Abu Dhabi: Influential media outlets will have a role to play in helping manage emergency situations due to their ability to reach out to large segments of society, said officials during the second day of the Crisis and Emergency Management Conference held in Abu Dhabi.
The event, organised by the National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority, brought together several experts from around the world to discuss the best ways of dealing with future crises and disasters.
“The media is a weapon for covering different kinds of crisis. It can move from one continent to the other without obstacles and can have an impact on public opinion and awareness,” said Ambassador Dr Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, assistant secretary-general and head of Media and Communication Department for the League of Arab States.
“The media has become a centre of influence and we [government institutions] can cooperate with them at the time of a crisis and emergency [to communicate with the public]”, she added.
Dr Abu Ghazaleh said that creating a media centre specifically for emergency events would be beneficial.
“We have to establish a media centre during a time of crisis in order to facilitate the message that will go out to the public [about the crisis], and to also ensure that the message is verified and accurate,” she said.
“It is also important to set our target audiences and category groups, whether young or old, and we also need to select the proper media platform we can use, because some platforms may be used more heavily than others,” she added.
