An event that showcased M@M’s commitment to student-centred and student-led activities was Converging in Parallel, a three-day conference on the future of communication policy research (2006). Organized by three graduate students, the conference/workshop provided an innovative discussion venue for more than 30 emerging Canadian communication scholars, including students, junior faculty, as well as stakeholders, to deliberate on the importance of research to the formation of media policy. Another notable student initiative was [TAS], a one-day symposium on technology, art and society (2007), which included a public evening of new media art and performance at Montreal’s SAT (Society for Arts and Technology). M@M’s assistance secured the participation of scholar and media activist McKenzie Wark.

M@M also supported the launch of Will Straw’s 2006 book, Cyanide and Sin: Visualizing Crime in 50s America, a study of that decade’s American true crime magazine, and a devoted collection of its visual imagery. To showcase M@M’s concentration on crime, media and public culture in North America, Straw and Rentschler organized a two-day international symposium, held in May 2007, and featuring innovative, multi-disciplinary work by McGill graduate students and faculty, as well as participants from the US and Mexico.

In 2006, the Montreal Media Policy Group was created, which brought together a collective of young academics, legal and industry representatives who met regularly over a period of three years to discuss significant issues related to media governance.

M@M was honoured to have John Durham Peters, F. Wendell Miller Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, as its first visiting scholar in March 2007. Peters gave a provocative lecture on the underpinnings of liberalism and the principle of free expression in a changing world to a full-house audience in McGill’s historic Redpath Museum auditorium.