By Tarryn McGuire
Fíos Físe, an exciting partnership between NUI Galway and RTÉ, is a new Irish language audience research initiative that will examine the reach, listening habits and satisfaction levels of Irish speakers here in Ireland, with regard to RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta.
It has been confirmed that Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge will be running the project.
The 500 contributors on the research panel will represent the Irish – speaking population as a whole, both North and South.
Those on the research panel will participate in weekly online surveys for Raidió na Gaeltachta.
It is believed that the research will be extremely valuable to NUI Galway’s teaching and research programme in Irish language broadcasting.
Gearóid Mac Donncha, Acting Head of RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta believes that this is a huge step forward, and spoke of the upcoming research; “It will give us a better insight into listener preferences, within the Gaeltacht and outside, and therefore assist us in devising our strategy going forward.”
Dr Eilís Ní Dhúill has been recently recruited to the position of Postdoctoral Researcher with the project.
On Friday 21 September, NUI Galway and RTÉ announced they would be collaborating on a new MA programme in Professional Practice in Media (Cleachtas Gairmiúil sna Meáin), with an emphasis on practice – based learning through Irish.
Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge at NUI Galway will offer this new MA programme from September 2018.
This new programme will be accessible to many students as it will be available on both a full-time and a part-time basis.
This new Masters programme offers a combination of online academic modules as well as significant periods of practice – based work experience in RTÉ. This gives student the opportunity to gain experience in journalism, broadcasting and content creation for radio, television and online platforms.
RTÉ’s Group Head of Irish Language, Rónán Mac Con Iomaire spoke in relation to Fíos Físe and the new Masters programme; “Among RTÉ’s challenges around Irish language output are identifying clearly our audiences so that we may best serve them, and also ensuring that we enable future media practitioners to continue to provide the high-quality services provided by RTÉ as Gaeilge.”
He continued; “That RTÉ have been able to work with NUI Galway with the aim of fulfilling these two key challenges shows the enormous value of partnership, and the importance of building on the continuing relationship between our two organisations.”
Dr Uinsionn Mac Dubhghaill, the MA programme director, noted the value of the course and how it responds to the needs of the students; “With its balanced mix of the theoretical study of media and practice – based learning, the new MA programme responds to a demand from students for postgraduate programmes that have strong links to employers and the market.”
Is céim sa treo ceart é an chúrsa nua seo.
Photo by NUI Galway Acadamh
