Communications and Media | News and Releases

Keyword: Communications and Media

How a local professor spent 20 years exploring the meaning of 'Oh My God'

Thursday, February 13, 2025 @ 10:22 AM

Does the phrase "Oh my God" offend you? Have you ever wondered how it became something that people blurt out multiple times a day?

David Balzer, an associate professor of communications and media at Canadian Mennonite University and a storyteller at heart, is preparing to release an audio documentary that will answer all of these questions and more.

"I was doing the radio show [God Talk] and I had some friends at the University of Manitoba. They wanted to do something creative on campus and I got this idea to do a live show out of the university centre," said Balzer. "And so we're trying to pick a theme and during that week I was going to campus that week and I'm like, what could we do that would kind of bridge between our interest about who God is and culture and this phrase, 'oh my God' came up in my thinking."

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CMU alumna brings climate action into the provincial election

Monday, July 17, 2023 @ 10:14 AM

In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report stating that a global average temperature increase of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels would significantly increase the severity and occurrence of extreme weather events, forever altering Earth's ecosystems.

The World Meteorological Institute estimates we are on track to hit that sustained average temperature increase in roughly a decade. Worse yet, there is a 66 per cent chance of that occurring temporarily within the next five years. The time for climate action is now.

Wittenberg Radio hosts push the boundaries of traditional podcasting

Tuesday, February 1, 2022 @ 3:34 PM

You can't find it on traditional radio airwaves, but broadcasting humbly, once a month from the studio space on Canadian Mennonite University's (CMU) campus, the hosts of Wittenberg Radio treat their listeners to content they call "by students, for students."

Hosts Chloe Friesen and Daniel McIntyre-Ridd are Communications and Media majors who have been writing, editing, and producing the historically audio-only podcast Wittenberg Radio roughly every month since fall 2019. Each episode is between 30-40 minutes long and, according to the program's website, "focuses on a variety of topics that relate to CMU students."

CMU student nominated for leadership award after creating online community supporting Black women

Tuesday, January 25, 2022 @ 9:53 AM

In the midst of the pandemic, an Instagram account popped up that quickly created buzz and then skyrocketed. CMU student Nengi Offurum is the founder of @blackwomenowned, an online community that supports and empowers Black women.

Black Women Owned (BWO) brings visibility to Black female entrepreneurs, business owners, and creators from across Canada, America, and Australia. But the platform is not only a place for people to have their work promoted. With more than 6,000 followers across Instagram and Facebook, it's also a community where people can connect and uplift each other. "It's a community for everyone, where everyone can come and be. You're not scared you're being judged, everyone feels safe," Offurum says.

Perseverance, pilgrimage, and the Bitter Sweet Trail

Thursday, December 17, 2020 @ 10:00 AM

On October 24, 2020, Kenji Dyck (BA '19, Communications and Media) premiered his documentary Bitter Sweet Trail: Japanese Canadians and the Alberta Sugar Beets, which followed a 2019 bus tour through southern Alberta. Produced by David Iwaasa, and in partnership with Nikkei National Museum, the film tells the story of many Japanese sugar beet farmers who experienced internment, dispossession, and detainment through the Second World War. Tour participants, made up of Japanese Canadians who farmed sugar beets in the mid-20th century, visited sites that played a significant role in Japanese Canadian history. For most Japanese Canadians, this was a time of racial persecution as well as a time of persistence. "The tour and the film," Dyck explains, "is to remember not only the injustice but also the perseverance of the Japanese Canadian people."

On Speaking Truth to Power: reflections from an English student working in Communications

Monday, June 22, 2020 @ 9:00 AM

CMU is introducing a new combined Major in English and Communications & Media. Formalizing the combination is a progressive move, but the pairing itself is nothing new.

My first year at CMU, fresh off the Outtatown program, I took a Major Authors course focussing on the works of Charles Dickens. (At the time, my absolute favourite author.) In that course, I learned one of the most valuable things I would learn in undergrad overall:

CMU announces new combined major in Communications & Media and English

Tuesday, May 19, 2020 @ 2:52 PM

Employers today are looking for people with strong communication skills. Teamwork requires people who can think across mediums and skill sets, who write well and present well, combining great ideas and great writing with graphic and other media skills.

At CMU, we know that a broad base makes a better specialist. Consequently, we believe that the best way for an aspiring communications specialist to develop themselves is to spend time learning the fundamentals—reading, writing, and critical thinking—in company with the world's great literature, all while developing and exercising specialized skills through applied practise, crafting their own original stories, images, films, and audio recordings.

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