly devotes substantial attention to the epistemic value of students' practical work, arguing that it embodies a synthesis of conceptual understanding and creative practice. Through activities such as filmmaking, editing and digital design, students do not merely apply existing knowledge; they generate new insights about representation, audience and ideology. This process, Connolly suggests, blurs the boundary between knowing and doing, challenging hierarchies that privilege theoretical abstraction over creative experimentation. This argument resonates with contemporary educational research that emphasises embodied and multimodal learning. However, Connolly's treatment is distinctive in its theoretical depth. He situates production work within debates about canonicity, aesthetic judgement and assessment, questioning whether traditional models of evaluation can adequately capture the knowledge expressed in creative forms. Drawing on examples from OCR assessment materials and classroom practice, he illustrates how students' practical work often demonstrates conceptual understanding as sophisticated as that revealed through written essays. In discussing popular culture, Connolly revisits long-standing debates about quality, taste and cultural value. He traces the lineage of Media Studies back to the challenges posed by Hall and Whannel's The Popular Arts (1964) to Leavisite notions of ‘high culture’, showing how these early interventions shaped the subject's egalitarian ethos. Yet he also acknowledges the epistemological risks of equating all cultural forms: If everything is potentially knowledge, then the concept risks dilution. Connolly's response is characteristically important because he does not reject value judgements but reframes them as objects of analysis rather than prescriptive hierarchies. In doing so, he preserves the critical edge of Media education while reaffirming its democratic impulse. The penultimate chapter on media literacy situates Connolly's argument within a global policy context. He analyses how the discourse of ‘media literacy’ has evolved from its critical origins into a set of competencies aimed at fostering civic participation and online safety. While recognising the social value of these aims, Connolly warns that they risk reducing media education to behavioural training. The epistemological question of ‘What is being known when one is “media literate”’? is too often obscured. Comparing curricula across the devolved nations of the UK, Connolly notes that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have integrated media literacy more explicitly into their frameworks, often as part of ‘Expressive Arts’ or ‘Languages, Literacy and Communication’. England, by contrast, has relegated it to the periphery, treating it as a cross-curricular theme rather than a substantive domain of knowledge. Connolly interprets this as symptomatic of a broader ideological ambivalence: policymakers wish to promote critical engagement with media while simultaneously distrusting the subjects best equipped to provide it. His proposed remedy is what he terms an ‘agile and agentive epistemology’, a conception of knowledge that is responsive to technological change yet grounded in critical inquiry. Such an epistemology, he argues, would enable Media and Film Studies to function not as marginal electives but as central components of a curriculum designed for a mediated world. Connolly's book makes an important contribution to curriculum theory, media education and the sociology of knowledge. Its originality lies in synthesising these domains to construct a coherent account of how knowledge operates in hybrid subjects. Few works in the field have combined philosophical analysis, policy critique and pedagogical reflection with such fluency. The book's strengths are numerous. Its theoretical range is impressive yet handled with clarity. Connolly writes with the precision of a scholar but also with the empathy of a teacher who understands classroom realities. His engagement with Bernstein, Young and Ryle is not derivative but dialogic: he uses their ideas to expose the inadequacies of existing frameworks and to propose new ones. Moreover, his discussion of production work and popular culture reframes familiar debates in innovative ways, offering educators a richer vocabulary for articulating what students learn when they create and critique media. The prose style is another virtue. Academic yet approachable, this book conveys complex ideas without resorting to jargon. Connolly's tone is humane, reflective and occasionally satirical, revealing a deep respect for both his subjects and their practitioners. If the book has limitations, they stem largely from its ambition. Covering both Media and Film Studies, across school and college contexts, sometimes leads to rapid transitions between theoretical exposition and policy analysis. The discussion could occasionally benefit from a more sustained engagement with empirical data. Classroom studies, for instance, might have reinforced the theoretical claims. Additionally, while Connolly briefly references international scholarship, his focus remains primarily on the United Kingdom, which may limit the book's immediate resonance for global readers. Yet these are minor qualifications within an otherwise cohesive and persuasive argument. The structure of the book reflects Connolly's dual purpose as both analyst and advocate. Each chapter builds logically on the previous one, progressing from foundational questions about knowledge and disciplinarity to applied considerations of curriculum and pedagogy. The balance between theoretical discussion and practical illustration makes the text accessible to multiple audiences: scholars of education, teacher educators, policymakers and classroom practitioners alike. Importantly, Connolly resists the temptation to turn his work into a polemic. While he is clearly concerned about the marginalisation of creative subjects, his tone remains measured and analytic. His evaluation of policy decisions is critical but fair, acknowledging the complexities of curriculum reform. This even-handedness strengthens the book's authority and ensures its appeal beyond those already sympathetic to media education. Knowledge and Knowing in Media and Film Studies stands as a major contribution to contemporary debates about knowledge, curriculum and the status of creative subjects. Connolly's argument that Media and Film Studies are ‘completely about knowledge’ but require a different epistemological framework is both bold and persuasive. In reframing these subjects as legitimate arenas of intellectual inquiry, he challenges policymakers and educators to reconsider what counts as knowledge in a mediated, creative and interconnected world. The book's implications extend well beyond Media and Film education. It invites all educators to reflect on the relationship between knowing and doing, between abstract cognition and creative practice and between the academic and the everyday. Connolly's call for an ‘agile and agentive’ epistemology offers a way of reconciling these dichotomies, a vision of education that is intellectually rigorous, culturally responsive and socially just. In a period when the arts and humanities face growing marginalisation within schools, this book provides not only a theoretical defence but a moral one. It insists that understanding the media is not a peripheral luxury but a central necessity of contemporary education. For scholars, teachers and policymakers alike, Knowledge and Knowing in Media and Film Studies is essential reading. This book is a work that illuminates, challenges and ultimately reaffirms the value of knowing differently. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.