Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Deputy Ruler of Sharjah and Chairman of Sharjah Media Council, stressed that the rise of many new media platforms is within the interest of media development in the UAE.
He indicated that the forum is the inception of developing local news networks by identifying errors and challenges to work on developing constructive solutions to integrate with various media platforms.
He stressed the role of legislation that regulates news networks, and the need to develop the legal employees via workshops and professional training courses.
He also added that the reason behind developing news networks is for their significant impact on society as a whole and not on personal levels.
Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed pointed out that media platforms and networks are working to achieve revenues, yet they must be compatible with the ethics of the profession, and not solely focus on the profits at the expense of media content.
Tariq Saeed Allay, Director General of the SGMB, indicated that the forum aims to support the media sector in the UAE, and strengthen the media system.
Allay addressed statistics and figures that indicate how vital the digital world is and its ability to influence public opinion. “With the increase of the internet and social media users, as recent figures indicate that the percentage of active social media users in the world is 53.6%, while the percentage of social media users in the UAE has reached 99%. The use of social media platforms is at an average of two hours and 55 minutes per day while spending one hour and 57 minutes per day, reading news from other platforms and newspapers, which necessitates acceleration in reviewing the modern media mechanism to standardise the competition based on media values.
Fatima Ibrahim, editor-in-chief of “Sharjah 24”, pointed out, during her opening speech, that the world is witnessing enormous transformations in the media that recently have brought about great changes in the methodology of producing, distributing, and receiving information. The vital change among all is the shift from one-way communication to interactive communication, and the term "new media" appeared to express this new phenomenon.
“The Local News Networks Forum seeks to probe the depths of this intertwined world by responding to the forum’s axes that examine the roles of these networks within the credibility inconsistency in the new media, as well as the dilemma of national media and the transparency and truth, and to identify the problems produced by the news networks and the challenges they face,” Fatima Ibrahim said, regarding the forum’s objectives.
The LNNF discussed several topics related to news network services in terms of the content industry, citizen journalism, in addition to examining the reality of news networks and their development opportunities.
The participants in the forum stressed the need to keep pace with the media development that led to the rise of many new media platforms, to contain and direct modern means to make them effective credible, and to adhere to professional ethics in using the networks and modern platforms.
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