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The following article is from the April 1996 issue of Videazimut's
publication CLIPS.  The theme of the issue is "Designing a Legal
Framework."  CLIPS is published three times a year in separate
English, French and Spanish editions.  If you would like a sample
copy, please contact Videazimut with your surface mail address.

Report from the World Commission on Culture and Development:
RIDING THE TIDE OR SWIMMING AGAINST THE CURRENT?

"As a first step, and within a market context, the Commission
suggests that the time may have come for commercial regional or
international satellite radio and television interests which now
use the global commons free of charge to contribute to the
financing of a more plural media system."

So says UNESCO's World Commission on Culture and Development in
its report entitled Our Creative Diversity. The report has a lot
of other provocative things to say about the media. Among several
subjects in the Commission's report, the media occupies a
significant place. One of the ten chapters and two of the ten
points in the recommendations for an international action agenda
are devoted to this subject. The authors of the report hope that
its recommendations about the media will, at the very least, spark
discussion and debate.  The recommendations regarding the media
are controversial ones.

Presented to the General Conference of UNESCO in November of 1995,
the report is the result of two years of work. The World
Commission on Culture and Development was created following a
resolution adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO in 1991
within the framework of the UNESCO/United Nations designated World
Decade for Cultural Development (1988-1997). The Commission was
requested to "prepare a World Report on Culture and Development
and proposals for both urgent action and long-term action to meet
cultural needs in the context of development." In addition to its
twelve regular members from north, south, east and west, the
Commission included six honorary members, four of whom are Nobel
Prize winners. The President of the Commission is former United
Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

Its conclusions about the media are certainly worthy of more
attention and publicity than they seem to have received thus far.
They are of particular interest to those who are working for
greater public space in the media, for more voices to be heard
both locally and internationally.

Recognizing community media

The chapter entitled "Challenges of a Media-Rich World" highlights
the need for diversity and the reflection of the local context.
According to the report, "This is where community radio and
television come into the picture.  Whenever a modicum of funding,
political commitment and infrastructure is being made available,
community media complement public and commercial broadcasting.
They have become an important fora of expression in the last two
decades." It goes on to say, "The public media space, as seen
through the tradition of media regulation and public service radio
and television broadcasting institutions or systems, is
well-established in most countries. Alternative educational and
community media, whether local newspapers in Malaysia or community
broadcasting in Latin America, help fill out this public space."
In its recommendations for an international agenda, the Commission
takes an even stronger stand:  "Independent, appropriately funded
public service as well as community broadcasting institutions are
essential to the functioning of the media in a democratic
society."

To those who are working towards legal recognition of a community
broadcasting sector within their country's legislative framework,
these words should be of some value, coming as they do from such
an eminent international source. This moral support could be used
within nations to help mobilize the modicum of funding, political
commitment and infrastructure that is needed for the blossoming of
community media where it is lacking. And it is still lacking in
many places. The report clearly states the importance of what it
calls public media space as distinguished from private media
space, and clearly recognizes the place of community media within
the public media space. These are strong words in favour of
community media that should be taken advantage of by those working
for the creation, maintenance and strengthening of community
media.

Encouraging diversity

The Commission's views and recommendations on the media involve a
complex interplay between the virtues of competition, diversity,
efficiency and equity. There is something here to offend everyone.
Those who still believe in state control of the media will not
like the emphasis placed on competition. Those who are the
international corporate winners of the global media competition
game will look with extreme displeasure on talk of equity and
diversity.  And those who are less endowed with economic resources
will see the idea that competition encourages diversity as a cruel
joke.

The Commission places a high value on diversity in the media, both
within national borders and internationally. It prescribes
competition as a way of encouraging diversity. Having done so, it
then admits that the market model may not necessarily lead to the
public good: The Commission argues that competition is desirable,
but that the market model may not itself guarantee competition: ".
. .there is nothing in the nature of laissez-faire that either
establishes or maintains competition, but the virtue of markets
depends on the existence of competition."  Indeed, it recognizes
that ". . .deregulation, or the relaxation of government controls
of the operation of markets, which is one of the means used to
promote competition, may also promote concentration of ownership."
And concentration of ownership may not be compatible with
diversity or with the public good.  How to have your competition
and your diversity too?

Global media regulation?

The Commission suggests an answer in the form of a question. What
about some form of global regulation to promote competition?
Taking as its model independent agencies within some nations that
oversee telecommunications and broadcasting, the Commission asks
". . .whether the world should not consider a co-ordinated
regulatory approach, a possible international competition policy."
It goes on to suggest that, again borrowing from the national
model in some countries which is based on  a plural media system
including private, public and community broadcasters, at the
international level a more plural media system may also be
desirable from a wide social and cultural perspective.  It says,
"Can the nationally-accepted role of public and alternative media
as equalizers be applied internationally?"

Some very specific measures are proposed by which international
public and alternative media might be financed. Just as some
national governments have defined the frequency spectrum used for
broadcasting within their national territory as public property
and therefore have given themselves the right to regulate its use
for the public good, the Commission describes the radio frequency
spectrum of satellite orbital slots as a global space that should
belong to everyone.  "The Commission regards the airwaves and
space as part of the global commons, a collective asset that
belongs to all humankind."  Those who use the global media commons
should be subject to a global obligation in return for the private
benefit they obtain. The Commission suggests an international tax
on private use of the global commons that could be used to support
alternative regional and global services and programming, allowing
the creation of a plural international media system based on both
private and public media space.

The action recommendations for the International Agenda call for
an end to the free use of the global media commons to finance a
more plural media system including alternative programming for
international distribution; the adoption of international policies
to encourage the kind of competition that they believe will ensure
that market activities are consistent with the public interest;
and the adoption of international policy to promote access and
diversity of expression so that many voices will be heard.

It is the hope of the Commission that their report will stimulate
international debate and discussion. Their recommendations reflect
the increasing interest in some quarters in the idea of global
governance as a logical and necessary response to the increasing
globalization of economic activity and power and the consequent
erosion of effective national sovereignty. They are also likely to
deeply annoy some very powerful interests. Those interests may be
betting that this report will be silently shelved and forgotten,
at least insofar as its recommendations about the media are
concerned. And they may be right.

No one who took part in it has forgotten the international uproar
over a decade ago concerning the proposed New World Information
and Communication Order (NWICO) which arose out of another UNESCO
commissioned report entitled "One World, Many Voices" more
popularly known as the MacBride Report after Sean MacBride, the
commission's Irish president. The NWICO proposal claimed to
redress imbalances in the international media landscape. The
battle that raged over it was so fierce that the United States and
the United Kingdom, charging that the fundamental right to freedom
of expression was under attack, withdrew from UNESCO in
opposition, taking a significant portion of UNESCO's funding with
them. The NWICO proposal was buried and UNESCO survived the
crisis.

The world is a different place now. The recommendations of the
World Commission on Culture and Development are not the same as
those of the MacBride Report. It remains to be seen how they will
fare. So far, there is surprisingly little being said about them.
But there are also many people in today's world working for more
democratic media both locally and internationally who, though they
may not agree with everything in it, will find something in the
report deserving of wider public debate.

For a copy of the report, contact UNESCO.

Lavinia Mohr is the Secretary General of Videazimut.

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