Press release:

RIA Novosti convenes 300 international participants for Future Media Forum

Around 300 representatives of the world’s leading media outlets will gather in Moscow on June 24 for a RIA Novosti forum on the future of journalism.

The Future Media Forum will take place at the RIA Novosti international multimedia press center at 4 Zubovsky Boulevard. The event has sparked great interest due to the relevance of the issues on the agenda which relate to developing media technologies, the roles of innovative and conventional media in society and ultimately, the future of journalism.

 

“We hope that this forum will become an open platform for a broader discussion of possible paths for media development, looking beyond the media community,” said RIA Novosti Editor-in-Chief Svetlana Mironyuk. “We were keen to bring together leading representatives of the international media market and the audiences, the end consumers of these media products, to discuss the interaction between the traditional and increasingly popular innovative media.”

RIA Novosti was chosen to host the Future Media Forum because the full range of cutting edge media technologies it has at its disposal can be used to bring as wide a range of people as possible into this discussion of issues that are of crucial importance for the international information community’s future. The sessions will be broadcast live on the RIA Novosti website in Russian and English. Questions to the participants can be posted at www.facebook.com/FutureMediaForum. 

“The current influx of new technologies means that it's a fascinating time for journalism all over the globe,” said Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media. “Never before has the news industry been presented with such a proliferation of ways to gather news, communicate with the audiences and increase our influence.”

He believes the International Future Media Forum will provide an opportunity “to debate how we can better operate in this ever-expanding digital arena, what we can learn from each other, and how we can continue to experiment in order to pioneer new forms of story-telling for our tech-savvy audiences.”

As of today, with six weeks still to go before the event, over 200 out of the 300 participants invited from Russia, the United States, Europe and Asia have already applied for accreditation. They include the heads of Russian and global media companies as well as representatives of international organizations, innovation companies and analytical centers focused on media market development.

The Future Media Forum is planned as the core event of this year’s celebrations of the agency’s 70th anniversary. It is also expected to become one of the key events of the global media industry this year.

The preliminary Forum agenda, and lists of speakers and partners are available at www.fmf-eng.rian.ru.

For accreditation, please register at the forum website: www.fmf-eng.rian.ru/docs/about/registration.html.