By Ghadeer Ghloum and KUNA
KUWAIT: A team of specialists has been assigned to follow up on the role of Arab media outlets in combating terrorism, as part of a joint media strategy to keep pace with the media changes and the evolution of digitization. During their 24th meeting on Sunday, which took place during the 16th session of the Arab Information Ministers Council in Kuwait, organized by the communication ministry, the team discussed the strategies developed and prepared by Naif Arab University for Security Sciences(NAUSS),commissioned by the General Secretariat of the Arab League in 2015, along with the updates since then amid media innovations.
Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the Media and Communication Sector of the Arab League Ambassador Ahmed Rashid Khattabi said this meeting is dedicated to studying the role of media in the fight against terrorism. He expressed his gratitude to Kuwait, represented by the ministry of information, for holding this meeting. He also highlighted the state's role in supporting Arab countries' unity to uplift the Arab world and activate and connect it to issues that the Arab world is facing, such as terrorism.
In this regard, the technical secretariat generalized the document that NAUSS prepared for member countries to improve, influenced by regional and country experiences to professionally deal with this problem that is going beyond killing and threatening innocent victims to draining finances, investments and production, and hindering developmental projects of Arab countries and targeting its civil safety and security.
NAUSS mentioned these strategies have been formed to adapt to ongoing social media developments and adherence to professional standards, while also taking into consideration the strategies in combating terrorism globally as well as political, economic and security shifts to implicitly update these strategies. The strategies are built on six points, starting with 'Response and Denial', in directing media responses to events linked to terrorism through updating media tools to negate inflammatory hearsay to be more fixed in news reporting to prevent these organizations from elucidating their messages to the public.
'Awareness and Prevention' aims to solidify cultural awareness that understands and refutes all forms of terrorism and leans towards ethics of tolerance and accepting others to prevent any form of extremist content, false news and misleading information via the Internet. 'Digital cooperation and Social Responsibility' encourages cooperation between the media and government authority associated to civil society to better encompass the media with proactivity and complementary social responsibility between the media, public and the private sector to denounce terrorist activities in highlighting the dangers of the ideologies fueling these actions.
'Endorsement and Support' supports efforts of the security services through the media in the context of combating terrorism in providing media coverage of activities and events of agencies, to better support the rights of the victims of terrorism through media coverage, as well as giving consideration to the privacy of victims and their families.
'Capacity Building and Financing' aims to train Arab media employees to specialize in security media with the help of academic institutions to develop training programs and build the capabilities of the media networks to better strategize their analyses through modern methods.