SCO media outlets share insights on industry trends
Representatives agree that new communication models, platforms needed
Media representatives from countries involved in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization shared insights into exchanges and cooperation within the group at the recent SCO Media Beijing Forum.
With the theme of “integrated innovation and winwin cooperation”, the event hosted by the China Public Diplomacy Association, Beijing government’s information office and Radio Beijing Corp attracted over 13 media outlets from SCO-related countries, including Russia, Kazakhstan and Pakistan, last week.
“In today’s international public opinion realm, the mainstream media of Western powers still carries much weight in discourse, while most developing countries have a weak voice in the issues of global development trends and other major concerns facing the international community,” said Du Feijin, head of the publicity department of the Beijing committee of the Communist Party of China.
The rapid development of information technology and new media platforms are bringing unprecedented challenges to traditional media outlets, he said. “Enhancing exchanges and sharing experiences in the integration with new media is a common task before us.”
Du noted traditional media should give full play to the advantage of its authority and expertise and combine new media to realize better integrated development.
As a media hub, Beijing has been striving to improve its media sector with technological support and build integrated media platforms for editorial broadcast.
Since 2015, state-run media outlet People’s Daily and others have developed a multimedia “central kitchen” platform, creating a new mode of combining content generation, collection, production and release as well as creating news reports using the fifth version of Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML5, virtual reality and big data.
Andrey Kirillov, head of the Beijing bureau of Russian news agency TASS, told the forum that a common information space is a vision for countries’ cooperation.
In practical terms, media cooperation is feasible at present, he said.
He suggested the SCO member countries organize activities, such as media group tours or related book publications with the support of the SCO secretariat.
Syed Asif Salahuddin, editor-in-chief of Independent News Pakistan, said the forum is conducive to promoting media cooperation among SCO member countries.
He said media integration is crucial to strengthening mutual understanding and promoting regional peace and stability.
During the forum, INP and Radio Beijing Corp signed an agreement to establish a partnership in program communication, report planning and personnel training.
Promoting mutual beneficial cooperation, enhancing understanding and building consensus through information is an opportunity for every responsible, forwardlooking and committed media worker, said Wang Qiu, editorin-chief of Radio Beijing Corp.
The development of the SCO requires media cooperation, she said. “We hope to establish a multidimensional media framework overseas to explore more cooperation patterns.”
In addition, the media representatives of SCO-related countries released an initiative to deepen pragmatic cooperation in sharing information and resources based on the principles of mutual trust and voluntarism.