Zhan Zhang

Zhan Zhang teaches at Institute of Media and Journalism (IMeG), Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society, Università della Svizzera italiana (USI).She is the academic programme coordinator of Master in Media Management, and she conducts research and organizes scientific & educational activities for China Media Observatory (CMO) at USI.

Zhan finished her bachelor's and first master's degree in TV Journalism in Communication University of China (Beijing), and accomplished her European master degree in Aarhus University (Denmark) and University of Florence (Italy) with the rewarded Erasmus scholarship in Arts in Media, Communication and Culture Studies. She worked for both Chinese media (China Central Television, Kaiming) and Western media (The Independent, Variety) before her academic career. She finished her PhD in Communication Sciences at USI in April 2015, summa cum laude. Between 2016 and 2017, she carried her early postdoc project at Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism of the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, the United States, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

She co-founded the Europe-China Dialogue: Media and Communication Studies (doctoral) Summer School with the School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University in 2014. And she has been supporting CMO and USI to initiate academic collaboration with different Chinese universities in the field of media, communication and culture studies since 2011.

Her main research and teaching areas include media narrative analysis, international strategic communication, media in emerging markets, and China’s soft power in Europe.