USC Annenberg hosted a Colloquium on China Media and Communication Studies from Dec. 14 to 15, which brought leading scholars from around the world to conduct a comparative assessment of China communication studies from Chinese and Western perspectives, identifying critical gaps and opportunities for a future research agenda.
The Colloquium was broadcast live online, and the edited video will be available on the School's YouTube channel. The Colloquium features its own online network that includes blog entries about the sessions, thought pieces from the speakers, and a live Webcast. Speakers, panelists and moderators included faculty and experts from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Australia, Canada, England, and across the world and United States.
"This dialogue is especially important at this moment in world history because the practice and the field of communication is itself at a critical crossroads – not just in the United States, of course, but around the world," USC Annenberg Dean Ernest J. Wilson III said. "All societies around the world are experiencing a transition from the old to the new. The old way of communicating is transforming to a new networked, distributive, interactive way of communicating in an information-networked society. This is important because the way that each country manages this transition will greatly affect many major issues around the world, from basic international understanding, to matters of trade, and indeed to matters of war and peace."
The Colloquium began with the inaugural Wellen Sham Distinguished Lecture, delivered by Dr. Lu Ye of Shanghai's Fudan University and made possible by the recently pledged $1 million Wellen Sham Family Endowment.
