Julian McDougall

Julian McDougall (born 1969) is a British educationalist and media theorist. He specialises in the study of contemporary media (particularly media 2.0), creative arts education and the role of video games in education.

Julian McDougall is Professor in Media & Education in the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice at Bournemouth University, where he runs the Doctorate in Creative and Media Education and supervises PHD research in media education, literacy and digital ethnography.

McDougall took his PhD at Birmingham University whilst teaching at Halesowen College. In 2000 he took up a Senior Lecturer post in Education at Newman University College, before becoming Head of Creative Arts and then Reader in Education at the University of Wolverhampton.

McDougall's published research relates to media literacy and education. He is editor of the Journal of Media Practice and the author of a range of academic books, student textbooks and journal articles and has completed research projects for the AHRC, ESRC, European Union, EPSRC, Samsung, Sixteen Films, the Media Education Association, the United Kingdom Literacy Association and the Football Association. McDougall was Principal Examiner on the OCR Media Examinations Board from 2004 to 2016 and was founding co-editor of The Media Education Research Journal. He is an executive member of the Media Education Association.

Often provocative and controversial, McDougall explores issues in education, and calls on educators to abandon their prejudices and engage with what students are already actually doing with new media forms. Building on work from John Potter, David Buckingham, Steven Johnson and David Gauntlett, he advocates a shift away from students viewing cultural products as texts to a view where even video games need analysis, explanation and research.

In this way, he is very much an advocate of exploring new and less traditional forms of literacy, as well as analysing the relationship between new media and postmodern theories,