Working Groups

The MCAP Conference features dedicated Working Groups that bring together media academics, professionals, and policymakers in roundtable-style discussions to address contemporary challenges in media education, practice, and governance. These sessions provide a collaborative space for dialogue, reflection, and the exchange of ideas aimed at strengthening the media ecosystem in Pakistan and beyond. Key insights and recommendations emerging from the discussions are systematically documented and published as reports on the MCAP website, ensuring that the outcomes contribute to policy thinking, academic development, and professional practice across the broader media community.

Working Group 1: Integrating Constructive Journalism in Media Education

(February 12 |1:30-3:00 WG-A=Slass 125|WG-B=Slass 015|WG-C=Slass Jmc Studio)

This Working Group brings together journalism educators, media practitioners, and researchers to examine how constructive journalism can be meaningfully integrated into media education and professional practice in Pakistan. Moving beyond crisis-driven and sensational reporting, the session focuses on encouraging students and journalists to investigate how communities respond to social challenges through innovation, resilience, and collective action. Participants will reflect on pedagogical strategies, newsroom realities, and institutional constraints that shape journalistic practice, while collaboratively identifying pathways for embedding solution-oriented thinking into curricula, training, and media cultures. The Working Group aims to generate practical recommendations and shared understandings that can support more ethical, community-centered, and hope-driven journalism.

Guiding Questions for the Working Group

How is constructive journalism currently understood and practised by journalism educators and media professionals in Pakistan, and how does it differ from traditional problem-focused reporting?What pedagogical approaches and classroom practices can help students identify, research, and report solution-oriented stories rooted in community experiences?
What institutional, editorial, and cultural barriers limit the teaching and practice of constructive journalism, and how can academia and newsrooms collaboratively address these challenges?
What concrete curricular, training, and policy recommendations can be developed to sustain constructive journalism as an integral part of media education and professional practice in Pakistan?

Working Group 2: Storytelling for Solutions- Short Films and Documentaries as Change Agents

(February 12 |1:30-3:00 Slass -013)

Short films and documentaries possess a unique capacity to move audiences from awareness to action. In contexts marked by crisis, inequality, and misinformation, visual storytelling can illuminate how individuals and communities respond to challenges offering not only critique but also creative pathways toward solutions. This Working Group invites filmmakers, film educators, and documentary practitioners to explore how cinematic storytelling can be re-framed as a constructive force that nurtures empathy, collective agency, and social justice.

Participants will reflect on how film schools and media departments can encourage students to identify solution-oriented narratives in their surroundings, and how professional filmmakers can balance artistic freedom with social responsibility. The group will also consider production of and distribution challenges, including limited resources, censorship, and access to audiences, while identifying ways to amplify stories of resilience and innovation that emerge from local contexts. The session will culminate in recommendations for strengthening pedagogical practices, collaboration between academia and filmmakers, and platforms that promote stories of hope and transformation.

Guiding Questions for the Roundtable

How can short films and documentaries shift the narrative from crisis and victimhood to resilience and problem-solving within communities?
What pedagogical approaches can film and media educators adopt to train students in identifying and producing constructive, community-centered stories?
Can filmmakers navigate institutional, financial, or political pressures while maintaining authenticity and ethical storytelling?
What models of collaboration (academia–industry–community) can help promote solution-oriented films to wider audiences and sustain a culture of socially responsible creativity?

Working Group 3: Role of Media & Sports in Reclaiming Active Communities

(February 12 |1:30-3:00 Slass -315)

Citizens play a central role in shaping the social and cultural life of their communities, and the concept of Active Communities has gained global recognition as a citizen-led approach to promoting physical, mental, and social well-being. Active communities are defined by collective participation in everyday physical activity and sports, fostering healthier lifestyles, social connection, and shared responsibility for well-being. In response to increasing sedentary habits and mental health concerns, policymakers and public health institutions worldwide promote community-based initiatives. In Pakistan, however, access to such opportunities remains uneven. Economic pressures limit recreational choices for many households, while organized fitness spaces largely cater to socio-economic elites. Public spaces for play and physical activity are shrinking or becoming restricted, reinforcing structural inequalities and excluding ordinary citizens.

Despite these challenges, grassroots initiatives such as cycling groups, running clubs, and neighborhood fitness communities have emerged across Pakistan, reflecting a growing desire for active and connected lifestyles. In collaboration with the BARD Foundation and Active Cities Committee, Pakistan -ACCP, MCAP proposes this Working Group to highlight the role of media in promoting Active Communities across socio-economic and rural–urban divides. Bringing together media professionals, community organizers, and academics, the session challenges the dominance of elite sports narratives and reimagines sports and lifestyle journalism as a platform for civic engagement and inclusion. The Working Group aims to develop practical recommendations for media coverage that amplifies citizen-led initiatives and supports sustainable, replicable models of active living.

Guiding Questions for the Roundtable

How does sports journalism in Pakistan contribute to the glorification of certain sports while neglecting others and what are the consequences of this imbalance?
How can constructive journalism reframe sports coverage to focus on systemic issues such as infrastructure, policy, inclusion, and access?
What are examples of underreported success stories from marginalized sports or athletes, and how can these be brought to mainstream attention?
How can universities, media houses, and sports institutions collaborate to nurture a new generation of journalists who see sports as a vehicle for social cohesion and justice?

Working Group 4: China–Pakistan Media Collaboration: Evolving Narratives and Opportunities

(February 12 |1:30-3:00 Slass -120)

China-Pakistan media collaboration constitutes a significant dimension of the All-Weather Strategic Cooperative Partnership, extending beyond diplomatic and economic cooperation into the realm of narrative construction, public perception, and mutual understanding. As the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) enters its second decade, media engagement has become increasingly important in shaping how development, partnership, and societal change are understood by publics in both countries. While bilateral relations have traditionally been driven by strategic and economic considerations, information gaps, cultural misperceptions, and externally driven narratives continue to influence public opinion, underscoring the need for more nuanced and credible media collaboration.

This Working Group aims to critically examine the role of collaborative media frameworks in identifying and addressing information asymmetries and cultural misunderstandings surrounding CPEC and broader China-Pakistan relations. It seeks to explore how media cooperation can move beyond state-centric narratives to include societal, cultural, and everyday lived experiences, while remaining sensitive to strategic contexts. A key objective is to assess how joint media initiatives can more effectively engage younger audiences by leveraging digital and social media platforms. The Working Group will also deliberate on sustainable models of collaboration- such as co-produced documentaries, joint newsrooms, training exchanges, and shared fact-checking initiatives that can enhance credibility, independence, and long-term impact. Through focused dialogue, the session aims to generate practical recommendations for strengthening media cooperation in ways that foster trust, authenticity, and deeper people-to-people connectivity.China-Pakistan media collaboration

Guiding questions for the roundtable

What specific information gaps and cultural misperceptions currently shape public opinion about CPEC in Pakistan and China, and how can collaborative media frameworks address these asymmetries more credibly?
How can China–Pakistan media collaboration move forward and include narratives like societal, cultural, and everyday lived experiences—without undermining strategic interests?
How can joint media initiatives effectively leverage digital and social media platforms to engage younger audiences in both countries ?
Looking ahead, what sustainable models—such as joint newsrooms, co-produced documentaries, or shared fact-checking initiatives—offer the greatest potential for long-term impact in shaping public perception?

Working Group V: Media Activism & Public Trust

(February 12 |1:30-3:00 Slass -207)

This Working Group brings together climate activists, media practitioners, journalists, and academics, researchers to examine how climate and environmental issues are communicated through media and how these narratives shape public understanding, trust and collective action. Moving beyond episodic crisis reporting and technical climate discourse, the session focuses on how media can foreground community-based responses, grassroots activism, and the lived experiences of marginalized and climate-vulnerable populations. Participants will reflect on media framing, activist strategies and institutional constraints that influence climate narratives including challenges such as misinformation, greenwashing and unequal visibility. The Working Group aims to generate practical recommendations for ethical, inclusive, and accountable climate communication that strengthens public trust and supports environmental justice and sustainability.

Guiding Questions for the Working Group

How do prevailing media narratives frame climate change and how do these framings influence public trust, engagement and policy attention particularly for marginalized and climate-vulnerable communities?
How can media practices move beyond crisis-driven reporting to highlight community-based responses, resilience and pathways toward environmental sustainability?
What editorial, political, and institutional challenges limit ethical and inclusive climate communication and how can media practitioners and activists address them collaboratively?
What concrete media, advocacy and communication strategies can be developed to strengthen public trust and ensure that climate communication supports environmental justice and social responsibility?

Working Group VI: AGON- Constructions of Democracy

(February 12 |1:30-3:00 Slass -211)

This Working Group will screen the film essay AGON: Constructions of Democracy (2025, 26 minutes), by Ali Minanto, Nico Carpentier, and Jhon Sany Purwanto, as a starting point for a deeper, dialogic exploration of democracy as a contested and lived concept rather than a fixed institutional form. Through an interactive engagement with the film essay, participants will critically reflect on how democracy is imagined, negotiated, and practiced across cultural and social contexts.
The session will be led by Dr. Nico Carpentier and designed as an interactive forum with media academia and media practitioners, moving beyond film analysis to collectively interrogate how democracy is constructed, contested, and communicated in contemporary societies.

Guiding Discussion Questions: AGON – Constructions of Democracy

Democracy as a Contested Practice:
How does understanding democracy as an ongoing, contested process help reclaim hope in times of political polarization and democratic fatigue?
Media, Aesthetics & Democratic Imagination:
In what ways can arts-based research, with its deployment of creative repertoires—film, fiction, dance, and visual storytelling—open alternative spaces for democratic engagement and social justice, where also academic can intervene?
Intercultural Encounters & Lived Democracy:How do everyday intercultural experiences and migrant narratives reshape dominant ideas of democracy, citizenship, and belonging?
Media Responsibility, Activism & Agonism:
What role should media practitioners and educators play in sustaining productive disagreement while supporting activism and inclusive democratic dialogue?