Page 112 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Commun cat on R ghts n a Global Context | 1

across the knowledge arena and the opportunity to extend to other knowledge
workers the principles that university faculty have fought with some success
to maintain: full-time, secure jobs, with tenure and good pensions. Instead of
setting the standard for knowledge workers worldwide, university faculty have
hoarded their privileged status. But commercialization with new technologies
continues to nip at the heels of academic labor and threatens to shred that sta-
tus. Indeed, the future of knowledge and communication labor is likely to de-
pend less on the next new thing and more on whether knowledge workers of the
world, including academic workers, will unite.
see also Bollywood and the Indian Diaspora; Branding the Globe; Commu-
nication Rights in a Global Context; Conglomeration and Media Monopolies;
Digital Divide; The DVD; Global Community Media; Google Book Search;
Hypercommercialism; Online Publishing; Piracy and Intellectual Property; Pirate
Radio; Public Access Television; Runaway Productions and the Globalization of
Hollywood; Tourism and the Selling of Cultures; World Cinema.
Further reading: Bell, D. The Coming of a Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic, 1973;
Blok, A., and G. Downey, eds. Uncovering Labour Relations in Information Revolutions,
1750–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; Braverman, H. Labor and
Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly Review, 1974; Brint, S. “Professionals and the
Knowledge Economy: Rethinking the Theory of Postindustrial Society.” Current Sociol-
ogy 49, no. 4 (2001): 101–32; Elmer, G., and M. Gasher, eds. Contracting out Hollywood.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005; Head. S. The New Ruthless Economy. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2003; Huws, U., ed. The Transformation of Work in a Global
Knowledge Economy. Leuven: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 2006; Huws, U. The Making
of a Cybertariat. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2003; McKercher, C., and V. Mosco.
“Divided They Stand: Hollywood Unions in the Information Age.” Work Organization,
Labour and Globalisation 1 (2007): 130–43; Mosco, V. “Knowledge Workers in the Global
Economy: Antimonies of Outsourcing.” Social Identities 12 (2006): 771–90; Mosco, V.,
and C. McKercher. “Convergence Bites Back: Labour Struggles in the Canadian Com-
munications Industry.” Canadian Journal of Communication 31 (2006): 733–51; Schil-
ler, H. I. The Mind Managers. Boston: Beacon, 1973; Smith, T., D. A. Sonnenfeld, and
D. N. Pellow, eds. Challenging the Chip. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006.
Vincent Mosco

CoMMuniCation rights in a gloBal Context
Over the past six decades “communication rights” has been a recurring
theme in global discussions about democratic freedoms. Advocates argue that
a more democratic communication system providing equal access and diverse
information will help create a more peaceful and humanistic world, preserve
indigenous culture, and sustain democratic institutions. Yet, establishing uni-
versal codes and implementing their protection in global policy regimes has
proven to be an ongoing struggle.
The first official proposal for “communication rights” can be traced to the
French civil servant Jean d’Arcy in 1969. This proposal built on earlier princi-
ples that began to take shape in the aftermath of World War II. The first global