Today in the Tunisian capital, under the slogan “Global digital hegemony and Arab ways to resist it”, in the presence of the Minister of Culture of Tunisia, the activities of the second conference of the Arab media, organized by the Arab Broadcasting Union, began. , Hayat Katat Karmazi, Algerian Minister of Communications Muhammad Buslimani, Palestinian Information Minister Muhammad Saleh bin Issa and Ambassador of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, two sheriffs in Tunisia Abdulaziz bin Ali al-Saqr, and a number of Arab and foreign ambassadors. Representatives of Federation member bodies participated, including the Kingdom, as well as a number of experts and professionals in the media in all its forms, in addition to representatives of the Arab and foreign media. on a forum that lasts two days.
The delegation of the Kingdom at the conference was headed by the President of the Arab Union of Radio and Television and the Director General of the Saudi Radio and Television Corporation, Professor Muhammad bin Fahd Al-Harti.
In her speech at the opening of the conference, the Minister of Culture of Tunisia stressed the importance of the issue of digital hegemony and called it one of the most important current issues related to digital development and ways to contain this digital boom by providing the necessary funds. empowering Arab media professionals, empowering them and educating them on the proper use of social media and technology. its strength, dominance and negative effects at the same time.
And she emphasized that today it has become clear that there is a need to develop joint policies and strategies to address the major challenges of the digital world and what it imposes in terms of cooperation, convergence of directions and united efforts, especially in addressing the problem of standardizing human behavior and the ability to use the digital world as means of cultural domination of people and society through the cultural domination of people and society, as well as the ability of the machine to direct desires and control the collective mind and its choices, and thus the possibility of merging with another or losing an identity in exchange for acquiring a hybrid digital identity that may not have nothing to do with the original and reality.
The Minister of Tunisia reaffirmed the importance of the link between media and culture for managing digital content and confronting cultural isolation and alienation with identity that unconscious digital knowledge can lead to, expressing the hope that the results of this conference will be taken into account and that the recommendations that come out of it will be realized and achieved, going beyond the tangible to achieve the desired.
In his opening remarks, the President of the Union and Chief Executive Officer of the Radio and Television Corporation, Mr. Muhammad bin Fahd Al-Harthi, praised the theme of the Second Arab Media Conference, which is taking place at a time of special importance in the light of the circumstances and challenges that the world is witnessing, digital dominance has intensified, which governs political and ideological trends and divisions. In addition to its threat to the cultural and value structure of societies in all regions of the world, which requires the direction and unification of efforts to enact effective legislation that regulates relations with digital giants, contributes to the control of digital dominance and reduce negative consequences at all social and economic levels.
Al-Harti emphasized that today the world has become more of a media map than a geographical or historical map, and the media has become the main engine in the formulation of global mechanisms and basic variables, since the media play a role in shaping consciousness and human behavior. .
He said: “On the other hand, the digital transformation, despite the development it has achieved, at the same time has had profound side effects that have been suffered by countries that did not contribute to change and were content to reap its fruits and achievements, calling for the need to work on a strategy, which resists this dominance, given the size and complexity of these problems. platforms, as well as paying fees to regulators who enforce them.
For his part, the Director General of the Arab Broadcasting Union, engineer Abdul Rahim Suleiman, explained that the Union wanted to raise the most important issues of the Arab media at this conference in an environment where there was an urgent need to find deep and practical solutions to their problems, given that audiovisual media is at the forefront of the digital revolution.
At its second session, the Arab Media Conference will discuss topics related to digital dominance and ways to counter it in the Arab countries, the action plan and strategy that is proposed to be used in the Arab world through ideas, proposals, perceptions, areas of digital, technological and legislative content, and also the idea of creating Arab platforms as a safe option for the region to preserve its common values.
