MEDIA CONFERENCE "TVAPATUM 2018" KICKED OFF AT YSU

The Tvapatum media conference is held with the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) within the framework of the Media for Informed Civic Engagement project. The event is organized by the Media Initiatives Center in partnership with Internews and support from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the International Committee of the Red Cross, IREX, and the Multimedia Education Center (Georgia).

Media and education, media literacy, the role and significance of the public media, exposure of misinformation, coverage of Armenia’s Velvet revolution: these are among the topics of “Tvapatum 2018” panels and workshops.

Conference organizers have selected the chamomile as the symbol of “Tvapatum 2018” to challenge the audience to trust or not to trust, to verify or not to verify, to disseminate or not to disseminate. These questions will help the participants to unfold the intrinsic dynamic of media-society relations over a cup of chamomile tea.

During the two-day conference, experts from the United States, Russia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Georgia and Armenia will explore the new opportunities and challenges facing the modern media, and how the new realities affect communication with the audience.

Executive Director of the Media Initiatives Center Nune Sargsyan thanked the attendees for participating in the conference.

Acting Director of the USAID Mission in Armenia, Lyle Andrzej Bashan, noted that modern society faces many challenges in the media: "This year's conference is a great opportunity to talk about media and society," - said Bashan.

Peter Andreas Bokhman, Head of the South Caucasus Office of Friedrich Naumann Foundation, inspired the attendees: "Use your space".

The conference consists of five thematic sections. In the course of the speeches, the speakers speak about civic media literacy, audience roles, exposure of misinformation, information check in Armenia, digital media campaigns and many other issues.

Paul Mihailidis, Associate Professor of Civic Media and Journalism at the US Emerson College, sent a video message noting he was unable to attend the conference personally.

Lusine Grigoryan, Media Literacy Program Manager, presented the media education supporting games through which it is suggested to go through various stages and solve problems, to analyze content, to check the sources of materials, to distinguish manipulation methods. Due to all this, the game participants will gain serious knowledge about the media.

Barbara McCormack (Freedom Forum Institute: NewseumED, Vice President, USA) speaking about real media studies, said that it has a very important role today. In the world of fraudulent information, it is highly desirable to have the skills that make it possible to distinguish false and true news, not becoming victims of political and advertising manipulations. Presenting statistical data, Barbara McCormack touched upon the problem that people make notes in Twitter, 89% of whom are not personally reading it, thus spreading often fake information.

Arthur Atayan, responsible for educational platforms of "Bun TV", proposing to "break" the stereotypes of the traditional education, presented the history, mission and goals of their educational platform. "Bun TV" was created in 2013 and is based on the idea that education should be open, free, non-directed, and accessible to all. The educational platform has 4 main formats: conversation, report, lecture, scientific papers.

The two-day conference will feature Bill Shribman (WGBH TV (PBS Member Broadcaster), Senior Executive Producer, USA), Rayhan Demytrie (BBC, South Caucasus Correspondent, Georgia), Mikhail Kozyrev (Dozhd TV, Producer, Host, Russia), Stan van Engelen ( VPRO (Dutch Public Broadcaster), Chief Editor, Netherlands), Nora Livet (nternational Committee of the Red Cross, Digital Officer, Switzerland), Jim Fry (Polygraph.info, Supervising Managing Editor, USA), Nata Dzvelishvili (Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics, Executive Director, Georgia), as well as representativse of the Armenian media field.

The participants have the opportunity to discuss new opportunities and challenges of modern media, to share interesting observations. The topic of the conference is in line with the era. The Velvet Revolution also turned the media field upside-down making everyone media through live broadcasts and social media coverage.