Written by Fatima Najm
Abu Dhabi, Nov. 15 (BNA): UAE Minister of Youth, Shamma Al Mazrouei, called for sustainable, honest, tolerant and thoughtful media for youth.
Addressing the inaugural edition of the World Media Conference in Abu Dhabi, the Minister said she looks forward to the participants making decisions that are in the interest of the 3 billion young people under the age of thirty who live today.
“I hope that they will be nourished with thoughtful ideas and good manners through the media they consume, and when left alone with a virtual reality screen or set, that they will be able to develop an authentic identity of their own,” she said in her speech.
“I want to make sure they don’t become accustomed to violence through a shooting game or by aimlessly scrolling down to feed celebrity gossip or wasting their lives feeling disconnected from their own community values and the most pressing issues of their generation.”
Mazrouei refuted the “it’s what the audience wants” argument usually used by media managers who produce questionable content to justify the “guilty pleasure” work they produce.
“Young people are usually portrayed specifically as an audience that wants to be entertained. Period. But, do they? Is that really what the audience wants? Or is that what we made them want, by delivering content they didn’t care about in the public interest for centuries? I wondered.
The minister said that a survey they conducted at the Arab Youth Center on what people want and expect from future media showed that young people, despite their knowledge of technological offerings, gave clear answers that are more important to the content.
“Yes, they want it to be fun—no one likes to be lectured or preached to. And they want to be entertained differently. From what we’ve heard, they want to be intellectually challenged, thoughtfully provoked, and be able to learn new skills.” And the acquisition of new skills and insights that are able to answer life’s most pressing questions and are able to find meaning by finding solutions to their society and the problems of their generation.
“They want a media in which they can borrow real-life experiences, rehearsals for life free of risk. They don’t want an algorithm that reaffirms what they already believe in, and they certainly don’t want a news feed filled with pictures of police uniforms while the world is going through famines and wars and floods and jungles.” burn.”
According to the survey, they want trustworthy information because the flow of knowledge they face as a generation is massive, along with the deep fake technologies that rule this era, making it more and more difficult to discern authenticity, day by day.
“They want media that is relevant in content and style, to the aspirations of their generation, and to the obstacles, and complexities, such as mental health, unemployment and the climate crisis.
They want media that is participatory, that genuinely cares about their future and makes them better citizens, and media that is on their team as an audience.”
Al Mazrouei said that in Sharm El Sheikh where she attended the COP, she did not meet a young man there who did not complain that the media was not doing enough for climate action.
“They said there weren’t enough stories, no real interest, no engaging communities, no getting people worried about the threats we faced,” she said.
“How can we talk about the future of media, if the future of the planet is at stake, and we are not bold enough to present it as the most important (first story) story of every day?
“I know a failed fashion gossip news, celebrity divorce, or even a gaudy vague clickbait headline that somehow bypasses fact-checking — can bring in more clicks, likes, shares, and revenue in the short term.
“But, what kind of future can we imagine, if our young people end up aimless, depressed, disconnected, or unemployed? What kind of economy can thrive? What kind of social cohesion can we count on? What What kind of legacy are we leaving behind for those who depend on our moral intelligence?”
The minister said that the media is present in everything that people do and that it is the lens through which they perceive the world and distinguish what is real, what is of value, and what is in question.”
“The information in our habits, our newscast and cup of coffee, our food for thought, our self-talk, our collective consciousness, our deeply personal, intimate narratives that we seek through your screens,” she said.