new media

As IREX launches its Promoting New Media and Media Convergence in Russia program, examples of how new media is changing the nature of communications and media continually appear. The new generation of Russians is completely entrenched in new media and is now learning how to influence public opinion (both in good and not so good ways) in the country. A recent scandal surrounding President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to the Moscow University School of Journalism offers proof of this evolving environment.

While Tunisia’s revolution continues to have different meanings for different constituencies, perhaps in nowhere is the transformation more profoundly felt than in the media sector. After decades of extreme censorship, and in some cases outright brutality directed against journalists and editors, and more recently bloggers, who circumvented the government line, media representatives now feel the fear and intimidation lifting.

As part of United Nations' International Year of Youth, I asked our Chief of Party for the Azerbaijan New Media Project Angela Nicoara about her experience with youth and their involvement in media. Angela says that media tools and skills can help youth have an outlet to affect their own communities and futures in Azerbaijan and throughout the world.

Here are more of Angela's answers.

Michael Mirny, the Chief of Party of IREX's International Media Partnerships Program in Russia, offers a summary of a roundtable on old and new media in Russia at the annual AAASS convention.

More than 150 journalists and civil society leaders gathered in Erbil, Iraq for a ground-breaking two-day media conference, entitled “Emerging Technologies, Emerging Democracies,” held by IREX and the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR).