By Joshua Morris and Fatima Misbah
ISLAMABAD: Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister for Information and Broadcasting on Thursday called for enforcing what she called “disciplined democratic system” in Pakistan to unleash country’s true potential.
Speaking as chief guest on first day of national conference on “Media as a soft Power in the 21st century”, she said through this system the country can fully utilize its capabilities.
The two-day conference is being organized by National University of Modern Languages (NUML).
“We need to define the goals of state and government separately using the power of media. Media should mindfully criticize the government. National interest should be priority over personal interest in the course of criticism,” Dr. Firdous asserted.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister also spoke about the role and impact of utilising media as a soft power.
She said after emergence of new media globally, no one can be deceived by fake news. Propaganda and fake news get exposed in real-time as digital literacy increases.
Referring to BJP government’s RSS ideology in India, she said media’s soft power is being used to hide ethnic cleansing in the neighbouring country. “Crushing ideology through ethnic cleansing is not dominance but mere genocide”, she added.
Addressing the youth in the audience, she said; “your war is now on the Economic front and not at the borders,”. She said incumbent government plans to establish a Media University to make journalism truly fourth pillar of the State.
Her predecessor Fawad Chaudhry, had announced to set-up Pakistan Media University in Islamabad for the promotion of art, language and culture.
The proposed Media University is to be set up in collaboration with Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, PTV and Information Ministry. Since his announcement in August last year, government has not shared so far details of any tangible progress.
In the global village, soft power has created builders, movers and manufacturers of Public Opinion- Rector NUML
Rector NUML Major General (Retd.) Muhammad Jaffer in his speech said one of the greatest changes in the 21st century is globalization itself. He said in the global village, soft power has created builders, movers and manufacturers of Public Opinion
Dean Social Sciences Dr. Shahid Siddiqui said the word power needs to be redefined. Soft power has ability to make a dispute end and affect peoples’ thinking, he said.
“Power is the battle of discourse. Power and knowledge go parallel and social reality is constructed consequently,” Dr. Siddiqui added.
Read: Building strong national narrative not an easy task: Media practitioners
Dr. Abdul Siraj of Bahria University was of the opinion that soft power promoted multiculturalism across the world in a paradigm shift after U.S nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the second world war.
The event of 9/11 is yet another an example depicting that Soft Power has made a globalised narrative over time, he said. Some people call it modern form of Imperialism.
According to Dr. Siraj communication and socio-political experts believe when USA lost the capability to seize nations through war, the Americans turned towards soft power and used media tools. China is adopting similar approach. He also elaborated how different types of media are juxtaposed and merging into new media.
(Writers of this report are students of Mass Communication in NUML. It is part of TNT’s initiative to provide students platform to write news reports, blogs and opinion pieces)
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