Abu Dhabi, November 17 (BNA): The third and final day of the Global Media Conference (GNC) witnessed many discussion sessions that focused on a variety of topics, including the role of media in promoting national identity, diversity and inclusiveness in society. The digital age, the psychological aspect of consumers, and bridging the skills gap to keep pace with the Fourth Industrial Revolution and beyond.
The activities of the third day began with a session in which the Director of the Information Office of the UAE Government, Saeed Al-Attar, participated in a session that dealt with the role of the media in promoting national identity in light of the repercussions of cultural globalization.
During which he held talks with Abdullah Abdul Karim, Acting Executive Director of the News Content Sector at the Emirates News Agency (WAM).
Al-Attar said that the Global Media Conference brought together media talents from the east and west of the world to discuss the challenges facing the sector and work on crystallizing a forward-looking vision for its future, thanking WAM and the ADNEC Group for organizing this distinguished global event. Event.
The dialogue began with a question about the importance of the media’s role today, more than ever, in consolidating national identity.
Al-Attar said that the world today has changed, and people live in a state of economic globalization as well as cultural globalization, and according to global statistics, the average person spends 7 hours on the Internet every day.
According to those statistics, people spent about 12 trillion hours on social media and websites over the past year.
He pointed out that there is a cultural globalization that is spreading widely, as there are more than 200 entertainment platforms around the world, with an audience of about 1.4 billion people.
This indicates that strong countries have a strong national identity that they are proud of, and even seek to export it to the world, and the UAE is one of the leading models at the global level for countries that are proud of their national identity.
The session “Diversity and Inclusion in the Digital Age, Women in the Media” shed light on the active role of women in the media sector, and the participants talked about the history of women in the sector and the difficulties they faced in entering and taking steady steps forward.
The panel featured Amelia Hooks, Strategic Advisor and SDG 5 Implementing Partner at the United Nations Global Compact Office, from the Netherlands; and Dr. Yemisi Akinbobola, award-winning journalist and academic, consultant and co-founder of the African Women in Media Foundation from Nigeria.
The speakers reviewed the statistics of the past years, which witnessed a greater turnout for women in this field, and who achieved many successes in the media field as a result of the shift in societal perception of them, as women now have a greater presence on the screen.
Speakers also noted the challenges women still face, including employment inequality and racial discrimination in some societies.
Participants in the session “Shedding Light on Regional Media: South America” discussed the importance of media in all its forms and types in confronting false and misleading news, especially those related to policies and health affairs, and work to enhance the skills of journalists and media professionals and provide them with the necessary knowledge to enable them to differentiate between true and false news.
Participants also pointed out the importance of the role of modern technology in confronting such news, such as the use of QR code in guiding readers and directing them to the correct sites for news sources.
Regarding the challenges facing media professionals in Latin America, the participants stressed that assassinations and killings come at the top of the list.
The absence of freedom of expression obliges media institutions to take responsibility for providing them with the necessary protection as much as possible and in the best ways to enable them to continue performing their tasks and avoid media blackout.
During the “The Great Resignation in the Media” session, the speakers discussed the changes taking place in the model used in journalism and media with the spread of technologies and their role in changing society’s perception of the world around them.
They emphasized that the most important issue remains how to use these technologies in the most appropriate and correct way, as the new media era requires diversity of skills and the ability to carry out several tasks simultaneously, all without neglecting the quality of content and focus. About the message to the public, especially the youth who make up the group that makes the most use of these technologies.
A session entitled “Technology and Artificial Intelligence as a Tool for Improving Media Communication” dealt with the role of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies in developing the media work system.
Prof. Dr. El-Sayed Darwish, Professor, College of Communication and Media Sciences, Zayed University, from the United Arab Emirates; Stefanodi Alessandri, executive director of the Italian news agency ANSA. Nizar Zaki, Director of the Big Data Analytics Center and Head of the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the College of Information Technology at UAE University, from the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Mohamed Al-Atef, Senior Regional Manager for Wireless Communications Solutions at Huawei, participated in this session.
Prof. Dr. El-Sayed Darwish spoke about the stages of development of the industrial revolution until the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with all its big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.
And he talked about the positive effects of artificial intelligence technologies, which media organizations began adopting since the beginning of 2010, which included quality standards, and the ability of robots to deliver presentations and news bulletins, as there are press rooms fully equipped with artificial intelligence. hardware.
They are also able to convert texts into images and vice versa, produce multiple documents, monitor digital media performance, meet customer preferences according to their wants and needs, in addition to communicating with sources and verifying their credibility easily and effectively to improve profits and revenues.
Alessandri spoke about the role of artificial intelligence in fueling the growth of his agency’s work despite the concerns of some journalists and staff, and gave a real-world example of how the agency’s website handled news publishing based on blockchain technology during the global health crisis.
He also dealt with the method of employing artificial intelligence in writing articles before being reviewed by journalists and editors, which is of great benefit to the work.
Zaki pointed out the importance of data as a major resource for all sectors, as journalists and media professionals use data to deliver their messages and understand the public.
Al-Atef said that the use of artificial intelligence in the media is very important, and everyone must play a role in consolidating and increasing the effectiveness of the technology, and he talked about the importance of employing artificial intelligence technologies to support the media by providing consistent content, and solving the problem of the language barrier through innovative translation solutions, at the same time for example.