The power of the media is undeniable, but so is the need for its reform, argued experts at a recent Cairo conference. Nader Habib was there Conferences take place all the time in Egypt that address the need for and nature of reform, whether political, economic or social. However, the 15th Conference of the Faculty of Mass Communication at Cairo University, entitled "Media Reform: Reality and Challenges," held recently in Cairo, turned the spotlight onto an area that perhaps has not received its fair share of academic and other attention: the media. The conference, bringing together professionals from all areas of the media as well as academics working in media-related fields and political figures and businessmen, saw many of those present admit that the ways in which the media is currently studied are themselves in need of reform, particularly since the media is, or should be, a mirror of society. According to Atef Al-Abd, dean of the Faculty of Higher Studies and secretary-general of the conference, "the media plays a very important role in providing information in a timely manner to the public. The media also acts to prevent the spread of disinformation and to ensure the quality of the information that circulates in society. Information is the true reflection of what is happening in the community, and it is important that the public understand the need for media reform." At the top of the agenda at this year's conference was the current global financial crisis, which was highlighted in two papers, one of them from Egypt. Both papers put forward mechanisms for ensuring the accuracy of economic information carried by the media and submitted recommendations for its reform. Discussion followed, with Al-Abd commenting that the process of public discussion was itself a way of opening the subject up to public involvement and thereby could itself contribute to the reform process. Unlike previous conferences, which have been held on an occasional basis since 1981, this year's conference included a lecture named after Boutros Boutros-Ghali, chairman of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights and former secretary-general of the United Nations, which this year was given by Salaheddin Amer, a professor of international law and a member of the National Council for Human Rights. In the lecture, Amer on the behalf of Ghali, called for the technology gap between those who have access to the latest forms of science and technology and those who do not to be bridged, possibly through the use of new forms of information technology. Ghali is on record as believing that the media, particularly new forms of media, can act as a bridge across different cultures. It is therefore all the more important that the media is properly reformed and modernised to allow it to play this role, he holds. In his speech, Ghali called for the media to take on a more effective role in supporting democracy and human rights and in contributing to the reform process. It was important for Egyptian media figures to be fluent in various foreign languages if they were to play their proper role, he said, citing Russian, Chinese and Japanese in addition to English. In his address Al-Abd underlined this theme by noting that "the world has changed, and the media is witnessing a revolution brought about by a marriage of satellite TV channels, the Internet and mobile phones." It has become increasingly difficult for governments to withhold information from the public, he said, commenting that "in Egypt, mobile phones have become a powerful media tool allowing the quick transfer of information both within and outside the country." According to Nagwa Kamel, vice-dean for Community Service and Environmental Development at Cairo University and herself a professor of journalism, it is important that reform in Egypt comes about as a result of internal processes of change, rather than as something imported from outside. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, she said that "if the reform process is linked to external pressures, then this could be viewed as a result of a lack of self confidence on our part." The most lasting and important reforms in Egypt, she said, had always come about from within and not from without, citing major historical figures associated with social and political reform movements, such as the 19th-century reformer Rifaa El-Tahtawy and later figures like Qassim Amin and Hoda Shaarawi. However, such keynote themes were only part of the conference's agenda, which took in seven sessions dealing with 35 areas of research. Attended by academics from universities in Egypt and throughout the Arab world, the research areas included topics such as the media and economic reform, the media and education, the media and political reform, relationships between old and new media, and the media and the political and social environment. Participants stressed the need to make good use of the increasing numbers of young people who are now undertaking degrees in media studies and related fields. There was a need, they said, to consider the needs of the labour market and to ensure that those recruited to work in the media find jobs in a fair and transparent manner. New forms of technology used in today's media, including e-journalism and the emergence of so-called citizen journalism associated with blogs and other forms of electronic media, were reviewed by Mohamed Khalil, a professor of media studies specialising in e-journalism. Khalil said that while the skills required of a journalist working in e-journalism could differ from those of colleagues working in more traditional forms, the most important aspect of e- journalism was the prompt interaction it produced between journalist and reader. One problem with the new forms of electronic journalism, Khalil added, was that they could sometimes be used to promote rumour rather than verified and accurate information, and such rumours, were they allowed to spread, could be harmful for society as a whole. This risk was endemic to the Internet as a whole, he said, since it could be used to deliver inaccurate information to huge numbers of impressionable readers in a very short period of time. It was up to governments and other agencies to work towards codes of ethics governing Internet and e-journalism to prevent such threats materialising, he said. This year's conference also awarded a prize to the academic producing the best research in the field of the media, and this year's award was shared between Kamal Qabil for a paper on Selection Bias and Fragmentation Patterns in News on Wage Reform Claims in Egypt and Noha Atef, who received the award for her paper on The Relationship between Levels of Exposure to Interactive Programmes on Egyptian Satellite Channels and Levels of Knowledge of Political Reform. At the end of the conference, Al-Abd introduced recommendations addressed to ministries and government bodies concerned with the media, to those in charge of the public and private- sector media organisations, to the media in the Arab countries, whether state or privately owned, and to academic and university departments of media studies in Egypt and the Arab world. These recommendations were then adopted by those attending the conference.
