Daily Times

Exerts on Friday suggested imparting youth with digital literacy in fast-paced technological world as social media has become one of the most important instruments of hybrid warfare.

This was suggested by media professionals and academics during a concluding session titled “Digital Media & Freedom of Expression: Experiences, Challenges and Prospects.” The session was moderated by Abdul Rehman Qaiser, assistant professor of the Communication and Media Department Sargodha University.

A 10-day long ‘Youth Digital Conference’ in connection with the World Youth Skills Day, was organized by Youth Media Network (YMN) to provide youth a platform for fruitful conversation, encourage dialogue culture and generate healthy debating threads for critical discourse.

The YMN is an initiative of the students of Communication and Media Studies, Sargodha University which brought together multitalented and skillful students from various institutes across Punjab at single platform.

The conference was aimed at motivating youth about future prospects and challenges of technological advanced world and, equipping them with necessary social graces, personal development, and character building to meet the needs of highly competitive workplaces.

The moot was organized around various themes in which esteemed guest speakers including senior media practitioners, academicians, CSP officers, medical experts and motivational speakers engaged youth in positive activities and provided them a way forward in complex digital world.

Addressing the concluding session, Vice Chancellor Sargodha University Dr Ishtiaq Ahmad said “Journalism is an art of articulating the public opinion. The real art and the responsibility of the journalists are to delink the political element and power association from the information based on facts.”

He vowed to establish Policy Research Institute for Social Media (PRISM) at Sargodha University for studying different dimensions of social media/digital spaces and to recommend policy level interventions, rebuttal propaganda and aware youth about digital threats.

Award winning senior investigative journalist Azaz Syed discussed that social media has given the power to influence public opinion by eliminating the monopoly of groups and institutions to regulate flow of information. “With its association to citizen journalism, social media has given tough time to traditional media. Sometimes, the reality at social media has been lost due to fake, false or manipulative contents, however, it could help generating debate and enhancing critical thinking among youth” he added.

Criticizing the traditional media policies, senior journalist and anchorperson Sabookh Syed was of the view that marketing officers have been controlling the editorial board and, deciding what to publish or not while social media is a platform where you express freely. He said that freedom of expression does not mean that you have every right to say anything but it comes with the responsibility.

Concluding the session, Noman Yaser, assistant professor Communication and Media Studies appreciated the efforts of YMN and associated youth with it from across the Punjab for establishing platform in testing times of COVID-19. He discussed the authenticity challenges of free flow of information on social media, check and balance mechanism and stressed on educating youth about using social media.