Page 117 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Commun cat on R ghts n a Global Context

the public sphere; communication of knowledge; civil rights in communication;
and cultural rights in communication.
Despite the renewed interest in communication rights and the promis-
ing signs of global mobilization, there are also many troubling developments.
Autocratic governments around the globe continue to suppress the most basic
communication rights. Countries like Burma and China are prime culprits, but
even Western democracies like the United States recently have witnessed state
infringements against civil liberties, such as covert government surveillance.
These developments do not bode well for communication rights.
At the same time, however, media reform efforts with a focus on communi-
cation rights have taken on a new urgency. In the United States, public uprisings
manifested around media ownership issues in 2002–03, and Internet policies
such as net neutrality in 2006–07. A possible silver lining to various political
and media crises is the increasingly mainstream notion that communication
rights require structural safeguards. Despite the ascendance of the blogosphere,
a well-funded, vibrant public media system is still necessary. Although many
U.S. media reform groups tend to focus on domestic issues, there is also a grow-
ing awareness that communication rights are a global issue. Increasingly, advo-
cates within North America and abroad are calling for a more internationalized
media reform movement, encouraging greater coordination around global
intellectual property regimes, media concentration, and other contentious
communication issues.
Since their first articulations in the mid-twentieth century, communication
rights have figured prominently in progressive global reform efforts to create a
more democratic world. Then as now, on multiple fronts, the global struggle for
communication rights continues.
see also Al-Jazeera; Blogosphere; Cultural Imperialism and Hybridity; Digital
Divide; Global Community Media; Government Censorship and Freedom of
Speech; Internet and Its Radical Potential; Media Literacy; Media Reform Net
Neutrality; Regulating the Airwaves.

Further reading: Calabrese, Andrew. Many Voices, One World: Towards a New, More Just,
and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order. New York: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2004; Cammaerts, Bart, and Nico Carpentier. Reclaiming the Media:
Communication Rights and Democratic Media Roles. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007;
Costanza-Chock, Sasha. WSIS, the Neoliberal Agenda, and Counterproposal from
“Civil Society” presentation for Our Media III, Barranquilla, Colombia, May 20, 2003;
McLaughlin, Lisa, and Victor Pickard. “What Is Bottom Up about Global Internet
Governance?” Global Media and Communication 1, no. 3 (2005): 359–75; Nordenstreng,
Kaarle. Mass Media Declaration of UNESCO. Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing Corporation,
1984; Ó Siochrú, Sean, and Bruce Girard. Global Media Governance: A Beginners Guide.
New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003; Ó Siochrú, Sean. “Will the Real WSIS Please
Stand-Up? The Historic Encounter of the ‘Information Society’ and the ‘Communica-
tion Society.’ ” Gazette—The International Journal for Communication Studies 66 (2004):
203–24; Pickard, Vincent. “Neoliberal Visions and Revisions in Global Communications
Policy from NWICO to WSIS.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 31, no. 2 (2007):
118–39; Preston, William, Edward Herman, and Herbert I. Schiller. Hope and Folly:
The United States and Unesco, 1945–1985. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,