Media plan

It is good that the Arab Corporation for Broadcasting (ACB) in Amman is going to hold a conference on “The role of media in combating terrorism and extremism — Cyberspace as a new weapon of terrorism.”

Since the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is also taking part in the internatioal seminar, it becomes important to not only understand the power of media, but also how best it could be utilized to combat a plethora of malaise afflicting the world today. Besides the menace of terrorism on which the meet is going to be held, there is a ruthless propaganda campaign in major countries to discredit Muslims, their culture and their issues of internatioal significance. By failing to tackle the media menace head-on, we see some unfortunate outcomes in the world.

If Saudi Arabia is today being targeted by the American senators for 9/11, which is wellknown to be an inside job, then it is the very media that has left very little space for us to put up any counter defensive posture. We couldn’t do it because we don’t have any media infrastructre on a large scale and hence we don’t have media penetration at global level. This is despite having resources and manpower.

The ACB is said to be an Arab professional body for broadcasting that has been established by a decision of the Council of Arab Ministers of Information. It operates under the umbrella of the League of Arab States as one of the professional organizations in media sector. It is also an observer member in the Council of Arab Ministers of Information and is a member of the executive bureau of the League of Arab States.

I hope this media organization body will present its own report on its substantial media achievement at global level, if any. If no such achievement is there to show, then it must set the house in order first before taking any long-term media planning.

The conference aims to tackle terrorism from the media perspective and how to deal with it through media.

But the question is where is media or any media plan in hand to combat terrorism? That is the core of the matter and that is what needs to be focussed on at the conference.

Mumshad Akhtar