Hanoi (VNA)✤ – Providing information to the public through digital communication channels has become popular now. Doing so for official information is currently a common trend among the press agencies in the digital era.

Journalist Vu Viet Trang,General Director of Vietnam News Agency (VNA), has given some comments on communicationtrends in the digital era and highlighted orientations for the VNA to sustainits stature as a mainstream media agency in the cyberspace.

Mainstream news suppliers in cyberspace

🌃The number of social networkusers in Vietnam currently stands at around 73.6 million, 95 percent of whichuse Facebook. Meanwhile, the monthly active users of Zalo, a social media platformof Vietnam, reached 74.7 million in February this year, higher than the 67.8million users of Messenger of Facebook-owner Meta.

Trang said via socialnetworks, press agencies can quickly learn of errornous or ill-intentionedinformation so as to provide corrections. Press outlets’ mass presence in the cyberspace has encouraged internet users to help spread and turn their officialnews into the mainstream information flow. In the flow of strong digitaltransformation, most of the press agencies have been shifting to a multimedia model,she pointed out, noting that social networks are a channel for press agenciesto advertise their “brands” and information products and then attract thepublic to their traditional and typical news items.

VNA and the strategy for building digital platforms

The General Director said theVNA’s source news departments and press - publication units have been stronglyreforming both news contents and formats. They have launched new typesof information such as infographic, longform (which combines text, photo, video,and diagram in a product), megastory (which combines audio, video, photo, anddata shown by using digital technology), and timeline (information shown intimeline). They are also actively popularising information about Vietnam inmultiple languages such as Vietnamese, Chinese, Russian, English, French, andSpanish on social media apps while diversifying ways for spreading externalinformation, helping fulfill the VNA’s role as the key press agency forforeign service of Vietnam. The VNA currently owns 14verified Facebook fanpages tasked with disseminating official information andthe country’s achievements in national reform and development.Foreign-language fanpages have also proved effective in performingcommunication tasks, according to Trang. She said the VNA is utilisingdigital platforms as an effective channel for distributing multimedia andmultilingual news to users around the world. As the national e-newspaperfor foreign service, VietnamPlus is stepping up access to users on digitalplatforms. Aside from its Facebook fanpages, it has also set up accounts onother popular platforms such as Zalo, TikTok, MyClip, Twitter, and YouTube. The VNA’s official newsshared on social networks by VietnamPlus has greatly helped to fight againstill-intentioned and fake news, she said. The official added other externalinformation outlets of the VNA like Vietnam Pictorial, Viet Nam News, and VNewshave also been strongly capitalising on the internet to spread news to readers,especially Vietnamese and foreign people worldwide. Trang stressed that mainstreammedia agencies are always the places where readers seek verified and preciseinformation, so they need to uphold their advantages and goals in order tobecome mainstream news sources in the cyberspace as well. Apart from providing precise information,press agencies also have to cover policy implementation and report on objectiveopinions and assessments by authorities, experts, and effected groups so thatthe public can gain an overarching view of issues, she went on. As social networks are notcopies of press agencies, prudence is necessary and information must be precisewhen publishing news on those platforms, thereby helping optimise social mediaadvantages like interactions, comments, and shares to perform political tasksin an effective manner, the VNA leader added./.