In recent years, the scale of China's Internet continues to expand. As December 2020, China's netizens are 989 million, and the Internet penetration rate is 70.4%; the scale of domestic mobile Internet users reached 986 million, and the proportion of Internet users using mobile phones reached 99.7%. The rapid rising of network and new media platforms have greatly promoted the development of society and profoundly changed our way of life. At the same time, the network has brought us many problems. Network public events occur frequently, which seriously affect the society. How to manage the network and use the network to promote social, economic and cultural development has become a major issue. General secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that we should uphold the correct direction of public opinion, attach great importance to the construction and innovation of means of communication, and enhance the dissemination power, guidance, guidance, influence and credibility of news media. We should strengthen the construction of Internet content, build a comprehensive network management system, and create a clear cyberspace. The Network Communication Research Center, established on March 28, 2008, is trying to make constructive achievements in strengthening the construction and management of network culture, playing to the important role of the Internet in China's socialist cultural construction, and enhancing China's soft power.

Under the leadership of Professor Zhong Ying—director of the center and associate professor Chen Shaohua—deputy director of the center, the Network Communication Research Center has made a series of achievements in teaching and research, personnel training and team building since its establishment. In terms of teaching and scientific research, the center relies on HUST-Jingcai video new media laboratory to provide public opinion and data support for relevant government departments; based on the current situation of media convergence in Hubei Province, it provides suggestions and countermeasures for both province and county levels’ media convergence construction; the cases and data are directly used in the classroom to provide detailed case teaching research. In terms of personnel training, the center provides a scientific research and practice platform for students at all levels. On the one hand, it cultivates undergraduates' interest in scientific research; on the other hand, it creates new media operation platforms for postgraduates. At the same time, it has led doctoral students and young and middle-aged teachers in the academic community to devote to the network communication and new media research. At present, the center has constructed a systematic and complete new media social responsibility index and innovation index, and published the blue book of new media social responsibility for six consecutive years. In terms of team construction, around the network communication research center, we have built an academic team with reasonable age structure for the elderly, middle-aged and young scholars. Members cover the age groups of the post-60s, Post-70s, post-80s and post-90s. There are more than 10 professors and doctoral supervisors, more than 20 associate professors and master's supervisors, and more than 100 master and doctoral students.

For the future, the center will continue to focus on the issues such as network communication and new media, and strive to build a high-level network communication research academic platform. At the same time, it should strengthen the academic community of network communication and new media research, build a network data center concerned by the government and industry, promote the new media social responsibility index to become the industry standard, and constantly promote academic research to be in line with international standards, focus on the frontier, and promote academic exchanges with foreign countries.