Minsk is hosting the 7th European and Asian media forum to discuss integration on the post-Soviet space and new media. It was organized by RIA Novosti in Belarus, with over 200 heads of mass media agencies of the CIS, Baltic and Georgia.
Attendants of the forum will discuss integration, cooperation of mass media and public, structures and peculiarities of new media functioning. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will visit the forum.
Alexey Vlasov, Editor-in-Chief of Vestnik Kavkaza and Deputy Dean of the History Faculty of the Moscow State University of M.V. Lomonosov, said that international experts were discussing the switch from bipolar to multipolar world was changing the rules in world geopolitics and geoeconomics. Pessimistic experts feared chaotization of international relations.
Vlasov noted that some conflicts had not been settled since the 20th century. Yet, there are new risks and challenges rising, affecting social and information security, inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations. The global problems are especially evident in Central Asia and South Caucasus, areas of post-Soviet transformations.
The editor-in-chief reminded about the problem of religious extremism threatening Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the latter being an oasis of stability that had had a smaller impact of the Afghan problem. But religious radicalism escalated in 2011-2012. Corruption and low authority of religious leaders aggravate the social problems.
Vlasov emphasized that there were no universal answers to global challenges, as it was stated by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev when discussing the world financial recession. The president proposed a switch from G-8 and G-20 to G-global. But local conflicts, such as the water and energy conflict of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of Armenia and Azerbaijan, hinder the process.
The deputy dean says that the global information space is turning into an efficient mechanism of propaganda and counter-propaganda. This is why the forum should focus on merging new technologies with new content to solve topical problems of the post-Soviet space. Realization of the idea requires consolidation of positions. So an expert dialogue platform, such as the media forum in Belarus, can only be welcomed, Vlasov concludes.
