New program aims to equip students, professionals with digital media production skills

Media students, experts, and professors celebrated the inauguration of the diploma program in digital media launched by the university’s Media Development Center on Saturday, May 4, 2019. 

The program, which includes 25 media professionals in its first class, is designed to equip students with the digital media skills required in modern news media agencies, offering courses that emphasize the production of text, audio, and video as a single multimedia package − rather than teaching them as discrete skills that rarely intersect in the field. 

Funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and Deutsche Welle, the program’s ten courses − spread across 334 training hours − focus on data journalism, digital media broadcasting, and 360-, VR-, and AR-based media production. 

In his opening remarks, President of Birzeit University Abdullatif Abuhijleh emphasized that the media center has made efforts to build the capacities of Palestinian media personnel since its inception in 1996, organizing tens of specialized workshops, seminars, and lectures annually to help journalists keep abreast of the latest technologies and concepts in media and news media production. 

Nibal Thawabteh, director of the Media Development Center, explained that the program was established to meet the capacity-building needs of the media sector in Palestine, noting that the program is geared towards students, fresh graduates, and media experts.