It’s almost time for the pub quiz! So sharpen your pencils, grab your mates and get ready to win our £50 prize!
Staff from Media and Film Studies will each be doing different rounds on everything from general knowledge, to Disney, to music, to ….well, anything!! Remember, its completely free to come and join in! It’s a maximum of 5 people per team.
If you don’t have a team, don’t worry, you can make one on the day or join in with your classmates!
The prize for the winning team is a £50 voucher for Love2shop.
Keele’s Media department is delighted to share news that Abasiama Asuquo, a third-year Keele Media student, has been shortlisted in the National Undergraduate Employability (NUE) awards. The awards, created to identify, showcase and recognise those across the UK who have demonstrated passion, innovation and dedication within the field of undergraduate work experience offer 17 awards in total.
Alice Whitehouse, Experiential Learning Advisor within the Keele Institute for Innovation and Teaching Excellence (KIITE), has also been shortlisted in the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Work Experience’ category.
Keele’s Director for Employability and Employer Engagement, Terry Dray comments:
“These well-deserved short listings illustrate the impressive contributions made in different ways by Alice and Abasiama. It is so good to see a member of Keele staff and a Keele student receiving this important national recognition”.
The outcome of the awards will be announced at the NUE Awards in London on 4 March 2022. Huge congratulations to Abasiama and Alice! We wish you further success at the awards!
Background
Abasiama’s work on the internship was funded through the Student Knowledge Exchange project. Led by Keele University, in partnership with the University of Birmingham, the Student Knowledge Exchange project has been awarded funding from the Office for Students and Research England to develop best practice and expertise in the delivery of knowledge exchange activity.
The project offers civic internships, student consultancies, virtual placements, international opportunities, enterprise challenges, and curriculum design that embeds student knowledge exchange. The project will also propose an evaluative framework tool to analyse the impact of student-led knowledge exchanges. Further information about the project can be seen on the Student Knowledge Exchange webpages.
A huge welcome to Rachel Wood who has recently joined our Media Team! 🥳
Rachel joins us from the University of Chester to take up the post of Programme Director for Media and is also a Senior Lecturer in Media. Recently she has published an awesome article about beauty YouTubers who make anti-haul videos – criticising excessive consumerism on social media.
Oh, and did I mention she has a cat named Russell?
The hoodies come with the Keele University logo embroided on the front left and “KEELE MEDIA” printed in bold white text on the back. The hoodies are made with 80% cotton/20% polyester, machine washable up to 30° and they prefer to be washed inside out.
The online store is open until 31st October and hoodies are expected to be delivered to the Media Building around 22nd November.
The clothing supplier we use is actively committed to its ethical policy. These hoodies are Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production (WRAP) certified. Further details about this can be found here.
Looking to spice up your videos and graphics? Or just want some high quality material to experiment and play around with? Well Adobe have some AMAZING stock material absolutely FREE!
Find what you want, then log in using your Adobe ID to download. If you don’t have an Adobe ID you can create one for free.
Note that there are different kinds of ‘free’; so make sure you check the licensing before you consider using anything for a project you intend to share with others. For experimenting with Premiere Pro this may be useful for finding some material to edit with.
Keele’s Media department is pleased to share news that Dr Pawas Bisht has been successful in securing funding from the Being Human Festival 2021 for the organisation of a series of participatory storytelling workshops and a public screening and discussion event; the activity series is titled ‘Environmental storytelling between Stoke-on-Trent and New Delhi: Tackling Air Pollution’ and involves a collaboration with B arts, the leading participatory arts organisation working in Stoke-on-Trent. Being Human is the UK’s national festival of the humanities, led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London in partnership with the Arts & Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. The 2021 edition of the festival is focused on the theme of ‘Renewal’ and runs between 11-20 November. The proposed activities would explore the festival’s theme from the perspective of environmental renewal and draws on Dr Bisht (PI),Dr Giraud (Co-I) and Dr Kidwai’s (Co-I) ongoing British Academy funded project on ‘Storytelling for Environmental Change’.
The workshops would engage young people (18–25-year-olds) from Stoke-on-Trent enabling them to produce their own stories about the problem of air pollution in their city and their imaginations of sustainable urban futures. The participants will engage in a two-way conversation with UK and India based researchers, environmental advocates, and filmmakers to share knowledge around environmental storytelling. Drawing on this dialogue, and with the mentorship of B arts based artists Martin Gooding and Natalie Willatt, the participants will produce four short films examining the issue of air pollution and environmental degradation in Stoke-on-Trent. A public event will be scheduled in the festival week (between 11-20 November) for the screening of the films and a discussion about environmental futures and the role of stories and storytelling in enabling cultural and behavioural change.
Overall, the proposed activity aims to:
Provide an opportunity for the development and sharing of community-led imaginations and stories of urban environmental renewal
Focus on engaging young audiences who are the most direct stakeholders in the development of environmentally sustainable futures
Build transnational connections and dialogue
Enhance community resilience and skills for the development of sustainable and hospitable environmental futures
I am currently a junior brand manager at Proof Drinks, working in digital marketing across 30+ premium alcohol brands, such as Aviation Gin, Mr Black Coffee Liqueur, Silent Pool Gin and Cazcabel Tequila. I mainly work on social media, content creation, influencers, PR, paid advertising, analytics, website design and data strategy.
The thing I most enjoy about my current role….
Content creation. I am really enjoying the digital aspect such as photography and video editing, and also the print side such as creating posters, leaflets and brochures.
What was the single most important thing that helped you secure your current role?
Gaining work experience to build up my CV.
What has been the greatest challenge you have had to overcome till now in pursuing your professional aims?
Passing my WSET level 2 qualification a few months into my new role. Having to balance work and revision in a completely new industry was really challenging but I am happy I did it
In what way has your Keele degree and/or other activities you undertook at university helped you in your professional role?
I learnt so much from Sam Galantini about Adobe Photoshop and Premier Pro which is so useful in my current role and I use that skill daily. Also, working as a digital ambassador at Keele for two years, that was one of the key reasons my company hired me.
What would be the one piece of advice you would like to offer our current finalists and other students that might help them in their transition into work?
Start looking for work experience now. I did so much during the summer in my second year and also after graduation so my CV could stand out as London is very competitive. Even if it is unpaid, take it, because in order to gain experience, you need experience and a qualification alone sometimes isn’t enough…
How has the pandemic affected your work and what is your view of its long term effect on your sector?
Luckily I work in the drinks industry, people were still consuming alcohol during the pandemic and I was able to work from home. We had to transition from restaurant/bars to focusing solely on online sales and digital marketing plays a huge role in that.
As a Senior SEO Executive at THG Ingenuity, I work alongside many major international brands making recommendations and implementing changes to their websites to improve visibility in search engines. Organic search is all about having presence on Google, Bing, Ecosia and any other engines that your customers might be browsing. A comprehensive SEO strategy tackles everything from the keywords you target, the speed of your website, the blog content you produce to how you outreach your brand digitally.
The thing I most enjoy about my current role….
I most enjoy seeing results. SEO doesn’t always provide the instant return that other paid media can, but seeing your website climb the rankings, overtaking competitors and bringing value to the brand is extremely satisfying.
What was the single most important thing that helped you secure your current role?
The single most important thing that helped me attain my role and recent progression into a senior position is most definitely my passion to continuously learn new things. Digital marketing is constantly evolving, nothing ever stands still and tactics that might have worked 12 months ago most certainly will need refreshing and evolving to keep up with audiences. It’s really stimulating to continuously pick up new skills and formulate strategies for the future.
What has been the greatest challenge you have had to overcome till now in pursuing your professional aims?
The biggest challenge I have overcome – but definitely still have to wrestle with now and again – is having confidence in your ability. It’s so easy to feel small in a large company or when working alongside very reputable long-established brands, but ultimately every cog in the machine is just as important as the next and recognising the power in your contribution is key to overcoming any feelings of doubt.
In what way has your Keele degree and other activities you undertook at university helped you in your professional role?
The skills I developed during my time at Keele were invaluable to helping me learn about the media industry, but also provided me with endless transferable skills from teamwork to time management that play huge roles in being effective in my current role.
What would be the one piece of advice you would like to offer our current finalists and other students that might help them in their transition into work?
My advice would be to always aim high. It can be so daunting in the final year of your degree with your whole future ahead of you but you might not know exactly which path to take yet. Just do what you love, and give it your all!
How has the pandemic affected your work and what is yourview of its long term effect on your sector?
The pandemic has had an extraordinary impact on digital marketing in general, but particularly on organic search. With stores closing and events being cancelled suddenly some companies had nothing but their own websites to bring in a profit. For many a brand, SEO very suddenly went from a ‘nice-to-have’ element of their strategy, to being absolutely critical. Long term, I anticipate this new mentality will remain, as more than a year on things most definitely aren’t returning to normal.
Part of the Marketing team at Churchill China – liaising with the sales team out in the market and helping design and create marketing materials for them to use with our customers- as well as coordinating tradeshows and also recently delving into improvement of the online SEO of our website.
The thing I most enjoy about my current role….
The variety! Absolutely every day in my role is different, some days it will involve a lot of meetings and discussions, others I will have the ability to work on things alone. My company is also very flexible with my desires so I have been able to bring my videography background into the role and create promotional videos of my own.
What was the single most important thing that helped you secure your current role?
My ability to be flexible. My company utilises a specific ‘Brand Essence’ to decide which applicants fit the type of person they want to employ. They believe that a person’s characteristics are more valuable than things like experience (although some experience does help them place you in a role !!)
What has been the greatest challenge you have had to overcome till now in pursuing your professional aims?
Dealing with rejection. I applied for a lot of videography roles when I left Keele and I wasn’t able to get in anywhere that I applied. So I had to learn that rejection was ok and I can bring my skills into a somewhat related role and create a niche for myself .
In what way has your Keele degree and other activities you undertook at university helped you in your professional role?
I have brought both marketing principles into my marketing role as they interlink well and have a lot of crossover aspects. Promotional videos are now more important than ever with COVID limiting travel, especially as we work a lot with the European market. Also just the social aspect of the Media course at Keele has helped me increase interpersonal skills to create and build relationships in my professional role.
What would be the one piece of advice you would like to offer our current finalists and other students that might help them in their transition into work?
Smile. Whether you’ve got an interview or a rejection letter. Smiling will keep your spirits up and you’ll always land on your feet as well as helping communicate to potential employers the type of employee you would be!
How has the pandemic affected your work and what is your view of its long term effect on your sector?
It had meant we have had to work from home (not always a negative) which has slowed our progress with some projects. However my company was very well prepared and had the ability to cover us. We took a bad hit at first as we sell products into restaurants and hotels; however as we come out of the pandemic, there is now more opportunity than ever to find customers that have lost previous suppliers.
Keele University Media Programme Blog 