The School of Communication of ECNU has two first-level disciplines including Journalism & Communication, and Drama and Film Studies, one doctoral program of first-level discipline on Journalism & Communication and one master’s programs of first-level discipline on Drama and Film Studies.

With the aim of building the national and international first-level discipline, the discipline of Journalism and Communication borrows the developing experience of international first-level discipline of Journalism and Communication, and competes with the discipline of Journalism and Communication in other domestic universities. The school pulls together resources, such as education journalism communication and new media, visual culture and cross-cultural communication, advertising and media economics. School of Communication launches stagger competition with Journalism and Communication schools of other universities, highlighting its own characteristics. It tries to construct the development pattern of “big communication” and to form the disciplinary predominance of “big communication”.

1.Enjoying the superiority of the discipline, and highlighting the research characteristics of education journalism communication; focusing on development of new media, and deepening theoretical study of journalism and communication by exploring new media and media integration.

2.Combining visual culture and cross-cultural communication, and discussing how to improve the efficiency and effects of cross-cultural communication through visual culture communication.

3.Enhancing the theory of editing & publication and media culture study under the background of new media and cultural development.

4.Enhancing the advantages of communication of television and film, and further extending television and film communication theories and practice study.

5.Studying the characteristics and laws of advertising, and combining Chinese elements and advertising communication to build brands of enterprises and cultures and to building images of cities and countries.

Relying on deep cultural accumulation of literature, history and philosophy, the discipline of Drama and Film Studies aims to build a solid theoretical foundation of drama and film, and to choose potential research directions. The School is striving to attain the national first-level academic level and educational level in many majors. In choosing academic directions, the School determines not to blindly follow others. Based on the advantages and academic environment, the School tries to make use of the advantages to choose directions. Moreover, the School emphasizes the spirit of perseverance to achieve a higher level. The specializations of this discipline are Film Studies, Broadcasting and Television Studies, and Drama & Broadcasting Hosting Art. It benefits from the foundations laid by two undergraduate disciplines including Broadcasting and Television Director, and Broadcasting & Hosting. The advantages of this discipline are:

1.This program offers many directions for students to choose. Supervisors are dedicated to different directions, therefore students have many choices, such as theories of film, theories of TV, drama, documentaries, and animations.

2.Education of this discipline has attained a high level. Undergraduate education focuses on practical aspect; however, graduate education focuses on theoretical aspect. For example, in the aspect of film theories, it is involved with the study of film noumenon and the study of languages, and the aesthetics study of Chinese films; in the aspect of documentaries, it is involved with media noumenon; in the aspect of animation, it is involved with American TV animation and comparison between American and Chinese animation.

3.Fundamental theoretical education is emphasized. Among graduate courses, fundamental theoretical courses take a large proportion (over 30%). Besides the fundamental courses, students will be offered communication studies, art theories and cultural theories.

The aim of this discipline is to strengthen the master’s program of Drama and Film Studies, to become the international first-level discipline in the fields of animation studies and documentaries studies and to apply for the doctoral program of first-level discipline at the appropriate time.