New Media Is Not Entirely New

By Shurouq Lashkri

Octavia Nasr

New media is not very new. It has been there for everyone for so long, but people just started paying and bringing attention to it, that is why it is seen as new as Octavia Nasr states in a session in the Arab Media Forum hosted at Grand Hyatt Hotel, Dubai.

The topics of the session, called “Media in a shifting Arab World”, were mainly focusing on the role of traditional and new media in causing the recent political and media changes. Even though the topics of the session were set, the speakers were getting off topic talking about media agendas. Ms. Nasr, on the other hand, was very eager to discuss some of the topics of the session stating that “we organized this session to talk about social media networks, yet we are still talking about media agendas. The moderator has not even read a single opinion or question stated on Twitter!”.

After Ms. Nasr’s sarcastic comment on how the moderator, Taleb Kanaan, who is an anchor for Al Arabiya News channel; was handling the Twitter account of Al Arabiya, she commented that ”journalists think they need to go to Twitter and create a new account in order for them to stay in touch with their audience; rarely updating their accounts thinking that by creating a new account their job is done”. Admitting the role of new media and social networks in changing events is not about creating new accounts, it is about knowing how to use these new media tools to connect to your audience and keep them interested.

According to Ms. Nasr, there is no transition between old and new media. There is compatibility and harmony between the two, meaning that the two have been there for some time and both are used together, not separately.

Ms. Nasr is the founder of Bridges Media Consulting company in the U.S. This was the tenth anniversary for the Arab Media Forum, which was held for two weekdays. Other speakers of the session were Abeer Najjar, Nabil Al Katib, and Qenan Al Ghamdi. The session mainly focused on the influence of social media on audiences on getting information from a wider choice of sources.

AUDIO-Octavia Nasr's comment on moderator in AMF