The Politics of storytelling: Electronic media in archaeological interpretation and education

Abstract

This paper raises and draws together a number of emerging issues in the maintenance and growth of archaeology through education. While the use of electronic media is increasingly pervasive in archaeological interpretation and in both formal and informal educational representations of archaeology, there is limited engagement in the discipline with the theoretical and pedagogical rationales for the adoption of these media and the interpretative narratives they offer. Indeed, many questions remain both unarticulated and unresolved in these discussions. 'How should these interpretations be best used for teaching and learning in archaeology?' and 'Why?' are research questions that may help to advance interest in teaching in the discipline beyond its current, fairly exploratory, level. In this process, the central role of pedagogy as an agency of concepts of disciplinary knowledge, rather than a neutral and naturalized addendum to the real business of the discipline needs to be recognized. For the pedagogical is political.