Technology as the individual’s best weapon against oppressors – Mario de Marco

Culture Minister Mario de Marco said that technology has become the means by which people could be saved.

"In recent months we have all experienced the hopes and anxieties, the joys and the fears of the men and women who brought about the Arab Spring," de Marco said at the opening of the Commonwealth Journalists Association's annual conference.

"The dictators controlled all the traditional mass media. The common people controlled the new media. The dictators controlled the tanks, the common people controlled the smart phones and the social networks."

Addressing the opening of the Commonwealth Journalists Association's annual conference - themed 'Journalism and Democracy in the New Media Age' - de Marco said the Arab revolutionaries used new media to communicate, to congregate, to inform the world about what was happening, to expose the feet of clay of the regime.

"The Arab Spring has changed one of the most sapient and most popular dictum about journalism: we can say today that the Smart Phone is more powerful than the sword," de Marco said. He added that the Arab Spring - more than any other political or cultural upheaval - is a strong witness that citizen journalism has come of age. 

The Culture Minister said journalists are currently facing a difficult, but interesting time.

"The financial crisis is putting a heavy burden on journalists to strive to balance the budgetary restrictions affecting many media organisations with the best interest of your viewers, readers and listeners who expect from you nothing but the best quality journalism.

"We are living during times where restrictions on journalists are still very strong in a number of countries. The democratic deficit of these countries puts on you great pressures," de Marco said, reminding that almost 900 journalists had been killed since 1992; 46 of them were killed last year.

He added that technology was also challenging the traditional border line that divided the professional broadcasters and journalists from the rest: "This is not only a new age but that this new age is fashioned by the media which is at the fulcrum of contemporary culture."