A brand new degree for the School of Journalism and Communication naturally calls for recruiting a faculty member with a background very different from those traditionally hired over the nearly 75 years of Canada’s oldest journalism program.
That’s because the Bachelor of Media Production and Design, which will welcome its first class in September 2018, takes us in an exciting new direction. The four-year degree combines the teaching of multimedia storytelling skills with computer programming and design, and is offered in collaboration with the School of Information Technology.
It’s an ideal fit for Vicky McArthur, who joins the School in July as our first BMPD faculty member. She comes to Carleton from her current position as an Assistant Professor, New Media and User Experience at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, with an accompanying graduate appointment in the university’s Faculty of Information. At U of T since 2014, McArthur focused on new media design – including game design and development – and interactive game narratives.
Her professional background in new and social media, game development, content management, and web design informed her previous teaching at Brock, McMaster, University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Ryerson.
Along with Chris Waddell, the BMPD’s Program Director, McArthur is looking forward to shaping the degree’s offerings in the years to come.
“As a new undergraduate program, the Bachelor of Media Production and Design Program will prepare students for careers which demand both communications and journalistic skills as well as a nuanced familiarity with information communication technologies,” she said. “I am thrilled to work closely with BMPD students as they develop their skills as storytellers in the digital age.”
McArthur completed her Ph.D. with the Communication and Culture program at York University, with the dissertation Me, Myself, and Interface: The Role of Affordances in Digital Visual Self-Representational Practices. Her Master of Arts was also at York in Interdisciplinary Studies, specializing in Communication & Culture, Computer Science, and History. Prior to that, she received an Honours BA in Music from Brock. In addition, she has a certificate in Japanese language and cultural studies from Nagoya Gakuin University in Seto, Japan.
In 2018-2019 she will teach MPAD 1001 and 1002 Introduction to Storytelling: The Context and the Practice to our first BMPD cohort, as well as a course on Newsgames to Master of Journalism students. The graduate course will engage students with theories of game design and interactive storytelling through the exploration of editorial videogames.
Thursday, May 17, 2018 in General, Journalism News, Media Production News, News
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