Google Workshop in Digital Media
2015-06-18
Last month the 3rd digital media workshop in conjunction with Google took place at the Google Campus in Tel Aviv. Eleven journalists ,media professionals and activists attended the meeting, which focused on online journalism and challenges in the changing digital media landscape.
Google has ‘Campuses’ in major cities around the world, providing a place for local professionals to learn new skills and share ideas. I’lam became involved with the community at the Google Campus in Tel Aviv last year, and there have been three workshops since then – giving more and more professionals the chance to have the experience and become a part of the Google learning community.
The workshops feature a series of talks by established professionals in media fields, who share information, ideas and support with the participants. The first talk covered the role of radio in digital media – for example, how it has become important in recent years to broadcast radio programs over the internet in order to retain listeners and reach a wider audience.
The second talk focused on photojournalism, and the challenges it faces with the evolution of new media and the rise of ‘citizen journalism’. In a world where anyone can take a photo on a mobile device and circulate it through social media networks, the lines separating this public activity and professional journalism are becoming increasingly blurred.
However, another speaker at the event pointed out the usefulness of cell phones in the media, and how they provide civilians with the ability to record important footage of events ‘on the ground’ – such as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The ‘Kempler video’ was widely circulated across media channels, and was even used as evidence in the trial of the assassin.
In addition to these and other lectures, the participants also have opportunities to learn and develop skills – such as building successful blogs, and effectively marketing these and other websites as sources of information for the media.
The partnership between I’lam and Google continues, and we look forward to collaborating again to provide more workshops in the near future.