PESHAWAR: Speakers at a workshop on Wednesday urged youth, especially the students, to use social media responsibly for reforming the society.

The workshop titled ‘Digital Citizen Journalism’ was organised by Individual Land, a non-government organisation. A large number of youth and students from various educational institutions, particularly of mass communication department, participated and shared their views.

The resource persons, including Mashud Ali, Saifullah and Azmat Kakar, imparted training to students on how to use social media as per journalistic ethics and code of conduct in order to make their events valuable on social media.

They said the social media had become an easy tool which could be used by anyone, particularly the common citizens. However, majority of the users did not know how to use social media properly.

The trainers said journalism was shrinking and converting into social media and every citizen wanted to upload videos, stories and other events without confirmation, research and investigation, which was important to make the viewers believe in what they uploaded. The focal persons said promotion of digital citizen journalism among users and aspiring journalists could assist them in becoming smart social media users with the ability to identify fake content and develop and disseminate their own content.

The ease in adoption of digital technology has allowed the citizens to react to news in a way that was impossible before. Online articles allow citizens to get involved and give their opinion. For journalists, this allows receiving feedback that is not possible in traditional journalism, they said.

The participants were also briefed about MOJO journalism also known as mobile journalism, which is basically use of portable devices such as smartphones, tablets ,digital cameras or laptops for gathering, shooting, live broadcasting, editing or sharing news.

They also explained that news could be sent to the newsroom or could be shared directly on social media by the MOJO. However, they stressed the need that any report/video or package with authentic information could play positive role in reforming society, otherwise such stuff could prove risky.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2019