Dubai: The 24th international conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre kicked off yesterday at the American University in Dubai (AUD) with an interesting discussion about cross-cultural relations during the digital media era.
Keynote speaker Phillip Seib, Vice Dean at Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and a professor of Journalism and Public Diplomacy, spoke about how digital media had transformed communication across cultures and also discussed how to optimise the use of those tools to strengthen relations.
Communicating across cultures has had mixed results that could either be positive or negative, he said, and this is why it needs to be done efficiently and professionally.
“If communicating across cultures is done efficiently, it can contribute to stability and can help people understand each other reducing the likelihood of tensions that could lead to conflict, but the reverse is also true,” he said. “Poorly conceived communications across cultures can build walls rather than bridges.”
He said this is why delicate diplomatic skills and communication skills are required. “Relationship building is a fragile process and with the rise of digital media, people are no longer considered a passive audience, they have become global participants and this is something to be considered.”
He considers this transformation, where people have become more active in producing and spreading content, a “wonderful time for strengthening connections between countries”.
“There’s a challenge these days to find ways on how to optimise the use of these tools. This new media universe has made competition fierce, where there’s no shortage of content but a great shortage of attention. This means you can post anything and expect everyone to see it.”
Seib gave statistics on the number of users on various social networks, emphasising his point on how crafting the right message when involved in cross-cultural communication is important.
Facebook has reached 1 billion users, he said. “YouTube has 300 hours of video content uploaded every minute and over 500 million tweets are uploaded every day on Twitter using mobile devices.”
“This is why unless you have high production value and you have refined messages you cannot compete in the new media era,” he said.
For cross-cultural communication to be effective, “you must conform to the demands of whatever medium is being used and your messages need to be crafted with great sensitivity because it can reach a diverse audience”.
Hosted by the Mohammad Bin Rashid School of Communication at AUD, the 24th annual international conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) held in the Middle East for the first time, will bring 225 specialists in the field of information and communication from around the world, who have done extensive research on specific media topics, to present their exclusive findings and discuss key issues through panel discussions and sessions from June 10 to June 13.
The theme of the conference is ‘Communicating In an E-Asia: Values, Technologies and Challenges’, and is open for free to the public.