The return of #4MPARIS

The return of #4MPARIS

Bringing together 200 influential players from media and civil society organisations, originating from a total of 38 countries, the 4M Paris 2016 Meetings have become a unique forum for discussing civic engagement through digital media.
By means of various activities spread over two days, the event is an excellent opportunity for attendees to share their experiences of media innovations in a friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

Participants from such diverse countries as Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Tunisia, Syria, Armenia and Kenya, among others, came together on 20 and 21 April 2016 at the Maison des Métallos to discuss issues surrounding the general theme of Media and civil society: a joint undertaking? (read the programme) and to share their experiences and ideas relating to civic engagement through digital media. The meetings also made it possible to make the jump from virtual meetings on the internet to face-to-face meetings in Paris.

The forum was centred around two hot topics of discussion that have been stimulating debate for several months:
- sharing new editorial practices; and
- structuring online media.

The media for civil society organisations today

This was the subject of the first debate, led by the Senegalese blogger and President of the Africtivistes movement, Cheikh Fall, who in particular addressed the concept of the coexistence of two types of journalism today: professional journalism & citizen journalism (an article relating to this debate was published in Elle citoyenne).

#4MCAMP, the interactive workshop revolving around how to engage and manage communities, marked one of the key moments of the day.
Each participant gave a brief introduction of themselves and their skills, and in the process also learned about those of their counterparts from other countries.

In the afternoon, the participants were divided among four workshops relating to long formats, censorship, governance and a presentation of the WebRadar.me toolkit developed by Jazem Halioui and his team, which facilitates online research, data visualisation, fact checking and monitoring of social media.


Economic models for online media: what works and what doesn't?

The second day kicked off with a debate about the economic models to be used for online media, moderated by Malek Khadhraoui, Publishing Director and President of Inkyfada in Tunisia (read here: Economic models for media in the Maghreb).
The participants then spent the rest of their day taking part in some of the 12 focus sessions on offer.

Topics of the focus sessions included visual journalism with Visualizing Impact and DataN, network research with Hetq.am and ARIJ or engaging with the community with Rappler & Newsmada, among others.

The 4M meetings also hosted the first meeting in Paris of the Africtivistes movement, bringing together African bloggers, citizen journalists and democracy activists, following the annual summit held in November 2015 in Dakar (Senegal), with more than 150 participants (read article from Le Monde on this subject).

A newsroom that encourages discussion

At the event, a dedicated newsroom was set up in order to enable 20 students from the EFJ to practise their craft by providing live coverage of the debates via Twitter, Snapchat and Periscope and by conducting 25 Youtube video interviews.

This facility demonstrated a practical example of the workings of a modern and agile newsroom to the participants at 4M Paris, which has been one of the core aspects of 4M since 2011.

10 000 tweets and 500 Facebookmessages were shared under the #4MParis hashtag during the Meetings.



Find photos

25 video interviews on Youtube

PPT presentations by speakers


Everyone is talking about the 4M Paris Meetings

RFI : New news channels in Africa

RFI : The new dissidents

Huffington Post : Economic models for media in the Maghreb

Stratégie : Social networks promote the involvement of civil society in public debates

TV5 MONDE : Media in the Maghreb in the time of the #PanamaPapers



For 5 years, spanning 12 international forums and 6 long-term projects, the 4M label created by CFI fosters the exchange of innovations between countries, the sharing of good practices in online journalism and support for the development of online media.

Recent news from projects on the ground