Welcome to Media and Communication
Recent news about our lecturers
Babak Bahador
Dr. Bahador was on sabbatical during the second half of 2011, where he was a Visiting Research Professor at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. In 2011, he published two journal articles and produced and directed a documentary titled Enemy Images and the Media at the University of Southern California.In 2012, he will be co-editing a book titled Politics and the Media(Pearson).
Zita Joyce
Dr Joyce is currently working on two strands of research relating to media practice in post-quake Christchurch. She is completing a study of the experiences of Christchurch radio stations after the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, supported by the UC CEISMIC fund. Zita is also co-director of 'Mesh Cities: Christchurch', a research project by the ADA Network into the role of media art in the transitional city, which is supported for two years by Creative New Zealand. The Mesh Cities project launches at the Physics Room Gallery at Easter 2013, and will be developed further through artist tours and a symposium later in the year. Zita will lead a roundtable discussion of international researchers on the project's concerns in Sydney in June during the 2013 ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Art) conference. In March 2013 Zita created the 'Radio Wormhole' project, using web radio streams and mini fm transmitters to connect the Pallet Pavilion in Christchurch with the Audio Foundation Gallery in Auckland for the gallery's radio-themed group exhibition 'Simulcast'.
Linda Jean Kenix
Congratulations to Linda Jean Kenix for her new Marsden grant to begin in 2013! The project, entitled "Activism, technology and organizing: Transformations in collective action in Aotearoa New Zealand" is a collaborative project with professors from Victoria University, University of Waikato, and University of California, Santa Barbara.
In 2012, Dr. Kenix published two journal articles. The first was published in the Journal of International Communication, titled "Subverting the Marxist Paradigm: Vaccination Discourse in New Zealand’s Mainstream and Alternative Online Media" and the second, titled "Is this the future of online news? An examination of Samoan Topix" was co-authored with Christine Daviault and published in an innovative new academic/professional publication, #ISOJ: International Symposium on Online Journalism. A third article, titled "A converging image? Commercialism and the visual identity of alternative and mainstream news web sites," was recently accepted by Journalism Studies and is now available online. In 2013, she will work on a book chapter for Professor Chris Atton's "The Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media" and begin research for her Marsden grant.
Donald Matheson
Donald took on a management role in 2012, as associate head of school, but also found time to write a number of pieces on Aotearoa New Zealand media: one on the weakness of international news reporting and one on political blogging (with Kane Hopkins). In December, he gave a keynote paper at a symposium on photojournalism at McGill University, Montreal, about war photojournalists who return to the scenes of powerful images. In 2013, he is researching microblogging in China and reporting via social media after the Canterbury earthquakes.
Muhammed Musa
Dr. Musa publishes two journal articles in 2011 in the Journal of African Media Studies and African Communication Research. For 2012, he is working on two book projects. The first, an edited book, is titled The Media, Markets and Democracy. The second, an authored book, is on television and football.
Tara Ross
Tara Ross, a former Qantas Award-winning senior journalist for The Press and the Sunday Star-Times, was appointed to head the department's Journalism programme in late 2012. Tara's research interests lie in journalism studies, with a particular emphasis on alternative and ethnic minority media. In 2012, she presented her work at conferences in Adelaide and Wellington. Her work in 2013 will continue to explore Pasifika news media, Pasifika audiences' uses of these media and broader journalism trends.
Sue Tait
In 2011, Dr. Tait had an article titled 'Bearing Witness, journalism and moral responsibility' published in Media, Culture and Society and a chapter in a new edited collection, Transnational Celebrity Activism. Her work in 2012 continues to explore the representation of trauma, and intersections between humanitarianism, journalism and celebrity. My specific interests here are the ways globally-oriented citizenship is performed and modeled by public figures, and the ways that trauma, an interior experience, is translated into verbal and visual discourse.
What is Media and Communications (COMS)?
From uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa to your relationship with your friends on Facebook, media and communications is changing the world.
Media and Communication examines the influence and impact of the media and new information technologies. It is designed to provide students with an understanding of how communication and media work and how they work within the broader context of society. It draws on both the arts and social sciences, and the degree develops a wide range of critical thinking, writing and research skills.
Why Study COMS at Canterbury?
The University of Canterbury’s Media and Communication programme is the most international programme of its kind in the country. With academic staff from North America, Europe, Africa and the Asia-Pacific regions, we bring international perspectives and knowledge, which will help you succeed in the global marketplace after graduation.
As a student in the department, you will gain knowledge and skills that will last a lifetime. Our recent graduates are employed in a variety of fields including journalism and the media, business, government and the academy.
Below, find links to:
Graduate Diploma of Journalism
UC’s Graduate Diploma of Journalism students went live to air from their campus studio this week (Tuesday 21 May) with their first in a fortnightly series of news bulletins. Just three weeks into learning about radio production, the students are producing two live bulletins for the UC Arts interns’ RDU show each Monday, Wednesday and Friday 12-1pm.
Students in teams of six are sniffing out news, pulling together interviews and audio grabs, scripting and subbing their own news packages, and writing news bulletins under pressure as in a real newsroom. UC students are putting the entire bulletin to air themselves and learning the value of teamwork – and the buzz of live radio – in the process.
Next week, the Journalism students will be broadcasting from the central city in RDU’s mobile truck. As well as pulling together the news bulletins, they’ll be building in live crosses to file stories in real time from the field.
The UC Arts Internships for RDU run in semester one and two each year. The students are now producing their radio shows from a broadcast studio on campus, established by RDU and the Media and Communication Department on the ground floor of the Locke Building.
Tune in to hear more of our students’ news at http://www.rdu.org.nz/