Page 116 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Commun cat on R ghts n a Global Context |

to NWICO-era manifestos with references to communication rights. A signifi-
cant symbolic victory for communication rights advocates and progressive non-
governmental organizations was the inclusion of similar language in the official
WSIS Declaration of Principles document:
We reaffirm, as an essential foundation of the Information Society, and
as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that
this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers. Communication is a fundamental social process,
a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is
central to the Information Society. Everyone, everywhere should have
the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the
benefits the Information Society offers. (ITU, 2003, ¶4)
Anchoring information to crucial communication processes, this statement
challenged the otherwise technocentric thrust of official WSIS documents.
Nevertheless, many participants saw this inclusion as inadequate. Although it
suggests everyone’s communication needs should benefit from the information
society, it does not address preexisting global inequities or the means by which
disadvantaged people will be given the opportunity to participate in the brave
new world of the “Information Society.” An alternative approach advanced by
communication rights advocates focuses less on easy technological remedies,
and more on social needs that require a redistribution of crucial resources.
The emphasis on information is itself an ideological turn, and continues to
draw from the free flow of information rhetoric that, in many cases, is as much
about allowing commercial interests to operate unimpeded as it is for creating a
truly democratic communication system with equal access for all. The increas-
ingly corporate-dominated Internet arguably represents a major triumph of this
antiregulation view.

CommuniCaTion righTs ToDay

Various advocacy groups continue to fashion a post-WSIS strategy to mo-
bilize civil society around communication rights. During and immediately
following the WSIS, new attempts were made to help further define communica-
tion rights. For example, a statement delivered at the World Forum on Commu-
nication rights, which was held in conjunction with the first phase of the WSIS,
characterized communication rights as a “universal human need” based on “the
key principles of Freedom, Inclusiveness, Diversity and Participation.” A CRIS
document titled “Assessing Communication Rights” defined communication
rights in terms of human dignity that goes beyond protections of opinion and
expression to include areas like “democratic media governance, participation in
one’s own culture, linguistic rights, rights to enjoy the fruits of human creativ-
ity, to education, privacy, peaceful assembly, and self-determination.” This same
document divided communication rights into four pillars: communication in