史安斌教授在XX年gbj毕业典礼上的讲话
dr.shi, anbin
(associatedean of international development and professor of media and cultural studies, schoolof journalism and communication, tsinghua university)
july 4, XX
on behalf of the school and in the name of dean liu, binjie, firstof all, i should convey my heartfelt congratulations to the class of XX ofthe ma program in global business journalism (gbj), with the school ofjournalism and communication, tsinghua university (tsjc). today is your day;you are all the shining super stars!
i should also thank allfaculty, staff, sponsors, parents and friends to make these young ladies andgentlemen to fulfill their chinese dream in the “tsinghua garden”, one of themost beautiful campuses around the globe recognized by forbes. among others, iwould make a special mention of wonderful work done by the gbj co-directors,professors hang, min and rick durham, and last but the least, our hard-workingand customer-friendly gbj officers, ms. rose li and ms. olivia zhou .
in particular, i want to acknowledge the persistentsupport from international center for journalists (icfj), bank of america merrill lynch, the knight foundation, andbloomberg, to make this program happen and sustain for the past seven years.
on this special occasion,i want to convey dean liu binjie’s best wishes and goodwill for class XX. lastyear, he retired from the position as the minister of state administration ofpress and publication and is now acting as the deputy chair for the committeeof education, science, culture and public health under the national people’scongress, china’s top legislative branch. i also want to pay a special tributeto the founders of this wonderful program, the school’s founding dean,professor fan jingyi, and our former executive dean, professor li xiguang，for their foresight of internationalizing journalism educationin china.
during the two- year stay in tsinghua, the class of XXhas the privilege of witnessing china’s dramatic transformation, which will endup in overtaking the u.s. as the world’s no. 1 economy as early as the end ofXX, according to a world bank report released in early may. although most ofchinese officials and experts would cast doubt upon this over-optimisticprediction, no one would deny that china’s rise would remap and reinvent thelayout of the global geopolitical arena since the us overtook the u.k. in the1870s. the coming of “china century” in lieu of “american century” is no longeran urban legend.
in the meantime, we are also witnessing thesoaring impact of china’s new leadership heralded by president xi jiping, whois also a tsinghua alum, or “daddy xi,” as weibo users put it, and his notionof “chinese dream”, and the new premier li keqiang‘s “likonomics.
however, the world stillholds an ambivalent attitude toward china, with half positive and another halfnegative toward china, according a bbc survey released in may. thus, china’scharm campaign to better her national image and enhance her soft power becomesa timely urgency. as future journalists and communicators, the gbj graduates havetherefore been empowered to analyze the china and global interactions with amore multicultural and diverse perspectives in this globalized environ of tsjc,the most internationalized journalism school in china.
since its launchingin september, XX, the gbj program, as the first all-english-taught ma programin journalism in mainland china, have successfully incorporated the variousmedia philosophies and praxis from both china and the rest of the world, andcreated an integrative teaching and learning environment with the participationof faculty and students from china and nearly 50 different countries,constituting a growing united nations of media in a journalism school. in classXX, we have claimed the first gbj graduate from countries like costa rica(keren), lebanon (nadim) , and georgia (koka), extending our alumni to thegreater outreach of the globe.
on this occasion, i also want to make a special mention of the excellent gbj graduates in class XX , ms. laura marti who won the university’s top m.a. thesis award; mr. himanshu kumar sethia from india who won the school’s top m.a. thesis award, who also published extensively with global times; mr. nadim diab who also won the school’s top m.a. thesis award. among chinese students, miss wu yanni won both the university's top graduate award and the m.a. thesis award; miss guo xiaohe, wang wenyu, wang yuqi, wei wei, wu danni and xiao dan won the school's top ma thesis award.
in the next decadeof tsjc’s development, the gbj program still remains the core of our school’s long-termgoal of interdisciplinary integration and academic globalization. i hope youall cherish this tsinghua motto of “self-discipline and social commitment” andmake your own contributions to shaping a more sustainable world and a morepeaceful global community for the next decades and centuries.
another less knowntsinghua motto is coined by professor chen yin-que in memory of his colleague,professor wang guo-wei and is engraved on wang ’s monument, quietly situated ina corner not far from the omnicom building. both professors wang and chen wereamong the four tutors of chinese classics in the 1920s. professor chen’s axiomreads: “independent thinking; free will.” this is also the motto for everytsinghua graduate, no matter you will become a journalist, pr professional or aceo in the foreseeable future, to maintain independent thinking and free will.
one of the emergent globalissues is the economic disparities and widening income gap, not merely seen inthe developing countries in china, but also adequately uttered by recentprotests in egypt, brazil and turkey, even in welfare nations like sweden inthe wake of the sweeping “occupying the wall street” movement in XX. thesilent majority never keeps silent in the age of social media. the world hasseen the rise and heard the voice of “global 99%”, the newly-rising middleclass, the angry young men, and still a larger body of people from the lowerstratum.
harvard professor of history,neil fergusson, published an article last june, calling for the end of americandream as “nightmare,” because it is testified as an accessible and affordable dreammerely for the global 1%, namely, the transnational power elite. it istherefore quite natural for the global community to anticipate the alternative,that is, the chinese dream.
but whither the chinesedream? as our “daddy xi” succinctly put it, chinese dream is people’s dreamwhich provides adequate chances for every “small potato” to shine on their ownstage and to make their life meaningful and valuable. as up to date, the 290 million migrantworkers, a combination of “farmer-cum-workers” in chinese language, stillcontribute to the economic boom not only for china, but also for the rest ofthe world. thus, as business journalists or media professionals, we must alwaysremember to speak for the global 99%, to ensure a better life for one billionpopulation (among them 400 million in china) who are still living in poverty.simply put, journalists and media professionals should always bear this chinesedream, both accessible and affordable for the global 99%, in their mindwhenever and wherever they are making news coverage: to lend a helping hand tothe downtrodden, to give voice and stage for the small potato to shine up, and ultimatelyto achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.
the concept of “harmony”remains the core to the chinese dream. in chinese language, the word of“harmony” (he xie) means that everyone would have enough harvest and have equalright to speak. this chinese dream has been adequately elucidated by all kindof names: confucianism, communism, socialism, welfare capitalism,enlightenment, etc. these different naming reflects that no matter whatideology we uphold, we have shared the same dream for the mankind. i hope allgbj graduates would take a lead in making the dream of a harmonious world cometrue.
as early as the1960s, the founding father of mass communication studies, professor wilburschramm from the us, has proposed the concept of nwico (new world informationand communication order). on june 1st, XX,mr. li congjun, theeditor-in-chief of xinhua news agency published a commentary with the wallstreet journal and called the founding of “united nation of news media,”echoing schramm’s dream of nwico. both xinhua and cctv, along with four otherchinese media organizations, have built the headquarters in major global citiesand expanded china’s visibility throughout the world. with china’s peacefulrise and growing visibility in the global media sphere, i believe the dream ofnwico will come true within your generation, particularly the graduates fromthe gbj program, the real united nations of media based in tsinghua.
in conclusion, i am proudof you all and wish you the greatest success in your future career developmentand lifelong pursuit of freedom, equality and happiness for mankind. whereveryou are booming or roaming, please bear in mind that we are always waiting foryou right here, in tsinghua, your eternal sweet home and haven.