“Arab Youth create their own media platform" - Al Ameera 1 Ballroom
Wednesday, 18 May 2011 09:15 AM – 10:15 AM
Observers have attributed the accelerating pace of change in the Arab world to the frustration and vitality of those young people who have helped drive the movement. Their actions did not depend on traditional media tools; instead, they created their own electronic platforms to exchange, develop, and share ideas.
This development has emphatically underlined how different current perceptions are from past perceptions of the Arab youth as a generation enamoured with superficial Western consumerism and indifferent to social issues.
It has also opened the doors for more questions to be asked about the Arab media’s limited ability to understand the issues of youth, to reflect the reality on the ground, and to play its expected role in a community where young people constitute more than 70 per cent of the total population.
This workshop aims to analyse how students pursuing media studies can present their views of the media and offer suggestions on its role in addressing social issues.
Topics
- Why did young people bypass the traditional media and resort to new tools?
- What are the challenges facing traditional media outlets in terms of content-generation? How can it be made more attractive for the youth?
- Can new media be relied upon as the sole source of information?
- What are the perceptions of young people currently engaged in the media?
- Did traditional media portals benefit from this experience? Will their agendas continue to ignore the youth?
Moderator:
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