Mohammed bin Rashid honours winners of Media Students

Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum honoured winners of the Media Students Research Competition organised by the Dubai Press Club (DPC) as part of the 4th edition of the Emirati Media Forum (EMF). The award ceremony took place today on the sidelines of the EMF in the presence of prominent Emirati media personalities, chief editors, and students.

The competition, which focused on the theme of ‘fake news’, attracted 58 entries from 10 institutions, which included individual and group submissions. Three students of ‘Mohammed Bin Rashid School for Communication’ won the first place for their research on how to prevent the spread of fake news.

Nouf Humaid from College of Mass Communication and Humanities, Ajman University was named the first runner up for her field study titled ‘Reasons Behind the Spread of Fake News and Ways to Stop it’ which focused on rumours in the Arab world and people’s response to them. Her survey of 87 people of different Arab nationalities concluded that TV channels are the most credible news source followed by newspapers.

A team from UAE University was named the second runner up for their research work titled ‘Combating Digital Illiteracy and Digital Naivety’. The research threw light on people’s tendency to believe everything appearing on social media.

On this occasion, President of Dubai Press Club Mona Ghanem Al Marri said the recognition of the winners by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum reflects the keenness of the leadership to encourage talent. "DPC is constantly striving to implement the directives of the leadership to help identify, recognise and foster young talent and facilitate their interaction with local and international media. We always seek to ensure that programmes focused on the youth are a very substantial part of DPC’s initiatives and projects. Through this competition, we wanted to learn how the new generation deals with the challenges that face media," Her Excellency said. She praised the high quality demonstrated by the entries to the competition.

The Media Students Research Competition was launched by DPC with the aim of discovering outstanding talent, and preparing the new generation of media professionals to research and analyse the media landscape.