Inspire future media professionals, speak at Mass Communication Week

Have you ever thought it would be fun to speak in front of a group of college students? Do you want to inspire college and high school students who are interested in going into mass media? You can do during Mass Communication Week at Texas State University in San Marcos.

Each October the School of Journalism & Mass Communication hosts Mass Communication Week, bringing in notable experts discussing issues, trends and work in mass communication. Whether it’s an anchor from CNN International or a public relations practitioner from a local organization, our students get to hear first hand what they need to know to go into journalism, broadcasting, advertising, public relations or social media.

You can be a part of that. We’re looking for speakers for the 2009 Mass Communication Week, Oct. 19-22. Our theme is “A Whole New Media; Keeping Up With the Changing World of Mass Communication.” As we know, the field of media is changing. With the closings/cutbacks of several newspapers, the increased fractioning of broadcast channels and the rise of social media, people are wondering what the future of mass communication will look like. We will explore this during Mass Communication Week and discuss what future professionals need to do to be a part of it.

If you are interested in speaking at Mass Communication Week, simply email dq10@txstate.edu. Please include:

• Your name and the name of any other panelists for your presentation
• Topic and title of your presentation
• A brief (1-2 paragraph) synopsis of your presentation
• If you have specific day/time preferences (sessions are usually between 9:30-4:50)
• Finally, please let us know if you or one of the people on your program is a graduate from the journalism program at (Southwest) Texas State. While not a requirement, we do like to bring in as many alumni as possible.

The deadline for speaker proposals is Aug. 14, 2009. Selected participants will be notified by Sept. 1.

To get an idea of past speakers/topics, view the 2008 Mass Communication Week schedule. Also, a slideshow from last year can be found here, or you can simply review this blog.

Please know:

• Sessions are 75 minutes in length and can be a panel or an individual.
• All rooms will be fully equipped with full multimedia, including computers and Internet access.
• There are generally between 50-100 students attending each session, but depending on where the session is, we could have up to 250 students.
• In addition to Texas State students, high school students from media programs in Laredo and San Antonio often attend Mass Communication Week.
• Last year we streamed several sessions online, with good results. We are looking to do the same this year with some of our sessions.

Finally, while we realize you are professional giving of your time, please know we are an academic department at a public university and have no funding to pay for speakers. In some instances, if the speaker lives outside of a 150 mile radius of the university, we may be able to reimburse for travel. If this is something you request, please let us know in your proposal.