NIMCJ conducts International Webinar on ‘Change & Challenges for Global & Local Media Post COVID-19’

Ahmedabad, Saturday, 9th May 2020: National Institute of Mass Communication and Journalism (NIMCJ) organized an International Webinar on Change & Challenges for Global & Local Media Post COVID-19 today which was broadcast live through its official Facebook page. The Director of NIMCJ, Dr. Shirish Kashikar was the moderator while 2 National and 1 International panelists shared their views in the session.

Dr. Ramesh Rao, Professor, Columbia State University, USA said, “There is hardly any newspaper circulation in USA and also in India due to the pandemic. We may certainly loose our interest and our attachment for newspapers. Readership have already fallen down rigorously. Technology has always been so unstoppable making it a boon to society, giving chance for online platform. We tend to receive fake news. I would request all educators to teach the students about real and fake news since the beginning. Many things including news gathering is going to change once this is over.”

Dr. A. Surya Prakash, Former chairman, Prasar Bharti said, “Apart from circulation and readership of newspapers, there are many hurdles to come. There is going to be a huge impact on media industry. Habits of not reading will get off. We are noticing the changes in our media industry so much in today’s days while the consistency of circulation of fake news is increasing in a rapid manner. A separate law should be made for creating and spreading fake news only then people will start taking responsibilities for their actions.”

Umesh Upadhyay, President & Media Director, Reliance said, “This is very sad to see that this pandemic is making us see and face things that we were anyway going to see in coming years. With such high intensity of changes in media sector, there will naturally be higher impact to this. The biggest challenge media industry is facing right now is the unauthenticated documents from non credible resources through WhatsApp University. Digital economy too is getting monopolistic with their content. While we check each vegetable carefully before we buy, we should also see every news carefully before sending or forwarding it. People are not making optimum utilization of Freedom of Expression.”

While Webinar ended with questions from the audience which connected through Facebook. Many media students and professionals participated in this session.