Unlike my peers, my ARIA project did not consist of a typical research project, but rather a series of assignments from my supervisors. I did my internship at the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill, and my assignments chiefly focused on how journalism and governance are responding to a digital society and the increasing power of platform companies such as Facebook and Google. Roughly speaking, I completed three major acts of research in analyzing this: comparing the mandate of public broadcasters globally in order to recommend best practices regarding the CBC whose mandate has not been updated since 1991, an examination of platforms’ responses to implemented and proposed ancillary copyright for press publishers legislative initiatives globally, and an examination of how the United States in particular is legislatively responding to these increasingly anti-competitive companies. This work will be used by the Centre, particularly the CBC mandate research, which will (I believe) form the basis for their recommendations to the government!
I was interested in an ARIA project because I’m someone with a deep passion for journalism and the struggles it faces in adapting to the modern world. In high school, I attended a youth journalism camp, and prepared a senior capstone project on the changes print media was having to undergo due to the pressures involved with a new digital model of business. I also do journalism here on campus, including the role of editor-in-chief of the McGill Political Science Student Association’s online paper. My learning objectives largely focused on a similar theme to my high school capstone project during this ARIA project, but with a greater scrutiny on platform companies. This is because my ARIA project was partially funded and supervised by Professor Taylor Owen, a journalist and associate professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy here at McGill, who teaches POLI 424: Media and Politics. His class really highlighted the increasing power of these companies to me, and as such, modified my already existing learning interests & objectives.
The experience of digging through legislative archives and webpages, as well as news articles on pieces of legislation, was honestly the biggest highlight. I felt that as a result of my work I was really able to get a sense of the difficulty academics must face in scrutinizing these laws, most of which are written in anything but simple language. Of course, some governments, such as the Canadian government, are really open to the public, insofar as offering a brief summary of what a piece of legislation aims to do on their webpages. Others, like in the United States, have you digging through twenty individual webpages just to understand what amendments were proposed, who voted for which, etc. However, I enjoyed that challenge a lot. I also got to practice my Spanish and French when analyzing legislative proposals and broadcasting in Switzerland, France, and Brazil. Obviously Spanish isn’t exactly like Portuguese, but it helped me get by.
I think ARIA has really clarified the career I want to pursue once I leave university. I’ve always had this plan of taking a year off after my undergraduate and then pursuing a master’s degree, but I never knew what I’d be precisely interested in. ARIA has shown me that the research of comparative politics, particularly governmental policy, is a big interest of mine, and I think I may even be interested in studying law—things I would never have known without this work. I’ve even begun looking at some universities and degrees, such as the MSc in Comparative Politics at LSE.
So, with that being said, I have to thank the Maldoff family, specifically Mrs. Betty Maldoff, Mr. Eric Maldoff, Mr. Gerry Maldoff, and Mrs. Barbara Maldoff. Without this award, I don’t think I’d have been able to discover these things about myself or come to truly appreciate how rewarding difficult research can be. I also wanted to say that I’ve tried to research a little about you all so I could make this thank you more personal. My CBC research focused on how the broadcaster could include indigenous languages within its mandate and focus more heavily on connections between the French-and-English-speaking parts of the organization, which seemed important to note given Mr. Eric Maldoff’s work mediating between the Quebec government and the province’s linguistic minorities. I also wanted to express my condolences regarding the passing of Mrs. Betty Maldoff. Thank you all so much for supporting me.
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