Glocalnews 2017: twenty years of digital culture

Also this year, ‘Glocalnews’, the festival of digital journalism, a national event that has reached the sixth edition and been promoted by Varesenews together with ANSO (Italian Association of Online Press) and ONA (Online News Association), proposes itself as a point of reference of keeping up to date and a meeting place for thousands of online operators and journalists.

Glocalnews will take place in Varese from 16th to 18th November and will include also an educational ‘space’ for young students putting effort into creating blogs, as well as detailed-study-meetings on communication and journalism topics, organized together with the Order of Lombardy Journalists.

The project, called BlogLab, is promoted and organized together with the Lombardy Regional Council.

The president of the regional council Raffaele Cattaneo said: “Also this year, the Lombardy Regional Council will be an official partner of the seventh edition of Glocalnews, which takes place into the twentieth anniversary of Varesenews. This is a festival where communication officers of local and global journalism and the uses of the new technologies meet each other with a particular attention to citizens, ever more attracted by digital culture. Also politics has to communicate through new tools, such as social networks, and to come to terms with online information. These projects help us to keep up with the constant changes of this field. In particular the council will be the main character of Bloglab, the workshop dedicated to the students of secondary schools and universities, who want to prove themselves by creating multimedia reports. A particular acknowledgement goes to the director Giovannelli and to the whole editorial staff, with whom shares a long lasting and deep cooperation about the topics and the contents of this project, which has by now become a point of reference, not only regionally but nationally.”

The projects and the events of Glocalnews could be followed by sector operators and others, but for journalists there is another opportunity: the workshops are certified by the National Order, and together with the Order of Lombardy Journalists, will offer credits for absolving educational obligation set from the Law n. 148/2011 and from the Presidential Decree 137/2012.

From ethics to the uses of social networks, from the topics related to the deontology of those who communicate to the new frontiers of journalism; there are many topics discussed during the meetings that will take place during the three days of Glocalnews. There are all the main national editorial newspapers and a good representation of the local and non-local news sources.

The Festival is also a moment of meeting with institutional realities, given the presence of representatives of the European Parliament, National and Regional representatives such as AGCOM, the Order of Journalists, FNSI and CASAGIT.

Entertaining these evenings will be even parliamentarians and representatives of the institutions such as the President of the Lombardy Region Roberto Maroni, who will be present at the 17th November event which has been dedicated to the future of the cities: an appointment with global and local voices to discuss the prospects concerning our territories between projects, connections, communication, infrastructures, the Internet and possible utopias.

The President of the Regional Council of Lombardy Raffaele Cattaneo, on the other hand, will meet the young staff of BlogLab on Saturday 18th at 10 am in Estense Hall of Palazzo Estense in Varese.

The director of Varesenews, Marco Giovannelli explains: ”The Sixth Edition of Glocalnews is very significant for us because it highlights a transition stage and at the same time an important goal. Twenty years ago, our newspaper was born, the first digital newspaper in the province of Varese. This sixth edition of Glocalnews is very much affected by this occasion. The 1997 was not a year like the others: Google was born precisely that year. With the American colossus they steadily set off the websites Repubblica.it and also Varesenews, thta has the honor of thinking and organizing the festival. In short, the world has a significant acceleration towards a globalization that the Network can only encourage even further. For six years, we have been focusing on an idea that is now in our lives: Glocal holds both the global and local dimensions. Perhaps this is the word that best represents what the digital let us live day by day.”

The new president of the Order of Journalists of Lombardy Alessandro Galimberti states: ”The future of journalism has been Glocal for long, as the centrality of the Varese Festival proves. Now, however, it is urgent and we cannot delay anymore working to define shared rules that match the web world to that of paper, rules of legal civilization, I mean. I hope that the first step can be done right in Varese, with concrete indications that overlook the obvious anomalies of international laws that are not related to each other and are even contradictory. Lombardy has a strong tradition of local printed newspapers, with almost 6 newspapers out of 11 that have an over-centennial history and its roots in the 19th century. At the same time, our region has become a starter and a pilot in digital experimentations. Lombardy has therefore what it takes to make serious proposals and to restore authority and momentum to multimedia journalism. Recently, the acquisition of fiscal incentives for advertising investments on paper and online prints (Article 4 of Legislative Decree No. 148 of 16 October 2017) has been gained in order to obtain the results on which we have all worked. From a legislative point of view, we are thus experiencing a favorable historical phase.

‘The Global and Local Digital Journalism Festival’ in Varese seize the opportunity that journalists are the protagonists of a real change”.

FESTIVAL GLOCAL WEBSITE