Page 114 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Commun cat on R ghts n a Global Context |

CoMMuniCation rights tiMeline
1948—United Nations Declaration of Human Rights established.
1978—“The Declaration on Mass Media” formally issued at the UNESCO General Assembly.
1980—The MacBride Commission’s report “Many Voices, One World” published.
1984 (December 31)—United States pulls out of UNESCO.
1985—United Kingdom pulls out of UNESCO.
2003—World Summit on the Information Society Phase I held at Geneva.
2005—World Summit on the Information Society Phase II held at Tunis.

commerce and U.S. global dominance, the postwar era was an especially propi-
tious time to be promoting the virtues of unrestricted movement of informa-
tion. Critics argue that U.S. corporations continue to use the language of free flow
of information to rid themselves of regulatory constraints. What is noticeably
missing from the free flow language is concern for information quality and ques-
tions of access, which were raised in the United States during the 1940s Hutchins
Commission on Freedom of the Press, but largely faded from Western discourse
until its reemergence during global debates in the 1970s.

CommuniCaTion righTs During nwiCo
In the decades following World War II, communication rights served as a
global counternarrative to the prevailing “freedom of information” rhetoric.
These two visions clashed within UNESCO during what became known as the
New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) debates. The
NWICO debates raged in and outside the United Nations from the mid-1970s
through the mid-1980s, allowing for the first time a wide range of media and
telecommunications-related issues to be argued in a relatively open and global
context. Unfolding within the polarity of the Cold War era, NWICO was spear-
headed by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of U.N. countries, whose mem-
bership had increased with dozens of newly independent countries following
decolonization. This sudden swell in so-called third-world countries led to a
rebalance of power in the United Nations, forming a third force between the
Soviet Union and the United States. The developing world’s strengthened posi-
tion fueled reform efforts concentrating on cultural identity, imperialism, and
communication rights.
The NWICO debates led to “The Declaration on Mass Media,” which was
introduced in 1972 and formally issued at the 1978 UNESCO General As-
sembly. It caused acrimonious debate around the dominance of Western news
content and the increasing importance of Western-controlled technologies
that kept non-Western countries in a state of “forced dependency.” The biggest
conflict centered on proposed amendments to the free flow of information
doctrine, which the Western press cast as a life or death struggle for press
freedom. After fierce contestation and a watered-down final product, the free