The UT-SNU-NCCU Symposium “Media in Globalized Asia” was held at Fukutake Hall on November 24th and 25th, 2017. Originally held annually at the University of Tokyo (UT) and Seoul National University (SNU) for more than 20 years, the symposium is now exploring the potential of triangular interactions between Japan, Korea and Taiwan since National Chengchi University (NCCU) joined last year. This article is divided into two parts and reports the first day of the two-day symposium.

Student Poster Session

After the lunch break, a poster session in which students from all three universities presented their research was held. Unlike a typical academic poster session, each student was assigned a 10-minute time slot to give a presentation followed by another 10 minutes of questions and answers, thus combining the characteristics of a student conference presentation (like that held in previous years’ symposia) with a poster session.

21 students gave presentations: 9 from UT, 8 from SNU, and 4 from NCCU. Their topics were diverse, covering such fields as news media and reporting, social media and networks, gaming, film and television studies, public opinion, international relations, and women’s history. They took turns, three or four at a time, displaying their carefully prepared posters and speaking enthusiastically about their topics. Questions and answer sessions were also lively, with particularly keen participation by the visiting faculty members and students.

While some students were already used to speaking in English in public, for others it was a challenging first experience of communication with an international audience. Nevertheless, thanks to several weeks of preparation and their own determination, all succeeded in engaging with the audience and provoking questions and comments that will surely feedback positively into their future research.

Workshop

After the poster session, students participated in the “UT Neighborhood Storytelling Workshop”. The mission of the workshop was to explore the area around the Hongo Campus to collect neighborhood stories and share them with other participants. Five groups were organized in total and each group visited a store to ask “what the best-selling item is” and “what image they have of students of the University of Tokyo”.

Among them, the second group consisting of Soo-min KIM (SNU), Xindi QIN (UT), Yilin TSAI (NCCU) and Dongwoo LIM (UT) stopped by at a photo shop and an art supply store. The shopkeeper of the photo shop said he was taking many pictures commemorating Shichi-Go-San, which is a traditional Japanese rite for children. He added that present-day students of the University of Tokyo are not as smart as they used to be, based on his experience for several decades. On the other hand, the storekeeper of the art supply store said that she felt pity for students of the University of Tokyo because they are feeling pressure from the too high expectations of the society. Prof. Shin Mizukoshi, designer and facilitator of the workshop spoke of the importance of intelligence with down-to-earth thinking.

(You can read Part1 from here)

Please also see the article from NCCU.
– Scholars from 3 Asian Top Communication Programs Met in Tokyo (In Mandarin here)

Text: Lim Dongwoo (MA student), LIN Yi-Ren (PhD student), David Buist (Project senior specialist)
Photo: Rei Horikoshi (MA student), Kiyoko Toriumi (Project assistant professor)
Proofreading: David Buist, Kiyoko Toriumi, Shin Mizukoshi (Professor)