Due to recent pandemic, the 2021 International Conference on Social Development and Media Communication (SDMC 2021) which was planned to be held in Sanya, China, was held virtually online during November 26-28, 2021. The decision to hold the virtual conference was made in compliance with many restrictions and regulations that were imposed by countries around the globe. Such restrictions were made to minimize the risk of people contracting or spreading the COVID-19 through physical contact. There were 300 individuals who attended this online conference, represented many countries including Malaysia, Germany, Russia, and China.

The purpose of the conference is to provide an international platform for experts, scholars, engineers and technicians, and technical R&D personnel engaged in related fields such as "Social Development" and "Media Communication" , to share scientific research results, broaden research ideas, collide with new ideas, and strengthen academic research, and to explore the key challenges and research directions faced by the development of this field, and promote the industrialization cooperation of academic achievements. Experts, scholars, business people and other relevant personnel from universities and research institutions at home and abroad are cordially invited to attend and exchange.

During the conference, the conference model was divided into three sessions, including oral presentations, keynote speeches, and online Q&A discussion. In the first part, some scholars, whose submissions were selected as the excellent papers, were given about 5-10 minutes to perform their oral presentations one by one. Then in the second part, keynote speakers were each allocated 30-45 minutes to hold their speeches. In the second part, we invited four professors as our keynote speakers. Prof. Yushi Jiang, School of economics and management, Southwest Jiaotong University, China, performed a speech: How to overcome online banner blindness? A study on the effects of creativity. And then we had Prof. Zelin Tong, Management School, Hainan University, China who was invited to present his talk Effect of CSR contribution timing during COVID-19 pandemic on consumers’ prepayment purchase intentions: Evidence from hospitality industry in China. A. Prof. Marco Pellitteri, Department of Media and Communication, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China. He presented a wonderful speech: Teaching media through media in China in the period of Covid-19: Using on-line and ‘hybrid’ methods to explain media practise. A. Prof. Jordan Yan, School of Art, Minnan Normal University, China as our finale keynote speakers. He delivered a wonderful speech: Apply bird beak research on Bionic design. Their insightful speeches had triggered heated discussion in the third session of the conference. Every participant praised this conference for disseminating useful and insightful knowledge.

The proceedings are a compilation of the accepted papers and represent an interesting outcome of the conference. Topics include but are not limited to the following areas: Social Development, Media Communication, and more related topics of environment. All the papers have been through rigorous review and process to meet the requirements of International publication standard.

We would like to acknowledge all of those who supported SDMC 2021. The help and contribution of each individual and institution was instrumental in the success of the conference. In particular, we would like to thank the organizing committee for its valuable inputs in shaping the conference program and reviewing the submitted papers.

We sincerely hope that the SDMC 2021 turned out to be a forum for excellent discussions that enabled new ideas to come about, promoting collaborative research. We are sure that the proceedings will serve as an important research source of references and knowledge, which will lead to not only scientific and engineering findings but also new products and technologies.

The Committee of SDMC 2021