SCS MEDIA ARTS PROGRAMS: WHAT'S NEXT?

Years ago I worked at a local television station in St. Louis. I worked in programming, but upstairs were the graphic artists. They had their own “office,” which looked more like a college dorm room. The rest of us were required to wear coats and ties to work (like I said…it was years ago!), but the artists always came in dressed “hippiefied” as the general manager liked to say.

Those were the days when artists were typically bohemian types who didn’t mix well with the rest of the staff and who were never allowed to appear in front of a client. How times have changed. Today, with the prevalence of downsizing, and the necessary trend to combine job types, the lines have dulled between the creative and commercial staff members in television, advertising, radio, public relations and anywhere else creative work is produced to promote or sell a product. It is not unheard of, for example, for an account executive at an ad agency to conceptualize, if not produce, art. And it is absolutely common for graphic artists to be called in to meet with clients and discuss concepts, execution and full campaigns.

It all adds up to one of our favorite clichés left over from the late 20th century: Multi-Tasking. It also adds up to a real need for graphic artists and digital designers to have strong writing skills. Although we are increasingly a visual culture, I would contend that the words have taken on even more importance these days. That is because the consumer’s attention span is short, and we must say more using fewer words. So the words that we choose are critical. After all, at some point, doesn’t the account exec sort of become a roadblock between the client and the artist? If the client and the artist can communicate one-on-one, and if the artist can produce words that work well with the art, perhaps everybody wins.

In looking forward in our media arts majors, I am most determined to affect real cross-over between major courses of study. Very soon we will incorporate blogging into our curriculum, for example. Bloggers are often “one man bands,” who produce content , create layout, execute design and even shoot and edit video. I see this as a good step in the evolution of mass communication, and to properly prepare out students for what lies ahead, they need cross training. Down the road (in the very near future), I would like to see our students who now take editing courses, be required to take video editing, as well. I would like to see our public relations students have an understanding of animation. Our journalism students will necessarily need to learn how to convey information using fewer and fewer words. The graduate who approaches the job market with writing, editing, video and design skills will be far more marketable than one who simply understands how to write a good story or execute strong designs.

I want each of you to start thinking about media convergence, the current buzzwords for that crossover that I mentioned earlier. Media convergence is really a trend only of this new century. In fact, recently CBS news correspondent Jeff Greenfield did a segment on “CBS Sunday Morning” about this very issue. Please watch:

I hope you paid close attention when Greenfield mentioned that the conveyance of information now has as much to do with user participation as it does with the providers. That is a trend that we, as media teachers must respect. It means the content of your courses may have to be updated semester by semester as the paradigm changes continue to happen. It means, for example, that we will necessarily incorporate movements such as social networking into our public relations education. We will teach budding journalists how to take what once was a 700-word story and pare it down by half, thereby honoring the readership’s collective decision to obtain their information faster and via fewer words. It means we will forget about static web pages and teach our students about movement, form and multiple visual stimuli.

There are questions that remain to be answered about the future of media: Will video frame captures someday qualify as real still photos? We don’t know yet. Will one media professional be routinely required to move information across multiple platforms? Will user-created content ultimately share equal space with media professionals’ prepared content? How and when will digital media find a real balance between visual and editorial content? Will digital designers need to strengthen and expand their writing skills in order to remain competitive in the marketplace? None of this is clear yet, but all of us who teach media courses must ponder these issues and tailor our course content for all of these possibilities. Here is a brief video in which faculty members at the University of Miami School of Communication address some of the above-mentioned issues:

I am very interested in your ideas on the future of media, and how you would like to see the SCS Media Arts and Journalism programs evolve. I can assure you that in two years this program will look quite different than it looks now, but I need your input and your expertise in order to shape it, plan it and ensure that we stay above the curve. In the near future, we will have faculty meetings held just to discuss the future of the program. In the meantime, please always feel free to talk to me or write to me individually with your thoughts and ideas.
I’m listening. Thanks…Paul A. Greenberg