Media Stars 2018

Description: This video features RMIT academics as they have appeared in the media throughout the past year.

AUDIO: Upbeat, ambient music plays 

VISUAL: RMIT Logo appears and fades away to reveal a map of the world. The map blurs, and text fills the foreground:

“In the last year, we had…”

“An average of six mentions of RMIT in the media every hour.”

“Media coverage on every continent.”

“Hundreds of RMIT experts quoted”

VISUAL: A transition effects wipes the map off the screen, revealing a montage of news stories involving RMIT academics and experts.

NEWS ANCHOR: For more on this I'm joined from Melbourne by Dr. Alex Wake, a senior lecturer in the School of Media and Communications at RMIT University.

NEWS ANCHOR: To answer that question and more, we're joined by Dr. Mark from RMIT University.

NEWS ANCHOR: Students of all ages and their teachers will have a new opportunity to learn coding skills and how to make their own apps through an Australian-first partnership between Apple and RMIT University.

NEWS ANCHOR: And a new font is promising to improve memory and potentially help students ace their exams. Believed to be a world-first, a Melbourne uni has designed the gap-filled lettering to force the brain to work harder.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MARK GREGORY: There's not enough stress testing going on with the telecommunications in Australia.

NEWS ANCHOR: RMIT's associate professor Marta Poblet joins us now from Melbourne. Marta Poblet, welcome.

MARTIN BEAN: It's time to secure a future for the capital and return it to the people of Melbourne.

DR RICHARD WILLIAMS: So what we're doing is naturally helping the brain to start its healing processes again.

PROFESSOR STEPHEN ROBINSON: So we found that people who are quite rested, even, after about 20 minutes start to become drowsy.

NEWS REPORTER: ... almost unrecognisable. Melbourne's modern piazza reimagined, with a floating forest, and billabongs.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL BUXTON: Ideas like that I think are worth looking at, and softening the impact of the fairly harsh surface of the square.

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal the title “Winners”

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal Professor Jason Potts, Media Star of the Year, speaking in an interview with ABC.

JASON POTTS: Blockchain technology was developed as a way to put Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies or digital money on the Internet, and the first use case was to use blockchain for the consensus mechanism behind this.

VISUAL: A radio interview with Jason Potts is overlaid with articles which Jason Potts has featured in.

INTERVIEWER: Wire reporter Luke Radford spoke to Professor Jason Potts from RMIT's new blockchain Innovation Hub to get a bit of a handle on this mysterious new technology.

JASON POTTS: What a blockchain is, Imogen, is a way to just have a ledger that is replicated across multiple different nodes that update simultaneously.

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal Jason Potts in another interview

JASON POTTS: Absolutely thrilled to win this. This is a great sort of thing to happen for the Blockchain Innovation Hub. We're worked really hard to bring the work that we're doing to the public, and this is a fantastic recognition of that.

I got into doing media very reluctantly. This wasn't a natural thing for me, and I had to work hard at it, and it took me a long time to understand the enormous importance of doing this. I love doing it now. It's a fantastic thing.

The benefits I see from doing media is it's basically agile. We do research, we come up with ideas, and at some point we have to explain it to people. This is the most efficient, the most effective mechanism for doing that.

The benefit for me has been enormous in terms of recognition of the work I'm doing, and essentially people come and contacting you about the work you're doing and giving you opportunities for that.

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal Dr Michelle Noon, Rising Media Star, on SBS’s The Feed.

HOST: We are joined by criminologist and psychologist, Michelle Noon. Michelle, what do you think drives this fascination?

DR MICHELLE NOON: Well, I think it's probably two things, the first thing being that humans are fundamentally incredibly curious and very interpersonal. We like learning about other humans and we really want to know what drives them, so I think that that's probably one explanation.

VISUAL: A montage of articles Dr Michelle Noon has featured in follows

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal a montage of articles Associate Professor Adrian Dyer, College of Design and Social Context Media Star, has featured in

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal a montage of articles Professor Asha Rao, College of Science, Engineering and Health Media Star, has featured in

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal Associate Professor Con Savros, College of Business Media Star, talking in a news segment

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR CON SAVROS: Sometimes more competition can actually help the local retailers really focus on why they're in business, what they're offering.

VISUAL: A montage of articles Associate Professor Con Savros has featured in follows

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal a montage of articles Professor Jago Dodson, Media Commentator, has featured in

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal a news segment which Associate Professor Madhu Bhaskaran, Industry Media Star, features in

NEWS ANCHOR: Researchers from RMIT have been waiting for five years for this to be used in a real-world setting.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR MADHU BHASKARAN: So it's soft, it's pliable, it's kind of formable. It's washable as well. It’s sat in the lab for too long, so I think it's time to actually bring it out into the real world.

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal a news segment which Professor Joseph Siracusa, Media Star Hall of Fame, features in

NEWS ANCHOR: We're joined from Melbourne by Joe Siracusa, professor of human security and international diplomacy at RMIT. Joe Siracusa, welcome this morning.

PROFESSOR JOSEPH SIRACUSA: Oh, thank you for having me.

VISUAL: Professor Joseph Siracusa is being interviews on Today

PROFESSOR JOSEPH SIRACUSA: You know, the atomic clock is two minutes to midnight for a pretty good reason. I mean, the stage is set for a very serious negotiation.

VISUAL: Professor Joseph Siracusa is being interviewed on Ten Eyewitness News

PROFESSOR JOSEPH SIRACUSA: ... right now he's on the ropes, and there's no doubt in my mind that we've gotten this far because of the tough sanctions that were performed by the international community.

VISUAL: A transition effect wipes to reveal the following text: “Congratulations to all our winners!”

VISUAL: The RMIT logo appears. 

AUDIO: Ambient Music Fades 

[End Transcript]