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The Powerful Student Consumer and the Commodified Academic: A Depiction of the Marketised UK Higher Education System through a Textual Analysis of the ITV Drama Cheat

Author

Listed:
  • Sergio A Silverio

    (King’s College London, UK)

  • Catherine Wilkinson

    (Liverpool John Moores University, UK)

  • Samantha Wilkinson

    (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

Abstract

Through a textual analysis of four episodes comprising the 2019 ITV 1 psychological thriller Cheat , this article explores a fictional representation of the United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education (HE) setting in a television drama. We discuss our analysis in the context of growing marketisation of UK HE, where academics are increasingly viewing students as powerful consumers. We focus on one of the central characters, final-year undergraduate student Rose Vaughan, and the staff with whom she interacts in a fictional HE institution – St. Helen’s College. This article engages with the following themes: ‘The powerful student consumer’ and ‘The commodified academic’. Insight gleaned through the textual analysis of this dramatised depiction of UK HE allows us to attempt to understand how both students and academics might be navigating the neoliberal university and negotiating place and status as (paying) students and (commercial) academics. Although heralded as powerful student-consumers in much literature, our analysis of this television drama shows how students can potentially disrupt the united front often attempted by HE institutions, but ultimately are faced with a ‘the house always wins’ 1 scenario. Our article offers an important contribution to the psycho-sociological literature into how the television drama depicts that the student experience has been transformed and impacted by HE’s marketisation. This includes a reconsideration of how the television drama portrays what it means to be a student, by exploring how one student is conceptualised, understood, and represented in the psychological thriller.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergio A Silverio & Catherine Wilkinson & Samantha Wilkinson, 2021. "The Powerful Student Consumer and the Commodified Academic: A Depiction of the Marketised UK Higher Education System through a Textual Analysis of the ITV Drama Cheat," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 26(1), pages 147-165, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:26:y:2021:i:1:p:147-165
    DOI: 10.1177/1360780420970202
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mojtaba Vaismoradi & Hannele Turunen & Terese Bondas, 2013. "Content analysis and thematic analysis: Implications for conducting a qualitative descriptive study," Nursing & Health Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 398-405, September.
    2. Mark Holton & Kirsty Finn, 2018. "Being-in-motion: the everyday (gendered and classed) embodied mobilities for UK university students who commute," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 426-440, May.
    3. Foroudi, Pantea & Yu, Qionglei & Gupta, Suraksha & Foroudi, Mohammad M., 2019. "Enhancing university brand image and reputation through customer value co-creation behaviour," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 218-227.
    4. Mathias W. Nielsen, 2016. "Limits to meritocracy? Gender in academic recruitment and promotion processes," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 386-399.
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