On 11 April, a cloud-based dialogue on "Epidemic communication in the context of history: issues and methods", organized by the CenterFor Studiesof Media Development and the School of Journalism and Communication of Wuhan University, was held at Wuhan University. Prof. Wang Runze and Prof. Liu Hailong, Executive Director of the Research Center for Journalism and Social Development of Renmin University of China, were invited to participate in the virtual conference room, where they discussed the spread of the epidemic under the historical scenario with researchers from many domestic universities. The scholars exchanged views on the history of journalism, group communication, mobile communication, community of human destiny, viral communication, cultural studies, political communication, health communication, and other perspectives for four and a half hours.

Professor Wang Runze analyzed the plague in the late Qing Dynasty and the narrative of the ShenBao. She analyzed the reports of the plague in Shanghai in 1911 from the perspective of journalistic history, pointing out that the reports of the plague at that time started from factual reports, knowledge dissemination, institutional construction, and conceptual renewal, and found that the intervention of mass media had an important influence on the overall perception of society at that time, and was closely related to the modernization of public health. According to ProfessorWang, cutting into the study of medical social history from the perspective of journalism communication will help our understanding of the modern transformation of public health in China.

Professor LiuHailong shared his latest reflections on the "Communication studies of Viruses". He argued that the Coronavirus has cast a shadow over human civilization, such as the threat of exceptions to values such as democracy, freedom and privacy, the "othering" of China and the "new Orientalism" triggered by the virus metaphor, and that communication studies has important academic value from the perspective of the virus, and we should restore the material tradition of communication research. Professor Liu Hailong offeredtwo perspectives on epidemic spread from the perspective of "new communication research": "human-mediated" and "virus-mediated", which allowed the researcher to expand our understanding of the "medium" through a constant shift in perspective.

"2020 China Communication Innovation Forum - Cloud Dialogue" is the first seminar held in China since the fight against the Coronavirus, focusing on the spread of the epidemic, attracting nearly 300 listeners from major universities, research institutions and the media. The reflective and theoretical discussions by scholars from the perspective of humanities and social sciencewill provide extremely important theoretical references for subsequent research and practice.