The first SCO media summit was held in Beijing on June 1, 2018 in Beijing. As the summit main theme was carrying on the “Shanghai Spirit” it called urgently the media to usher a new era for cooperation in order to exchange ideas on building new platforms of media cooperation and closer people-to-people ties. Indeed such cooperation and people ties require a strong political will of the SCO member states. Since, talking about the importance of shaping a new era of mutual understanding and cooperation is both easy and favorable; considering the conflict ridden region and long conflicts in some SCO member states like Afghanistan. At the same time, reaching to a political consensus between the politicians of the SCO member states like Afghanistan and Pakistan or Pakistan and India etc. is not an easy task. In fact, it calls the politicians of these countries to change their perceptions towards each other; there will be no peace in the region unless  Pakistan really thinks that instability in Afghanistan harms Pakistan and India comes to a conclusion that instability in Pakistan is not in the interest of India and vice Versus. This approach applies to most of SCO member states and a political perception change, as a multilayer process, is not an easy goal to be realized very soon in the region.
It is the unique geopolitical characteristics of the SCO member countries that give SCO a strategic privilege to other initiatives taken at the regional and international levels.  On the other hand, media can play a historic and outstanding role to bring a shift in the regional political interaction based on the Shanghai Spirit. They can do so by working together, creating a sustainable network for information exchange and stay unbiased even during the complicated situations that may tempt them to take sides in certain times. This mechanism requires the SCO member states to strategically support, harmonize and institutionalize media cooperation and information exchange among them. SCO member states media has the potential to help creating people to people connectivity and establish a platform to cooperate with each other in order to create a positive and comprehensive environment both among their nations and states. They can become the tools of sharing knowledge, experience and the political, economic, social and cultural realities of their countries and the region in order to create a realistic and vibrant understanding of current situations of their countries, region and beyond. Media can be the pioneers of taking forward the cooperation of their respective countries at the regional level in different areas to promote and sustain a closer friendship and cooperation in the region.
In addition, SCO should not remain as a regional apparatus for mutual cooperation and partnership, but based on the spirit of Shanghai it has an international mandate: to contribute to a better world, contribute to change the current unfair way of interactions pursued by some major powers to ensure their narrow interests and it should contribute to replacing such modes of interactions with a mutual trust and partnership at the international level to benefit all mankind. Doing so is possible, if they do join hands for an all-round cooperation to build a fairer and more rational international communication platform and remain committed to it. In this context, SCO member states media should build itself into advocates of spirit of organization, pioneers of the practical cooperation, and communicators of friendships between people. Each SCO member state should firmly support the development of the SCO, and work with all parties to build a Community of Shared Future for Human Beings.”
Our world is facing some big problems including climate change, large scale conflict, terrorism, inequality, poverty, religious conflicts, and etc. In this context, the world needs a new platform to transform from its current challenges. It is clear cut the main reason of these problems lies in unfair interactions of the powerful countries with the less powerful ones. Such behavior is rooted in not respecting the diversity and mutual respect. The idea of a shared future is based on the lessons learnt from the past in order to shape a regional and international approach, based on mutual respect and partnership that based on it, every state would benefit from its partnership with other countries. It is an idea aiming at a better future for mankind. As such, it is the mandate of SCO member states media to develop the necessary networks and platforms to ensure realizing it.