Mohamed Al-Husinni Talks at AUK

Kuwait 25th November, 2012: In collaboration with the office of Public Affairs at the American University of Kuwait (AUK), Managing Editor of Al Anbaa Newspaper, Mr. Mohamed Al-Husinni, presented a lecture titled "Social Media and their Impact on Print Media".

In his speech, Al-Husinni addressed the concept of New Media, and how its emergence is affecting the traditional media of newspaper, radio, television and cinema. Al-Husinni explained the main four stages involved with news and information, which are: news gathering, selecting medium of transfer, disseminating the news, then public reaction monitoring.

He continued that Traditional media were in total control of one of the main stages, disseminating the news. Nowadays, with the advent of New Media, everyone has the ability to control the different stages of information and become a medium capable of spreading ideas in an open global space.

Al-Husinni stressed that the evolution of new media did not devaluate the role of the traditional media as a complementary partner that needs to exist and continue production. On the contrary, competition between traditional and new media had helped liberate traditional media from some of the constraints faced in the past.

Al-Husinni ended his speech by outlining some of the hitches the New Media encounter, which include: misuse and easy spread of rumors, through fake accounts and false users who impersonate others. This puts societies in a challenge between freedom of expression and legal regulations to reserve people's rights.

In the question and answer session following Al-Husinni's speech, many questions were raised concerning the future of traditional media, future of journalism as a profession and effects of social media on the nature of news.

Al-Husinni responded that traditional media, mainly newspapers, will continue to exist as long as there are subscribers, points of selling and advertisements, as a resource of income to the newspaper, and a form of subsidy. However, the industry of paper making and the environmental risks associated with it, may affect newspaper production in the future.

Responding to a question about the threats to journalism as a profession, Al-Husinni said that journalism is based on main elements including: verification, objectivity, fairness and distinction between opinions and fact. New Media does not function with those elements, making journalism as a profession indispensable. He also added that with increasing freedom of expression, journalists are still bound with those elements of the profession to clarify whether their writing is based on their personal opinion or on existing facts.

Released by the Office of Public Affairs on the 26th November 2012