Media Centre created
October 3, 2012
HEC Montréal is pleased to announce the creation of its new Media Centre, a study and training platform designed to bring together HEC Montréal professors and researchers as well as practitioners in the media field. The knowledge transfer centre has a two-fold aim: to prepare content producers to manage media companies and to make company managers aware of the importance of the media when devising their business strategies.
The Centre, the first of its kind anywhere in Canada, will offer various types of training, including short seminars and summer schools, aimed at familiarizing managers with the ethical, economic, cultural and technological issues raised by new media models. The Media Centre will also conduct research in this rapidly evolving field.
“By bringing together professors, researchers and practitioners, we want to encourage them to share and transfer knowledge about media management,” says HEC Montréal Director Michel Patry. “To give it all the impetus it deserves, the Centre will be headed by two highly regarded figures: Sylvain Lafrance, a practitioner, and Taïeb Hafsi, a professor from the School. Thanks to their work and that of their colleagues, I am convinced that the new Centre will offer cutting-edge training that is sure to be very popular with producers and managers.”
Sylvain Lafrance, Director of the Media Centre, is currently consulting with stakeholders from the media industry and other sectors of the economy and from the international academic community to clearly identify the issues facing them.
Mr. Lafrance says: “New communication technologies and social and digital media have radically altered the accessibility and diversity of all the information out there. These changes mean that managers in the digital era require new skills in order to stay innovative and competitive in a world where the media now have an inescapable influence.”
For his part, Taïeb Hafsi, Academic Supervisor for the Centre, sees media companies as a highly promising sector for Quebec. “Around the globe, the media industry has become a powerful economic, social and political force. With all the mergers, acquisitions, combined operations and fragmentation, companies in the industry and society as a whole have to adjust to this new environment,” he says. “HEC Montréal wants to be a partner attuned to these changes and a key player in training in this area,” Mr. Hafsi concludes.
The Media Centre will invite professionals in the field and researchers from around the world to participate in its work. In this way, HEC Montréal intends to create an international knowledge hub on media industry management, with benefits for Montreal and all of Quebec.