Hanoi (VNA) – It is necessary totake advantage of the potential of the modern media, especially in cyberspace,to attract a larger readership, according to Managing Director of the IslamicRepublic News Agency (IRNA) of Iran Seyyed Zia Hashemi.

This is also the message the IRNA wants tosend to the 44th Meeting of the Executive Board of the Organisationof Asia-Pacific Agencies (OANA), he said in an interview with theVietnam News Agency (VNA) which will host the meeting in Hanoi from April18-20.

Thefollowing is the full text of the interview:

Reporter: The IRNA successfully organised the 43rd OANA Executive Board Meeting in November 2018. What message does the IRNA bringto the 44th EBM in Hanoi?

Mr. Seyyed Zia Hashemi: I wish VNAgreat success in holding the 44th OANA EBM in Hanoi. Two delegateswill represent IRNA in the Hanoi meeting and I hope the meeting will turn intoa great achievement through the participation of members.

Ialso would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to the current OANApresident and secretary general who helped the executive meetings take placeregularly and encouraged cooperation among the members.

Ourmessage to the 44th OANA EBM is that it is necessary for us to takeadvantage of the potential of modern media especially in the cyberspace toattract larger audience.

Asia-Pacificnews agencies have to adopt innovative techniques in order to compete withlarge news agencies in the West and in order to present a correct image oftheir countries to the world. If OANA members do not plan for the future, theywon’t be able to keep up with the mainstream media of the world.

Reporter: Using socialmedia as a channel to spread information has become key for news agencies. The“Data mining” product on the cyberspace that IRNA sent to the meeting’s contestis an example of this trend. How has “Data mining” helped the IRNA?

Mr. Seyyed Zia Hashemi: Data-mining hasbeen an effective technique used by IRNA in the past year. It let us identifymajor news trends so we were able to cover better subjects and engage ouraudiences more successfully.

Interactionamong the media and their audience expands the influence of media since theinteraction enriches media’s understanding of the context and affects the waythey explore subjects, write articles and deliver news to the people.

Wehave employed data-mining to explore both classical media and cyberspace atnational and international levels. This way, we successfully focused on hottestissues and put emphasis on more significant and appealing topics.

Irecommend my colleagues in OANA to make use of data-mining techniques toimprove their activities./.