Multimedia journalism focus of OSCE-organized online seminar

The OSCE Centre in Ashgabat organized an online training course on multimedia journalism from 24 to 26 November 2021.

The three-day event brought together journalism lecturers and students from journalism faculties of the Institute of International Relations of Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry, Magtymguly State University, and the International University for Humanities and Development.

An international expert from the United Kingdom presented current trends in multimedia technology and introduced free tools and services for producing multimedia content. The course also covered ethics and professional standards in multimedia journalism, content management in social networks, communications and multimedia tools, and the principles of mobile journalism.

Addressing the students, John MacGregor, Head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, mentioned the declaration adopted by participants of the 13th Central Asia Media Conference “Pluralism and Internet Governance”, which emphasized that “media pluralism is a key value and one of the most important conditions for the existence of a democratic society, in which Internet plays a crucial role.”

“With unique opportunities offered by the Internet, modern journalists need to be able to use new technologies and master multimedia skills in addition to having good analytical skills to quickly catch the essence of events,” he added. “Today’s students represent the future of Turkmenistan’s journalism and we firmly believe that this training course will contribute to their professional development in line with requirements of the modern media environment”.

The course was organized to support Turkmenistan’s efforts in the area of the digitalization of print media, which gained new dynamics in 2020 when the Centre initiated a number of groundbreaking activities.