The media productions tackling the “Arab Spring” have dominated the nominations for the seventh annual International Media Excellence Awards sponsored by the Association for International Broadcasting (AIB).
Nashwa al-Ruwaini, Arab media personality and member of the jury said in a statement on Saturday that AIB celebrates the best of global broadcasting across 16 different categories for radio and television and cross-media productions, plus creative marketing and innovative technology.
This year’s topic for the People’s Choice award is "Best Coverage of Democracy Uprisings," highlighting the impact that traditional and social broadcasting has had in enabling the movements for change.
This year, the AIB People’s Choice Award is hosted on Yahoo! Maktoob, harnessing the site’s constantly growing reach of more than 55m unique visitors across the MENA region.
Online users from across the world can view and vote for their favorite entry from six best shortlisted entries via Yahoo! Maktoob.
Al-Ruwaini added that the nominated media production is selected from a record number of entries submitted this year from countries as diverse as Australia, France, Germany, India, Japan, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, UK and the USA, among others.
One of the nominated works is a documentary called “the diaries of the revolution… against Qadhafi,” and an Indian documentary film called “women of Tahrir.”
Simon Spanswick, AIB CEO, said, “Of course the big stories of 2011 such as the tsunami and the Arab Spring are represented in the AIB entries, but interestingly many of the entries are follow-up stories and incredible tales of people's survival.”
