Duplication or Waste?
The decision to establish media studies departments within faculties of arts while specialized faculties of media already exist within the same university raises a legitimate question about educational planning and the limits of academic expansion. The issue is not opposition to media studies, nor an attempt to diminish the discipline’s importance. Rather, it concerns the duplication involved in offering essentially the same field through different institutional structures without a sufficiently clear academic or professional distinction.
When universities provide the same specialization through multiple frameworks, an important question naturally emerges: are these institutions creating genuine diversity in educational pathways, or merely reproducing similar programs that consume resources without delivering meaningful added value?
Media, as a professional field, requires a highly specialized form of preparation that extends beyond theoretical knowledge to include intensive practical training in news writing, investigative reporting, editing, field production, broadcasting, and the use of modern digital media technologies. This is precisely the role for which faculties of media were originally established — supported by studios, laboratories, professional supervision, and structured practical training programs designed to prepare graduates for direct engagement with the industry.
By contrast, when media departments are introduced within faculties of arts, more difficult questions arise. Do these departments possess the same technical capabilities and professional infrastructure? Do they provide equivalent practical training? Or do they simply reproduce largely theoretical curricula under a different institutional title?
The challenge extends beyond duplication alone; it also creates confusion for students themselves. A student enrolling in a media department within a faculty of arts may assume they are pursuing the same professional pathway as a graduate of a faculty of media, only to discover later a substantial gap in practical preparation and technical experience. In a labor market increasingly driven by skills, adaptability, and hands-on expertise, carrying the title of a specialization is no longer sufficient. Graduates must possess the practical tools required for professional performance.
Here, the consequences of duplication become increasingly visible: graduates holding nearly identical academic titles but possessing significantly different levels of professional readiness. This weakens competitiveness and further contributes to market saturation within an already crowded sector.
From another perspective, opening parallel departments within the same university inevitably disperses resources across repetitive entities. Faculty members, budgets, administrative structures, technical equipment, and institutional capacities are duplicated without necessarily producing a corresponding increase in quality or efficiency. This raises a difficult but realistic question: are universities pursuing carefully planned educational investment, or expanding programs without clear strategic priorities?
In many cases, strengthening one highly capable department may prove far more effective than establishing multiple departments operating with only moderate capabilities.
Some may argue that introducing media departments within faculties of arts broadens educational opportunities for students seeking to enter the profession. Yet quantitative expansion without guaranteed quality can quickly become a burden rather than an opportunity. The issue is not merely the number of available seats, but the caliber and preparedness of graduates entering the market. If there is no meaningful distinction in curriculum, vision, or career orientation between a media department within a faculty of arts and an existing faculty of media within the same institution, the outcome risks becoming little more than a duplication of graduates entering an already limited employment market.
More concerning, however, is that this overlap may reflect the absence of a fully integrated academic vision within universities themselves. Rather than fostering complementarity between faculties — where each institution fulfills a distinct educational role — universities risk creating undeclared competition over the same specialization. Such overlap may ultimately weaken the academic structure instead of strengthening it, as disciplinary boundaries become increasingly blurred and students are left without a clearly defined educational pathway they can confidently trust.
The purpose of raising these concerns is not to abolish departments or reduce educational opportunities, but rather to reconsider the wisdom of maintaining them in their current form. Could this duplication be transformed into complementarity? Might media departments within faculties of arts evolve into more theoretical, analytical, or research-oriented tracks distinct from the professional and applied training traditionally offered by faculties of media? Or does the situation instead require deeper integration and institutional restructuring rather than continued expansion under the same model?
Globally, many universities successfully distinguish between theoretically oriented media studies programs housed within faculties of arts or humanities and professionally focused schools of media, journalism, or communication. The challenge, therefore, is not the existence of multiple pathways itself, but whether those pathways possess clearly differentiated academic missions, teaching methodologies, and labor-market outcomes.
Ultimately, the issue extends far beyond media studies alone. It reflects a broader challenge in higher education management, where universities sometimes expand departments and academic programs without sufficient evaluation of labor market needs or of their own institutional capacity to deliver genuinely distinguished education within those fields.
Unless these questions are addressed seriously and strategically, duplication may continue to expand, resources may become increasingly dispersed, and students may ultimately remain the ones paying the price for this imbalance — often in the form of degrees that do not fully reflect the level of qualification and professional preparedness society increasingly expects.
