About 80 people participating in the International Conference of the project “Strengthening of the role of public audiovisual service in the countries of the Mashreq and the Maghreb”.
The consortium formed by the Mediterranean Observatory of communication (ECMO) and the Institut Panos Paris, organized on 9 and 10 December the International Conference “Time of change for Arab public television”, in Amman, Jordan. This is one of the eight countries of the southern Mediterranean which is part of the project of “Thought of the role of public audiovisual service in the country of the Masrek and the Maghreb”, funded mostly by the Agencia Catalana de Cooperació Al Desenvolupament.
At the Amman meeting, presented the results of the national studies, in which it was found that despite the differences between countries, there are some shortcomings in the region with regard to the audiovisual public service. Among them, the under-representation of social diversity, little attention to issues of gender and above all lack of female voices, lack of participation of the political opposition or serious difficulties for the creation of an independent body of regulation and control of the audiovisual.
The aim of the Conference was to explain the results of the national reports, and to collect opinions, proposals and ideas for the drafting of the regional synthesis. Therefore, the Conference involved not only the teams of the project, but also of the communication, academia and professionals from various institutions related to the communication of the participating countries.
In terms of the collected proposals, the main was the need to create a legal framework setting out what is the audiovisual public service and regulate the operation of public television. With this objective, other more complex: the creation of independent regulatory agencies, with ability to control audiovisual bodies and ensure that the public service function.
Another outstanding proposal was the necessity of a new formation for communication professionals. The goal, which the journalists to form on the social responsibility of journalism and public service values before accessing the jobs.
Of general form, representatives from different countries agreed the democratic shortcomings of the Governments of the countries of the southern Mediterranean to make the establishment of public and democratic media
More information about the project and the Conference in http://omec.uab.cat