Wang Jingli

wangjingli0715@163.com

AN academic forum spotlighting communication innovation, new media and digital journalism was held Friday and Saturday at Shenzhen University (SZU).

National Communication Association (NCA) 2019 The Shenzhen Forum, which was said to be the biggest international academic meeting so far for the city’s media and communication field, attracted nearly 150 scholars, experts and postgraduates from a total of 12 countries and regions to engage in conversations about the media and communication industries.

Over 40 of the participants were foreign scholars from countries including the U.S., Israel, Canada, India, Turkey, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, Spain and Australia.

The forum was co-sponsored by NCA and SZU. Tian Qibo, dean with the office of Social Science Administration at SZU, and Trevor Parry-Giles, executive director with NCA, praised the event at the opening ceremony Friday.

The two-day forum consisted of two sessions, namely keynote speeches and a panel discussion. During the keynote speech session, eminent domestic and foreign scholars in the media and communication circle, including Chen Changfeng, a professor at Tsinghua University, Amy Hasinoff, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver, and Gu Xiaojin, a professor at SZU, shared their views and research results on intelligent communication, health apps and newspaper transformation, respectively.

The panel discussion session focused on topics including experiments in communication innovation, intersections in new media and health communication as well as current digital journalism challenges.

The event also included a forum set up specifically for postgraduates, a film festival and a communication professionalism workshop, offering platforms for the students to exchange inspiring and creative ideas.

Founded in 1914 with thousands of members all around the globe, NCA is the biggest communication association in the world dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, quality of human life, and relationships with the application of competent communication.

Before the forum, the attendees visited high-tech companies in Shenzhen, such as Tencent and Shenzhen Huaqiang Holdings Co. Ltd. They also visited an exhibition on China’s reform and opening up and watched films made by recent graduates of SZU.