Press releases

MINSK, 12 September (BelTA) – Mass media should pool efforts in fighting fake news and incompetence, BelTA learned from the resolution adopted by the 13^th Belarusian international media forum Partnership for the Future: Digital Agenda for Media Space in Minsk on 12 September.

In conditions of global digitalization rapid changes are observed not only in the sphere of technologies but forms and methods of news reporting, the document says. Conventional mass media and social media are rapidly penetrating each other. While people receive new technical capabilities for self-realization, the role of the general public in shaping today’s media space and the information agenda of the day rises.

Participants of the media forum believe that digital technologies also come with certain negative consequences, negatively affecting the authenticity, quality, and objectivity of information streams. In addition to fighting fake news and incompetent approaches to covering serious problems, it is necessary to take care of informational ecology and informational protection of individuals. In these conditions it is extremely important to preserve the role of conventional mass media – printed and digital ones – as mass media environment players, who can bear the full responsibility for delivering quality, full, and genuine news and have the ability to pursue a professional approach to creating and distributing information products, the mass media forum participants believe.

The resolution expressed concern over the growing volume of fake news and forbidden information, including extremist materials, propaganda of violence and other information products, which no society can accept. The resolution stated it is inadmissible to use mass media and social media as platforms to incite hate and xenophobic moods in the society, to cultivate racial intolerance and other forms of intolerance and violence.

Participants of the forum believe that in order to secure the development of the information space for the benefit of the society in conditions of global digitalization it is necessary to continue sharing the best practices, develop and implement major joint projects in order to bolster the standing of conventional media and switch them to digital rails in line with modern trends. Bearing in mind the need to take care of information security of the society, it is necessary to step up cooperation and exchange programs for mass media specialists.

The 13^th Belarusian international media forum Partnership for the Future: Digital Agenda for Media Space is taking place in Minsk on 11-14 September. Some 300 people representing about 30 CIS and non-CIS countries are taking part in it. The forum has been arranged bearing in mind the need to digitize the Eurasian Economic Union space, build a digital economy and an information society in Belarus, and enable quality changes in modern mass media. Close attention is paid to digital aspects of mass media work, introduction of new technologies for media management, to transboundary information challenges and threats brought about by the rapid ascent of multiple online media.