On October 30th, 2021, students and faculty members from Tokyo, Taipei, and Seoul had a reunion at the Annual UT-SNU-NCCU Symposium for the first time in a year. This joint international symposium takes place every autumn, co-organized by National Chengchi University (NCCU), Seoul National University (SNU) and The University of Tokyo (UT). With almost 100 registered participants from the three universities, this year’s symposium was hosted by NCCU proposing “Staying Connected: Voice and Hope in a Time of Challenge” as its main theme. Through this event, we were able to reaffirm the trust and friendship that we had forged over the past years, our unfailing passion for research, and shared questions about contemporary society, despite again not being able to meet in person this year because of the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

Graduate students’ research presentations and following Q&A sessions accounted for the main part of this year’s symposium, which consisted of three sub-sessions titled respectively “Communication Technology and Society in a Digital Age,” “Media Persuasion and Entertainment in the Time of Challenge,” and “Current Issues in Political & Cultural Communication.” From III/GSII, four graduate students presented their own research, and Professor Shunya Yoshimi and Professor Ai Hisano provided comments on presentations by the participants from the other two universities. Topics of research presentations covered a wide range of fields, such as history and contemporary society, the local and the global, virtual and actual experiences, popular culture and politics, and technology and arts. While the specific topics were varied, they were all connected in that they attempted to understand the past, present, and future surrounding us and to search for directions in which we should head.

After the heated, intensive meeting lasting around four hours, we said farewell to each other wishing another reunion, hopefully in person in Seoul next year. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to every participant and especially to the organizing team of NCCU who devoted much time and effort to organize this year’s symposium.

〈LINKS〉
Report on the international symposium by NCCU

Text:LEE Minjoo (Assistant professor)
English proofreading:David Buist (Project senior specialist)

Comments from students:

The 2021 UT-SNU-NCCU Joint Symposium was a very stimulating experience, with many fresh issues being raised about modern society and the media that have such a huge impact on it. Even though the event was held online during a pandemic, it was an event that made me realize the importance of solidarity and communication. It was also a great experience for me to prepare and think about how to make my research understandable to people from different academic and cultural backgrounds. I feel the need to think about my research in the context of East Asia and global society. Thank you very much for this precious opportunity.
Yudai Nakagawa, PhD student, Cultural and human information studies course

Participating in the symposium allowed me to rethink the core message of my research. It was also very interesting to learn about the research of other researchers of the same age in Korea and Taiwan. After my presentation, I received comments on my presentation from professors from other universities, and I was very happy to find that we had common interests. And it was very encouraging despite these difficult social circumstances. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the faculty members of the University of Tokyo for their great support in preparing the presentation for this symposium. I appreciate this valuable opportunity.
Yukiko Masuda, PhD student, Cultural and human information studies course

At the UT-SNU-NCCU Symposium, I saw a variety of views and research in various areas related to media. The media environment has undergone major changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and this was evident in the presentations this year. Although there were separate sessions for the presentation of research, there was a remarkable intersection of interests on things such as information technology, culture, and media. As a master’s student, I am very grateful for the opportunity to present at the UT-SNU-NCCU Symposium. I think my presentation turned out better than expected because of the lectures and advice of Professor David Buist and Professor Minjoo Lee. I would like to express my gratitude to the organizing staff for making it possible to hold the symposium online.
Xinyu Zhang, Master’s student, Social-information and communications studies course

Since I am a first-year master student, it was my first time to give a presentation at an international symposium. However, thanks to careful instructions before the event about how to write international papers and speak for the international public, it was a great experience that I could not have in my normal classes and seminars. I also had a chance to see presentations by other students from Korea and Taiwan and find out what kind of problems they are interested in and how they approach them, thus greatly enlarging my view of the world. Finally, I would like to thank all the people who prepared such a valuable event this time.
Natsuo Yamashita, Master’s student, Emerging design and informatics course