About the School of Media Communication and Culture
“Universities are environments where students and staff have the luxury – and in my mind, the duty – to extend ideas that can make a difference. It’s a place that has high expectations, but encourages you to have a go and allows you to make mistakes.”
-Chris Smyth, Dean of our School of Media Communication and Culture
It's one thing to know that we have TV and radio studios, a news room, video edit suites and other broadcast-quality facilities, but what really makes our School of Media Communication and Culture different is the passion and commitment of our staff and students. We asked our Dean to share some short thoughts.
Chris Smyth, tell us about...
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The one thing students should graduate from the school with:
"Respect for the complexity of life and society. It’s not black and white - it’s colourful and ever-changing."
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Murdoch’s Oscar-nominated lecturer:
"Martin Mhando was nominated for an Academy Award for the best foreign language film. He has extensive experience, especially in Africa, of using film-making as a means of community building. Local people can learn film techniques and tell their own stories."
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Resident games art guru Josh Whitkin:
"Josh has worked on more than 20 published games and products by EA, Disney, Intel, and NASA. He wrote the first book on 3D art for games, was a columnist for a leading game industry trade magazine, was on advisory boards for Game Developer's Conference and several colleges – and now he’s our Games Art and Design lecturer."
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Career opportunities in the games industry:
"Talented game developers are highly sought after - and the games industry is healthy and growing moderately. This is driven by sustained consumer demand for games, even in the face of a recession."
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The biggest challenge facing future generations of media professionals:
"Striving to be professional - in both senses of the word. There’s an expectation of lightning-fast speed of gathering and presenting information and the prospect of tonnes of information pouring onto people’s screens. This will challenge media professionals to get things right first time, under new time and format pressures."
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The Murdoch newsroom:
"We’re excited about our students’ online news coverage. As part of their study, the third-year students come in each morning with their own story ideas or are assigned jobs by the professional news editor. They’re expected to research, interview and write news to deadline. There’s nothing like that adrenalin rush for a new reporter."
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Starting out as a journalist:
"Editors are tough cookies. They are not swayed by bluster or charm or promises. So, new reporters need to perform the basics – very, very well. They need to be on time, well prepared, well connected, dead accurate and fresh in their writing and story ideas."
