Celebrating 100+ years of Asian Communication Education and Research at ICA 2025!

At the 75th Annual ICA Conference in Denver, a landmark roundtable commemorated 100+ years of communication education in Asia—pushing beyond the conventionally cited 75-year history of the field. With journalism training beginning in 1917 at Peking University, 1919 in the Philippines, and 1920 in India, the panel highlighted Asia’s longer, yet uneven, journey in shaping communication education.

Chaired by Weiyu Zhang (NUS), the roundtable brought together leading scholars from across Asia—Ang Peng Hwa, Changfeng Chen, Cheryll Soriano, Jack Qiu, Sungeun Chung, and Usha Raman—to reflect on pivotal national trajectories and collective regional transformations.

Panelists traced the rise of academic institutions amidst political shifts and technological changes, critically examining the isolationist tendencies in country-specific research and the global over-reliance on Western frameworks. From India’s interdisciplinary traditions that challenge theoretical dominance to Singapore’s communication research informing public health policy, examples illustrated the global relevance of Asian scholarship.

A key theme was pluralism: rather than pursuing a singular “Asian standpoint,” panelists advocated for multiple grounded perspectives that draw from diverse intellectual traditions—like peace studies—to enrich the global discourse.

Persistent citation imbalances were called out, along with a push for Asian journals to open space for qualitative, context-rich essays. The session closed with a collective commitment to mutual citation, cross-border dialogue, and re-centering Asia’s voice in global communication research.