We have to study the media if we want to understand the world

NICK COHEN'S article on media studies shows an astonishing naivety. For a journalist to write an article critical of media studies as insubstantial and ephemeral is disingenuous. It is precisely through articles like Mr Cohen's that people acquire ideological "common sense" ideas about the relative value of such subjects as media studies. Newspapers and television both reflect and create our fundamental ideas about how the world is organised and as such should claim a place in any university's curriculum.

Tim Gay

Open University

Chulmleigh, Devon