On 13 April, an Intercollegiate Forum on New Media and Education, co-sponsored by UIC, Beijing Normal University (BNU), Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) and Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai (BNUZ), was held on UIC’s new campus. This was the first time that the four universities have joined hands to organize an academic forum.
This forum concentrated on the rapid development of the new media environment, citing relevant research topics and giving suggestions to students about how to improve their skills to adapt to the requirements of the age of new media.
Associate Professor of UIC’s Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (DHSS), Dr Edgar Yuen, emceed the forum. Forum lecturers included five professors coming from three different universities.
Associate Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at BNU, Prof Wang Changxiao, discussed the interaction between journalism, literature and psychology. He also said that important core competencies for journalism students are technological ability balanced with humanistic qualities. He strongly recommended students of journalism read a lot to help them gain deeper understandings of many topics.
BNU Associate Professor, Jiang Shen, whose research interest is New Media and Virtual Reality, introduced the concept of hotspots, as well as discussing ‘calm thinking’. “We put a lot of attention to technology now, yet at the same time, the platform of new media lacks the support of content.” He introduced the application of Virtual Reality and the attempts of BNU to generalize this technology.
HKBU Research Assistant Professors, Zhang Xinzhi and Zhang Yin, focused on data-driven journalism and the connection between social media and social capital.
Most of audience was composed of students from International Journalism. “I think I learned a lot from this forum. It expanded my knowledge, for example, I did not know much about technology like VR, and this forum gave me the chance to learn more,” said Eileen Chen, a Year Two IJ student.
Prof Wang Changxiao spoke highly of the English teaching environment at UIC, as well as the impressive collection of books on the campus.
Before the forum, professors from the different universities had a brief meeting in the morning, exchanging experiences of teaching journalism and discussing the future direction of media. All of the teachers expressed the will to continue to deepen the communication between the universities.
Reporter: Li Dandan ( IJ, Y1)
Photographers: Ivy Liao, Liang Jianhao (IJ, Y3)
Editors: Samantha Burns, Deen He
(from MPRO)
