IRNA chief lauds lasting importance of news agencies role

'News agencies are not challenged when a new technology is developed, but they are challenged when they fail to use technology and adapt themselves to the new environment,' The Managing Director of the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) Zia Hashemi said in his lecture at the summit of world news agencies held on Thursday in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Full text of the IRNA chief lecture follows:

'When McLuhan used the term “global village” first in 1962, many could not even imagine the significant role of the media in creating such a village. But he knew the role precisely. That’s why he coined this famous sentence two years later: “the medium is the message”. Simply put, this means that although most of the time media do not assume a major role in the events, they still play an integral role in how the events are understood by people.

After the global expansion of the Internet and the rise of new media which helped billions of people around the world gain access to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Viber, Skype, etc. the world has figuratively become a smaller place. Now the famous idea of a global village is no more a hypothesis. It has truly come into existence.

Messages transmitted by the media, influence public opinion. Political powers, of course, try to meddle in whenever social activities are going to evolve. Therefore, it is not surprising to see how different countries make heavy investments in media.

Once, Western media used to rule the world of media by means of English language. Today there are a lot of papers, TV channels and news websites that are not in the Western camp, but they are remarkably successful, making use of the same standards, means and even language. Let me give you an example: independent media as well as those which were not in the Western camp, played the biggest role in building global awareness and especially in drawing Syrians and Iraqi people's attention to the importance of fighting extremism and terrorism. In fact, mainstream Western media did not pay serious attention to the threat of extremism until ISIS attacked Western countries and Europe faced migration crisis.

Social networks have been among successful means of mass communication in recent years. Some of the elite members of the society and a number of journalists in many countries approached the new technology with hesitation or even with discomfort; however, social networks have secured their position as an information provider means.

In the face of a ball coming from the contestant in a tennis match, the worst strategy is to back away. Probably the best strategy is to try to hit the ball into a perfect zone in the opponent's court.

There are people who believe social networking is a major threat to professional news agencies. The opinion that news agencies are challenged by modern technology, though, has been strong since radio was invented. During the World War II, radio attracted a big audience since it was able to broadcast the latest news from the war much faster than newspapers.

By 1970s many households owned television sets and some people believed that the visual appeal of a TV channel is an extra leverage against a news agency.

Then World Wide Web on the Internet emerged and now social networks pose the so-called threat against news agencies.

But in fact, the agencies remained and I think they are going to remain as long as the human beings need information. News agencies are not challenged when a new technology is developed, but they are challenged when they fail to use technology and adapt themselves to the new environment.'

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