The School of Journalism and Communication at South China University of Technology was founded in July 2004. Currently, there are 65 academic staff members, including 19 professors (11 doctoral supervisors) and 46 other faculty members. With a growing academic foundation, the School has gradually established a competent teaching and research faculty in journalism and communication. We have a competitive faculty, such as those titled National Talents, Leading Talents of Guangdong Province Pearl River Talent Program, Young Talents of Guangdong Province Special Support Program, and Talents of the University Level. The School has been granted authorization to offer doctoral degree and master of arts programs for the first-level discipline of journalism and communication, a professional master's degree program, and establish a center for post-doctoral research in journalism and communication. Currently, the School has three majors: journalism, communication, and computational advertising-and-brand communication. There has been an established multi-level integrated talent cultivation system for undergraduates, masters, PhDs, and postdoctoral students in the School.
The School has established four departments and two centers: the Department of Journalism, the Department of Brand Communication, the Department of Audiovisual Communication, the Department of New Media Communication, the Experimental Teaching Center, and the Humanistic Education Center. In terms of the first-class undergraduate majors, the School has been granted two national-level majors: communication (the specializations of internet and new media and audio-visual communication) and advertising (brand communication specialization), and one provincial-level major: journalism. Additionally, a 2+2 double-degree class of communication (co-cultivated with the School of Journalism of the University of Missouri, USA) is opened. As for teaching programs, it owns four national first-class undergraduate courses and nine provincial first-class undergraduate courses.
The current teaching and experimental apparatus, which includes 19,490 books and 4,063 square meters of administrative laboratory, is valued at 10 million yuan in total. Besides, there is a Journalism and Communication Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center (one of the 7 sub-centers under the National Comprehensive Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center for Liberal Arts, including the Integrated Media Laboratory, Photography and Video Laboratory, Motion Capture and Mixed Reality Laboratory, and Webcasting Laboratory, etc.).
Taking advantage of the major historical opportunity of the construction of “the New Liberal Arts” and the Higher Education Philosophy and Social Science Prosperity Program, the School has made outstanding scientific research achievements in recent years, and the overall strength of the discipline has been significantly improved. The discipline of journalism and communication was ranked 12th in China and broke into the top 10% in the “2021 Ranking of China's Best Disciplines by Soft Science. In the past five years, the School has approved 1 major project, 2 key projects, 1 late-funded key project, 13 general projects, and 1 youth project of the National Social Science Foundation; published more than 30 SCI and SSCI papers and nearly 200 CSSCI papers; and won 1 provincial and ministerial social sciences award for youth achievements: 1 first prize, 2 second prizes, and 1 third prize.
With Guangzhou's geographic advantage and the news media's industry advantage in South China, the School fully creates rich practical and employment opportunities for students. The majority of our graduates work for the central and regional mainstream media, Internet companies, the world’s and China’s top 500 enterprises, as well as government departments and government-affiliated institutions. On the whole, all these contribute to a collection of exceptional talents who are renowned for their great practical abilities, wide knowledge base, and sound fundamental skills.
