Baghdad: The Anat Foundation for Media and Sustainable Development organized its first forum of 2026 to discuss the reality of media and communication in Iraq and their relationship to people’s lives and public affairs. According to Iraqi News Agency, the forum utilized practical proposals that crystallized into projects for developing the Iraqi communication environment, encompassing professional practice, education, public awareness, culture, and public taste.
In a statement received by the Iraqi News Agency (INA), Anat said that it organized its first forum of 2026 to discuss the reality of media and communication in Iraq and their relationship to people’s lives and public affairs. Anat is an Iraqi civil society organization that links its interest in media to issues of awareness, responsibility, and development through dialogue, knowledge production, training, and public initiatives.
The forum included 16 sessions with the participation of 146 individuals, bringing together academic, professional, and institutional expertise from media, culture, civil society, government communication, and media regulation, as well as economics, philosophy, history, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence. This diversity allowed all participants to discuss issues from perspectives that combine research, practice, message crafting, and dealing with its outcomes.
The session topics, according to the statement, covered a range of subjects, including rumors and information dissemination, digital transformation and artificial intelligence, managing official messages, the relationship between discourse and public affairs, history, literature, and philosophy in the media environment, public taste, the role of civil society, youth presence and social relations on platforms, and the experiences of senior journalists and correspondents and the professional challenges facing media work.
The forum stemmed from viewing communication as an act that leaves consequences in society; information is involved in shaping judgment, images influence the understanding of people and events, and the way an issue is presented can either facilitate comprehension or increase confusion. Therefore, the discussions were linked to questions of trust, responsibility, and the public good, as well as the contribution of media work to people’s knowledge and their ability to manage their lives, the statement added.
In this context, the forum, according to the statement, addressed the communication environment, including its institutions, platforms, audiences, and information sources, and the professional, social, and technical pressures that govern the relationships between them. The discussions combined the skill of producing a message with understanding the circumstances of its dissemination and reception, while also focusing on the responsibility of each party for the content they create or contribute to disseminating.
After the sessions concluded, the work extended to processing the material, extracting the ideas, problems, and proposals that emerged. This process produced written summaries and actionable proposals, which Anat is utilizing to develop knowledge-based projects, programs, and initiatives. These extensions are being implemented in various forms, including publishing, visual production, professional development, education, and applications related to the public sphere.
Anat, according to the statement, worked on preparing a book compiling the session summaries to make its content available to researchers, media professionals, students, and relevant stakeholders. The practical proposals that emerged from the forum have been used to develop projects aimed at improving the Iraqi communication environment. These projects encompass professional practice, education, public awareness, culture, and public taste.
According to the statement, these projects are based on bridging academic and professional expertise with the needs of society and transforming the problems identified through the discussions into applicable programs, knowledge materials, and initiatives. They are divided into several areas:
In the professional and educational sphere, the projects are geared towards developing the capabilities of journalists and media students, linking training to public responsibility and a deeper understanding of society. Examples include the ‘Journalism Fellowship for Public Service’ project and the development of a ‘Critical Thinking’ course for media colleges, within an approach that combines professional skills with the ability to examine information and discourse and form informed judgments.
In the knowledge and cultural sphere, the projects focus on developing the public’s ability to understand and evaluate content while making knowledge accessible in formats that are more relatable to people. This includes utilizing cinema, history, and literature to analyze societal issues and assisting knowledge holders in presenting their insights in the digital environment.
Anat noted that short video productions also fall within this category, including the ‘Concepts’ and ‘Anat Cinema’ videos, which aim to raise public awareness of the impact of messages and images on people’s understanding and attitudes. It pointed out that the work also extends to the social sphere and public taste through initiatives that promote the responsible use of platforms and address the impact of content on social relations, with a particular focus on the visual identity of the public sphere.
One example is Anat’s collaboration with the Baghdad Municipality in preparing a guide to public taste, within a vision that links the quality of the visual landscape to the city’s identity and people’s relationship with their surroundings. In the field of crisis communication, it added that ‘the ‘Crisis Discourse-Responsible Discourse’ project proposes a path for developing the performance of institutions, spokespersons, and journalists. This approach is based on verifying information, ensuring clear messages, and understanding the needs of the public.’
Its vision includes developing a guide and providing practical training to help assess the impact of discourse and minimize harm while taking into account the needs of the most vulnerable groups. ‘The development of the communication environment in Iraq gains its importance from its connection to the quality of public life, as society needs reliable information to understand its issues, a responsible discussion that accommodates differences, and institutions that are clear in their communication with people. These are conditions that help build trust, evaluate public decisions, and participate consciously in addressing problems and preserving common interests,’ the statement concluded.