By Fatima Misbah
ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a conference titled “Media as a soft power in the 21st century” said building a strong national narrative is not an easy task when 80 to 90 TV channels are competing with each other.
The two- day conference that started on Thursday is being organized by Department of Mass Communication of the National University of Modern Languages (NUML). Academics and media professionals from all over Pakistan are presenting their research papers.
The moot has provided platform to around 1200 students of university’s mass communication department to interact with prominent names in the industry, discuss with them challenges and opportunities in field.
Haroon Rasheed, an eminent working journalist, spoke on the topic of media and security. He was of the view that disseminating a strong national narrative is difficult when there are 80 to 90 channels competing with each other.
Presence of these many channels in a developing country like Pakistan with small economy is adding to the intellectual chaos, he said.
Media plays a critical role in formulating nation’s identity but in our case it is adding to confusion, he added.
“We cannot use media as a soft power effectively unless we are get out of this state of perplexity” Rasheed remarked.
Read: NUML to organize conference on media from October 10
Dr. Faiza Latif presented her analysis of media’s coverage of environmental issues. According to her research environmental experts are not satisfied with coverage being given by the conventional media to issues of national importance like environment.
She emphasized more focus of media in covering social issues such as environmental to create awareness in the society.
According to her analysis, new media covers environmental issues more actively than the traditional media. In new media, government-run Facebook pages, especially Punjab Disaster Management Authority provided more timely information about natural calamities than Facebook pages of non-government organizations. The conference is discussing media as an important component in all domains of life.
(The writer is a student of Mass Communication in NUML. This report is part of TNT’s initiative to encourage students to write for us)
Humbly, a few things need revision in the report’s physical appearance.
1. The lead contains an opinion and implies that it was opined collectively, whereas, it was opined by Mr. Haroon Rasheed exclusively.
2. The quoted remark of Mr. Rasheed is also grammatically incorrect. It is posted below the picture.
3. Summary of Dr. Faiza’s address also isn’t doing justice with the actual event. Closing remarks of the chair should have been included as well. Furthermore, it doesn’t actually present the bottom line of her research paper.
Regards,
Usama
MSc 1
Mass Communication
Numl