IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Media, Communication & Film (MediAsia) > MediAsia2025 > Speakers

Speakers

Keynote, Featured and Spotlight Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

Sonja Viktorija Anić

Osaka University, Japan
Jeffry Gayman

Hokkaido University, Japan
Virgil Hawkins

Osaka University, Japan
Azusa Iwane

Global News View, Japan
James S. Moy

University of South Florida, United States
Melina Neophytou

The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
Shuqi Wang

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Become a Speaker

Excellent plenary speakers are central to our conferences, ensuring that timely, innovative and engaging content is presented to our audiences around the world. If you would like to be considered for a speaking slot at one of our conferences, please apply below.

Apply to Speak

Previous Speakers

View details of speakers at past MediAsia conferences via the links below.

		MediAsia2023
MediAsia2022	MediAsia2021	MediAsia2020
MediAsia2019	MediAsia2018	MediAsia2017
MediAsia2016	MediAsia2015	MediAsia2014
MediAsia2013	MediAsia2012	MediAsia2011
MediAsia2010

Salutation

First Name

Last Name

Email Address

Field of interest

Click here to select multiple subscription fields.

Sonja Viktorija Anić

Osaka University, Japan

Biography

Sonja Viktorija Anić is a PhD candidate at the Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, Japan. Originally from Zagreb, Croatia, Ms Anić completed her BA in Japanese Studies at Osaka University, followed by a master's degree at the Osaka School of International Public Policy within the same institution. She worked in English language education for five years before commencing her doctorate degree. She is currently conducting research on media with a focus on misinformation, as well as Japanese media and East Asian international relations.

Featured Panel Discussion (2024) | Media and Power in the Asia-Pacific: IAFOR Global Fellows and IAFOR Research Centre Panel Discussion

Jeffry Gayman

Hokkaido University, Japan

Biography

Jeffry (Jeff) Gayman is Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education and the Research Faculty of Media and Communication at Hokkaido University, Japan. An American by nationality, he has been living and working in Japan for over 30 years, with approximately 20 of those in support of the Ainu people. He obtained his MA in Cross-Cultural Studies in 2005 from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, United States, and his PhD in Education from Kyushu University, Japan, in 2012. His research centres on Indigenous Education and Collaborative Research Methodologies with a special interest in the indigenous Ainu of Japan, a research focus he has honed over twenty years teaching at Hokkaido University. Professor Gayman also has strong interests in Indigenous-mainstream relations, education for intercultural understanding, and human rights education. His most recent publications include Education and Ethnicity of the Ainu People in the Routledge Handbook of Race and Ethnicity in Asia in 2021 and The Ainu Policy Promotion Act and Culture-Centered Indigenous Policies in Japan in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs in 2024. Alongside his research activities, Professor Gayman teaches English to first-year undergraduate students in the Liberal Arts Division of Hokkaido University. In his spare time he enjoys running, hiking, and skiing to stay fit.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | The Meaning and Message of Indigenous and Fourth Media: With a Focus on Media Created by the Ainu

Virgil Hawkins

Osaka University, Japan

Biography

Virgil Hawkins is a professor specialising in world affairs and the news media, and is based at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Osaka University. He obtained his PhD in international public policy from OSIPP, where he focused on international politics, conflict, the UN Security Council and the news media. He proceeded to work for five years for a non-governmental aid organisation, primarily in Cambodia and Zambia, before returning to the university as a faculty member. He has written and edited a number of books, including Stealth Conflicts: How the World’s Worst Violence is Ignored (2008), and Communication and Peace: Mapping an Emerging Field (co-edited, 2015). His work focuses on furthering our understanding of how and why the vast majority of the world remains relatively uncovered by the news media.

To these ends, he has since shifted his focus to work at a more practical level. He co-established the Southern African Centre for Collaboration on Peace and Security (SACCPS) in 2010, which is a network that has brought together researchers and practitioners working on these issues throughout the region. He went on to establish Global News View (GNV), a large-scale media project that 1) analyses trends and deficiencies in the coverage of the world by the Japanese news media, and 2) attempts to compensate for those deficiencies by providing analysis of the state of the world in places that are undercovered.

Featured Panel Discussion (2024) | Media and Power in the Asia-Pacific: IAFOR Global Fellows and IAFOR Research Centre Panel Discussion

Previous MediAsia Presentations

Featured Panel Presentation (2023) | International News Coverage and The Role of Independent Media

Featured Presentation (2019) | Climate Coverage: Getting More and Getting it Done Right

Featured Presentation (2017) | Introduction of Osaka University’s Global News View Database

Azusa Iwane

Global News View, Japan

Biography

Ms Azusa Iwane is the vice-project manager, editor, and a main podcast host at Global News View (GNV), an independent media outlet introducing the Japanese audience to international news overlooked by domestic mainstream media. She is also a researcher specialising in international media coverage and the role of independent media, focusing on raising awareness on poverty issues. Her master’s thesis dealt with how African poverty issues are represented in the Japanese media. Ms Iwane has worked extensively with international development NGOs, including a series of field studies in Zambia to better grasp the effective poverty experienced by mining communities present in the region with the collaboration of the Dag Hammarskjöld Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, Copperbelt University, Zambia.

Featured Panel Discussion (2024) | Media and Power in the Asia-Pacific: IAFOR Global Fellows and IAFOR Research Centre Panel Discussion

James S. Moy

University of South Florida, United States

Biography

James S. Moy is Professor of Theatre and former Dean of the College of the Arts at the University of South Florida, United States. After training as a studio artist, Professor Moy went on to graduate study at The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), United States, where he became interested in happenings and performance art. He completed advanced studies in stage direction during his time at CalArts and eventually a PhD in Theatre History and Playwriting with a dual focus on playwriting and performance history at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States.

Professor Moy has held teaching posts at various American institutions, including The University of Texas (Austin), The University of Oregon, Northwestern University, and The University of Wisconsin—Madison, where he served as Chair of the Department of Theater and Drama. Professor Moy left The University of Wisconsin and served several decanal posts in various institutions worldwide, including the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico, United States; the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; and the School of Fine Art at Ontario College of Art & Design University, Canada. Professor Moy was a Provost and Vice President at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Canada, before returning to a professorship and decanal post at the University of South Florida.

Author of Marginal Sights - Staging the Chinese and editor of several volumes of Theatre Journal, Professor Moy has published over forty scholarly articles and reviews in a variety of refereed journals. A specialist in racial representation, he has lectured internationally from Nanjing and Kuala Lumpur to Ulan Ude, Stockholm, Venice, Edinburgh, Thessaloniki, Aberystwyth, Tampere, and London.

Keynote Presentation (2024) | Alberti, Stendhal, HNWI, and Asian Art

Melina Neophytou

The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Dr Melina Neophytou is an Academic Coordinator at IAFOR, where she works closely with academics, keynote speakers, and IAFOR partners to shape academic discussions within The Forum, bring conference programmes together, refine scholarship programmes, and build an interdisciplinary and international community. She is leading various projects within IAFOR, notably The Forum discussions and the authoring of Conference Reports and Intelligence Briefings.

Born in Germany and raised in Cyprus, Dr Neophytou received her PhD in International Development from Nagoya University, Japan, in 2023, specialising in political sociology, the welfare state, and contentious politics. She received an MA in International Development from Nagoya University with a focus on Governance & Law and a BA in European Studies from the University of Cyprus, Cyprus.

Her research interests currently focus on the Japanese welfare state, family values within Japanese society, and their relationship to family policies. She is particularly interested in state-society relations by uncovering how informal social ideas influence formal social policy.

The Forum (2024) | Global Citizenship: Media & Digital Citizenship

Shuqi Wang

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Biography

Dr Shuqi Wang earned her doctoral degree in Public Policy and Global Affairs from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2024. Her research focuses on international relations, foreign policy analysis, and alliance politics, with a regional specialisation in the Asia-Pacific. Born and raised in China, she completed her undergraduate studies in International Politics and a Master’s degree in Diplomacy at Peking University. Currently, she conducts research on the historical influences on foreign policy preferences within US alliance systems, focusing on the cases of Japan and South Korea.

Featured Panel Discussion (2024) | Media and Power in the Asia-Pacific: IAFOR Global Fellows and IAFOR Research Centre Panel Discussion