🚀 go-pugleaf

The following comprises the final Statement of the 8th MacBride Round Table,
concluded last week in Seoul.  The papers and other information should be
available soon at the 8th MacBRide Round Table site:
http://people.kfem.or.kr/macbride/

                Statement of the 8th MacBride Round Table

The 8th MacBride Round Table, held in Seoul from the 24th to the 27th of
August 1996, attracted more than 200 participants to its sessions and
workshops; and a further 200 to the first Asian Alternative Video Festival.
The theme was: Communication and Culture: Identity, Plurality and Equality.
Converging from a total of twenty four different countries, ideas were
shared among academics, researchers, NGOs and senior representatives of the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Arab League of
Educational, Culture and Science Organisations (ALECSO).  George Gerbner, of
the Cultural Environment Movement, gave the opening address. The following
is the Statement issued at the final session of the Round Table.

The last number of years has seen a rising number of Declarations,
Statements, Resolutions, Charters etc. issuing from conferences and other
gatherings on the right to communicate, and on alternative and democratic
media. The MacBride Round Table itself adds annually to the tally. Yet these
statements are symptomatic of some very significant, and potentially far
reaching, developments in the area of communications and media.

There is a growing number of gatherings around media issues, partly, at
least, because of rising interest among NGOs. And others, such as
international aid funders and UN agencies, are displaying renewed interest,
many alerted to the importance of media by the much-heralded =91Information
Society=92. Furthermore, these gatherings are more conscious than before of
the existence and growth of an external, global constituency, interested and
involved in media and communication issues, to which they can address
themselves.  Increasingly, these declarations raise matters and target
audiences that cut across different forms of media, appealing to sectors
beyond the immediate interest of the gatherings issuing them, suggesting the
recognition of a deeper affinity between the different sectors and media
activities.=20

Thus, perhaps more important than the statements themselves is what they say
about the movement for the democratisation of media and communication.  The
movement is growing, it is becoming self-aware at a global level, and it is
crossing traditional media boundaries.  It is in this context that the
MacBride Round Table situates itself.

The Round Table over the years, has mirrored these trends within its own
development.  In the past few meetings, it has debated issues as diverse as
the Information Society, alternative video, indigenous people=92s
communication, and gender equality.  But then, given its genesis in the
UNESCO Commission, it is no surprise that the Round Table is broad-based and
concerned with a wide range of issues.  The Round Table has also seen a
growth in the participation of NGOs in annual meetings and the development
of close relations with a number of them, nationally, where the Round Tables
have been held, but also internationally and across a range of media.
Indeed, the Round Table has constituted itself as an NGO, and is currently
discussing with the International Telecommunications Unions how this oldest
of UN organisations can open its doors to NGOs.=20

                SEOUL ROUND TABLE

The MacBride Round Table in Seoul significantly reinforces these trends. The
Round Table was held in parallel with, and initiated, the Asian Alternative
Video Festival =9196, the first of its kind, which was attended by video=
 NGOs
from around Asia and by an enthusiastic local and international audience.
And the diversity of issues debated, in presentation sessions and workshops,
was greater than perhaps ever before.

The Seoul Round Table offered considerable evidence of the coming of age of
new responses to communication and media issues at a global level.
Enriching and transforming old debates with fresh evidence and ideas from a
variety of sources, the meeting demonstrated both that the imbalances of the
past persist across the different media and geographies; and that new
approaches to solving them are emerging from diverse quarters.

Asia was largely on the sidelines of debates on communication that raged
during the 1970s and 1980s, but today it offers some invaluable lessons in
moving forward into the late 1990s and beyond.  The first such lesson is
obvious:  A global movement for media equity and democratic communication
structures cannot afford to exclude any regions or interests.  A debate
conducted among the minority with power, even accompanied by claims to be
acting on behalf of those excluded, can result in no lasting progress.=20

Building on this, the Round Table illustrated that solutions to media and
communication imbalances must be tailored to the characteristics and
challenges of each region, and within regions, to the often more extreme
contrasts between different areas and populations.  Asia is a diverse region
within a diverse world.  Analyses of problems, and ways and means of solving
them, are not available off the shelf, no matter the political complexion.
While guided by the same core democratic, participative and equitable
principals, analysis and response must relate to the variety and complexity
of lived experience.

A number of practical concerns and implications were drawn from these
considerations:

1. Responses to media commercialisation and homogenisation originating at
local level can play a central role in a new media and communication
environment.=20
=20
 In the context of global forces that threaten national cultures and
identities, a local level of response may be just as, or more, effective as
a state led defence of national culture.  While resistance to wholesale
commercialisation and commodification of communication is essential at all
levels, rebuilding political and cultural identity can begin at the
community (including communities of interest) and local level.  Often
alongside a process of (neo-) liberalisation, community radio, alternative
video and access television, community Internet and computer networking, and
alternative printed press are gaining strength.  These democratic forms of
media offer a fresh basis to construct a shared identity, one less reliant
on national symbols - or rather one that can renew them from the ground up.
=20
2. In addition to supporting such local and community media, however, there
is a need to democratise the processes by which communication and media
policy, dealing mainly with =91mainstream media=92, are being formulated and
implemented.  When devised and conducted behind closed doors, even within
governments with at least some claim to democracy, communication policies
can be compromised in a number of ways.
=20
 The workshop on Press Censorship suggested strongly that democratic laws
and practices in the media tend to lag behind those governing political and
electoral institutions, seriously undermining the legitimacy and progress of
the latter. And feeding back onto itself, the issue is poorly reported in
the media, nationally but also, and especially, internationally where
powerful geo-political interests and media concentration come into play.
=20
3. A further, and related, concern is censorship of the use of the new
technologies. Ample evidence was presented regarding the media of
=91cyberspace=92 and video in many countries of Asia and elsewhere. =
 Alongside
traditional forms of media oppression, new authoritarian forms are emerging
sometimes through the abuse and misapplication of legitimate political and
social concerns regarding, for instance, the right to individual privacy and
the control of pornography.  Internationally, the issues of intellectual
property rights and copyright, for instance, fall into the same category.
Coupled with concerns on censorship is the general danger under which
journalists work in many parts of the world.  In the Middle East, Europe,
Latin America, Africa and Asia, and elsewhere, journalists regularly work in
life threatening situations.  Better protection of journalists is
desperately needed to help ensure a continued free flow of information in
our society.
=20
4. Progress made at the Round Table towards building alliances among video
NGOs and among the communication scholars, offers tangible evidence,
reinforced in presentations across a number of communication areas, of the
value of collaboration beyond the national level - while again underlining
the need for sensitivity to local differences.  The practical benefits for
such collaboration can translate down to the very local level, as well as up
to global level. Locally, tracking the activities and strategies of
transnational corporations between different Asian countries as they affect
the lives of workers; recording them on video for mutual exchange,
discussion and response; and exploring appropriate vehicles for
transnational regulation and accountability worldwide, were recognised as
essential.  When industry goes global, so also must labour - and this has
obvious applications across all regions.
=20
5. At international policy level, also, the value of broad alliances of
different alternative media and communication advocacy groups was
emphasised.  Of immediate relevance are global and regional government
sponsored plans to build a new information and communication based society,
for example, the Asia-Pacific Information Infrastructure (APII) promoted by
advanced Asian countries, the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) of the
USA and allies, and the Information Society of the European Union. There is
no doubting the progress in core infrastructure in more developed countries,
or that there are potentially great benefits everywhere. Yet insistent and
repeated rhetoric of APEC, G7, OECD, EU, among others, claiming to affirm
the priority of universal service and the need to avoid disparities between
the =91information rich and information poor=92, functions only to obscure=
 the
absence of any serious attempt to address these issues. There is willingness
neither to concede on the centrality of competition in building this =91brav=
e
new world=92 not to acknowledge the central role of significant transfers to
address marginalised communities - often the majority. Following the old
advertising maxim, repetition will eventually wear down resistance - and
mainstream media also play a central role in this. =20
=20
 All can agree on the current imbalances and inequalities of access to, and
adequate training in the use of, communication and information technologies
such as basic telephony, the computer and the Internet. The right to
communicate in the 21st century will be fundamentally related to the world=
=92s
ability to address these inequalities.
=20
 The task of devising and promoting alternative policies to the neo-liberal
orthodoxy is urgent, and building alliances between different concerned
media and communication groups would be a major step towards creating the
necessary scope and scale of ideas and resources. At least at national
level, some legal sovereignty stills remains and the institutions exist, or
can be readily created, to implement universal service policies that serve
the needs of all.  However, a much greater task lies ahead for international
institutions such as the ITU and UNESCO, in the face of the growing
influence of the corporate sector among intergovernmental organisations.
Nevertheless, particularly encouraging is the recent initiative of the UN
Administrative Coordination Committee to pursue the concept of the Right to
Communicate right across the UN system, with the ITU as the central agency.
=20
                CONCLUSION

When constraints tightly delimit room for manoeuvre, Declarations,
Resolutions and other such statements sometimes take the place of action. In
the interregnum between the suppression of intergovernmental media debates
in the mid 1980s and the recent rise of new movements for democratic media
and the Right to Communicate more firmly rooted in experience, this was
probably unavoidably the case.  Now, the MacBride Round Table is just one
among an increasing number of organisations and events fuelled by widespread
concern regarding the current direction of media and communication.  The
Round Table cannot pretend to cover the huge range of issues involved.  But
the emerging issues echo those of other meetings.  In short, the conclusions
of the Round Table are:

=B7 The international debate on democracy and equity in communication,=
 clearly
growing in strength and depth, must fully explore and acknowledge
significant variations within and between different regions of the world,
before an effective common strategy can be developed.
=20
=B7 Responses at a local and grass-roots level, in the form of democratic,
alternative and developmentally-oriented media, may play a major role in
countering the process of globalisation and homogenisation of media and=
 culture.
=20
=B7 The democratisation of the process of devising and implementing=
 mainstream
media policy, at national but also international level, must be a priority.
=20
=B7 Especially among the new media of video and =91cyberspace=92, the=
 introduction
of new authoritarian forms of censorship in nominally democratic political
systems is emerging as an issue of especial concern.
=20
=B7 The benefits of alliance building, a growing trend among NGOs and
scholars, can enrich local activities and efforts and, at international
level, can contribute to the development of more equitable and democratic
communication and to the establishment of the Right to Communicate.=20
=20
Particularly satisfying was the decision of video NGOs in Asia to
collaborate more closely in a number of concrete areas; and of the research
scholars to form an Asian Communication Studies Network, a first meeting of
which will be held in Australia during 1997.


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