On September 25th, the Juvenile Media Literacy Branch of the Chinese Society of Education, the largest national first-level society in China, convened a meeting to elect five vice presidents. Professor Tong Qingyan, Tenured Professor of the School of Media & Communication of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), Director of the SJTU Cultural Relics Digital Communication Base, Director of the Media Literacy Research Center and Deputy Director of the Oriental Management Research Center, was elected Vice President of the Juvenile Media Literacy Branch of the Chinese Society of Education. The organization focuses on guiding young people to understand the media, know how to use the media to disseminate content effectively and scientifically judge it, help them develop morality and a correct outlook on life, and contribute to a “clean and upright” cyberspace.

Professor Tong Qingyan, who has had a longstanding focus on the media literacy of teenagers, led a team that has published several papers on online intervention in the healthy development of teenagers during COVID-19 prevention and control in SSCI Q1 journals. One of their papers examines the relationship between social media use and crisis emotions and preventive behaviors in emergencies, and proposes that the health communication for COVID-19 prevention should be targeted at groups with low Internet access and media health literacy. The paper, Exploring the Mediating Role of Situation Awareness and Crisis Emotions Between Social Media Use and COVID-19 Protective Behaviors: Cross-Sectional Study, was published in Frontiers in Public Health, in SSCI Q1. Another paper explores the relationship between online chatting and the well-being of teenagers during COVID-19 prevention and control. It points out that online chatting can improve the happiness and self-esteem of teenagers and reduce their solitude under isolation, thereby alleviating the negative psychological impact of the pandemic. The paper, Staying Online, Staying Connected: Exploring the Effect of Online Chatting on Adolescents’ Psychological Well-being during COVID-19 Quarantine, was published in Youth & Society, in SSCI Q1.

Based on the major national project of philosophy and social sciences that she led, “Research on Ways to Enhance the Global Impact of the Chinese Culture in the Network and Digital Age”, Professor Tong Qingyan established a “cultural relics digital communication base”, and is building a “Chinese cultural content IP (Fujian) database” to explore the ways of “bringing cultural relics closer to the youth” to better their understanding of the relics. In addition, she is working with Sparkly Key Animation Studio to stage the event “When the National Treasure Encounters the National Cartoon” to make cultural relics personify historical heroes in the animations popular with teenagers and to allow them to learn about cultural relics and Chinese excellent traditional culture through lantern riddles, which was reported on by a number of media outlets including People’s Daily and CCTV. She also led the team to complete research on the strategy of disseminating youth books worldwide, as well as on the impact of building awareness of the Chinese national community and the online attitudes towards love and marriage and their social influence on adolescents. Professor Tong Qingyan cooperated with the Basic Education Department of the Pudong Education Bureau to complete the report “Cultural Continuity of the Pudong Century-old School”, which relevant departments signed off and adopted.

As early as 2017, Professor Tong Qingyan, an expert with the Tencent Tengyun Thinktank at the time, published a large number of articles on the media literacy of teenagers, such as “SJTU Professor explains in 8,000 words how to view online games both rationally and comprehensively”, which attracted the attention of the government and media and triggered a large number of online discussions. As a result, she was invited by the former Ministry of Culture to Beijing to discuss the healthy development of online games. She is committed to focusing on young people’s Internet usage to protect their physical and mental health.