Second year English student Arya Hasan is running for Media Officer in the 2023 Stirling Union Elections.
Their manifesto details plans to grow collaborations between the media societies, cultivate proactive current issue media work and help the media societies achieve their goals.
Media Officer is a voluntary role that is tasked with ensuring that the media societies are working together.
They are responsible for acting as a link between the Executive Council and the Union’s media societies.
Hasan decided to run after finding themselves inspired by current Media Officer, Ciaran Sweeney, a fellow AirTV member.
They said: “Originally, I wasn’t going to run, but after seeing all the hard work that Ciaran put in as Media Officer it really inspired me to be part of the media societies in an important role, not a committee role but as something else which would be less time taxing for me.
“So, for Media Officer, I’ll be able to be there for even more people and be able to support people in that role.”
Media society collaborations
Growing the current collaborations the media societies have, such as BrigCast (Brig and Air3 Radio), Focus (Brig and AirTV) and Air on Air (Air3 Radio and AirTV), is Hasan’s priority.
They also hope to explore new ideas with societies outwith the media category.
“Firstly, growing the main ones, the ones we have right now, making sure they’re consistent and then slowly adding new ones.
“We all have the beginnings of collaborations and so growing those and then over time adding more collaborations with other societies that are in a similar sphere, maybe Art Club or Photo and Video.
“Obviously there are customs between AirTV and SUDS, but just bringing other societies closer to us would be a good thing to do.”
Hasan stressed the importance of these collaborations, saying: “Recently, we’ve been doing a lot more of this work, such as Focus with Brig and AirTV, in which we focus on issues that are happening on campus related to the university.
“I feel being media societies primarily it is important for us to focus on this further, as a lot of us will be entering the world of journalism or media, so it’s important that we foster that in our time as university students.”
Overcoming challenges
Hasan sees funding and awareness as a potential challenge for the media societies.
They said: “As a member of AirTV, I knew that we had some hurdles getting new equipment, selling old equipment, and as times change, we’ll have to operate equipment every once in a while, so that would be one such example.
“Another one would be reachability, like letting people know what the media societies are doing.
“Keeping people updated on Air3 shows or new things that Brig is doing, so stuff like that.
“I feel that there is a lot of untapped potential with the Union where nobody knows what societies are doing, so we could use that space to be like, ‘here’s the things we are doing’, and bring awareness to it.”
If elected, their first step would be to meet with the committees of the media societies to see what they can do to enable them to achieve their goals.
Hasan said: “Recently, there’s been the studio with their AirTV that’s been going back and forth in the Union and I’m sure Ciaran is doing as much as he can, but I want to have things like that for all the media societies.
“I want to be a liaison between the Union and the media societies and always siding with the media societies.”
The Spirit of Sweeney: Forever
Hasan’s slogan is ‘The Spirit of Sweeney: Forever’ and is dedicated to the current position holder whose legacy they aspire to continue.
They credit “seeing him work hard as both Secretary [of AirTV] and Media Officer and consistently putting in so much effort” as the inspiration to run for the role.
“Like, we joke that he like lives in the media office and I don’t think it’s a joke anymore. He’s here all the time!
“I get inspired by seeing people work hard on things that they care about and so I want to put that team effort in.
“Hopefully that’ll help people put more effort into their own societies as well.
“I just want to be there for people, and I hope people vote for me to give me a chance to help them out in any way I can.”
Find out more about the elections and read Hasan’s manifesto in full here.
Voting opens on Tuesday, February 28 at 10 am and closes on Thursday, March 2 at 5 pm.
Featured image credit: Arya Hasan/Brig Newspaper
Editor-in-Chief of Brig Newspaper. Final year film, media and journalism student.
