🚀 go-pugleaf

Dear Vera and Devmedia Friends,

In response to your query on the MacBride Round Table, I thought it would be
OK to circulate to the list the following additional information:=20

I attach below a brief review of the Round Table (about 1,500 words long),
drafted by Colleen Roach, an Amercian but a very internaitonal perspective.
The Round Table is certainly not USA oriented, although the venue where it
is held  inevitably leads to a greater concentration of participants from
there.  The last was in Seoul, Korea, and before that in Tunis, Tunisia.
The next (in 1998) we hope will be in Amman, Jordan. It exists entoirely on
the basis of support given by various national organisers and the efforts of
the Steering Committee.=20

Please contact me with any more queries, or look at the Webite (which is
fairly limited but gradually being filled in).

Sean (Round Table Secretary)

=20
MacBride Round Table


A Brief Description

The Colorado Round Table in August this year will bring the total to nine,
one each year since the first in Harare in 1989.  They have been well spread
geographically: Prague in 1990; Istanbul in 1991; Sao Paulo in 1992; Dublin
in 1993; Honolulu in 1994; Tunisia in 1995, and Seoul in 1996. =20

The origins of the MacBride Round Table encompass several factors. =20

First is the purely institutional or structural level.  When UNESCO in about
1987 abandoned its formal commitment to the goals of the New World
Information and Communication Order (NWICO), a group of individuals long
committed to the movement for global communications equality felt that it
still deserved a rightful place on the international agenda.  Thus the Round
Table was meant to continue to provide an international forum - albeit much
more restricted than that of UNESCO - for discussion and action-proposals on
imbalances in global communications.  When the first MacBride Round Table
was held, in 1989, it still had the backing of the international body which,
along with UNESCO, had been one of the early prime movers behind the NWICO:
the Non-Aligned Movement.  The International Organisation of Journalists,
also an early backer of the NWICO, provided institutional support for the
Round Tables through the 3rd meeting held in Istanbul in 1991.  The World
Association for Christian Communication (WACC), true to its long-standing
support of the NWICO, continues to this day to be one of the most solid
supporters of he Round Table.

Although this sort institutional/chronological background of the Round Table
is an important part of its raison d'=EAtre, the spirit of its early genesis
should also be called to mind.  UNESCO's abandonment of the NWICO signalled
that the period of sustained institutional backing by intergovernmental
organisations had become pass=E9.  The end of this era allowed for the
emergence of voices calling for the NWICO to transcend the past limitations
of its institutional, professional orientation so that it could reach out to
non-governmental, grassroots organisations concerned with global
communications equity.  The conviction that the NWICO should extend its
embrace more fully to constituencies beyond the professional and
intergovernmental communities was, in fact, supported by the WACC since the
earliest days of the NWICO history.

Concepts and Issues

While the MacBride Round Tables have thus represented to a certain degree a
"new stage" in the NWICO movement, a continuity of spirit with the original
concerns has also been in evidence.  This is the most apparent in its
adoption of two key concepts of the MacBride Report: the Right to
Communicate and the democratisation of communications.  The Prague Statement
of the 1990 Round Table noted that "=85the Right to Communicate should be
promoted as one of the fundamental principles of a democratic order.  The
Right to Communicate is, in the words of Se=E1n MacBride, 'the very=
 foundation
of other human rights'".  Also echoing the MacBride Report, the statement
adopted at the Honolulu Round Table in 1994 notes that "One of the main
functions of the study of International communication problems, as
summarised in the MacBride Report, is the necessity for an ongoing process
of democratisation in society as a whole and the mass media in particular".

Other long-standing concerns of the NWICO, as it developed from its earliest
days, have remained constant on the Round Table's agenda.  The need for the
mass media to promote peace, an essential tenet of the UNESCO Mass Media
Declaration of 1978, has been stressed by Round Table participants.  This
was particularly in evidence at the Istanbul Round Table of 1991, following
on the heels of the war in the Persian Gulf, and at the Sao Paulo Round
Table of 1992, where participants adopted a statement noting that "peace and
international understanding were at the very heart of thought and actions of
the late Se=E1n MacBride" and urging the construction of a "Culture of=
 peace".

One of the earliest issues of the NWICO debate has assumed even greater
relevance in the discussions and proposals of the Round Table: the need to
control or provide sound alternatives to the giant transnational media
corporations.  Indeed, all of the Round Tables have been motivates by an
undeniable reality of the communications landscape: the "global reach" of
the transnationals (TNCs) has become much more extensive in the 1990s than
in the early days of the NWICO debate.

In connection with the TNC question, the issue of an equitable sharing for
the countries of the South of communications technology has become
increasingly important in the role of the Round Table, a particular concern
in Honolulu in 1994 and in Tunis in 1995.  The Honolulu Statement raised
pointed questions on the ballyhooed Information Superhighway in the
following terms: "No 'information superhighway' is planned for the
developing world, nor are exits or entries likely to be available to
marginalised communities.  Many questions remain.  Who sets and collects the
tolls on the 'superhighway'?  Who establishes the highway code, and polices
traffic?  Will there be public transportation and equal access for all?"

This concern continued as the dominant theme of the Round Table held in
Tunis in 1995.  Participants noted that Africa is still the poorest of the
poor in telecommunications technology, a situation that is being exacerbated
by the developed countries ' rush to the entry ramps of the Information
Superhighway.  In the words of the Tunis Statement: "For the Third World and
Africa particularly, the Information Superhighway must have a public lane
that integrates the various media, including traditional channels, in a way
that promotes Africa's development".

Another prime issue that has preoccupied the participants at the Round Table
- particularly women - has been a daunting dual challenge: the need to focus
on gender parity both in the deliberations and structures of the Round Table
itself, as well as fully integrating women's issues into the global
communications agenda.  Virtually all of the recent statements of the Round
Table have acknowledged this reality, summarised in the Sao Paulo
Declaration in the following words: "The Round Table recognised that the
previous activities associated with the NWICO did not pay sufficient
attention to women's particular needs and perspectives in communications.
If the renewed NWICO movement is to move forward in a non-elitist direction,
women must be given their due".

The Biggest Challenge

The biggest challenge facing the Round Table, as the world community edges
towards a new millennium, is the need to incorporate more fully new
constituencies into its work.  This has been a dominant theme in the
language and issues of the various Round Tables, and since 1994 in Honolulu
is increasingly an integral part of Round Table activities with workshops
and informal discussion groups running alongside more academic presentation
and debate sessions. Different terms have been used to describe these
constituencies: grassroots groups, non-governmental organisations, new
social movements and civil society. The Sao Paulo declaration concludes with
a statement on who exactly such terms refer to: "Women, the poor, the manual
labourers, the marginalised, the minorities, the alienated youth, the lower
castes, the people with dark skin, the various peoples from the South
'demonized' in the Western press, in short, the mass media's 'non-people'".
This trend continued in Seoul in 1996, with a very successful Asian
Alternative Video Festival, attracting small alternative video NGOs from
around Asia, was an integral part of the Round Table and ran alongside the
academic sessions.

The Round Table's conviction that such groups must be present and meaningful
in its work does not, however, imply an exclusion of previous
constituencies.  The research community continues to be a major source of
information and institutional support for the work of the Round Table.  The
backing of intergovernmental agencies has also been solicited, and UN
representatives have even participated in its recent work.  The
Secretary-General of the ITU participated in the Honolulu and Tunis Round
Tables, with the BDT also offering material support and its Director was
present in both Tunis and Seoul a year later.=20

In 1994, the Round Table constituted itself as an NGO, with statutes and a
founding seat in Dublin, the home of Se=E1n MacBride.  Tunis in 1995 and=
 Seoul
in 1996 sees the deepening of this evolution. The Round Table is actively
building NGO status with intergovernmental organisations.  Indeed, a recent
initiative of the Round Table has been to try to prise open the doors of the
ITU for all NGOs, which up to now have remained, with regard to policy input
and formal relations, firmly closed.  The Round Table is also seeking to
support linkages between NGOs, grass roots and academics involved in
democratic media; and is involved in communications rights advocacy.  It is
a founder member of the Platform for Cooperation on Communication and
Democratisation, formed in London in 1996.

In the final analysis, the MacBride Round Table will undoubtedly move
forward in various directions and at various levels.  What unites all of its
supporters is a common vision: that global communications equality,
particularly for the countries of the South, and marginalised groups within
all countries, will one day become a reality.  Its great achievement to date
has been to sustain open debate during lean times, but now looks forward to
rebuilding, with others, the strength of the democratic communications=
 movement.

>
Sean O Siochru          tel:  +353 1 4730599 office
NEXUS Research          tel: +353 1 2821003 home office=20
14 Eaton Brae           fax:  +353 1 4730597 office
Shankill                        fax: +353 1 2720034 home office
Co. Dublin              e-mail: sean@nexus.ie
Ireland                 Web site: http://www.iol.ie/nexus