Media Development

On 20 October 2005 UNESCO finally approved its Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. One hundred and fifty-one nations voted in favour of the text, including the 25 members of the European Union and Brazil. Two years of heated negotiations resulted in a document that is ‘clear, carefully balanced, and consistent with the principles of international law and fundamental human rights’ or, depending on your point of view, ‘a charter for unscrupulous governments to erect trade barriers, suppress minority cultures and block the free flow of information.’ WACC endorses the call for governments to ratify the new Convention, for civil society to use it both to monitor future bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations and as a means to transform international and national policies on culture, media and communication.

An alien being visits Earth. It has evolved in a world totally different from ours. Its environment is totally different. Its ways of existing, its cultures and cosmology are equally ‘alien’ to ours. Yet, paradoxically, it has far greater understanding of a universe that we have come to believe is ours and ours alone. How will it communicate? What kind of language or system of signs and symbols will it use? Will it have music, dance, and poetry? For what purposes will it ‘communicate’? Conversely, are some of our terrestrial forms of communication equally ‘alien’ to such an ‘outsider’ and perhaps even to ourselves? How do we communicate communication?

Gender justice is an urgent concern. Millions of women throughout the world are deprived of their fundamental human rights for no other reason than that they are female. And as an intrinsic part of this scenario, there is still a long way to go before gender equality in media is achieved. The articles in this issue of Media Development explore how gender activists are tackling questions of power and control, definitions and values, access and exclusion in relation to communications and the mass media.

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Christian fundamentalism and the media: Fundamentalism may be religious or secular, but when fundamentalism imposes its views on society, it threatens both human rights and communication rights. And when religious fundamentalism can offer distorted opinions and fanatical misinformation via the mass media, it threatens the political and social stability of entire nations. This issue of Media Development begins to explore the way Christian fundamentalists use the mass media in an effort to promote communication rights, inclusiveness and diversity in a multicultural world.

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Celebrating Cinema. With this issue we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Protestant film organisation Interfilm. Founded in Paris in 1955, its first President was Henri de Tienda, a minister in the navy and General Secretary of the Service cinématographique d’évangelisation of the Reformed Church of France. One of Interfilm’s main activities was – and remains – its involvement in juries at national and international film festivals. In the early days, the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches had separate juries. However, in 1973 in co-operation with the Organisation Catholique Internationale pour le Cinéma et l’Audiovisuel (OCIC), today known as Signis, the very first Ecumenical Jury met at the Locarno Film Festival, where it is still held in high regard.

Communication Today: Old Challenges and New Realities. The development of the Internet challenges traditional conceptions of information rights. The discourse surrounding these rights and the Internet typically deals with each right in isolation and attempt to adapt long established understandings of each right to the new technological environment. We content there is a need to address information rights within a comprehensive human rights framework, specifically, a right to communicate. This paper examines the development of a right to communicate and how it can be defined and implemented.

Communication Rights: an Unfinished Agenda. The opening up of the Chinese media sphere to the outside world has profound implications for the international flow of media and cultural products. Aware of China’s potential, transnational media and communications corporations have adopted an array of strategies to strengthen their positions in what may emerge as the world’s largest media market. What China has common with the other Asian giant, India, is that its media market has been consistently targeted and tamed by a particular company. What China has common with the other Asian giant, India, is that its media market has been consistently targeted and tamed by a particular company.

Citizenship, Identity, Media. Slavko Splichal asks "Why are the rights of media owners considered superior to the personal right to communicate?", Greg Simons examines "Media, identity and the Russian Orthodox Church", and Clemencia Rodriguez takes a look at "The renaissance of citizens’ media". Alfonso Gumucio -Dagron gives a Latin American perspective on "Media, freedom and poverty", and José Marques de Melo reflectson the impact of globalisation in Latin America with "De la sociedad mediática a la sociedad del conocimiento: escenarios latinoamericanos". Larbi Chouikha looks at the New World Information Order in Tunisia. Ignacio Ramonet examines "Le cinquième pouvoir".

The Media Development archive has articles dating back to 1996. Many of the texts are used for Media Studies courses and the texts are fully searchable. or more details, or to obtain backcopies in print please contact the Media Development Editor . Thankyou.