The RMIT School of Media and Communication is an Australian tertiary school within the College of Design and Social Context (DSC) of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University), located in Melbourne, Victoria.
The school hosts the university's Advertising, Animation, Audio/Visual, Communication Design, Creative Writing, Editing and Publishing, Film and Television, Journalism, Media, Music Industry, Multimedia, Photography, Professional Communication (a "hybrid-degree" which incorporates Journalism, Media and Public Relations), Public Relations and Video Games programs.
The school was formed by the merger of the RMIT School of Creative Media and RMIT School of Applied Communication on 6 July 2009.[1]
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The school is headquartered in Building 9 on Bowen Street at the RMIT City campus, located in the "RMIT Quarter" at the northern end of the Melbourne CBD. It moved in 2010 from Building 6, but because of its size still has staff in other buildings in the city campus. The school is also located in Building 94 on Cardigan Street in the "Carlton Precinct" of the RMIT City campus.
Building 9 (RMIT's historical radio communications building) at RMIT's City campus, underwent a A$16.4 million refurbishment with two extra levels also being added to the building[2].
Diploma:
Advanced Diploma:
Contextual Studies Strand:
Honours:
Coursework:
Research:
1articulates into the Bachelor of Arts (Photography)
2articulates into the Bachelor of Design (Multimedia Systems)
3articulates into the Bachelor of Arts (Music Industry)
4articulates into the Bachelor of Arts (Multimedia) or the Bachelor of Communication degrees
5in partnership with the RMIT School of Computer Science and Information Technology
The Centre for Animation and Interactive Media (AIM) is the school's postgraduate studio and production centre. It is respected in Australia and internationally, and developed its reputation during the 1990s[4]. AIM productions are regularly presented at international festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival, and have won awards worldwide[5].
The Field 36 is the RMIT School of Media and Communication's exclusive gallery. The gallery has the capacity for digital media and electronic arts, and hosts exhibition by RMIT students and alumni as well as leading artists whose work mirrors the direction of the school[6]. It is located in Building 36 on Swanston Street at the RMIT City campus.
The Australian Film Institute (AFI) Research Collection is a non-lending, specialist film and television industry resource. It opened in the mid-1970s as the George Lugg Library, and was a joint venture between the AFI and the Victorian Federation of Film Societies. In 2002 it became an auspice of the RMIT School of Media and Communication, in conjunction with the AFI.[7]
The collection has particular strengths in screen history and theory, Australian cinema, international art cinema, and features a diverse range of books, journals, film scripts, film directories, reports and film festival catalogues. Part of the original collection was a rare collection of books on pre-cinema and early cinema history as-well-as early cinema artifacts - all a part of the valuable David Francis Collection (Francis was the founder of the UK's National Film and Television Archive) - and purchased by the Victorian and Australian governments in 1975[7]. The early cinema artifacts of the collection are now housed at the Scienceworks Museum, however, the rare books remain in the collection at RMIT.
In 2003, the Australian Broadcasting Authority donated the Henry Mayer Collection to the RMIT School of Media and Communication. Over his life as an academic, Mayer assembled and annotated a massive collection of communication literature[7]. Also included in the collection is the Wayne Levy Collection, the former personal library of the internationally respected academic, author and documentary film maker; as-well-as a substantial number of film stills from the Australian and international film industries[7].
The school publishes a number of journals, most notably:
Second Nature: The International Journal of Creative Media is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal auspiced in Australia by the RMIT School of Media and Communication. Second Nature explores the distinctive particulars of and interconnections between textual, visual, aural and interactive creative research and practices[8].
'Communication, Politics & Culture' (formerly known as Southern Review: Communication, Politics & Culture) is an internationally respected interdisciplinary journal focusing on the connections between communication and politics, published twice a year. It was first published in 1963 (as the Australian Journal of Literary Studies) by the English Department of the University of Adelaide. It gained its international reputation in the 1980s through the publication of innovative and influential arguments and analyses in literary and cultural theory (e.g.: early articles by Tony Bennett, Catherine Belsey, Terry Eagleton, Stephen Greenblatt, Ian Hunter, Colin MacCabe, Christopher Norris).[9] It relocated from the University of Adelaide to the Communication Department of Monash University in 1995, before it permanently became part of the RMIT School of Media and Communication in 2000.
In line with RMIT University's "industry-relevant" focus, the RMIT School of Media and Communication has appointed a number of leading figures from the communication industries to the position of Adjunct Professor. In addition to its regular full-time academic staff award-winning journalist Chris Masters; the former CEO of Australia's largest PR firm Turnbull Porter Novelli, Noel Turnbull; internationally-renowned designer Garry Emery; and the leading Australian film and television producer Ewan Burnett are all part-time faculty members of the school[10].
In 2003, the school was chosen by Australia's peak body for professional Public Relations and Communication practitioners, the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA), as one of only two institutions nationally to deliver its annual series of professional development courses, lectures, seminars and events[11].
The school also hosts a renowned public lectures series by leading Australian and international speakers. Previous notable speakers have included: Professor Terrell Carver; Director of the Global Media Research Centre, Professor John Downing; scientist and global warming activist, Dr. Tim Flannery; Wall Street Journal editor, Robert Thomson; and Senator Judith Troeth[12].
The school has hosted the XIIIth Biennial Conference of the Film and History Association in 2006[13] and the 2007 Asian Cities Symposium[14].
The school is specifically partnered with the leading Rhode Island School of Design in the US and the UK's oldest film school at the University of Westminster, as well as a number of other partners of the greater RMIT.[15]