School of Communication Hong Kong Baptist University

The past few months have been extremely difficult for people in Hong Kong and around the world as we have had to come to terms with the COVID-19 crisis. While maintaining social and physical distance between ourselves has never been so important, still we hold fast in our hearts others' needs and wellbeing. With this in mind, faculty and students at the School of Communication are drawing on their expertise and talents to launch timely projects and initiatives to support the response to the coronavirus pandemic. HKBU’s creative and caring DNA is also expressed in a university-wide "Beat the virus, BU & I" campaign which aims to join with the community during this challenging time.

Community Outreach

Virtual Hackathon: Bringing together global wisdom to beat coronavirus

This 48-hour virtual hackathon and design challenge will offer a forum for innovation by bringing together the ideas of local and international students on ways to address obstacles created by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by mentors and facilitators, hackathon participants aspire to empower the community and improve people’s quality of life by designing solutions and deploying innovation-driven projects to tackle the current crisis, as well as to anticipate future potential social challenges and their solutions.

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Short films competition – "Calling" on youthful creativity

Academy of Film has organised the “Love in the Time of A Quiet Earth” mobile phone short film and animation competition for local secondary school and tertiary/university students. The innovative contest will encourage students to respond creatively to the current COVID-19 outbreak, and to reflect on their thoughts, emotions and observations through the medium of film and animation.

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Building Resilience

Cheery WhatsApp stickers brighten stay-home students' texts

The coronavirus pandemic has forced almost everything to shut down: offices, schools, sport centers, cinemas, public facilities, restaurants…… Since late January students from kindergarteners to doctoral candidates have been asked to stay home and pursue their education online. In order to provide some light relief to students during this challenging time, a student from the Department of Communication Studies has created two sets of whimsical WhatsApp stickers with the lovely characters “戴菌姐”and “毛菇仔” which play on the Chinese words for both virus and mushroom.

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New WhatsApp stickers for UNICEF promote hygiene messages

Six students enrolled in the Strategic Communication Practicum course are assisting UNICEF Hong Kong to launch a campaign called “童你抗疫”. The main objective of this initiative is to provide tangible assistance to children from grass-root families in Hong Kong during the coronavirus outbreak. To encourage social positivity and advocate for healthy habits in a fun way, the group has also created a WhatsApp stickers package with the theme “for every child, hygiene”.

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Professional Development

Webinar: How Chinese Language Journalists dig and tell COVID-19 stories

On 30 April, four months after the first news story on the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan was reported by a Chinese journalist, a webinar on the coverage of the global pandemic by Chinese language journalists will be jointed hosted by the HKBU’s Department of Journalism and the Institute for Journalism and Society. Four journalists from Chinese language media outlets in mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong will share their first hand experiences of covering the arguably biggest stories of their journalistic career. The webinar will be made available live to global audience, who can also interact with the guest speakers at the webinar.

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Webinar: Breaking news, how journalists report on the global pandemic

As COVID-19 reaches every corner of the globe, it is still hard to grasp the scale and scope of its worldwide impact. Virtually no aspect of our lives has been left unaffected. Journalists around the world are reporting on the pandemic from many different angles, and three experienced journalists will discuss how they are currently covering the coronavirus in the US, Hong Kong and mainland China.

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Forum: Ways to combat coronavirus misinformation

The coronavirus has taken the world by storm and generated a tremendous impact on people’s lives. In crises like this, people seek information to assess the situation and to protect themselves and their loved ones. However, concerns exist about the credibility and neutrality of the information circulated in virtual space. In this forum, three speakers from academia and industry share their observations on the phenomenon.

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