Page 103 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

92 Communication, Commerce and Power

UNESCO-funded activities. 71 The turning point for US-UNESCO
relations, according to William Preston, Jr, came in 1965 with the
launch of the first Intelsat satellite. Less developed countries, accord-
ing to Preston, which had been 'closing somewhat the disparities of
media power, found themselves suddenly and totally outdistanced.' 72
UNESCO's Space Communications Conference of 1965 produced a
report that, in light of Intelsat's unprecedented telesatellite capabil-
ities, called for a shift in emphasis from the techniques of commun-
ication to a concern with content. 73 From this date forward, an
increasing number of US officials recognized UNESCO to be a threat
to US interests. Outside the United States, Third World nationalist
and anti-imperialist movements challenged the interests and activities
of the American state and US-based corporations. Domestically, anti-
communist conservatives, elements of the news media, and corpora-
tions seeking a stable transnational business environment, formed an
informal anti-UNESCO coalition. 74 During this period, the US Con-
gress issued threats to those UN agencies that appeared intent on
undermining the 'common-sense' assumptions underlying US foreign
policy. 75 But behind the pro-and anti-free flow rhetoric, the reform
demands issued by UNESCO and other UN agencies involved the
formation of international institutions and organizations that First
World countries could not readily control. Underlying this LDC-
based mobilization in one-country-one-vote international forums
was the more general demand for, as Senator George McGovern
put it in reference to foreign challenges to the free flow of informa-
tion, 'a bigger slice of the pie.' 76
The most significant danger issue for the anti-UNESCO coalition
was the prospective implementation of a New World Information and
Communication Order as developed in UNESCO and affirmed
through the UN General Assembly. Three general goals characterized
this LDC-led proposal. First, the NWICO movement sought to chal-
lenge the dominant international position of Western mass media in
terms of content, bias and technological development. Second, the
NWICO sought to equalize nation-state access to radio spectrum
frequencies and considered these to be shared natural resources that
should not be allocated on the basis of economic exploitation cap-
abilities. And third, the NWICO sought to redress predominantly
one-way information flows out of the developed world into the less
developed. This third goal directly and positively influenced
UNESCO support for the universal adoption of prior consent prin-
ciples over the free flow of information.