The first Annual Conference on Digital Media Studies kicks off in Beijing Normal University on August 25. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

The first Annual Conference on Digital Media Studies, with a theme of “Perspectives and Approaches of Creative/Culture Industries”, opened in the Jing Shi Conference Hall of Beijing Normal University (BNU) on August 25.

In the two-day conference, experts and scholars from China and abroad will discuss the opportunities, challenges and future of digital media and the creative cultural industry.

In today’s session, after the opening remarks given by Professor Zhou Xing, dean of BNU’s School of Arts and Communication, five speakers delivered keynote speeches. Dr. Shin Dong Kim, professor in the School of Media and Communication at Hallym University, presented the myth of state in the Culture Industry Policies. Dr. Lorraine Lima from the Arts Management Department at Birkbeck, University of London, shared her views on the opportunities and challenges of digital media. Dr. Derek Johnson, associate professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discussed franchise activism. Dr. Dal Yong Jin, of the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, spoke on the emergence of the Digital Korean Wave in the age of social media, and the Director of the Center for Culture and Technology of Curtin University, Dr. Anna Lucille Montgomery, gave a speech titled Knowledge Clubs: Social Media, Global Networks and Open Access Beyond the Copyright Industries.

In the afternoon, participants discussed both the multi-dimensions of digital content research and creative industry & culture policy.

Four panels on online games, online literature, creative industries and digital culture, consumption and politics are scheduled for tomorrow, when the conference will conclude.

The conference is organized by the Department of Digital Media of Beijing Normal University’s School of Arts and Communication, the Center for Digital Content & Creative Media of Beijing Normal University, Modern Communication, and Global Media Journal.