On December 10th, the annual academic exchange meeting for the Major Project of National Social Science Fund "Research on the Virtual Reality Media Narrative" was held. The project is headed by Lifang Xu, Professor at the Department of Publishing Science, Associate Dean of Publishing Research Institute, Director of the Digital Publishing Research Institute at Wuhan University.

VIPs attended the academic exchange meeting were as followings:

Qing Fang, Professor, Dean of Publishing Research Institute at Wuhan University,

Rongting Zhou, Professor, Executive Director of the Department of Communication of Science and Technology at the University of Science and Technology of China

Xinxin Zhang, Professor, Dean of the Digital Civilization Research Institute at Shanghai University of Technology;

Shaozhi Chen, Professor, President of Jilin Editing and Publishing Society;

Dawei Zhang, Professor, Executive Deputy Director of the National Textbooks Construction Key Research Base for Journalism at Fudan University;

Xudong Tan, Professor at the Chinese Department of Shanghai University;

Ting Cong, Professor at the Publishing and Digital Dissemination Department of Shanghai University of Technology;

Xiaoqun Yuan, Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Publishing Science Department at Wuhan University;

Ting Feng, Associate Professor and Director of the Advertising Department at Guangdong University of Finance;

Lei Su, Editor-in-Chief of Science &Technology and Publishing (in Chinese);

Jing Li, Executive Editor-in-Chief of Editors’ Friend (in Chinese);

Xiaofang Yang, Deputy Editor of China Publishing (in Chinese);

Jingwei Zhu, Editor-in-Chief of View on Publishing (in Chinese);

Qiong Jin, Executive Editor-in-Chief of Publishing and Printing (in Chinese);

Huijun Zhao, Deputy Editor of Digital Publishing Research (in Chinese);

Wei Dong, Director of the Journal Center at Journal of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (in Chinese); as well as over 30 teachers and students from Wuhan University, University of Science and Technology of China, Wuhan University of Technology, and University of Shanghai for Science and Technology.

In the morning, the project team held an exchange meeting for the Major Project of National Social Science Fund "Research on the Virtual Reality Media Narrative" in a combination of virtual and onsite meeting. Hua Zhang, Party Secretary of the Publishing School at Shanghai University of Technology, welcomed the experts. Members of each sub-project introduced their research progress, interim achievements, and future research plans. During the academic discussion session, the project team members engaged in an in-depth discussion on aspects such as the narrative framework, narrative subject, narrative space, and narrative content of VR media, with active participation from attendees. In the academic round-table discussion, the experts affirmed the interim achievements of the project team and provided suggestions for subsequent research, including focusing on the construction of Chinese-style VRMN, strengthening interdisciplinary cooperation, promoting the integration of theory and practice, deepening narrative theory research, and paying attention to VRM user research in real scenarios.

In the afternoon, the project team visited the Publishing Exhibition Hall at Shanghai University of Technology to gain a deeper understanding of the development history and achievements of the publishing discipline there. Qing Fang and Lifang Xu gave presentations titled Publishing Discipline Construction in AI Era and Bridging Reality and Virtuality: The Experience of Presence in VR Media at the National Textbook Construction Key Research Base for Journalism at Fudan University, followed by a meeting with a team of publishing science teachers and students led by Dawei Zhang.