The media in any nation is a window to its soul. It is the route that allows an entire nation to share in the emotions and experiences of others and so feel at one with each other. It helps form national character as it helps to set and develop the national agenda. The UAE has a very active social media scene and it is a challenge for the mainstream media to be part of this lively debate. In part, this is due to inertia, but it is also because the different mediums require different skills. Mainstream newspapers and TV stations go to great lengths to source and authenticate their stories, while social media is a much faster moving exchange of views that can also become gossip.
The UAE’s traditional media needs to become more adept at handling the new media and be ready to join new platforms as they emerge. They need to embrace the new flexibility, while keeping true to the traditional journalistic ideals of factual accuracy and transparent sourcing. This is the only way that the sometimes dangerous nonsense being promulgated in social media can be challenged.
