The press plays an important role in building cultural standards of behavior.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam speaks at the conference. Photo: VH

Within the framework of the 2019 National Press Festival, on March 16, in Hanoi, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Vietnam Journalists Association, and the Ministry of Information and Communications jointly organized the workshop “The role of the press in communicating cultural standards of conduct”. Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam attended and chaired the workshop.

In her opening speech, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Trinh Thi Thuy said: Behavioral culture is the expression of philosophy of life, lifestyle, way of thinking, way of acting of a community of people in behaving and resolving relationships between people and nature and society. Based on the reality and importance of behavioral culture, building Vietnamese people in the new era, promoting the human factor in social life, focusing on building people in terms of ethics, personality, intellectual lifestyle, working capacity... The Government, ministries and local branches have actively developed and issued codes of conduct and public service culture; Hanoi People's Committee issued codes of conduct in public places; a number of ministries and branches have also issued codes of conduct for the sector such as: Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism issued a pilot set of criteria for behavior in the family; Ministry of Education and Training developed codes of conduct in schools to build a healthy school culture; The Ministry of Health issued the Code of Conduct for civil servants, public employees, and workers working at medical facilities...

Over time, the implementation of the Code of Conduct has initially created positive changes. For cadres, civil servants, public employees, and workers, working hours, enthusiastic attitudes, and internal solidarity have been well implemented. The culture of public behavior has gradually formed and been promoted by the people, thereby creating many examples of good ethics, honest living, and responsibility... However, the implementation of the Code of Conduct in culture is still limited, not meeting the requirements; there are still violations by cadres internally or with the people, causing public outrage, and domestic violence, school violence, and apathy still exist...

To overcome the above situations, timely solutions are needed. In particular, promoting propaganda and enhancing information coordination with press agencies. Reality has proven that the press and media play an important role in the development of society, especially in the context of the current information society. In particular, the press is an important channel for propaganda, guidance and orientation of public opinion, forming cultural standards of behavior, and preventing the degradation of social ethics.

Speaking at the workshop, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said that this is a practical activity of important significance in leading, directing, and continuing to well implement the Resolution of the Party Central Committee on building Vietnamese culture and people to meet the needs of sustainable national development.

According to the Deputy Prime Minister, culture is identified as the spiritual foundation, the driving force for socio-economic development, and national development. The press is a part of culture, the press creates, disseminates and transmits culture, in culture there is press, in journalism there is culture. Each press work is a cultural product, each journalist is a soldier on the cultural front. In addition to orienting public opinion and changing behavior, the press must also reflect the good and criticize the bad. We must make the press penetrate deeply into the masses. To penetrate deeply, in addition to theories of modern communication, the press must also study, research and make cultural recommendations to well express propaganda information about behavioral culture. In addition, journalists need to be persistent and work closely together to have quality press works and propaganda products, promoting standard behavioral cultural values.

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The Deputy Prime Minister also called on newspapers, radio stations, and localities to form columns and increase the number of articles on cultural behavior, aiming at specific actions to increase the spread in society. The articles need to have the combination of culturalists and scientists to research and analyze in an easy-to-understand and convincing way. At the same time, apply new communication methods so that cultural behaviors gradually enter life, uncultured and inappropriate behaviors are avoided and eliminated. "If we can do so, the work of building a culture to develop Vietnamese people will achieve better results, the country's development will be sustainable, and the Vietnamese people will be worthy of their ancestors who left behind very proud cultural heritages," the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized.

At the workshop, delegates focused on discussing to identify the characteristics of Vietnamese culture from traditional to modern; analyze the current state of behavioral culture in various areas of social life and determine the role of the press in spreading typical messages to form behavioral cultural standards; lessons learned in the process of propagating good people and good deeds, criticizing bad things in society; propose solutions to enhance the role of the press in communicating behavioral cultural standards in the coming time.