A strange little teaching tool has made its way into American high school classrooms, somewhere between a Pokémon booster pack and a college syllabus. Originally developed as a downloadable PDF curiosity on his now-archived academic website theory.org.uk, Theory Trading Cards were created by British media scholar David Gauntlett back when the majority of today’s high school students were not yet born. The names, concepts, advantages, and disadvantages of media and cultural theorists are printed on the visually formatted, collectible-style cards, which resemble sports cards. A card is given to Stuart Hall. Roland Barthes also receives one. Indeed, Gauntlett himself agrees.
It’s an odd thing to see. At the beginning of units on identity, representation, and gender in media, media literacy teachers in a few schools in the American Midwest and Pacific Northwest have started laminating these cards and giving them out like game pieces. Students exchange them. In fact, some people quarrel about who gets the Gauntlett card. Depending on your tolerance for this kind of thing, a teacher in Oregon reportedly told her class that Gauntlett’s card had “legendary status” among her set. Depending on your perspective, this could be either a great thing or a sign of how far academic branding has gone from its original intent.
The intellectual foundation of the cards, Gauntlett’s identity theory, is based on the notion that the media provides us with the raw materials—images, stories, and representations—that we utilize to create our own sense of self. Active, deliberate assembly is more important than passive consumption. His 2008 update to “Media, Gender and Identity” made the case that exposure to changing media portrayals of men and women was more than just casual observation; it was influencing expectations, behavior, and self-perception in ways that people weren’t always aware of. When a sixteen-year-old considers TikTok, this framework seems to land differently than it did in a seminar room.
That’s most likely the reason it works in classrooms. Gauntlett’s vocabulary is surprisingly useful for teachers working with students who have grown up with algorithmic curation. For a generation that has never experienced media as singular or straightforward, the concept of “pick and mix” identity construction—using a variety of media sources to create a self—resonates almost instinctively. On the other hand, parents are sometimes confused. According to reports, some parents have questioned why their kids are talking about “fluid identity” at home through what appears to be a collectible card game.
It’s still unclear if the trading card format is more enjoyable, which isn’t nothing, or if it is pedagogically better than a simple reading. The cards themselves list each theorist’s strengths and weaknesses, introducing the habit of critical thinking almost by accident. This is a noteworthy design decision for something that was created eighteen years ago without an algorithm.
After removing his old pages, Gauntlett himself wrote on his personal website that he was shocked that people were still searching for the PDFs. He reposted them in silence. There’s something subtly fulfilling about that: a scholar, a little perplexed, witnessing his transient artistic endeavor outlive the majority of his writing during the same time frame.
It’s difficult to predict if this will become a true national trend or merely a charming side note in media literacy education. But passing a classroom where pupils are arguing over whether Hall’s card is superior to Gauntlett’s? It’s difficult not to think that’s at least somewhat impressive.
