Mash Up brings together media school

By Maxx Lennox

Guest speaker: Scott Moore, executive director for CBC Television sports, was the featured speaker at Loyalist's first Media Mash upStudents and teachers from the school of media studies came out in full force Wednesday, making Loyalist’s first Media Mash-up event a sold-out success.
“It’s good to get out and mingle,” said Adam Ritz, a third-year television and new media production student. “I’m glad everyone came out tonight.”
Jane Harrison, acting dean of media at the college, said that the idea for the event was to reflect the growing changes in the media industry.
“The idea is to strengthen the sense of family, in terms of the school of media,” says Harrison. “There is a lot more that we share than what’s different and it is a large part of the college.”
“What we don’t realize is that media is beginning to integrate and converge,” says journalism professor Robert Washburn, currently on sabbatical who returned for the event. “And while we train in separate programs, the truth is we are becoming one big, mutant, amorphous mass of media.”
The Shark Tank pub was filled with students from all of the programs in the media school and the night began at 6:15 p.m. with an introduction from Emily Carter and J.D. Brown, from the radio program. Maureen Piercy, president of Loyalist college, and acting dean of media Jane Harrison welcomed students to the event and introduced all of the student representatives to the dean’s office. Throughout the evening, Brown and Carter gave away door prizes in a ticket draw, keeping the crowd in various states of suspense as to what tickets had been chosen.
After a captivating performance by student musicians Troy De Four, Quin Arim-Shaw and Jody Dowall, the guest speaker took the stage around 7:00p.m. Scott Moore, executive director for CBC Television Sports, spoke to students about the changes in the industry and how the advances were made very apparent during coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Moore spoke about how coverage of the Games this year increased exponentially from past Games, while the staff size remained roughly the same as a result of the convergences in the media industry. People were able to watch events online as well as on their cell phones, said Moore, and the crew was able to broadcast to multiple media outlets simultaneously.
Student musicians continued to play throughout the night, getting great crowd response, proving themselves to be the real stars of the night. The last presentation of the night was a slideshow of work done by photojournalism students, which featured pictures from the program’s behind the scenes look at Kingston General Hospital in 2005. The night wound down with more prizes being given away by Brown and Carter.
According to Harrison, the idea for Loyalist’s first Media Mash-up was initiated by Kerry Ramsay, professor in the public relations post-graduate program, who was ecstatic about how the event turned out.
“I think the fact it was a sold-out event speaks for itself,” said Ramsay on Wednesday night. “Everyone seems to be having a great time.”
The fact that the musical talent for the night was provided by the students themselves proved to be a real crowd pleaser, said Ramsay.
“It’s really nice to showcase what our students can do and we’re uncovering a lot of hidden talent,” she said.
In light of the huge successes of the night, Ramsay and the other organizers have hopes for another Media Mash-up in the future along with more student musicians.
“I’m hoping the Mash-up will become an annual event because it certainly has been well received the first time around,” said Ramsay. “I think the acts will continue to be student acts, and that will depend on who is in the different programs at the time.”