Communications & Arts
Undergraduate Communications & Arts brochure
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Communications & Arts
Communications and Arts at ECU offers a diverse range of programs in communications, media, design, arts and the humanities. We aim to maximise your employability by developing your hands-on skills, offering you professional placement experiences, and providing you with a solid theoretical background. Our course structures allow you to specialise in one area or gain expertise in multiple areas, providing you with the multi-skilling required to succeed in many of today’s arts and communications industries.
Communications & Arts courses now available at our Joondalup campus
From 2013, we will be offering the Bachelor of Communications and the Bachelor of Arts courses at our Joondalup campus.
Majors available at Joondalup will include Advertising and Public Relations within the Bachelor of Communications, while History, Writing, and Politics & International Relations will be offered within the Bachelor of Arts.
In addition, a range of elective units will be available in support of these majors, including iTalk@ECU: Presentation Skills, Writing for the Media, and Creative Thinking.
New Spectrum Project Space Launched at Mount Lawley Campus
The new Spectrum Project Space is a purpose‑built venue to exhibit the work of ECU staff and students.
With the support of ECU, students learn how to install and present their work to the public in a professional exhibition space. It is a unique concept and the exhibitions include works from our Photomedia, Contemporary Fashion & Textiles, Visual Arts and Graphic Design students.
Groundbreaking New Bachelor of Arts Degree
Our Bachelor of Arts course has been restructured into one of the most progressive and flexible degrees of its kind in Australia.
The course structure enables you to combine Arts subjects with a major from a range of other disciplines, providing you with a unique opportunity to design a cross‑disciplinary course according to your personal interests.
Bachelor of Arts majors available include: Contemporary Fashion & Textiles, English, French (Introductory and Post ATAR), History, Japanese (Introductory and Post ATAR), Politics & International Relations, Visual Arts, Visual Arts Immersion and Writing.
The Bachelor of Arts is also available in several double degrees, including: Arts/Business, Arts/Communications, Arts/Science and Law/Arts.
Team Boomerang One awarded first place in World Advertising Competition
ECU's Team Boomerang One students were named World Champions at the annual International Advertising Association InterAd XIII global student advertising competition.
The competition gives students the opportunity to put theory into practice by testing their skills with a real‑world client case study. ECU's team was made up of students from the Advertising, Creative Services and Public Relations majors were recognised for their outstanding creative approach in tackling the brief for a brand campaign that disrupts the category and breaks all conventions.
Graduate Employability
Our Communications, Creative Industries and Arts course structures are designed to promote multi‑skilling of students, which combined with our focus on community projects and industry placements, serves to increase employment prospects in an increasingly competitive market.
Our students have been highly successful, both nationally and internationally, in gaining recognition through awards, competitions and employment in rapidly growing creative industries.
ECU Student Wins The 2011 Bill Warnock Award
Our PhD in Communications student Damien Spiccia was the successful recipient of the Bill Warnock Award for Emerging Screen Writers for his script Beyond the Pale. Damien received a support package valued at $6,000.Beyond the Pale is an Australian fantasy in the vein of Pan's Labyrinth with a dose of John Hughes thrown in. The script is about a young woman who is mysteriously cursed to turn into a fox, and the local teenage witch who may the only one who can help her.
Born in Perth, Damien Spiccia graduated from our WA Screen Academy in 2005 and won a Screenwriting WASA the following year for his first musical short, A Trick of the Moonlight. In 2008 he was awarded Link funding for Deep End, a mix of live‑action and animation, and in 2010 he was awarded HyperLink funding for his second musical short, Light as a Feather. He has also directed episodes of locally‑produced children’s TV drama Castaway.
"The assistance and support of the lecturers at ECU has been great."
"They are friendly, understanding and have always made themselves available to provide study and course advice when needed. ECU allowed me to undertake a degree in the area I was passionate about and now I couldn’t be happier."
Jessica Clowes
History and French student
Sky's the limit for ECU writer
ECU South West PhD student and up-and-coming writer Nicole Sinclair is looking forward to a long and successful writing career after winning the national Katherine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Short Fiction Award for her short story, The Nest. Set in the south-west of WA, The Nest is about a couple who are coming to terms with infertility.
For Nicole, the win was not only about the recognition, but also about receiving encouragement and support from those in the writing industry. Nicole plans to use the money from the award to pay for a research trip for her next novel. Nicole also won the national Down South Adult Writing competition for her story Dead Ringer.
International recognition for ECU designer
Communications and Arts PhD student Andy Simionato is conducting research into the historical and cultural identities of books as a medium, their production, transmission and consumption, with the intention of understanding how the different elements within books are changing in computer mediated environments.
Andy has produced book works that are featured prominently in the Triennale Design Museum in Italy, which will be viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors. Andy's efforts have seen him offered a residency position in Milan during 2013, where he hopes to show artworks produced during his PhD research at ECU.
Postgraduate Broadcasting student finalist in national award
Broadcasting postgraduate student, Ann Jones, was a finalist in the recent "United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Awards 2010", competing against some of the best in the nation.
Jones was a finalist in the Special Award Category of Promotion of Aboriginal Reconciliation, for her radio documentary "The Media and Indigenous Australians". Her fellow finalists were from the ABC and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Jones said, "To be listed as a finalist next to professional journalists from all over the country is a testament to the high quality of the broadcasting course here at WAAPA. I think being listed as a finalist is an acknowledgement of my own work, but also of the training and support of the teachers and staff at ECU."
Earlier this year, Jones was one of three finalists in the 'National Media Super Student Journalist of the Year Awards' for another radio story she produced. The winners were announced at the Awards Presentation Dinner in Melbourne hosted by ABC's Virginia Trioli
Photomedia graduate rises to the top
Photomedia graduate James Simmons won the AIPP Professional Photographer of the Year award, which is presented to the state's best professional or student photographer each year. James was also named the winner of Overall Best Print, Best Print Landscape and the Print Handlers Award.
Two of his winning images were taken during the ECU Bangladesh Summer School Exchange Program, which allows students to work with international photographers and Bangladeshi students.
"I have an urge to tell people’s stories through photography, which often finds me in unique places and lead to my photojournalistic tour of Bangladesh. I was fascinated by the culture of the developing nation." said James, explaining that he found the study tour program inspirational.
Journalism course rated best in Australia
The 2011 Graduate Careers Australia report on Graduate Course Experience, rated ECU's Journalism program as the top journalism tertiary program in Australia, in the categories of Best Teaching and Graduate Satisfaction.
The quality of our Journalism program was on show recently as students won four categories at the 2011 National Ossie Awards for outstanding student journalism.
WA Screen Academy Triumphs at ATOM Awards
Screen Studies students from ECU's WA Screen Academy won the award for Best Tertiary Short Fiction 2011 at the Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) awards. This is the second year that the Academy has taken out the top section.
Director of the Academy, John Rapsey, also received top honours, being named the 2011 ATOM Teacher of the Year.
Contemporary Fashion & Textiles student shines in Perth Fashion Festival
Contemporary Fashion & Textiles student Cherish Armstrong was a winner in the Student Runway competition, held as part of the 2011 Perth Fashion Festival.
Cherish won the Contemporary Evening Wear category, this the third year that ECU students have won at a Student Runway competition.
Bangladesh Summer School 2012
Every two years, our Photomedia program conducts a six-week summer school in Bangladesh for our photojournalism students.
Up to 15 students are invited to participate in an authentic learning experience, working in collaboration with students from Pathshala (a South Asian Media Institute) in the completion of photojournalistic stories about life in a country of 162 million people living in a country the size of Tasmania.
The students exhibit their work to the public in Dhaka, and later in Perth.
Only the best for Broadcasting students
Eight talented Broadcasting students have recently received a valuable kick-start to their media careers, receiving cash prizes and internships within newsrooms around Australia.
Joanna Crothers, one of our winning students, has been awarded the prestigious ABC News 24 Paul Lockyer Memorial Prize, which will see her travel to Sydney for a three-month paid internship with ABC News 24.
Other awards and internships presented to Broadcasting students in 2011 include:
- The Seven Productions Award (two paid internships)
- The Channel Seven Award for most potential
- in television
- The Commercial Radio Australia Award for most
- potential in commercial radio (two winners)
- The 6PR George Grjlusich Sports Broadcasting Award
- The WAtoday Award for video journalism
"I've had to challenge my own perceptions and it's made me grow as a person.
"This course offered me freedom. I was able to choose units that reflected my interests, strengths and background, so it felt like my course.
"Being at a university where so many different schools of knowledge exist and so many activities take place, means that you can enjoy a richer uni life. And being involved with other projects has allowed me to gain more skills that are otherwise outside the scope of my degree, but make me a much more able person.
"Now I'm ready to take on almost anything!"
Marziya Mohammedali
Master of Innovative Technology student
13 ECU Photomedia students, graduates and staff exhibited in Fotofreo
The prestigious Fotofreo international photo festival included 13 ECU Photomedia students, graduates and staff.
Photomedia lecturer Max Pam puts the success down to the high quality teaching program at ECU, "To have so many people connected to Photomedia at ECU represented in the festival confirms the school's status as the best education provider in photography in Australia and certainly one of the best teaching institutions for this art form in the world."
See our students' work
See our Communication & Arts students' work in our creative showcase.