Thanks for the ping back Marco. I agree with everything you say. I suspect a broader canvas and question my end would envelop much wider discourse e.g. philosophy and any number of multi-hyphenate disciplines.

Politics/ persuasion is indeed as old as the hills. Bernay's big shout is calling Propaganda Public Relations. City university now teach history as part of journalism, and there's a couple of new courses that indulge journalists in hacking.

Back in the late 90s understanding how texts worked online for readers framed under website building etc was something I was keen journos should learn, so we started teaching MA journalists the kind of things Jakob Nielsen posited.

Yes, it should be taught at schools. Buried in one of my posts somewhere is Piaget talking about child development and how art teaching is formalised at the time kids become teenagers, taking their creative joie de vivre away. Or that Alain de Botton in his book The News laments how one of the most important things that will shape everyone's lives is not deeply taught until they pursue a graduate programme, yet on the other hand mostly everyone learns about Shakespeare soon in their development.