On June 23,the Opening Meeting ofResearch on the Virtual Reality Media Narrative, the 2021 Major Project of the National Social Science Fund of China, was held via virtual and reality combination meeting. ProfessorLifang Xu, Director of theDigital Publishing Instituteof Wuhan University,is the chief expert of this project.

The experts participated in the opening meeting were as followings:

Chuanfu Chen, head of the expert review group, Senior Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Wuhan University,

Ran Ao, Executive Vice President and Secretary-General of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association,

Liying Lin, General Manager of the China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Co., Ltd.,

Xinzhou Xie, Professor and Dean of the New Media Research Institute, Peking University,

Kun Zhang, Professor and Dean of the National Communication Strategy Research Institute, Huazhong University of Science and Technology,

Yang Shen, Professor and Director of the Metaverse Culture Laboratory, School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University,

Jie Chen, Professor and Executive Director of the Digital Publishing Research Center, Zhejiang University,

Jun Xiao, Professor and Deputy Director of the Center for Studies of Media Development, Wuhan University,

Jianhong Li, President ofPublishing Research.

Xiaoguang Wang, Professor and Associate Dean of our School, presided over the opening ceremony.Qing Fang, Professor and Dean of the Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, Wuhan University,Wei Lu, Professor and Dean of our School, delivered speeches.Lifang Xumade the overall report of the project. She pointed out that virtual reality, as the next-generation media, will lead to a brand-new way of communication, dissemination and sharing of information, knowledge, emotion and meaning, and push mankind into the era of "post-symbol communication". This project would devote to building the core conceptual framework and basic theory of Virtual Reality Media Narrative (VRMN), and explore the feasibility of VRMN in methodology and practice from the perspectives of narrative text creation and generation, technical norms and standards, user interaction and feedback. On this basis, China's virtual reality media narrative system should be built up, and the system would make contributions to accumulating Chinese narrative resources and enhancing the position of the country in future media narrative.

Five sub-project leaders, which areQing Fang, Professor at our School,Rongting Zhou, Professor at the Department of Communication of Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China,Lixin Ding, Professor at the School of Computer Science, Wuhan University,Jinhong Liu, Professor at the School of Law, Humanities and Sociology, Wuhan University of Technology,Xinxin Zhang, Professor at the Department of Publishing and Digital Communication, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, gave brief reports on the research contents, research ideas, research difficulties and research plans of the sub-topics. They said that this project would take the narrative activities of virtual reality media as the research object, through scientific investigation and research, clarify the related concepts, essence and influence of VRMN, analyze the content creation and generation mechanism of VRMN, sort out the feedback and interaction mechanism of users, explore the supporting role of technologies and norms for the above mechanisms, and finally put forward the countermeasures for the construction of China's VRMN system, so as to implement the goal of "telling Chinese stories to the world in Chinese discourse".Lei Xu, Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Department of Publishing Science of our School, presided over the report session of the project team.

Jie Xu, Professor and Director of the Department of Publishing Science of our School, presided over the expert review session. Experts thought that the project topic selection has important theoretical value and practical significance. The overall project planning and sub-project design have clear objectives and logic. The follow-up project research can further learn from the rich media and narrative theory resources, clarify the causes and contradictions of different media and their narrative modes, and build a solid VRMN basic theoretical system; Based on the concept of "science and technology serving people, people-oriented", pay attention to the practical transformation and applicability of achievements, and provide intelligent support for management departments from the perspective of industry development; Highlight "Chinese characteristics" and serve the practical needs of telling Chinese stories well in digital space with advanced technology and means.

Chuanfu Chenmade a conclusion of the opening meeting. He fully affirmed the value of project topic and research framework, and put forward suggestions and expectations for the future work of the project team as followings:

Firstly, it is necessary to conciliate the problems, focus on the theme, focus on the implementation of the project research work, strive to produce landmark, high-level and visible academic achievements, and provide support for relevant major decisions of the state and industry;

Secondly, it is necessary to highlight the cultural connotation, integrate Chinese values and traditional culture as important factors into the project research, and build a virtual reality media narrative theoretical system with Chinese characteristics;

Thirdly, pay attention to the actual needs, strive for the project research to meet the real needs of the publishing field and cultural industry, keep pace with the times, and enhance the engineering value of the project and the applicability of the research results.