On March 17, 2018 Zizhu New Media Management Research Centre International Symposium was held successfully at the USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry(ICCI) Zizhu Academic and Research Base. Scholars from USC and SJTU, industrial experts and entrepreneurs gathered together for discussions on the development and prosperity of cultural and creative industry.
Group Photo of USC Delegation(Incomplete)
Guests present at the symposium include Yuan ZENG, Deputy Director, PhD, Researcher of Shanghai Management Office of Cultural Affairs, Zhiyuan WU, Deputy Director of Development Research Centre of Shanghai Pudong District Municipal People’s Government, Shilian SHAN, Party Secretary of SJTU School of Media and Communication, Shantanu DUTTA, USC Academic Director ICCI and Professor of USC Marshall School of Business, Baizhu CHEN, USC Co-Academic Director ICCI and Professor of USC Marshall School of Business, Ben LEE, USC Co-Director of Zizhu New Media Management Research Centre and Professor of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, over 20 research participants of Zizhu New Media Management Research Centre Joint Projects from USC and SJTU, and more than 30 enterprise elites such as Ding CHEN, Vice General Manager of Shanghai Zizhu Creativity Hub Co. Ltd., Yuetian CHEN, Partner of S. Capital, Li YAN, Executive Assistant and General Manager of Strategic Development of Huawen Media, Weimin ZHANG, Dean of ICCI, Jinzhang JIANG, Vice Dean of ICCI, Feng ZHAO, Vice Dean of ICCI. Industrial elites from other areas of cultural and creative industry and students together attended the meeting.
The symposium was chaired by Ben LEE, USC Co-Director of Zizhu New Media Management Research Centre, Professor of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Prof. Ben LEE introduced Zizhu New Media Management Research Centre and its latest research updates. The Centre, jointly established by ICCI and USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, held its first international symposium on March 18 last year, during which scholars from USC and SJTU shared their research proposal on eight research projects pertaining to new media management. After one year’s time, this second symposium gave the audience a collective update on the latest research progress of these eight research projects.
Weimin ZHANG, Dean of ICCI, warmly welcomed all the guests and scholars from around the world. He mentioned that SJTU proactively responded to President Xi’s call of “telling the world Chinese stories”, and made internationalization as the school’s important strategic move, bridging the east and west, promoting the global advancement of science and the global prosperity of culture. Building on the advantages of two top universities, ICCI was expected to make great contributions to Shanghai’s pursuit of becoming the world’s cultural and creative centre.
Shilian SHAN, Party Secretary of SJTU School of Media and Communication, in his remarks, elaborated the revolution in the global media and communication field for past few years and described current status of the industry. He believed that the Centre was an excellent platform for research and knowledge sharing, which would surely bring new energy into the industry and suggest new ideas and paths for growth.
Shantanu DUTTA, USC Academic Director ICCI, Professor of USC Marshall School of Business was confident that the Centre, with its innovative research mode, could provide strong intellectual support for the development of cultural and creative industry in both US and China. He said Los Angeles(LA) and Shanghai were two capitals of cultural and creative industries and they had much to learn from each other. He expected Shanghai to seize opportunities for rapid growth in the great tide of cultural and creative industry advancement.
Ding CHEN, Vice General Manager of Shanghai Zizhu Creativity Hub Co. Ltd. agreed with Shantanu DUTTA and he said LA had already grown into a mature hub of cultural and creative industry however Shanghai was still an emerging market which embodied tremendous opportunities. He hoped that the Centre could focus on research, share the knowledge between the east and the west, keep close to industries and make contribution to the maturity of Shanghai’s cultural and creative industry.
The symposium invited several keynote speakers to make speeches on cultural and creative industry development in the U.S. and China. David Randolph CRAIG, Assistant Professor of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism made a speech titled “What My Chinese Students Have Taught Me: The Cross-Cultural and Multi-Generational Dialectical Pedagogy of Media Studies”. He vividly told us how he transformed from a Hollywood producer to a scholar who focused on teaching and research, and illustrated the recent development of global media industry and his experience of being a teacher. Prof. CRAIG had taught the course Global Hollywood for three consecutive years in ICCI, which was highly popular among students. In his speech, he said, “I am always much impressed by students’ creativity and extraordinary learning abilities. We learn from each other with mutual respect. Our classes are just like labs that encourages and generates new knowledge and inspirations. ”
Yuan ZENG, Deputy Director, PhD, Researcher of Shanghai Management Office of Cultural Affairs, explained how the newly-published ” 50 Guidelines for Cultural and Creative Industries of Shanghai” could help the boost of Shanghai’s cultural and creative industry in the new era. He mentioned that in next five years, the added value of Shanghai cultural and creative industry will take up around 15% of the city’s total output value and by 2030 the percentage will reach about 18%. By 2035, Shanghai is expected to grow into an internationally influential cultural and creative centre. Guided by these goals, there were immense industrial investment opportunities in following market segments of cultural and creative industry, i.e. film, art performance, cartoon, game, internet culture/literature, creative design, publishing, artwork, etc., which would naturally stimulate a great demand for young talents. He hoped that students from ICCI could contribute more in this unstoppable tide of cultural and creative industry advancement.
In the afternoon, scholars and guest speakers were grouped into three panels for presentation and discussion with different panel themes, i.e. Social Media Entertainment; Entrepreneurship; Design in Big Data and Health-Based Apps.
PANEL ONE: Social Media Entertainment: Creators, Content, Motivations, and Monetization
Prof. David Randolph CRAIG worked with Weihua YU, Associate Researcher of SJTU School of Media and Communication on the research of Chinese Social Media Entertainment Industries. Prof. CRAIG focused on the rising heat of Wanghong Economy and live-streaming, pointed out their current traits and revealed how Chinese livestreamers are operating to craft sustainable businesses. Weihua YU compared and analyzed the ecological development of social media Media in China and the U.S.
Lian JIAN, Assistant Professor of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Yi XU, Researcher of ICCI, made speeches on their co-research of Motivations and Behaviors in Live Streaming from a Cross Cultural Perspective. Their projects examined personality traits and motivations of active live streaming audience in China, as well as their user behaviors, including watching, chatting, and tipping. Research showed that audience were primarily motivated by social networking, information, and entertainment. Social interaction positively predicted tipping behavior. Subjective norms of tipping, and one’s general attitude toward live streaming were also positive predictors of tipping.
Tianshu SUN, Assistant Professor of USC Marshall School of Business and Prof. Jinzhang JIANG, Vice Dean of ICCI, conducted a deep research on Consumer Behavior and Monetization Strategies in Chinese Music Market. They distributed over one thousand questionnaires to depict music app users’ behaviors of music consumption, discovery and payment. Meanwhile, the industry competition analysis was carried out to discuss the barriers and potential monetization opportunities for music industry at present, which could be much valuable to enterprises in this area.
After presentations, panelist, industry respondents and the audience held discussions around heated topics like fan economy, segmentations of live stream audience, and the usage of consumer data from Internet companies. Li YAN, Executive Assistant and General Manager of Strategic Development in Huawen Media commented that based on the observation of the industry, a majority of the livestream audience were actually from fourth or fifth-tier cities and districts. And another phenomenon was about concomitant income of music. It partially came from the platform of music apps, and a greater part was from fans’ contribution offline.
PANEL TWO: Entrepreneurship, Infrastructure and Policies
Associate Professor of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism Patricia RILEY conducted research on the start-ups of the cultural and creative industry, and made a report titled “Chinese and US Start-Ups in the Entertainment and Cultural Industries: Achieving the Vision through Leadership, Knowledge Sharing and Strategic Communication”. The research applied the methodology of conducting interviews to compare the goal setting, social responsibility, government funding, founders’ family backgrounds, attitude towards financing, risks and government policies of start-ups in the U.S. and China. Patricia expressed that the cultural and creative industry in China currently had great demand for creativity and innovation with an ever-expanding market, under which circumstance there would be superb opportunities to fulfill entrepreneurial dreams.
Hernan GALPERIN, Associate Professor of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalis, joined hands with Dong ZHOU, Associate Professor of SJTU School of Media and Communication on the research ” Connected Cities and Digital Opportunities: Comparing two Cultural Industries Capitals – Shanghai and Los Angeles ” and together updated the research progress. Hernan GALPERIN pointed out that the future development of cities would largely depend on the development of the audio and video networks. He examined the distribution of broadband network in LA and founded considerable maldistribution, which was aggravated under the influence of time and income inequality. Dong ZHOU assessed the impact of digital media on social development in China through qualitative and quantitative analyses from the perspectives of employment and income, political trust, social equality, corruption rate, traditional media consumption, etc. and hoped to provide advice on new media management and the spread of network coverage in the future.
Yu HONG, Young Professor of “ZJU One-Hundred Talents Program” in ZJU College of Media and International Culture (Former Assistant Professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism), and Jian XU, Professor of Vice Dean of SJTU Institute of Arts and Humanities, reported the latest updates on their joint research program “Defining China’s New Digital Capitalism: The Legal Contention of BAT”. Yu HONG stated the research background of the legal construction of network governance in China. Jian XU took the example of the most representative global Internet company Alibaba and analyzed intellectual property disputes during last decades. He researched on the legislative design, legal protection and administrative controls of intellectual property. Observations were also made for the game and conflicts among government, judicial system and enterprises during the Internet development. He said the conflicts over intellectual property between the U.S. and China needed to be mediated in governmental and enterprise levels to reach a consensus and create a win-win situation.
Guest speaker Baizhu CHEN, USC Co-Academic Director ICCI, Professor of USC Marshall School of Business, commented on the topics of three above-mentioned projects. He cited the story of “Peng Ci” to explain different social behaviors under distinct legal systems in different countries, which resonated well with the audience. Zhiyuan WU, Deputy Director of the Development Research Centre of Shanghai Pudong District Municipal People’s Government, shared his thoughts on the cultural and creative industry of Shanghai. He said that the development of digital cultural industry could be an important opportunity for growing cultural and creative industry. Shanghai should make contributions to the cultural prosperity of the national and even the world, promoting the creation of new ideas, contents, trends and rules through cultural exchange to benefit more individuals.
PANEL THREE: Design in Big Data; Health-Based Apps and Doctor-Patient Communication
Gerald Thomas GOODNIGHT, Professor of USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Qian WANG, Lecturer of SJTU School of Media and Communication demonstrated their research findings together on the topic of “Doctor-Patient Relationships and Use of Health-Based New Media: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study”. This research focused on the positive influence of new media app on improving doctor-patient communication and relationships. Currently, cases of medical disputes was on the rise with increasing criticism on medical staff from the public, and social platforms had become a significant channel for discussing these issues. Research showed that although ordinary users of social platforms were quite active in discussing medical disputes online, those personal accounts of doctors were more influencing. Doctors gradually became important key opinion leaders.
Ben LEE, Professor of USC Co-Director of Zizhu New Media Management Research Centre, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and Bing XIAO jointly presented on their research topic “Visual Design Principles in Era of Big Data”. Bing Xiao said that the primary purpose of visualization was to achieve more effective understanding of information using graphics. However, data visualization did not have to be mundane due to its functional exertion. The research strove to combine aesthetic forms and functional needs to explore how data could communicate intuitively, and the application of the design principle that follows.
During the panel discussion, researchers, respondents, and the audience held a lively discussion on topics like data visualization and the impact of traditional media and new media on solving medical disputes.
At the end of the symposium, Prof. JIANG made a closing remark on “The Current Situation and Future Trend of Cultural Industry Research in China”. He pointed out that from 1990s in China, cultural industry had experienced a robust growth taking the form of knowledge innovation, the process of which featured the dynamic interaction among policies, industry and the academic research. The academic research on cultural industry had different characteristics based on various policies. Prof. JIANG and his team monitored and measured the data of all literature and academic papers via bibliometric technique of CNKI, and compared them with the Economic Value Added of cultural industry, its growth rate, and its percentage of GDP, with the aim of explaining the directions of three forces, i.e. policies, industry and the academic research, their orders in taking the lead and mutual influence throughout different periods of the time. He asserted that from 2012 onwards, with the accelerating development of cultural industry, academic research had entered a brand-new phase, surpassing the actual growth of industry to lead the industrial direction and policy-making.