Information Ministry, BIBF hold workshop on creating economic content

Manama, The Information Ministry held, in cooperation with the Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF), a specialised workshop on the basics of creating economic content for media professionals, within the 'Economic Media Month', organised as part of the 'Manama Capital of Arab Media 2024'. Several media professionals and economists from Bahrain and abroad participated in the workshop. The training workshop addressed several topics related to economic media and content creation, shedding light on a set of statistics and numbers related to this industry, as well as modern methods for identifying and studying the target audience to provide content that meets their aspirations and expectations. It also focused on several areas related to the economy with the aim of refining the skills of Bahraini media professionals, in particular, and the Arab world, in general. Dr. Mesfer Al-Muhanadi, Head of BIBF's Banking and Finance Centre, while addressing the workshop, stressed the importance of developing me dia competencies to serve the growth of the digital content sector, as it is one of the promising sectors that heralds rising economic growth. He indicated that Arabic speakers account for more than 5% of the world's population, yet the share of Arabic content on the Internet is less than 3% of the total content, noting that the content creation industry has turned into an economy and there is still more to push the growth of this vital sector. He added that there are opportunities for media professionals to play a more important role in the future if their tools are properly invested in creating content. He said that since 2020, the number of content creators has exceeded 165,000, aged 40 on average. He stressed that the media professionals' role in the content industry is to be creative and unique in preparing valuable content, keeping pace with global events, developments and changes, as well as communicating directly with the public, and adhering to the standards of the profession, noting that the siz e of content creation industry economy is expected to reach approximately 480 billion US dollars by 2027. On the content creation sector in the Arab world, he stressed the need to build clear strategies through media agencies to adopt content creation, and to select qualified media competencies to address challenges, adding that the media is influential in this aspect and has a major role in investing in the capabilities and skills in the media agencies to provide digital content of all kinds. It is worth noting that the organising committee has launched several initiatives, including a special discussion panel on the Impact of digital transformation on individual financial transactions, in which economic experts from Bahrain and abroad participated. It has also recorded podcast episodes on a number of economic topics directed to the Arab audience and will be broadcast on local and Arab channels. Source: Bahrain News Agency