National Institute of Mass Communication & Journalism, Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad, Saturday, 9^th May 2020: The continuous spread of COVID-19 has created disturbance amongst each part of our world. Throughout updates from the media, sector is helping us but there are many more challenges to come. Thus, National Institute of Mass Communication and Journalism successfully organized an International Webinar on Change & Challenges for Global & Local Media Post COVID-19 which was seen live through NIMCJ official Facebook page. The Director of NIMCJ, Dr. Shirish Kashikar took up the prominent role of moderator while 2 National and 1 International panellist where they shared their views in the session.

Dr. Ramesh Rao, Professor, Columbia State University, USA said, “There is hardly any newspaper circulation in the USA and also in India due to the pandemic. We may certainly lose our interest and our attachment for newspapers. Readership have already fallen down rigorously. Technology has always been so unstoppable making it a boon to society, giving chance for the online platform. We tend to receive fake news. I would request all educators to teach the students about real and fake news since the beginning. Many things including newsgathering are going to change once this is over.”

Dr. A. Surya Prakash, Former chairman, Prasarbharti said, “Apart from circulation and readership of newspapers, there are many hurdles to come. There is going to be a huge impact on the media industry. Habits of not reading will get off. We are noticing the changes in our media industry so much in today’s days while the consistency of circulation of fake news is increasing in a rapid manner. A separate law should be made for creating and spreading fake news only then people will start taking responsibilities for their actions.”

Umesh Upadhyay, President & Media Director, Reliance said, “This is very sad to see that this pandemic is making us see and face things that we were anyway going to see in coming years. With such high intensity of changes in the media sector, there will naturally be a higher impact on this. The biggest challenge media industry is facing right now is the unauthenticated documents from non-credible resources through Whatsapp University. Digital economy is getting monopolistic with its content. While we check each vegetable carefully before we buy, we should also see every news carefully before sending or forwarding it. People are not making optimum utilization of Freedom of Expression.”

See live webinar video on our NIMCJ's official Facebook page.

While the webinar ended fruitfully with questions from the audience that connected through LIVE FACEBOOK SESSION. Many media students and professionals participated in this session.