The National Institute for Global Strategy Studies (INESG) organized, on Sunday in Algiers, a conference entitled “Media education and issues of media verification in Africa” moderated by several experts and specialists in the field of information and of communication, who insisted on the importance of verifying the content and sources of information in order to avoid disinformation, particularly in light of the great evolution of ICT.
Presiding over the opening of this conference, the Director General of INESG, Abdelaziz Medjahed, affirmed that this scientific meeting aims to “highlight the importance of media education, which constitutes, he said , a key factor in combating disinformation, amplified by the use of ICT”, calling on the media to raise awareness in society on the importance of media education.
Speaking on this occasion, Ms. Rima Rouibi, teacher at the National School of Journalism and Information Sciences, underlined the importance of integrating media education into school programs with a view to “developing practices management of media content, on the one hand, and to teach young people the importance of “verifying the sources of media content, on the other hand, to promote a culture of self-criticism”.
In this wake, Ms. Rouibi addressed “the importance of mastering media verification techniques, particularly for journalists, in light of the great evolution of ICT and new uses of artificial intelligence” proposing “to create an index of media professionalism based on information verification data”.
For his part, Mr. Assad Sahmarani, professor of theology at the University of Beirut (Lebanon), presented, by videoconference, an intervention entitled “The foundations of the Zionist narrative during the war against Gaza and Lebanon and the means of counter”, reviewing the propaganda techniques used by the Zionist entity to spread disinformation.
For his part, Professor Ghassan Abu Sitta, from the University of Glasgow (United Kingdom), also spoke by videoconference with a presentation entitled “Israeli psychological warfare against the health sector”, in which he discussed the disinformation exerted by the Zionist entity, while welcoming Algeria’s position of support for the Palestinian cause as well as the professionalism of the Algerian media in their continuous coverage of developments in this cause.
