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I'm not waterloo, but I was accepted to the English department's XDM MA program last year and had the opportunity to meet a number of people from the English PHD program at a conference last year. I was disappointed I couldn't accept my spot there, but I was accepted to a phd program elsewhere. My perception of the english program is that they do a lot of interesting and interdisciplinary things especially as concerns technology and media. If you're interested in a digital humanities approach to english and looking at digital/multimedia texts it seems like a good place. If it strikes you as a good fit and you're ok with living in waterloo then it seems like a good choice to me. Really it might depend a lot on your research interests though. 

I'm finishing up a MA in Professional Communication from Royal Roads, which as i understand it is similar to Ryerson's,  and have been accepted to Simon Fraser's PHD program in communication. So, it definitely seems possible to go from a pro comm masters to a PhD in comm.