A two-day Expert Meeting on New Challenges of Media Training was jointly held by Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), Pakistan National Communication for UNESCO (PNCU), and Information Services Academy (ISA) on 2-3 January 2020 at Information Services Academy, Islamabad. The meeting was aimed at rethinking training methods in an Age of New Media, reviewing how media landscape is evolving in the wake of global technological advancements and digitization, and discussing strategies for bracing up our media to harness full potential of opportunities offered by New Media.
ISESCO, headquartered in Rabat, Morocco, was founded in 1979 by Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). ISESCO, a 54-member body, is one of the largest international Islamic organizations. It intends to develop professional capacities and skills of young media professionals in the Asian member states. To accomplish the task, it has selected Pakistan for the establishment of ISESCO Regional Centre for Media Training and Qualification for the Asia Region at Information Services Academy, Islamabad. The said two-day Expert Meeting is a first of a series of capacity building workshops and training activities in this regard.
Speaking at the closing session of the meeting, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Information and Broadcasting remarked, “We must invest liberally in training our media professionals in cutting-edge technologies that are rapidly changing media landscape globally”. In his remarks, Mr. Zahoor Ahmed Barlas, Director General Information Services Academy said, “Information and communication technologies can be used as effective tools for bridging communication gap between the rulers and the public”. He emphasized on the need of investing in cyber research to better cope with the challenges posed by New Media
The meeting included Panel Discussions by renowned media Professionals and academicians on key thematic areas of New Media Training: The Adequacy of Curriculum, Conventional Media to New Media: Shifting roles and Emerging Trends, and Digital Media and Data Journalism” building Capacities. It was followed by Focus Group Discussion on topics of Digital Adaptation and Broadcast Trends in the Age of Social Media, Redefining Freedom and Censorship in the wake of cyber threats and fake news, Rethinking Training Methods in the Light of Emerging Trends in Media, and Enhancing international outreach of Pakistani media: Exploring the 5th Generation warfare.
Later on each Group made presentation on policy recommendations for improving training contents and methods in the light of emerging trends in the media landscape all over the world. Major recommendations include the need for effective training to plan and strategize corporate, development and social communication campaigns. Media trainers need to focus on behavioral change communication strategy. It includes working on the belief system and restructuring their thoughts. It was highlighted that business structure of media organizations also needs to be revamped in the light of new media trends.
Moreover, syllabus contents of the media training institutes should be updated quite frequently to make it abreast with the emerging trends and technologies in the field. It should also focus on areas like cover conflict, ethics of journalism, and citizen journalism. Standard practices of data visualization like spreadsheets, pivot table, graphs and charts etc should also be incorporated in the syllabus contents of media training..
The participants suggested that perception management, and online reputation management should also be introduced in the training of media professionals. It includes how to educate media practitioners to innovate, create and disseminate effective content that could resonate with the people.
Furthermore, need for effective regulation was also felt in order to insulate people against the misuses of new media, like fake news and propaganda stunts because the new media is not only impacting lives of people but is also influencing the national agenda setting. It was recommended that centers of excellence for media training need to be established to train media owners before issuing them licenses to set up TV channels.
The recommendations of the Expert meeting will be compiled in to a report which will provide guidelines for introducing New Media Training regime in Pakistan in line with new Global media trends and advanced media technologies.
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