Government
BEA to Focus on Convergence
By Mark J. Pescatore
Apr 21, 2006, 13:35

When NAB2006 is winding down, the educators will be just getting started. The Broadcast Education Association will hold its annual convention April 27-29 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Mary T. Rogus, associate professor of broadcast journalism in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, is this year's conference chair. The theme for the conference is "Convergence Shockwave: Change, Challenge and Opportunity," a topic that really seemed to spark interest with academic and video professional members of the organization.
"The membership has responded to the convention theme in a huge way," Rogus said. "It's something that I personally have been interested in for the last several years. For those of us training the next generation of media professionals, it's a big question of how we are going to prepare our students."
Beyond curricula questions, Rogus added, convergence is a major trend across the media industry that's having a huge impact on electronic media. It's also a very fluid concept, as there are a number of different models of delivery across various media platforms.
"We're no longer broadcasters or online media people," she offered. "We're all going to be content providers - and it's all a question of how that content is going to be delivered."
In addition, Rogus added, convergence has been a ripe area for academic research. Close to one-third of the conference program relates in some way to convergence; after all, Rogus said, the issue reaches into areas of management, sales, and diversity, not just production.
The rest of the convention program addresses a variety of topics for educators, including law and policy, broadcast news, and webcasting. There are also sessions that tackle teaching methods for production classes, writing courses, and campus broadcast stations.
Other convention highlights include the BEA Awards Ceremony on April 27, which recognizes faculty and student research and scholarship, as well as the BEA Festival of Media Arts, which showcases nationally refereed faculty and student productions. Rogus said the BEA Research Center will also spotlight research efforts with poster presentations on display throughout the show.
Adobe, Apple, and Avid will offer free sessions in their hands-on training labs throughout the three-day conference. Panasonic is a major technology sponsor as well, Rogus said, and will be joined by more than a dozen other companies on the BEA exhibit hall.
In addition to the BEA conference, registered attendees can attend a number of NAB conferences, as well as visit the show floor, for free. Plus, they can participate in the Career Fair on April 26 at the Las Vegas Hilton, which is next to the LVCC. BEA attendees can also purchase a one-day pass on site for RTNDA@NAB, which runs April 23-26 at the Las Vegas Hilton.


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