Media professionals are constantly warning the public of the dangers of misinformation and the phenomenon of citizen journalism. Obviously, traditional media are more credible than social media, however the new lifestyle adopted by the people of the Middle East has pushed the latter to take an interest in other forms of digital information, regardless of the reliability of their content. In this article, Bashar Kiwan, Middle East media specialist, discusses this controversy.
New media forms as seen by Bashar Kiwan
During the media debate organized in 2017 by the Sky News Arab television channel in Abu Dhabi on the theme “Charity work between traditional media and social networking platforms”, the main focus was on the need to integrate different platforms to support and promote charity work.
The debate was opened by Ahmed Al Rumaithi, stressing that social networks are an integral part of the media as a whole. He stated that charity work benefits greatly from the means of social communication and that traditional media and social media have a complementary relationship. But generally, in the Middle East, traditional media are even more credible. On the other hand, social media are more effective in terms of speed of interaction with the public.
Moreover, several professionals do not share the same opinion. At a Journalism Forum organized by Al Jazeera in May 2018, the editor-in-chief of the Al-Arabiya news channel, Daoud Al-Shirian, opposed this view, pointing out that the Internet strengthens personal media, and thus contributes to the elimination of traditional newspapers and books.
In addition, during the Sky News debate, Fahd Heikal said that the impact of social media is more powerful for Middle Eastern societies, and that traditional media must adapt to this change. He also stressed the issue of credibility of traditional media, especially in the Middle East.
Fahd Heikal’s remarks reflected the vision of many media professionals, such as Bashar Kiwan, who had highlighted in an interview the issue of misinformation exercised by social media.
Bashar Kiwan, had also invited the various actors in the sector to establish policies for monitoring and filtering content to avoid the risks of manipulation while encouraging citizen journalists to become aware of the social responsibility of the profession of journalism.
For Bashar Kiwan, although digital media have succeeded in revolutionizing the media sector and breaking the routine of traditional media, the problem of fake news is even more present.
