I think Media Studies gets a bad rap . When it started engineering and the trades were in decline . We were out sourcing lots of the blue collar technical work . The information and culture industries were seen as the future . Things that UK could excel at . It speaks the global language English . It has a base of culture and arts to build upon . It might not be the total answer but it made more sense than coal mining and ship building . And the media and media tech did boom . Plenty of people did go from media studies into careers in the new media and internet industries . The problem was the media industry was a niche industry , mostly focused on a couple urban centres . It doesn ' t employ as many people as blue collar ones . And the the very tech that created a media boom undermined the economic model . Journalism and music are still in a kind of crisis . Whatever happens the large scale blue collar semi skilled jobs aren ' t coming back . Manufacturing , that is done is highly specialized and highly trained .