Professional Research Project is a third year course in the Bachelor of Media Arts programme taught at the Waikato Institute of Technology, (Wintec) in Hamilton, New Zealand. This course enables students to engage in a collaborative project with a professional entity in order to provide valuable professional experience and vocational skills. Students are expected to learn and evaluate professional practices in order to provide fresh ideas and techniques that can be used to help them to be more effective and innovative.

The work of five students over the years 2010 and 2011 will be described and analysed in order to provide a reflective evaluation of the range of scopes, research questions and outcomes.

The range of student work includes:
- The Māori round: Iwi and hapū stories.
- Evolution and devolution of news in the age of the web
- Processes in the editing and selecting of letters to the editor
- Styles and effects of blogs
- Scheduling of radio advertising and its links to radio programming