Leaders of 25 media organizations from BRICS countries are to gather here for an unprecedented event dedicated to promoting media cooperation within the BRICS framework, which will inject new vigor and vitality into common development of the five-member bloc.
With the theme of "Innovation, Development, Cooperation and Trust," the first BRICS media summit will focus on topics such as media's role in promoting closer international partnership, deepening BRICS media exchange and cooperation as well as how traditional and new media complement each other and diverge.
The BRICS media summit, which is scheduled for Dec. 1 in Beijing, is in a sense filling a gap in BRICS cooperation.
In the past decade, many developing nations have registered robust economic growth, and collectively they have started to play an increasingly significant role on the world arena.
BRICS, which groups Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has not only boosted economic growth in its member states and jointly generated about one fifth of the world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but has also contributed new ideas and strategies to global governance.
So far, the five leading emerging economies have formed a multilevel cooperation mechanism covering a wide range of areas, with the latest milestone being the launch of the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral financial institution designed to fund infrastructure projects in BRICS members and other developing nations as well.
However, compared with BRICS' fruitful results in economic cooperation, media cooperation among the members appears to be a short slab.
Despite frequent exchange between media groups at the bilateral level, there was no multilateral arrangement to enhance media cooperation within the bloc.
The first BRICS media summit, proposed by Xinhua and jointly organized by Brazil Communication Company, Russia Today International News Agency, The Hindu Group and South Africa's Independent Media, also showcases the determination of BRICS nations to enhance coordination in the face of a fresh wave of clamoring seeking to play up economic troubles in BRICS members.
Each being an important component of their own countries' soft-power, media organizations represented at the summit need to adopt a more constructive approach while reporting news in other BRICS countries.
Meanwhile, they also need actively explore success stories of BRICS cooperation so as to dispel doubts over the future of BRICS and help create a favorable environment for further development of the bloc as a whole.
Better communication among BRICS media organizations could help push forward cooperation within the bloc, and promote friendship between the peoples.
It is believed that BRICS members, with the support of media cooperation, will build on past consensus, open up new ground for cooperation among them and continue to raise the profile of the bloc in the arena of economy and beyond.
