Michael Forsman 236 surable outcomes. Biesta also points to “the new language of learning” and terms such as learning sequence, learning out- come, learning experience. Behind this he finds marketization, individualization (personalization) and instrumentalization that makes higher education into a commodity that can be pro- vided and delivered by the teacher or educational institution, to be consumed by the learner. One consequence of the transactional structure of learnification is the assumption that: ”the only questions that can meaningfully be asked about education are technical questions, that is, questions about the efficiency and the effectiveness of the educational process” (BIESTA, 2005, p. 59). This search for measurable knowledge, predictable outcomes is governed by and integrated in digitalized and platform-based systems for learning management and admin- istration, with various forms of matrixes for checking off the individual learning process. In this system, the learner is con- structed as a consumer, with certain needs. This undermines the teacher in the role of the expert, who instead becomes coach and facilitator. According to Biesta (who mainly writes about compulsory education), learnification and marketiza- tion have had particularly negative effects on consciousness raising educational activities such as civic education, demo- cratic education. To this I would like to add the challenges to the critical mindset (critical thinking, critical consciousness). If also critical thinking becomes a matter of what Barnett (1997) call critical thought as a corporate reform there is a risk that the beautiful risks of the critical adventure (c.f. BIESTA, 2013) and thus the development of the kind of critical mindset, that since decades have been such a strong and important driving force behind the development of (critical) media studies will be facing a truly critical condition. What Biesta argues for is an education that exists to provide the means by which learners become able to understand its true needs. We can also look at learning from a slightly different angle and see it as a response to a question. Rather than seeing learning as the attempt to ac- quire, to master, to internalise, and what other
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