MAC: Making the Most of Media

By Reagan Lynch | Staff Writer

October 15, 2024

Two of Anderson's fastest growing classes, MAC (arts) and MAC (athletics) are focused on publicizing Anderson High School's extracurricular aspects. Although the classes share the same acronym, different elements of each class separate them.

MAC (arts), or Media Arts Collaborative, focuses on providing publicity for AHS art-centered extracurriculars, including the theater, band, orchestra, and choir departments.

MAC (arts) is much smaller than its parent class, MAC (athletics). Additionally, most of the students involved in Media Arts Collaborative are also engaged in a performing art here at Anderson.  

“Media Arts Collaborative is a fairly new class; this is the first year for it. It was born out of the athletics [class], and the goal of that is to hype all of the performing arts as much as we possibly can,” Mr. Weddle, teacher of both MAC classes, said.

Media Arts Collaborative is a growing class that tries to publicize all of the performing arts equally, especially the ones that don’t always receive much—if any—attention.

“It’s such a tight-knit group of people. It's just eight of us, and it’s a lot of people that I’m friends with because of theater,” Callie Ziegler (12), MAC (arts) Senior Project Manager, said.

“Our other goal is to maintain and upkeep the lobby. I think you have seen the Titus Lobby; you have seen the $60,000 renovation that we did to it, and so it requires a lot of upkeep [like]  senior magnets, posters, video[s], all of that stuff,” Weddle said.

The Titus Lobby is a place that most students walk through almost every day, whether it is for a performing arts class or athletics. The majority of people take the lobby for granted. MAC (arts) strives to keep the lobby looking up-to-date and presentable as another way to improve the reputation of Anderson’s performing arts.

“I think the biggest difference [between the classes] is the amount of athletics we have. I think there [are] over 28 sports within Anderson High School, and there are only five art forms. I think that the amount of work is different,” Weddle said.  

Sports are traditionally more popular here at Anderson, which is reflected in the class sizes of the MAC program. Both classes focus on providing additional publicity for extracurricular activities at Anderson. While MAC (arts) solely focuses on publicizing the performing arts, MAC (athletics) focuses on publicizing Anderson’s athletic department.

MAC also stands for Media Athletics Collaborative. The goal of MAC (athletics) is to publicize every sport at Anderson. The class tries to publicize all sports equally, regardless of a particular sport's popularity or record. MAC uses social media platforms to provide entertaining information about athletics at Anderson.  

“I think it’s really fun getting to do a student-led class. We get to organize it ourselves and do every part of the process, like tak[ing] photos, mak[ing] graphics, [and] post[ing] the graphics,” Molly Dotson (12), MAC (athletics) member said.

MAC (athletics) publishes most of its work on Instagram and TikTok. It uses these popular social media platforms to spread the word about AHS athletics to as many people as possible.