Understanding the mediatisation of educational policy as practice

The main argument presented in this paper is that the mediatisation of education should be viewed as forms of practice linked to specific practice effects. Drawing on Bourdieu's conceptualisation of practice - as elements of practice, practice games and field effects - the paper argues that viewing mediatisation as practice provides a set of methodological starting points for research involving media interactions with education. Taking the mediatisation of education policy as an empirical case for the argument, the contribution of the paper is to raise questions about how the term is utilised in educational research and to suggest that the practice is more open and complex than some accounts suggest. A secondary argument presented in this paper is that Bourdieu's account of practice provides resources suitable to developing research on mediatisation as an addition to social field theorising of processes. <br />