Culture & Education | Friday 29 December, 2017 11:38 am |

Minister of Culture and Information Awwad Al-Awwad honored Thursday evening winners of the New Media Award, which was instituted by the Saudi General Commission for Audiovisual Media.

Several winners have been chosen from a shortlist of 300 nominated candidates by a specialized jury panel headed by Dr. Abdullah Al-Maghlouth.

Speaking on the occasion, Al-Awwad said the announcement about the New Media Award had attracted a total of 200 million followers on various social media platforms and the number of recommendations reached 140,000.

Al-Awwad said the award was instituted to encourage content makers and influencers in the Kingdom's social media field.

“It aims to invest their abilities in enhancing the power of society benefiting from these media platforms to produce high quality content that contributes to the expansion of knowledge, promotion of positive behaviors, development of creative skills and abilities of the youth, combating of extremist and hostile ideas and dissemination of values of love, peace and harmony among people," he said.

The minister announced a new Arab Media Award, which will be instituted in partnership with the Prince Muhammad Bin Salman Foundation (MiSK). He also launched the "Al-Moathareen Club", which is a body of people creating positive impact on social networking platforms, in order to enhance creative work and deliver influential content.

"Membership of this club is open to all citizens who wish to enrich society with media content that disseminates information about Saudi culture and revives the elements of our ancient heritage associated with the national identity,” the minister said.

Al-Awwad also unveiled plans to launch the initiative of "Ethical Charter for Social Communications" with broad community participation to crystallize the ethical norms of social networking sites.