Staff Performance

Nisansala Abeygunasekara and Mahesha Piyumali, Assistant Lecturers from our department, attended the 30th Conference of the Asian Media and Information Centre (AMIC 2024) at the Communication University of China. The conference, themed "Asia as a Knowledge Sharing Society and Internationalization of Higher Education," took place from June 24 to 26 in Beijing. Over 300 scholars and communicators from Central and North Asia participated, resulting in the signing of twenty  of understanding for partnerships among universities and professional associations. The AMIC Beijing Declaration on the Internationalization of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) offering Communication and Journalism Programs was adopted.

The conference featured four plenary sessions covering updates on the internationalization of higher education in Asia, best practices in journalism and communication education, commonalities and differences in journalism issues across Asia, and the Bandung Spirit in the era of AI. Additionally, there were eleven parallel sessions and six masterclasses. This year, the AMIC Asia Communication Award was presented to Dr. Cherian George in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the media and communication field.

During the conference, Assistant Lecturer Nisansala Abeygunasekara presented her research on "Health Communication and Functional Health Literacy" while Assistant Lecturer Mahesha Piyumali presented a research paper titled "Link Building Strategies in Digital PR to Enhance Search Engine Optimization in Public Relations Campaigns," 

From 176 research submissions, six speakers were selected, and Assistant Lecturer Mahesha Piyumali was selected as one of the masterclass presenters. She conducted a session for scholars titled "How to Use Link-Building Techniques to Enhance PR Campaign Visibility and Engagement in Digital Environments."