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From NWICO to WSIS: 30 years of Communication Geopolitics

Actors and Flows, Structures and Divides

Intellect Ltd

PART I

On the Agenda: NWICO

Introduction

The authors of these chapters analyse perceptions of imbalance in information flows between the Northern and Southern hemispheres during the 1970s and 1980s, the factors that led to the debates on NWICO (New World Information and Communication Order), on the free (and balanced) flow of information and on the Right to Communicate.

They focus on the main institutional and international actors such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the United Nations (UN) itself and the European Union (EU). They further assess the outcome of conferences and commissions such as the Ministerial Conference of Non-Aligned Countries on Decolonization of Information in New Delhi (India), in July 1976, which denounced 'imperialist forces' and affirmed the right of developing countries to emancipation, the MacBride Commission and its report Many Voices, One World (1980), the Talloires Meeting (1981), to mention but a few. Finally, they consider the role of established major international news agencies – AFP, AP, UPI, Reuters – which bore the brunt of many attacks, as well as the early years and development of IPS (Inter Press Service), launched as an attempt to redress the North-South imbalance and to promote independent news networks throughout the Third World.

In the 1970s and 1980s, news agencies such as Reuters were 'on the hot spot'; they were centre stage as the chief transnational actors critiqued within organizations representing states such as UNESCO and by new news agency players such as IPS that sought to offer alternative models. Michael Palmer, from an examination of Reuters company archives (the Gerald Long papers), and Patricio Tupper, based on his IPS experience and research, study the context of the heated debate, among media professionals and within UNESCO on the free flow of information, the freedom of press and a free and balanced flow of news. Kaarle Nordenstreng explores the context in which NWICO emerged and was played out, again noting the interplay between international organizations and professional journalists and their associations. Mustapha Masmoudi, a major activist in the 1970s and 1980s, focuses on the impetus from Third World and non-aligned countries. And Gustavo Gonzalez shows how the Right to Communicate, initially proposed by the French media scholar and practitioner who worked for the United Nations, Jean d'Arcy, served as a spur to media professionals and radicals – 'organic intellectuals' in Gramsci parlance – active in extreme-left circles in Latin America in the very different context of the 1990s–2000s. There, media owners often led the opposition to proposals put forward by radical movements and governments, a little like the way their predecessors in the West had opposed NWICO arguments.

This section therefore provides both a long overview of forces at play since World War II and detailed consideration of the strategies of actors prominent during the NWICO debate. States were often at loggerheads with media professionals and academics – the major representatives of civil society. UNESCO was the major international forum examining political, intellectual and professional approaches to communications and information. As a witness from the past, now retired UNESCO director, Hifzi Topuz, concludes the section by showing how communication researchers helped inform UNESCO about issues to be placed on the agenda.

Correlations between NWICO and Information Society: Reflections of a NWICO actor

Mustapha Masmoudi

President of the Tunisian Association of Communication and Spatial Sciences, Former Permanent Delegate of Tunisia to UNESCO, Member of the MacBride Commission

Introduction

It is only in recent decades that information sciences have been associated with the management of economic business. Indeed, the means of communications have become the most important factor in this process. The evolution of this sector has not surprised those researchers who forecast the digital revolution and tried to convince decision-makers to integrate the media (both media conduits and contents) in development strategies. This approach started as an East-West antagonism and turned into a North-South disagreement. In fact, in the wake of independence, Third World countries claimed an active role in the international environment, both on the economic level – the advance of the New International Economic Order – and in the field of information – the New World Information and Communication Order.

At the time, some researchers, such as A. M. Rutkowski and K. Schaefer, thought that technological development would lead to the emergence of an information society, and the claim for a New Information Order should coalesce with the implementation of this society on the basis of equity and balance. Nevertheless, today it is recognized that the discussions stimulated by this concept inspired the organizers of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Thirty years before the World Summit, the recommendations of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP), entrusted by UNESCO, provided the theoretical foundations of the concept of information society. It proved necessary to design a scientific method to implement a series of processes that took account of the changing context. WSIS was a summit that occurred in two phases, in 2003 and 2005. It brought together not only heads of state or their representatives, but also specialized international organizations, private companies (i.e. the business sector) and various components of civil society (NGOs, media, municipalities, universities). Through their findings and observations, the theorists present at the summit helped further understanding of the complex phenomenon of communication.

This contribution seeks to highlight the close correlation between the objectives of WSIS and those that underpinned the establishment of a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). The first part explores the reasons behind the demand for a new order, while the second part is devoted to a presentation of ICSCP's contribution to WSIS.

The reasons for the demand for Nwico

Ever since its first session, the General Assembly of the United Nations has been interested in information. A global conference on freedom of information and its impact on development was held in 1948. Some time later, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) assigned Salvador Lopez the task of analysing the phenomena of imbalance in the flow of information around the world, the consequences of the inequitable distribution of electromagnetic frequencies and the lack of communication in developing countries. Unfortunately, the expert's 1953 report went unheeded for a long time. The concerns of developing countries in this regard did not raise awareness among international organizations. It was not until the Non-Aligned Symposium of Information, held in Tunis in March 1976, that the debate was reopened and the international manipulation of information was rejected. The observations made during this conference by some 50 international experts were reinforced the same year during the summit of the non-aligned countries in Colombo and then studied carefully by the General Conference of UNESCO in Nairobi. Immediately after this, the non-aligned countries created their News Agencies Pool (NANAP). However, it was not before the release of the report of the chairman of the Intergovernmental Council of Information of the Non-Aligned Movement in June 1978 that the debate on the concept of the New Order of Information was integrated in the ICSCP. The report was then widely used in the 20th General Conference of UNESCO and the 33rd UN General Assembly (1978).

The discussion centred around three fora:

• The International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP)
• The 20th and 21st General Conferences of UNESCO
• Other international organizations

NWICO in the ICSCP report

Noting the wish of the majority of its member states to consider the role, the purpose and the conditions of global communication in depth, UNESCO's Director-General at that time, Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, created the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. Its task was to identify the phenomena of inequality and imbalance and prepare an analytical report on the issue. The commission released its report three years later, which was published in six international languages with over one million copies. The sixteen members of the international commission were in fact the first to analyse in depth the significance of the gap between rich and poor countries in the field of information. They noted that the gap between the under-informed and the well-informed and the imbalance between issuers (North) and receivers (South) kept widening. The committee members concluded that it was important to allow a better distribution of welfare between nations. Indeed, the underdevelopment that affected the economic activities of the Third World was even more marked in the field of communication and information.

All statistics compiled at that time confirmed the phenomenon of this widening gap, both in quantity and quality, with each new technological discovery. In 1974, the exportation of media content from developed countries towards the developing ones represented 92.85% for the press, and 91.51% for TV. In contrast, developing countries with nearly 75% of the world population produced only 20% of books and audiovisual programmes.

The ICSCP stated in conclusion that the current communication order was not satisfactory and that it was essential to devise a redevelopment of the contributions of communication in the fields of learning, finances and power. To deal with this situation, the ICSCP proposed a series of measures that could lead to the establishment of a new order through a continuous process of change in the nature of relationships in communication between the different nations and within each nation.

NWICO in UNESCO Resolutions

The legitimate demands of the developing countries triumphed in 1978 when the 20th General Conference of UNESCO adopted three additional texts:

• The Declaration on Fundamental Principles concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media to Strengthening Peace and International Understanding, to the Promotion of Human Rights and to Countering Racialism, apartheid and incitement to war

• The resolution prompting the UNESCO's Director-General to organize an intergovernmental conference in order to discuss the creation of a cooperation funding mechanism in the field of information (DEVCOM)

• The resolution endorsing the principle of the establishment of a New World Information Order, and inviting the ICSCP to deepen the analysis of this concept and suggest how it should be implemented

Since then, the New International Information Order officially was subsequently called the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). At the 21st General Conference of UNESCO, held in Belgrade in 1980, it was agreed that the foundations of the new order should have the following aims, among others:

• Elimination of the imbalance and inequality of the current situation

• Elimination of the negative effects of some public and private monopolies, and the eradication of excessive concentrations

• Removal of internal and external obstacles hindering the free flow of information and hampering a wider and more balanced dissemination of ideas

• Plurality of information sources and channels

• Freedom of press and information

• Freedom of journalists and of all media professionals; this freedom is inseparable from responsibility

• Ability of the developing countries to improve their own situation by upgrading equipment, training staffs, improving infrastructure and enabling information and communication to meet their needs and aspirations

• Sincere willingness of the developed countries to help them achieve these goals

• Respect for both cultural identity and for the right of each nation to inform the world public opinion about its own interests, aspirations and social and cultural values

• Respect for the rights of all people to participate in international exchange of information on the basis of equity, justice and mutual benefit

• Respect for the public right of ethnic and social groups as well as individuals to access information sources and to actively partake in the communication process

The objectives of this resolution reflected the aspirations of the moderate countries (the majority of the non-aligned group) for a New World Information Order, promoting a free and balanced flow of information. Unfortunately, the discussions during the following General Assemblies of both the United Nations and UNESCO failed to make progress. Some western countries even tried to dissuade the international community from adhering to the adopted resolutions and to erase the term 'New World Information and Communication Order' from international documents.

ICSCP's Contribution to Wsis

The MacBride commission clearly charted the evolution of humanity towards the information society. It proposed a definition of the concept.

The definition of the Information Society

At the end of World War II and following the ban on armament investment imposed on defeated countries, the interest of these countries, in particular Japan, had been directed to the electronics industry. As a result, the Japan Computer Usage Development Institute (JACUDI), led by Masuda Yoneji, developed in 1971 the 'National Plan to enable Japan to reach the post-industrial society by 2000'. Building on this research, experts deduced that the integration of the means of communication into a universal network is comparable to the construction of a highway that would encompass the world regardless of any frontiers. D. F. Parkhill, A. M. Rutkowski and K. Schaefer were the first experts to thus refer to the concept of an 'information society', even before the use of the term 'information superhighway'. They also predicted that the rich would find the necessary solutions for the instantaneous transmission of data and the use of high-resolution multimedia. Then this network would be universal and capable of transmitting an incalculable number of services related to art, science, education, trade, health, transportation, public administration and government activities. At the time, the term 'Internet' had not yet emerged as telecommunications engineers used the term 'computer universal network' to explain the sense of connection that would guarantee an international flow of information and an instant transmission of text, voice and image. It is this power that would foster the transition to a post-industrial society and enable tele-services and other activities related to information to achieve a rate greater than 50 per cent of GDP. These same observations helped define the concept of information society during WSIS in 2003.

In fact, in WSIS resolutions the information society was identified with an environment in which information and communication networks are highly developed, easy and equitable access to information is widespread and socio-economic development helps to improve the quality of life and fight against poverty and starvation. The new society should be built with the participation of all concerned parties: government, the private sector and civil society. This contribution would be crucial in ensuring that the advantages of the information society are accessible to all, especially to women, to the young, to the disabled and to indigenous people. Then, the man in the street would be able to accomplish several remote services in the economic, social and cultural fields. Similarly, the decision-makers would exploit these advantages in the political, diplomatic and municipal fields as well as in other strategic sectors. The definition that emerged from the World Summit's preparatory process depicts this new society as a social environment based on both networks and knowledge and in which the human being is the central element. It is also a society that tends to promote, through information and communication technology (ICT), economic progress, democracy, freedom of expression, transparency, accountability and good governance in general.

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Excerpted from From NWICO to WSIS: 30 years of Communication Geopolitics by Divina Frau-Meigs, Jeremie Nicey, Michael Palmer, Julia Pohle, Patricio Tupper. Copyright © 2012 Intellect Ltd. Excerpted by permission of Intellect Ltd.
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