Taste

The very presence of media studies in the academy was not a foregone conclusion; it is an effect of changing conceptions of taste over time. Many kinds of media— especially commercial media consumed by broad audiences—were usually beneath consideration, except perhaps as causes of individual or social problems, until the last decades of the twentieth century. Shifting understandings of taste have led to the existence of media studies, and to particular approaches, including taking cultural distinction itself as an object of study.