With the establishment of Al Jazeera’s website in May 2000, and its official launch in January 2001, Al Jazeera moved to the digital world. In other words, it took the second step of interaction between digitisa- tion and content. Before that, Al Jazeera had experienced the world of Web 2.0 in the context of the Internet age and media publishing, with a fixed page containing information about programmes, broadcast sched- ules and other information common for such websites during that time. In its original vision, Al Jazeera did not just plan for digital media and its importance from the perspective of keeping up with the digital media environment and benefiting from rapid information technology and communications developments, but also had the foresight to under- stand the essence and demands of the digital age we are experiencing today. In addition to this, Al Jazeera understands the media context that today’s variables impact and form as well as the importance of innova- tion in unprecedented digital media products. This gave Al Jazeera an increased importance in leading the creation of digital media that is part of the larger global media map. This spirit culminated in the network’s formation of a digital division in January 2016, as part of its strategic vision focused on competitive leadership in media, which continues to be an expanding space as social media and its platforms become more influential. This sector oversaw the production of a network of more than 40 digital platforms in six different languages. This acknowledgement and awareness of electronic and digital media was established in a project fit for the size of a global media net- work striving to reach the farthest corners of the earth in search of the truth, and striving to be the voice of the voiceless on the basis of two main factors: - The network, as a media company and its administration’s digital mind-set in strategic media planning as well as the institutionalisation of this mind-set in the electronic and digital media space in response to and in interaction with the depth of ongoing or anticipated transforma- tion in the digital environment. - The network’s media vision held by Al Jazeera’s administration frames its media policies in such a way that they constantly respond to developments in the media and communications field (even before becoming a global media network).
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