Sometimes you read a story in the news that seems designed to wind up as many people as possible. This week, that story involves a degree in content creation from Nottingham Trent University. Otherwise known as the “influencer degree”, this three-year course comes with BA (Hons) status and a top-tier price tag of almost £10,000 a year, for which students will learn “hands-on technical production”, “analytics, branding and commercial strategy” and collaboration with brands and “industry partners”. Course leaders are at pains to point out it won’t turn them into overnight social media stars, but of course, while reading, I felt the cold drag of undertow forces pulling me towards world-gone-mad outrage.
We’ve been here before, obviously: media studies, women’s studies, anything that hasn’t been on the syllabus of the ancient universities for at least 500 years is vulnerable to accusations of dumbing down – and this is no different. The course was launched in 2022, meaning its first cohort of graduates are out there looking for jobs right now, while giving interviews about whether or not it was worth it. One very sensible-sounding graduate, talking to the BBC this week in what one assumes is an application of the all-publicity-is-good-publicity principle learned from her course, said that the £30,000 spend was worth it for the networking opportunities alone – an absolutely valid point and half the reason why people strive towards Oxbridge.
Still, there will be eyebrows twitching. That price tag seems punchy for a course that is currently in clearing. But the bigger issue is the triggering effect the words “social media” and “influencer” will have on parents mired in data supporting the view that their children’s lives are in constant peril from the forces unleashed by online platforms and the jobs that go with them. What next? A degree course in dropshipping?! How about an MPhil in manosphere studies? And so on and so on: all modern versions of the sinking spirits that have traditionally attended a child announcing they want to go to drama school.
In general, we’ve always been quite sniffy about vocational degrees in this country. Look at the prestige that comes, for example, from attending Columbia Journalism School in the US, despite much laughter from journalists in this country who think the best way to study journalism is to get a job in journalism. British friends with jobs in marketing hold similar views about degrees in that subject: “Get a job, it’s stupid to pay to study it.” If degree courses are supposed to teach critical thinking, so the argument goes, then these courses don’t qualify as suitably academic – not a concern anyone ever raises about medicine or law.
It’s snobbery, then, and in this case also conditioning. Influencing is empty, pointless, evil and grifty, underscored by narcissism and fulfilling no useful human or social need – an assessment that might just as easily be applied to the careers in banking that so many top graduates head towards. If anything, it seems to me that influencing is a clever spin from Nottingham Trent (and Brighton University, which also offers the course) in response to the terrible state of traditional media careers. Going forward, it’s fair to assume that for those going into the media, the smart move is to be an independent contractor rather than hold a traditional job without bonus structures or opportunities for profit-sharing.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m trying hard here to argue against the gravitational pull exerted by my own experience of doing a traditional degree. I guess the real test would be what any of us parents would say if our kids came to us with an intention to apply for one of these courses.
In my own household, we’d have to go through a whole rigmarole in which I would definitely infuriate my children by suggesting their time might be better spent reading The Wife of Bath’s Tale or, like, the structure and function of proteins. I’d be forced to lecture them on the hollow interior life of anyone chasing fame and say the words, “Do we think the Kardashians are actually happy?” Then I’d look at the job market, at all the listings for social media managers, podcast producers and video editors and, if I could get over myself, might work my way to the conclusion that they could do a lot worse. (I’m kidding, I’d be devastated.)
Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist
