LAHORE: ‘Digital Trumps Print’ was one of the interesting sessions of the Lahore Literary Festival that analysed the state of mainstream media in the age of digital media in Pakistan on the final day of the festival on Sunday.

The panel for the session included renowned media professionals, including Arif Nizami, Munizae Jahangir, Zafar Siddiqi and Mariam Chaudhry. It was moderated by journalist Benazir Shah.

Beginning the discussion by sharing her views on the prominence of digital media today, Ms Jahangir said that since mainstream media was practicing self-censorship, it was unable to freely tell stories, which then ended up being told on social media. Quoting an example of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, she said that young, educated Pashtuns were actively using this powerful digital tool to tell the stories of the victimised that the traditional media was earlier known to do. She said now the mainstream media was all about statement journalism, and social media was covering stories, which was the real essence of journalism.

Mr Siddiqi added that the current generation was born with smartphones and the media landscape had changed because of that and shall continue to evolve with a completely different environment by 2030.

Mr Nizami, while agreeing with Mr Siddiqi, said that the digital revolution had drastically changed the media today – both print and television. While this change was being witnessed worldwide, unfortunately in Pakistan, the media houses were still catching up and social media was being extensively used by the younger generation.

Sharing her views, Ms Chaudhry said that before 2006, there was only one channel that people relied on as the source of news and entertainment. But now, both the younger and older generations had developed a habit of scrolling on their phones to get the latest updates through social media. People were interested in good journalism but did not have the time to read through long articles or wait for the news so were rather inclined towards shorter articles, video clips and pictures.

Social media also provided the option of ‘following’, which was key in her experience of running a digital platform, The Current; she has to check the number of ‘followers’ and ‘unfollows’ daily to strategise her next move.

Ms Jahangir felt that due to increasing censorship on TV, mainstream media was barred from talking about various issues, while in the past certain people were banned from even appearing on TV. A 35-page document outlining new rules for social media had been notified by the government that was not well thought-out as it was very vague. She continued that journalists were being charged with sedition and talk shows censored without notice, which she believed needed to change.

Mr Siddiqi agreed, but commended the government’s decision to hold consultation on the social media rules and get a chance to think it through. He did not agree with enforcing control over any kind of media, but advocated guidelines for them. However Ms Jahangir was quick to point out that these laws were doing more harm than good since they suggested that the government viewed the people with suspicion although they should be rather consulted in the process.

In the case of digital media, Ms Chaudhry said that Pakistan was facing many difficulties in running social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube as they were not financially viable and lacked the availability of real-time trends that could help them efficiently run their channels and pages unlike in other countries. Thus, censorship was one of the many challenges.

To this, Mr Siddiqi said that digital platforms needed considerable investment, unique selling points and time to become successful, especially if they were in English.

Finally, while discussing the change in newsroom conversations, Ms Chaudhry explained that they were now more social media-driven since the new media was now generating news that was then reported in mainstream media, citing examples of Aurat March and movements like #MeToo.

She said the trickle-down effect could be observed with political parties increasingly using social media to express their views. However, there was always the looming danger of fake news. Ms Jahangir also felt that mainstream media often missed the stories that social media was quick to report first, by narrating the example of the student movements in both Pakistan and India and the action taken by the governments against them.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2020