The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy (Global Media and Communication Handbook Series (IAMCR))

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The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy

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Global Handbooks in Media and Communication Research Series Editor: Annabelle Sreberny (School of Oriental and African Studies, London) The Global Handbooks in Media and Communication Research series is co-published by Wiley-Blackwell and the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). The series offers definitive, state-of-the-art handbooks that bring a global perspective to their subjects. These volumes are designed to define an intellectual terrain: its historic emergence; its key theoretical paradigms; its transnational evolution; key empirical research and case study exemplars; and possible future directions. Already published The Handbook of Political Economy of Communications edited by Janet Wasko, Graham Murdock, and Helena Sousa The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy edited by Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy The Handbook of Media Audiences edited by Virginia Nightingale About the IAMCR The International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) (www.iamcr.org) was established in Paris in 1957. It is an accredited NGO attached to UNESCO. It is a truly international association, with a membership representing over 80 countries around the world and conferences held in different regions that address the most pressing issues in media and communication research. Its members promote global inclusiveness and excellence within the best traditions of critical research in the field. The current president of the IAMCR is Annabelle Sreberny.

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The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy Edited by

Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy

A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication

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This edition first published 2011 © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell The right of Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The handbook of global media and communication policy / edited by Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy. p. cm. – (Global handbooks in media and communication research) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-9871-4 (hardback) 1. Mass media policy. 2. Mass media–Poltical aspects. 3. Communication policy. I. Mansell, Robin. II. Raboy, Marc, 1948– P95.8.H365 2011 302.23–dc22 2011001826 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs 9781444395419; Wiley Online Library 9781444395433; ePub 9781444395426 Set in 9.5/11.5pt Dante by Spi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India 1

2011

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Contents

Figures and Tables Notes on Contributors Series Editor’s Preface Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: Foundations of the Theory and Practice of Global Media and Communication Policy Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy

Part I

Contested Concepts: An Emerging Field

2 The Origins of International Agreements and Global Media: The Post, the Telegraph, and Wireless Communication Before World War I Ted Magder

viii x xv xvi

1

21 23

3 The Evolution of GMCP Institutions Don MacLean

40

4 Whose Global Village? William H. Melody

58

5 Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy Kaarle Nordenstreng

79

6 Human Rights and Their Role in Global Media and Communication Discourses Rikke Frank Jørgensen

95

7 Policy’s Hubris: Power, Fantasy, and the Limits of (Global) Media Policy Interventions Nico Carpentier

113

Part II

129

Democratization: Policy in Practice

8 Power Dynamics in Multi-stakeholder Policy Processes and Intra-civil Society Networking Bart Cammaerts

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131

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Contents

9 Media Reform in the United States and Canada: Activism and Advocacy for Media Policies in the Public Interest Leslie Regan Shade

147

10 Community Media in a Globalized World: The Relevance and Resilience of Local Radio Kate Coyer

166

11 Global Media Policy and Crisis States Monroe E. Price

180

12 The Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy Landscape: The Case of Russia Andrei Richter

192

13 Public Service Broadcasting: Product (and Victim?) of Public Policy Karol Jakubowicz

210

14 User Rights for the Internet Age: Communications Policy According to “Netizens” Arne Hintz and Stefania Milan

230

Part III

Cultural Diversity: Contesting Power

243

15 Media Research and Public Policy: Tiding Over the Rupture Biswajit Das and Vibodh Parthasarathi

245

16 Whose Democracy? Rights-based Discourse and Global Intellectual Property Rights Activism Boatema Boateng

261

17 Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism Karim H. Karim

276

18 The Emergent Supranational Arab Media Policy Sphere Marwan M. Kraidy

293

19 The Mediterranean Arab Mosaic between Free Press Development and Unequal Exchanges with the “North” Jamal Eddine Naji 20 Rethinking Communication for Development Policy: Some Considerations Linje Manyozo

306 319

21 The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity: Cultural Policy and International Trade in Cultural Products Peter S. Grant

336

Part IV

353

Markets and Globality

22 Economic Approaches to Media Policy Robert G. Picard

355

23 Postcolonial Media Policy Under the Long Shadow of Empire Amin Alhassan and Paula Chakravartty

366

24 Policy Imperialism: Bilateral Trade Agreements as Instruments of Media Governance Andrew Calabrese and Marco Briziarelli

383

25 ICT Policy-making and International Trade Agreements in the Caribbean Hopeton S. Dunn

395

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Contents 26 Legislation, Regulation, and Management in the South African Broadcasting Landscape: A Case Study of the South African Broadcasting Corporation Ruth Teer-Tomaselli

vii

414

27 Regulation as Linguistic Engineering Roberta G. Lentz

432

Part V

449

Governance: New Policy and Research Challenges

28 Gender and Communication Policy: Struggling for Space Margaret Gallagher

451

29 The Environment and Global Media and Communication Policy Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller

467

30 Anti-terrorism and the Harmonization of Media and Communication Policy Sandra Braman

486

31 Regulating the Internet in the Interests of Children: Emerging European and International Approaches Sonia Livingstone

505

32 From Television without Frontiers to the Digital Big Bang: The EU’s Continuous Efforts to Create a Future-proof Internal Media Market Caroline Pauwels and Karen Donders

525

33 Actors and Interactions in Global Communication Governance: The Heuristic Potential of a Network Approach Claudia Padovani and Elena Pavan

543

Index

564

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Figures and Tables

Figures 3.1 4.1 7.1 8.1 22.1 25.1 26.1 26.2 27.1 27.2 27.3 27.4 27.5 27.6 32.1

Evolutionary model for GMCP institutions ICT access in the developing and developed world, 2000 and 2007–8 Dimensions of power Number of postings on the IG mailing list per month Media policy involves choices in balancing social welfare objectives Interconnected trade regimes and processes in the Caribbean Communications Portfolio Committee organizations Interrelationship among legislative bodies within ambit of broadcasting legislation Critical discourse analysis framework applied to regulation Linguistic choices available to language users Semantic map of definitional shifts 1966–1989 Semantic map of regulatory definitions in the final decision of 1971 First Computer Inquiry Semantic map of regulatory definitions from 1977 Supplemental Notice in Second Computer Inquiry Semantic map of regulatory definitions from 1979 Tentative Decision in Second Computer Inquiry Ofcom’s view of the future regulation of the audiovisual sector

50 65 117 140 357 408 418 418 435 437 438 439 441 441 535

Tables 7.1 8.1 8.2 8.3 9.1

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Three key fantasies of policy Distribution of participants by region Participants by gender Participants by affiliation Media reform movement activities

121 138 139 139 151

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Figures and Tables 9.2 13.1 18.1 20.1 21.1 25.1 25.2 30.1 32.1 33.1 33.2

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Media reform policy issues Three varieties of “public service” broadcasting Selected Arab media laws and regulations Typology of methodological and theoretical approaches within communication for development Why cultural products are not like ordinary commodities Main telecommunication companies operating in selected Caribbean countries Forms of communication services UN legal assistance on anti-terrorism laws Two-tier regulation of linear and nonlinear services The potential of a network approach in investigating GCG Typology of interdependent and complementary network structures offering entry points to the analysis of GCG

ix 152 213 302 324 339 401 406 492 534 548 555

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Notes on Contributors

Amin Alhassan is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, York University, Toronto and a faculty member in the York and Ryerson Universities Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture. His research focuses on information and communication technologies for development in Africa and he is working on a book on the “grammar of aid” in the development of Ghana and Uganda. Boatema Boateng is Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of California, San Diego. She has written essays on globalization, gender, and traditional knowledge as they relate to intellectual property law and is the author of The Copyright Thing Doesn’t Work Here: ASdinkra and Kente Cloth and Intellectual Property Law in Ghana. Sandra Braman is Professor of Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research focuses on macro-level effects of the use of digital technologies and their policy implications with support from the US National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Soros Foundation. Her most recent book is Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power. Marco Briziarelli is a PhD student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He received his MA in Media Studies at the University of Iowa and

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his Bachelor’s degree in Political Sciences at the University of Perugia, Italy. Andrew Calabrese is Professor of Media Studies and Associate Dean, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder. He edits the Rowman & Littlefield and Lexington book series, Critical Media Studies, and the series Global Media Studies (with Paula Chakravartty) for Paradigm Publishers. His primary research interests relate critical social theory to the study of media policy and the uses of media as tools of political communication. Bart Cammaerts is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science. He is Chair of the Communication and Democracy Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and Vice Chair of the Communication Policy and Technology Section, International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). He is the author of Internet-Mediated Participation Beyond the Nation State. Nico Carpentier is Senior Lecturer in the Social Sciences Department, University of Loughborough. He is also Vice President of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). His theoretical focus is on discourse theory and his research interests are

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Notes on Contributors in the relationships among media, journalism, politics and culture. Paula Chakravartty is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is working on a book about political culture and exclusion in India’s fractured information society. She is the co-author of Media Policy and Globalization and co-editor of Global Communications: Toward a Transcultural Political Economy. Kate Coyer is Director of the Center for Media and Communication Studies, Central European University, Budapest, where she also teaches in the Departments of Public Policy and Political Science. She has contributed to the community media sustainability guide The Business of Changing Lives for Internews and is the co-author of the Alternative Media Handbook. Biswajit Das is Professor and Director, Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He has been a visiting fellow at the University of Windsor (Canada), the East– West Centre (Hawaii), and the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (Shimla). Besides his teaching career, he has been involved with various civil society initiatives in India in media advocacy programs and research on development communication.

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Margaret Gallagher is a researcher and writer specializing in gender, media, and communication. Formerly Deputy Head of the Audiovisual Media Research Group, The Open University, she is now a freelance consultant and has worked for the United Nations and its agencies, the European Commission, international development agencies, and broadcasting organizations. Peter S. Grant is Counsel at McCarthy Tétrault LLP, Toronto, Canada and Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto and Adjunct Professor, Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada. He is author of numerous articles and publications, including the Canadian Broadcasting Regulatory Handbook, a standard industry reference published every two years, now in its tenth edition. Arne Hintz is a Research Fellow at McGill University, Montréal, and at Central European University, Budapest, where he was previously Director of the Center for Media and Communication Studies. His research focuses on communication policy, new technologies and alternative/ community media, and he is the author of Civil Society Media and Global Governance.

Karen Donders is senior researcher and project leader at the Brussels Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the Center for Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication (SMIT). Her PhD (2010) was on European State aid policy and public broadcasting and her publications focus on European competition policy in the media sector, strategies and policies for public broadcasting, and the relationships between broadcasters and distributors.

Karol Jakubowicz has worked for many years in the Polish media and in media policy and regulation in Poland and internationally. He has been Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Polish Television, of the Intergovernmental Council of the Information for All Programs, UNESCO, and of the Steering Committee on the Media and New Communication Services at the Council of Europe. His scholarly and other publications are widely published in Poland and internationally.

Hopeton S. Dunn is Professor and Academic Director of the Telecommunications Policy and Management Programme, Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies, Jamaica. He is a leading specialist in the areas of information and communication technology policy, services trade and applications for new media. He is Secretary General of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and Chair of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica.

Rikke Frank Jørgensen is a Senior Adviser at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), specializing in the interface between technology and human rights. She has worked as a policy-maker with the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology, as an activist in European Digital Rights, and as a human rights professional and researcher at DIHR. She is currently completing her doctoral thesis on Internet policy and civil society empowerment.

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Karim H. Karim is Professor and Co-Director at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. He served previously as the Director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication in Ottawa. Prior to joining academia, he worked as a Senior Policy Analyst with the Department of Canadian Heritage. Marwan M. Kraidy is Associate Professor of Global Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. His publications include Reality Television and Arab Politics: Contention in Public Life, Arab Television Industries with J. Khalil, Hybridity, or, The Cultural Logic of Globalization, and Global Media Studies: Ethnographic Perspectives, edited with P. Murphy. Roberta G. Lentz is Assistant Professor of Media and Public Policy in the Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University, Montréal. Her teaching and research focus on the political economy and governance of media and communication systems, policy advocacy, and activism related to these systems, and the social and political impacts of information and communication technologies. Sonia Livingstone is Professor and Head of the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science. She is author or editor of fourteen books and many academic articles on media audiences, children and the Internet, domestic contexts of media use, public understanding of media regulation, and media literacy. Her most recent book is Children and the Internet. Don MacLean is an independent consultant on information and communication technology policy and Associate of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada. He headed strategic planning units in the Canadian Department of Communications in the 1980s and the International Telecommunication Union in the 1990s, before establishing his consulting practice in 2000. Ted Magder is an Associate Professor and former Chair of the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. He is author of Canada’s Hollywood: Feature Films and the Canadian State and numerous articles on inter-

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national trade in media products, including “Gambling, the WTO and Public Morals: A Short Review of Antigua vs. the United States,” and Television and New Media. Robin Mansell is Professor of New Media and the Internet, former Head of the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science and Former President, International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Her research focuses on the social, economic, and technical issues arising from innovations in information and communication technologies, with a particular interest in the sources of regulatory effectiveness and failure. Linje Manyozo is Lecturer and Director of the MSc Program in Media, Communication and Development, in the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science. Richard Maxwell is Professor and Chair of Media Studies at the City University of New York, Queens College. His books include Culture Works: The Political Economy of Culture, Herbert Schiller, and, as co-author, Global Hollywood 2. William H. Melody is Visiting Professor at the Center for Communication, Media and Information Technology (CMI), Copenhagen Institute of Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark; LINK Centre, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa and Emeritus Professor, Economics of Infrastructures, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Stefania Milan is a Visiting Faculty member in the Department of Political Science, Central European University, Budapest. She holds a PhD from the European University Institute, where she studied emancipatory communication practices as seen through the lens of social mobilization theory. Her research interests include social movements, participatory approaches to governance, community media, and digital and participatory research methods. Toby Miller is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California,

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Notes on Contributors Riverside. His research covers the media, sport, labor, gender, race, citizenship, politics, and cultural policy. He is the author and editor of over 30 volumes, and has published essays in many journals and books. His current research covers the success of Hollywood overseas, the links between culture and citizenship, and electronic waste. His latest book is Television Studies: The Basics. Jamal Eddine Naji is Professor at the Institut Supérieur de l’Information et de la Communication in Rabat, Morocco. He is an international expert and consultant on communication for many United Nations agencies, UNESCO Chair in Communications and founding member of the Moroccan Human Rights Organization. His most recent publication is Le journalisme maghrébin au féminin, published by UNESCO. Kaarle Nordenstreng is Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Tampere, Finland. He has worked as Head of Research at the Finnish Broadcasting Company in the 1960s, as a consultant to UNESCO in the 1970s, and served as Vice-President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and President of the International Organization of Journalists (IOJ). His recent publications include co-authorship of Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies. Claudia Padovani is Senior Lecturer in Political Science and International Relations in the Department of Historical and Political Studies, University of Padova, Italy. Her research interests focus on the nexus between communication and political processes in the global context and her recent publications focus on participatory practices in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society and the Internet Governance Forum. Vibodh Parthasarathi is Associate Professor at the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He has a multidisciplinary interest in the business history of the creative industries, governance of media infrastructure and media advocacy. He is co-editor of the Sage series Communication Processes and is working on innovations in media policy literacy, and the structure of the television news market in India.

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Caroline Pauwels is Professor in Media Policy Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where she heads the research center for Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunications (SMIT), part of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT). She is the government representative on the Board of Governors of the Flemish public broadcaster VRT. Her main expertise is in European Union media policy, public service broadcasting and Flemish media policy. Elena Pavan is a Doctoral Fellow in Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento, Italy. Her interests are in the study of multi-actor political processes in global media and communication especially in the Internet governance domain and in research methods, including social and semantic network analysis and lexicon-content analysis in social and political fields and in the study of transnational organized crime. Robert G. Picard is Director of Research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford. He previously occupied academic positions in Sweden, Finland, and the United States. He is the author of 25 books, editor of The Journal of Media Business Studies, and former editor of The Journal of Media Economics. He has consulted and carried out assignments on issues of media economics and policy for governments, international organisations, and media firms worldwide. Monroe E. Price is Director of the Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. His many books include Media and Sovereignty, Television: The Public Sphere and National Identity, and a recently published memoir, Objects of Remembrance: A Memoir of American Opportunities and Viennese Dreams. Marc Raboy is Professor and Beaverbrook Chair in Ethics, Media and Communications at McGill University. He is the author or editor of numerous books, articles, and research reports on media and communication policy, and a member of the International Council of the International

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Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). His research focuses on new practices of media governance in a context of increasing globalization.

at Concordia University, Montréal, Canada. Since the mid-1990s, her research focus has been on the social, policy, and ethical aspects of information and communication technologies.

Andrei Richter is Director and Founder of the Moscow Media Law and Policy Institute and Professor and department head of the School of Journalism, Moscow State University, where he teaches and conducts research on mass media law, and Russian and international journalism. He is a commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists and former Co-Chair of the Law Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).

Ruth Teer-Tomaselli has published internationally on issues relating to broadcasting in South Africa and is the UNESCO Chair in Communications for Southern Africa as well as Vice-President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). She has been a board member of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) from 1993 to 1997 and 1999 to 2003, East Coast Radio from 1997 to 1998, and Durban Youth Radio between 1997 and 2000.

Leslie Regan Shade is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies,

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Series Editor’s Preface

Welcome to the Global Handbooks of Media and Communication Research series. This grew out of the idea that the field needed a series of state-of the-art reference works that was truly international. The International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), with a membership from over 80 countries, is uniquely positioned to offer a series that covers the central concerns of media and communication theory in a global arena. Each of these substantial books contains newly written essays commissioned from a range of international authors, showcasing the best critical scholarship in the field. Each is pedagogical in the best sense, accessible to students and clear in its approach and presentation. Theoretical chapters map the terrain of an area both historically and conceptually, providing incisive overviews of arguments in the field. The examples of empirical work are drawn from many different countries and regions, so that each volume offers rich material for comparative analysis. These handbooks are international in scope, authorship, and mindset. They explore a range of approaches and issues across different political and cultural regions, reflecting the global reach of the IAMCR. The aim is to offer scholarship that moves away from simply reproducing Westcentric models and assumptions. The series formulates new models and asks questions that bring communication scholarship into a more comprehensive global conversation. The IAMCR (www.iamcr.org) was established in Paris in 1957. It is an accredited nongovernmental organization attached to UNESCO. It is a truly international association, with a membership around the world and conferences held in different regions that address the most pressing issues in media and communication research. Its members promote global inclusiveness and excellence within the best traditions of critical research in the field. This series supports those goals. Annabelle Sreberny President of IAMCR and Series Editor London

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Acknowledgements

We thank the editor of the Wiley-Blackwell Global Handbooks in Media and Communication Research series, Professor Annabelle Sreberny, for encouraging us to assume the daunting task of editing a Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy. Three discriminating anonymous readers provided sharp comments that helped the book take shape. Elizabeth Swayze, our commissioning editor, and Margot Morse, our editorial contact at Wiley-Blackwell, guided the project through the inevitable hurdles of peer review, contracting authors, and production. We were either exceptionally wise or extraordinarily fortunate to appoint two stellar assistants, Fréderik Lesage at the LSE and Aysha Mawani at McGill. Fréderik and Aysha were always there, despite their own urgent professional and personal commitments. Without Fréderik’s organizational acumen and Aysha’s precise copy-editing, we would still be looking at a pile of essays and wondering what to do with them. Thank you both. Isabel Pavez-Andonaegul at LSE provided much needed assistance in the later copyediting stages. Finally, we thank the 39 authors whose scholarly contributions to this Handbook helped to refocus our own thinking on global media and communication policy and on the most fruitful directions for future research. R.M. M.R.

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Part I

Contested Concepts: An Emerging Field

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1

Introduction: Foundations of the Theory and Practice of Global Media and Communication Policy Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy

Introduction In this introductory chapter, we locate “global media and communication policy” studies historically, highlighting some of the key touchstones that have given rise to intense discussion in a variety of policy arenas. These arenas are populated by heterogeneous actors – governments, firms, and civil society organizations – whose actions reverberate through settings encompassing the local and the global. The consequences of these actions have major implications for the media and communication industries and for all those whose lives are mediated by them. The significance of this policy field stems from the pervasive cultural, political, and economic implications of media and communication. Our focus in this Handbook is primarily on the political framing of these debates, on their histories, and on their different articulations. Media and communication policy emerged as an identifiable field within the broader domain of Western media and communication studies in the 1950s. During this period, scholars were studying the relations between different types of media and communication and raising questions about economic and social development, mainly at the country level, and with an emphasis on tensions between autonomous and dependent development paradigms. In the

1960s and 1970s, challenged by young, critical scholars and the postcolonial context, the field began to be characterized by comparative studies and the policy implications of unequal North–South communication flows started to be examined. From the 1980s, there was increasing awareness that media and communication policy must be considered in reference to the transnational – as a level of policy debate and as a context – and to the role of nongovernmental actors. “Global” media and communication policy emerged as a field over an extended period and it did so in parallel with processes of technological and geopolitical change. In the 1990s, while tensions remained around development strategies, policy discussion started to focus on local or indigenous problems within a globalizing information society. In the media sphere, a key political touchstone became the contestation over relationships between state and market and the obligations of the social welfare state (public service broadcasting (PSB) being a good example). These discussions intensified as digitalization of information and communication technologies (ICTs) fostered convergence within the media and communication industries and policy encouraged a more commercial and diverse media. Debate focussed on market liberalization, culminating in the 1995 G7 meeting where development objectives were framed as the achievement of

The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy, First Edition. Edited by Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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a Global Information Infrastructure (GII) and in the mid-2000s, where a global information society policy agenda was formulated at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Denis McQuail (1998: 224) wrote presciently that the idea of the information society will provide “a central organizing pillar” for future media and communication policy.1 Clustered around this pillar are the keywords “convergence” and “governance.” A topic which did not exist ten years ago is now at the center of global media and communication policy: Internet governance. If there is a public interest in media diversity and the communication infrastructure that underpins it, then the questions are how and by whom is that interest understood? What policies and practices are consistent with that understanding? Global media and communication policy (GMCP) as an emerging field of study needs to take into account technological innovation, institutional dynamics, democratization, and processes favoring inclusiveness and plurality, rather than exclusion and inequality. Hamelink and Nordenstreng (2007) argue for a new “enlightenment,” insisting that policy analysis must embrace formal mechanisms of the state – legislation, regulation, and prescriptive practices – and informal settings offering opportunities for non-state actors to express their opinions about the ideals (e.g., affordable and universal access to networks or diverse content) to which the media should aspire. These ideals are being contested by those favoring market-led solutions and commercial services, the libertarian ethos of the early Internet, conflicting notions about the idea of democracy (Hafez 2007), and, indeed, visions in which the media’s embrace of “imperial globality” (Escobar 2004) is necessarily disempowering for most of the world’s population. In an early eponymous reader on the topic, Ó Siochrú et al. (2002: xiv) ask whether: the institutional structures and regulations emerging will operate genuinely, impartially, transparently and democratically to the benefits of all, or whether they will succumb to powerful sectoral interests, becoming yet another means to support the interests of the powerful over those of the majority.

We build on their work, positioning GMCP studies within a multi-level, complex, and highly politicized system. In this system, the boundaries

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separating local from global and the different media industry sectors are permeable. Understanding the significant consequences of global developments in this field requires an analytical framing that admits the political significance of this system; a system comprising many levels, actors and institutions, in a dynamic milieu of unequal interdependence (Raboy and Padovani 2010). As a prelude to the reader’s engagement with the new contributions to the field of GMCP that are presented in this Handbook, we set out our own critical synthesis of key paradigms and contestations. First, we focus on how we should regard technology in the framework of GMCP – an essential positioning in the light of an unhealthy tendency to see in the “digital” either the problem or the solution to challenges in this field. Second, we locate GMCP analysis within specific scholarly traditions of policy analysis that emphasize political interest. This provides a framework within which to consider GMCP from an historical perspective, which we discuss third, differentiating between the carriage and content industries. Fourth, we consider the tensions leading to policy destabilization, concluding with an assessment of the forces and opportunities for a GMCP regime, consistent with public intervention in the name of a democratic public sphere.

Technology and GMCP The analysis of media and communication policy often begins and ends with technology. We set aside such deterministic accounts, although we acknowledge that the astonishingly rapid transition from analog to digital communication cannot be ignored. The implications of the shrinking of time and distance for societal practices of many kinds are raising new issues for social actors everywhere. Digital ICTs are implicated in policymaking, whether we focus on newspapers, television, personal computers, telecommunication, or other digital devices. Winograd and Flores (1986: 23) observed that “tools are fundamental to action, and through our actions we generate the world,” a view later echoed in Lessig’s (1999) idea that “code is law.” These technologies are implicated in how we become who we are in the world. We acknowledge the role of convergent technologies in creating new challenges for GMCP, but

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Global Media and Communication Policy are concerned in this Handbook more with how these technologies are articulated in the policy sphere, where political matters and both the intentional and unintentional design of these technologies have ramifications for how we encounter the media and how we communicate. Freeman and Soete (1994: 39) described ICTs as “the biggest technological juggernaut that every rolled,” taking up the idea that these technologies are associated with economic growth and prosperity for all.2 However, Freeman and Soete (1997) also argued that paradigmatic changes accompanying the spread of these technologies would not be fair and equitable for all and that innovations in this area would create major challenges for meeting public interest goals. And, indeed, the spread of digital technologies and networks has led many to question the role of the state in media and communication policy and to advocate market liberalization. Technological convergence was the justification for the move to liberalize media and communication markets in the 1980s (Baldwin et al. 1995; Levy 1999). Overlaid with the political climate marked by the election of neoliberal governments in the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and elsewhere, as well as the collapse of the Soviet system, market liberalization and competition were seen as instruments for releasing the potential of both telecommunication and media content markets. The spread of digital technologies and the ease with which these technologies ignored national boundaries expanded the reach of networks such that nation-states were no longer perceived as the only containers for policy measures. The technological basis for these claims rested on the fact that the integration of networks supporting media and communication services had become feasible. Digital compression techniques were enabling a shift in production capability for voice, data, text, and image services. During the 1980s, there were policy discussions about the deployment of fiber-to-the-home in most wealthy countries, the spread of mobile and satellite networks, and data communication. Policy-makers began to focus on the international implications of these developments and they faced unprecedented pressure from below in the form of demand for greater diversity in media content, access to information services, and participation and transparency in policy development processes. By the

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mid-1990s, “digital divides” had entered the public discourse in both highly developed and less developed countries, and international trade in media and telecommunication goods and services had become an issue for the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as for regional and national policymaking institutions. New opportunities for reconstituting the public sphere also started to become apparent as it was recognized that these technologies are not simply given, but instead are constituted through the practices of those who use and govern them. MartínBarbero (2001: 379) argues, for example, that “the key lies in taking the original imported technology as energy, as a potential to develop on the basis of the requirements of the national culture.” This potentiality is central to whether civil society actors are able to mold the new technologies and applications consistent with values of equality, justice, and democratic practice. In the emerging GMCP sphere, relations of power are influenced by processes of transaction and translation manifested in texts (standards and scientific papers), in technical artefacts (hardware and software), in the actions of academics, policymakers, engineers, and civil society actors, and in the growth and distribution of financial resources. As Mattelart (1996/2000: 20) suggested, “the dream of establishing the pre-Babel ‘great human family’ is present throughout the history of the imaginary of communication networks,” but this dream remains elusive. To understand why this is so, we need to position GMCP analysis with respect to the appropriate analytical tools and perspectives.

Analytical Tools and Perspectives Policy analysis can be understood as the study of bureaucratic organization and the role of authority. In the US, for example, the “public policy movement” claimed to offer a new approach to the problems of government policy. Lasswell’s (1972) early work in the 1950s was aimed at developing knowledge about the policy process and at improving the information available to policy-makers. He warned that policy analysts should not become directly involved with policy-makers, although he was later shown to have been involved in the Cold

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War counter-propaganda campaigns of the US government (Samarajiva and Shields 1990). Lazarsfeld (1941) had distinguished between administrative and critical research traditions in media and communication policy analysis, stressing the importance of immunity of policy analysts to ideological, political, and other pressures. As Braman (2006) has argued, however, analysts such as de Sola Pool (1974) acknowledged that media and communication policy is shaped by politics and that this needs to be considered in framing research in the field. de Sola Pool had suggested that international – or global – policy is likely to be influenced by the most restrictive regime. Today, we find a mix of relatively open and restrictive policy regimes and this creates a complex intersection of actors, goals and practices, especially when the analytical frame encompasses global developments. If policy-making is understood as a process involving “many sub-processes” (Hogwood and Gunn 1984: 24), as extending through time, and as consisting of a “web of decisions and actions that allocate … values” (Ham and Hill 1984: 11), then we need to ensure that the analysis of GMCP embraces all the individuals and groups whose values and actions intersect in consensual and conflicting ways. In this respect, policy-making can be regarded as a process of persuasion and argumentation that takes place within a complex system of actors and institutions (Kingdon 1984). The analysis of struggles between actors in the media and communication policy field is exemplified by studies undertaken by the Euromedia Research Group from the mid-1980s. Writing on behalf of the Group, McQuail and Siune observed that in media politics: no actor is really completely in control; they all share control over issues affecting their interests, and therefore depend on support in order to fulfil their wishes. Any public policy can be considered as an intermediate moment between two successive states of the field that institutional structure has to regulate. (McQuail and Siune 1986: 14)

And, later that: many different actors want to participate in policy-making and influence decision-making. … Because of their formal positions, some of these are decision-makers, others are in the neighbourhood of decision-making, while some are at such a distance from decision-making authorities that

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they hardly or seldom can communicate or try to influence the policy-making in any way. (McQuail and Siune 1998: 24)

This may be a circumspect way of describing the three principal social categories involved: state, economy, and civil society. These categories still pertain, but the arena has shifted from the nationstate to the global; or, rather, the sphere of policy has exploded – it is here, there, everywhere. The Euromedia Group found that “mass participation in decision-making is in no way direct, and only very indirectly do the public, the mass, have any kind of influence on decisions about the new media” (McQuail and Siune 1986: 25). This was, in retrospect, however, a categorical conclusion about the politics of the process – particularly in the assumption that policy decision-making is what the politics of media and communication policy is about. And, as the Group would later observe, “media politics” is a field with its own dynamics (Siune and Trützschler 1992). Thus, the framing of the terrain of media and communication policy as a hotly contested political battleground – that is, as a field of tension and struggle rooted in social history and in the notion that technologies are not neutral but emerge out of particular circumstances (Williams 1974/2003) – is a strong theme in scholarly research in the field. More conventional readings which have privileged the “forces of technology” or economic determinism throughout the history of media and communication have been challenged and reinterpreted through this prism. A focus on political contestation has also influenced the engagement of policy activists whose work is predicated on the claim that the media are paramount social institutions, and that public intervention with respect to their orientation is both legitimate and necessary (Melody 1990). The media and communication industries are among the most lucrative growth areas of global capitalism and the owners of these industries do not hesitate to engage in political activity to promote their interests. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including oppositional groups, have identified this sector as essential to the development of a democratic public sphere and, consequently, they have focussed their attention on efforts to democratize the media. Policy scholars, in turn, have been strongly influenced by this activism.

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Global Media and Communication Policy If media and communication policy is now being constituted on a global level (both spatially and in the sense of the global as all-encompassing), we need to identify who the actors are and with whom they identify. Analytically, these actors can be seen as participants in policy communities, as actor networks, or as epistemic communities (Kenis and Schneider 1991; Atkinson and Coleman 1992; Haas 1992). Empirical research can focus on the arenas in which the politics of policy-making are conducted, on the activities of the participants, and on the way the actors interact with each other. Analytically, we need to consider changes in the distribution of, and dependence on, resources such as knowledge, financing, social and cultural values, and political power. Frequently, these actors “not only hold in common a set of principled and causal beliefs but also have shared notions of validity and a shared policy enterprise” (Haas 1992: 16). In the light of this, in the context of GMCP, we need to understand the factors influencing policy coordination; whether national policy-makers can identify “national interests” and behave independently of interest groups; and whether national policymakers seek to create, defend, or expand their power as the GMCP regime takes shape. The policy analysis tradition often focusses primarily on elite actors. For example, Majone (1989: 161) refers to “specialists who share an active interest in a certain policy or set of related policies … they all contribute to policy development by generating and debating new ideas and proposals.” He argues that analysis should focus on contestable points of view and the way these change over time. However, as Samarajiva and Zainudeen (2008: 27) point out, “policy requires knowledge, but … the knowledge is necessarily incomplete. Decisions must be taken with the best available evidence” and, in addition, non-specialists are now participating in many aspects of policy-making in the GMCP arenas. As a result, the roles of these non-specialists need to be taken into account. Many of the analytical models for the study of policy-making focus mainly on processes, neglecting normative issues, and they emphasize individual decision-making. We argue that GMCP needs to be analyzed at the individual and the institutional levels (Edquist 1997) so as to tease out the dynamics of power as they are articulated through the local to the global. This requires us to make assumptions about the coincidence between individual and

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institutional preferences and motivations. We do so by regarding the structural properties of social systems as institutions which, following Giddens (1984: 24), give “ ‘solidity’ across time and space.” Analysis of GMCP also needs to depart from the well-established theoretical traditions in the study of global policy problems that focus principally on state–state relations; that is, on anarchic state actors and on exogenously given institutions (Ruggie 1975). Instead, we suggest that the constructivist school of global policy analysis (Wendt 1992) is more consistent with an endeavor to include non-state actors and to acknowledge the importance of the ideational or political facets of policy. In this analytical tradition, research focusses on the distribution of power among institutions and the interactions among agents and institutions which are understood to co-determine outcomes within a political system. Finally, the traditions of policy analysis differ on whether the dynamics of institutions and their practices are the result of “spontaneous processes” or of deliberate design, as well as on the extent to which cumulativeness, path dependency, and learning play important roles (Lundvall 1992; Dalum et al. 1993). These characteristics of policy-making are all dependent on information and the flow of communication. In the case of GMCP, it is important to recall Melody’s (1989) observation that institutions are created from a need to share information through processes of communication which are manifested in legislation, the state, regulatory bodies, social networks, and corporate and civil society advocacy groups, as well as in their norms, rules, and routines and the way power resources are distributed. These, then, are the analytical framing tools that we can bring to the study of GMCP. The next section signposts some of the key features of media and communication policy that historically have resulted from the dynamic intersections of interests, particularly with respect to broadcasting, telecommunication, and, more recently, the Internet.

GMCP in Historical Perspective An artificial line was drawn, historically, in policy practice between the content or media and the carriage or telecommunication industries. Following the establishment of freedom of

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expression as a constitutional principle in the liberal societies of Europe and North America, these countries refused to regulate the press as an industry and enacted only the most modest of regulations concerning professional press conduct. The advent of radio (and later television) broadcasting gave impetus to state efforts to influence media content. Public broadcasting institutions, production subsidies, and various types of content regulation and promotion measures became major policy vehicles during the twentieth century. In the content industries, the main preoccupation of national governments was with issues of ownership, cultural sovereignty, and public interest considerations, overlaying international policy issues that started to emerge with the advent of radio in the 1920s and which exploded with the satellite distribution of broadcast signals in the 1980s. Carriage policy, meanwhile, was concerned principally with networks and the economic characteristics of publicly or privately owned operators, and national policies were subsidiary to international agreements and regulations (Codding 1991). The first International Telegraph Convention was signed in Paris in 1865 by members of the International Telegraph Union (ITU) – now the International Telecommunication Union. Since the 1920s, intergovernmental committees coordinate technical studies and standards and establish frameworks for the allocation of the radio frequency spectrum, today with companies and private sector consortia. In both areas (content and carriage), public policy intervention was influenced strongly by prevailing ideological and geopolitical currents – most notably, the rise and decline of the Keynesian Welfare State, the postwar emergence of an international consensus on human rights, and the politics of the Cold War and its aftermath. Long, convoluted – and highly politicized – discussions on the role of “freedom of information” in the postwar international order led eventually to the adoption of Article 19 of the United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stated that: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

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The 1950s onwards saw the integration of national media and communication policies into processes of postcolonial development, capitalist expansion, or socialist construction, depending on the nationstate concerned. In the West, commercial media vied with PSB and other forms of communication, characteristic of the welfare state. Authoritarian states dominated their national media systems while, internationally, the media served essentially as propaganda beacons for the systems they existed to promote. New forms of alternative media emerged everywhere, challenging local and national power centers, providing voice, and facilitating mobilization, for the plethora of new social movements. Thirty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the postwar international organizations, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), established an International Commission to tackle global issues, primarily concerning content. Many Voices, One World – the MacBride Report (ICSCP 1980/2004: 13) – spearheaded a call for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). Identifying a long list of inequalities, the authors of the report asserted that: the basic decisions in order to forge a better future for men and women in communities everywhere, in developing as well as in developed nations, do not lie principally in the field of technological development: they lie essentially in the answers each society gives to the conceptual and political foundations of development. (emphasis added)

On the carriage side, the ITU published its Missing Link or Maitland Report (ITU 1984). In contrast to the MacBride Report, this report emphasized technology. It focussed on the dearth of investment in infrastructure in developing countries and on the failure of telephony to reach large numbers of the world’s population, especially in rural areas.3 A flurry of activity in the mid-1990s signaled a paradigm shift in global policy in this field. A UN-UNESCO World Commission on Culture and Development published Our Creative Diversity, calling for “an international framework that complements national regulatory frameworks” (1995: 117) in the area of media, communication, and cultural policy. The report included passages such as the following:

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Global Media and Communication Policy Concentration of media ownership and production is becoming even more striking internationally than it is nationally, making the global media ever more market-driven. In this context, can the kind of pluralist “mixed economy” media system which is emerging in many countries be encouraged globally? Can we envisage a world public sphere in which there is room for alternative voices? Can the media professionals sit down together with policy-makers and consumers to work out mechanisms that promote access and a diversity of expression despite the acutely competitive environment that drives the media moguls apart? (UN-UNESCO 1995: 117)

In the same year, a joint ITU–UNESCO (1995) study entitled The Right to Communicate: At What Price? deliberated on the extent to which societal goals could be reconciled with the commercial objectives of the media and communication industries. This joint report represented a rare effort to bridge the gap between the carriage and content sectors. The study noted the detrimental effects of economic barriers for access to telecommunication services; the lack of infrastructure in some countries; and the absence of an international universal telecommunication infrastructure.4 The question of the role of national communication policy took on a new character in the early 1990s with an aggressive stance on infrastructure development taken by the US government. The trope of “deregulation” that had characterized the 1980s gave way to a new frame, best expressed in the government’s 1993 National Information Infrastructure: An Agenda for Action (United States 1993), which heralded the alleged emancipatory benefits of the information age. The Clinton Administration transported the idea to a meeting of the ITU in Buenos Aires in 1994, where Vice President Al Gore launched the notion of a GII and then forwarded it to the next G7 meeting in Brussels in February 1995. In some respects, this represented the most significant policy shift in multilateral politics since the end of the Cold War in the media and communication field. The GII was presented by its promoters as a transnational, seamless communication system which would revolutionize human relations and national economies (United States 1994). The GII proposed a single vision, program, and policy framework for the role of ICTs as a means for achieving an idealized global society (Kahin 1996). The idea

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became a concrete project in February 1995, with the adoption by the G7 countries of an eight-point plan for implementing it (see Raboy 1999). The GII project was further developed in other venues, such as the 1997 WTO agreement on market access for basic telecommunication services, signed by all members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) along with some 40 “developing” or “transitional” (i.e., East and Central European) countries (WTO 1997). Under this accord – again, the result of a US initiative – signatories agreed to set aside national differences in their respective domestic definitions of basic telecommunication (United States 1996). Henceforth, telecommunication infrastructure development in 90 percent of the world market would proceed with minimal regard to national regulatory constraints, particularly concerning domestic ownership requirements. The European Union (EU) meanwhile outlined its own vision of the “information society” in a series of reports. The Bangemann Report, which soon became a cornerstone of EU information and communication policy, “urge[d] the European Union to put its faith in market mechanisms as the motive power to carry us into the Information Age” (European Commission 1994: 3). The European Commission’s High Level Expert Group (HLEG) was set up by the Directorate of Employment and Social Affairs in 1995 to examine the social aspects of the EU vision of the information society. The HLEG report proposed to refocus debate on communication regulatory issues and the social aspects of the uses for new ICTs in order to build “a strong ethos of solidarity” in the European Information Society, where “the traditional structures of the welfare state will have to undergo substantial changes” (European Commission High Level Expert Group 1997: 15). At this time, the mention of social solidarity and the suggestion of a new global tax to finance inclusion in the information society ran counter to the strong industrial policy orientation toward market-led investment and competitiveness that prevailed elsewhere in the Commission. The various incarnations of the GII and information society were harbingers both of an emerging global regulatory system in media and communication and of a future system of world governance.5 They were characterized, notably, by the open leadership of a powerful group of

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countries, allied with the leading transnational companies active in the sphere of media and communication, and absent any participation, even nominal, of civil society nongovernmental actors. By the end of the 1990s, concern about injustices and inequalities in the emerging international regime for media and communication had reached the highest level of the United Nations. The General Assembly stated that: We are profoundly concerned at the deepening mal-distribution of access, resources and opportunities in the information and communication field. The information and communication technology gap and related inequities between industrialized and developing nations are widening: a new type of poverty – information poverty – looms. (United Nations 1997: Paragraph 5)

The non-participatory model was soon challenged, initially by the anti-globalization movement that was beginning to emerge, first with opposition to the OECD’s Multilateral Agreement on Investment and then, spectacularly, in the wake of the Seattle protests against the WTO. Eventually, this crystallized around the WSIS, during which an alternative model of global governance was put forward vigorously by an unprecedented mobilization of civil society organizations (see Raboy and Landry 2005; Raboy et al. 2010). Throughout this GMCP developmental period, policy analysts were investigating the strategic interests of the traditional actors from the formal regulatory and corporate communities. Relatively few researchers paid close attention to the significance of the emergence of global governance or its implications.

Carriage and convergence Fostering a competitive environment in the face of ICT convergence became the main goal of many policy-makers. Market liberalization and the establishment of new national regulatory authorities generated international debates on standards, the interconnection and interoperability of networks, tariffs for services, trade, intellectual property rights, electronic security, and privacy. As Noam (1994: 289) put it: regulation had been essential to the old system, partly to protect against monopoly, partly to

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protect the monopoly itself. In the transition to competition, what was left of regulation was seen as temporary, shrinking reciprocally with the growth of competition. In time, it would diminish to nothing. Yet can one expect the “system of systems” to be totally self-regulating?

Cross-national comparative policy studies suggested that a process of politically and economically motivated policy convergence was underway as governments were exhorted by the private sector to stimulate innovation and competition in the carriage industry (Ergas 1985; Mansell 1987). This fed into debates about international trade liberalization in the early 1990s.6 Within the ITU, there was consideration of how this institution should adapt to the changing policy landscape, but the monopoly telecommunication operators resisted change in a bid to protect their market dominance.7 In this period, there was consideration by policy analysts as to whether a new global regime for the governance of the telecommunication industry was in the making (Zacher 1996; Hudson 1997). Central to their investigations were issues of state sovereignty (Drake 1995; Cox 2002) and the nature of perceived threats to economic power (Comor 1994; Cowhey and Aronson 2009). With convergence on the horizon, the dominance of the wealthy countries in the existing institutions, especially of the US, began to wane (Cowhey 1990; David and Steinmueller 1996), further destabilizing the policy-making regime. The contested interactions among the protagonists at the national and global levels increasingly became visible, creating momentum toward policy change at the national level (Bauer 1994; Blackman et al. 1996). Trade liberalization in the carriage sector was perceived as a challenge to the balance between national security and the benefits of global competition (Krasner 1991; Melody 1991), giving rise to a multilateral repositioning in many international forums (Mansell 1993). In effect, a Western liberalization model was exported world-wide (Mansell 1992). The policy research community highlighted the extent of policy convergence, indicating that it was not “freely” chosen, but these insights had little influence since the forums for debate, effectively, were closed to all but those who elected to serve as consultants to the government or corporate decision-makers.

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Global Media and Communication Policy

Content and culture In the content markets with the stronger tradition in the Western countries of open debate about public interest considerations, the policy research community arguably had somewhat more influence, although defining the public interest in broadcasting (and in the press) was always difficult (Melody 1990; Blumler 1992; Barendt 1993; Hoffmann-Riem 1996). Concerns about the dominance of media producers in commercial markets stimulated scholarly debate on the “one way” flow of content and the impact of media imperialism (Nordenstreng and Schiller 1979; Fox 1997), although, in parallel with the shift to markets in the carriage sector, research on audiences suggested that they were capable of resisting the dominant ideologies exported by the US and other countries (Boyd-Barrett 1998), and as a result diluting the case for national policies aimed at protecting domestic markets. A paradigm shift was underway in digital content regulation. Digital technologies were regarded as enabling abundance rather than scarcity in media production (Mansell 1999), supporting manyto-many distribution, nonlinear programming, and transnational or global markets. This seemed to challenge traditional justifications for content regulation based on its pervasiveness, invasiveness, publicness, and influence. Government regulation was shifting toward greater reliance on self-regulation (Verhulst 2002). Policy analysts found themselves divided on the issue of the implications of the growing commercialization of content. Some argued that broadcast policy in the West had been ineffective in protecting public service content that is responsive to citizen interests; they further argued that markets would be more effective (Collins and Murroni 1996). Others called for a strengthening of national regulatory authorities to protect PSB (Curran and Seaton 1997). The pluralism and diversity of media content was at stake in all of these debates.8 The fundamental question was how best to ensure a space for civic culture in the media landscape (Haque 2001; Dahlgren 2003). As the prevailing model of press freedom and media diversity was exported around the world (Siebert et al. 1956), there was academic criticism of the promotion of Western values through media and communication policy (Curran and

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Park 2000; McQuail 2005a; Kim 2008). Comparative research focussed mainly on the Western nations but there were some efforts to develop more comprehensive accounts.9 The overall assessment was that policy convergence was well underway in the content segment of the media and communication industries with policy increasingly emphasizing competition law and access principles over public interest objectives (Galperin 2004). Some scholars warned that this policy was disadvantaging citizens and the less wealthy countries,10 and that the institutional set-up internationally was not consistent with the public interest: Today’s institutions and processes of world communication have a disempowering effect. This operates through censorship, deceit, victimization and information glut. The withholding and distorting of information obstructs people’s independent formation of opinion and undermines people’s capacity to control decisions that affect their daily lives. (Hamelink 1996: 3)

The overall result of developments in both the content and carriage industries and the policy maneuverings of governments was a period characterized by efforts of institutional reform, although there were clear tensions between the interests of the public and those of the state–industry complex.

Media and Communication Policy Destabilization With the spread of the Internet in the late 1990s, there was an increase in the visibility of the disputes over policy and regulation, and the formal institutions of policy were faced with many disruptive issues, leading to considerable destabilization of the existing policy regimes, both nationally and internationally.11 In particular, the global intellectual property regime was destabilized by the use of the Internet and digital platforms for file downloading and file sharing. “Lex Informatica” would prove extremely difficult to agree (Reidenberg 1998) and, on the international front, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) would take on an important role in shaping the media and communication marketplace.12 There are conflicting views about how developments in this area affect the developing countries and Brazil, Russia, India, and

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China have been particularly vocal on this question. These and other countries sought to preserve their rights of ownership to indigenous information as well as to improved access to global sources of information (Yusuf 1989; Correa 1994; Chaudry 1995). Another key site of policy destabilization has been with respect to the radio spectrum, the essential “infrastructure” for the content and carriage industries. Digitalization and convergence provide new opportunities to seek economic efficiency in spectrum use and to find creative ways of generating revenues for the state through auctions (Cave 2001; Ting et al. 2005). In addition, the relative abundance of spectrum has led to moves to free up segments of the spectrum for new commercial uses,13 as well as for use by alternative media groups. Changes in spectrum allocation, including the “digital switchover” for television and radio planned in most countries for the coming decade, requires international and national coordination, calling further attention to the importance of GMCP.14 In the face of policy destabilization, some look to the market to redress inequality, while other analysts observe that “catching up, forging ahead, and falling behind” are influenced by non-market factors (Abramovitz 1986; David 1995). A key difference in policy debates in the 2000s, in contrast to the 1970s and 1980s, is that rather than regarding ICTs and the media mainly as instruments of Western hegemony, many developing countries are demanding inclusion and an end to “digital divides,” making access a major focal point for global policy debates. The debates of the WSIS were qualitatively different from those of the NWICO in this respect. Stein and Sinha (2006: 426) have argued that: “whether future communication policies are market or public interest driven, or the product of national or international regulatory regimes, scholarship suggests that these policies require a socially agreed set of principles at their core.” The turn to principles of governance in the face of disruptive pressures in the field of GMCP and the realization that policy making is no longer the introspective preoccupation of nation-states (Mansell 1996), are providing the stimulus for the expansion of GMCP as a field of study. Led by trade policy and private interests in investment (Braman 1990), the emergence of new challenges to global governance can, from one vantage point, be understood as a move to remove the “dead hand” of government so that

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new technologies will yield the benefits of the information society. From another, however, the emergence of a new regime of governance for GMCP is better understood as part of a general trend of visible and active challenges to existing power relationships at all levels. To understand the nature of these challenges, we need to consider how the term “governance” is conceived. The term comes from the Latin word gubernare, which means steering or guiding (Rosell 1995). Global governance debates over how best to achieve this have been underway since the mid1990s, when the Commission on Global Governance defined governance as: the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and co-operative action may be taken. It includes formal institutions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance, as well as informal arrangements that people and institutions either have agreed to or perceive to be in their interest. (Commission on Global Governance 1995: Chapter 1, np)

The Commission’s remit had been to “suggest how global, regional and national institutions should be developed to better support co-operation in today’s world” through multilateral action. And by 2000, the United Nations Millennium Declaration made it clear that governance had become an important issue for economic and social development: Around the world, more people are recognizing that governance matters for development – that institutions, rules and political processes play a big role in whether economies grow, whether children go to school, whether human development moves forward or back. (United Nations 2000: 51)15

Governance processes and institutions can enable or constrain action and they involve the conditions for the creation, exploitation, and control of technology, markets, and society more generally.16 Similar to the policy analysis tradition, the analysis of governance processes is sometimes aimed at establishing their responsiveness to rational assessment and evaluation. In line with our perspective on policy-making discussed earlier in this chapter, we acknowledge that evidence can be misunder-

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Global Media and Communication Policy stood, ignored, or disputed and valued in very different ways. In the face of the growing complexity of media and communication systems, we expect GMCP governance to be difficult and uncertain. Governance within a global system of institutions, practices and policies is also challenging in the face of the growing involvement of civil society actors, offering “knowledge, skills, enthusiasm, a nonbureaucratic approach, and grassroots perspectives” (Commission on Global Governance 1995: Chapter 1, np). The reshaping of public, private, and civic roles is occurring in the GMCP field in tandem with a move away from the Washington Consensus on market liberalization and Western-style democracy. New forms of governance raise many issues of legitimacy and accountability as civil society actors seek visibility in governance processes – who speaks for whom? (Edwards and Gaventa 2001; Kendall and Anheier 2001). It is also important to note that “governance regimes emerge as a result of shared ideas and discourses or ways of describing developments in technology and society. … Governance regimes are also culture specific and not all systems work the same way” (Mansell and Wehn 1998: 180). Global governance systems, like other institutional systems, are relational and this creates the need to focus on: who is empowered versus disempowered (instrumental power); who is constrained in a given situation versus who gets to write the rules (structural power); and, finally, how basic identities, interests, and issues themselves are reconstituted or transformed in particular historical contexts, in turn redefining other relations of power (called meta-power). (Singh 2002: 6)

Some argue that the multiplicity of actors now involved in governance offers opportunities for resistance to the historical dominance of corporate and government actors, while others warn that the use of digital technologies to support many facets of policy-making is associated with “a citizenry that is less and less capable of participating in decision-making that can be meaningfully described as democratic” (Braman 2006: 315; 1990). We expect the dynamics of “meta-power” to have indeterminate consequences for GMCP, but we argue that intervention is needed through processes of global governance if inequalities reflected in and reproduced by the media and communication environment are to be addressed.

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In the GMCP field, there are advocates of a global framework to support public broadcasting (Raboy 1998) and to provide diverse forums for debates about the governance of offline and online worlds (Raboy et al. 2003). Policy reform has challenged state sovereignty (Price 2002) and new formal and informal forums for global governance have many implications for the traditional content and carriage industries and for services using the Internet.17 Their consequences for individuals as citizens and consumers are intertwined with the design of technologies. These developments are the subject matter for GMCP analysis. This view is itself contested by those espousing a move away from various attempts at institutionalized governance. For instance, Zittrain (2008: 242) argues that governance leads to diplomacy, which ends: either in bland consensus pronouncements or in final documents that are agreed upon only because the range of participants has been narrowed. It is no surprise that this approach rarely gets to the nuts and bolts of designing new tools or grassroots initiatives to take on the problems it defines.

Zittrain looks to the generative characteristics of technology and technically skilled people of goodwill, relying substantially on peer production, rather than on consultative processes, to address GMCP issues. Our framework for GMCP analysis and understanding of governance departs from this individualistic approach. In line with Lane’s (1966) interest in a “knowledgeable society” – that is, societies distinguished by the way they collect, organize, and interpret knowledge so as to collectively address social and economic problems; and with Innis’s (1950) concern with oligopolies of knowledge and the problems they present, analytical frameworks are needed to examine the practices of global governance that are most likely to safeguard citizens’ interests. The contributors to this volume offer approaches to studying GMCP that are consistent with this goal. For example, the WSIS in 2003 and 2005, an international event to address GMCP issues, was a major step in developing such governance practices insofar as it succeeded in bringing together multiple actors, including representatives of civil society (Servaes and Carpentier 2006). But as Cammaerts and Carpentier (2006: 17) observe:

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Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy the rhetoric that surrounds these alleged inclusionary practices tends to make use of a very fluid signifier: participation. It is now claimed more and more that civil society, as well as business actors, are “participating” in the global political processes that build future societies. … These rhetorics are discursive reductions of the plurality of meanings that are embedded in the notion of participation.

The framework for GMCP analysis that we are suggesting must also, therefore, acknowledge that “participation” is a contested concept and a priority for analysts of emerging forms of GMCP governance. As Padovani and Tuzzi (2006: 99) acknowledge, the multi-stakeholder approach which the WSIS enabled brought together actors with varying resources and power. It led to “a contribution in broadening the agenda, a fruitful convergence of different civil society actors, and a continuity of interactions beyond the WSIS process,” but it did not establish a means of fully countering the hegemony of the North – this road is a long one and it is deserving of the attention of GMCP scholars.

Conclusion: Toward an Emergent GMCP Regime The critical question being asked now, in the wake of the economic meltdown at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century and in parallel with continuing discussions about governance, with respect to many endeavors, is what is the appropriate role for the state? We argue that a paradigm shift is under way regarding this question. After twenty years (or more) of a global dominant discourse of non-intervention, the state once again has the wind in its sails. For example, the US Congress has begun to ask questions regarding the pending demise of major US newspapers, many of them as venerable as the medium of the mass-market newspaper itself (Kirchhoff 2009). Should governments bail out these institutions in the name of the public interest? Should they be reorganized as not-for-profits? And, almost in passing, where does the line blur between public and private interest in this regard? If the present moment is indeed one of crisis, it is useful to recall what Gramsci (1971: 276) had to say on the topic nearly a century ago: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a

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great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Former US White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel put it more prosaically: in public administration, “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” as he told a Wall Street Journal conference of corporate chief executives (Seib 2008: A2). In the field of media and communication, a somewhat arbitrary set of circumstances determined that the state (at least in Western countries) did not intervene in the press but did so in broadcasting and telecommunication. This “line in the sand” has led to opposing arguments: for some, the fact that the press is “free” of government intervention seems to dictate that broadcasting should be so as well. For others, it highlights an absurdity where society deems that one form of information medium is in the public domain while a neighboring one is not (see Barendt 1993). In telecommunication, a different set of variables has marked discussion of the role of the state. Here, debate traditionally has revolved around the question of equal access to the means of communication, rather than the content that is transported through the pipes. The WSIS highlighted the deep extent of the policy divide between media and communication, defined this way. Initially, the WSIS was supposed to concern itself with technology and infrastructure. But voices from emerging democracies and civil society forced discussion of purpose, function, and content – in short, a social justice perspective – onto the table. The WSIS ended up, however clumsily, outlining a sweeping agenda for social intervention in media and communication through global public policy and through a new approach to governance. The WSIS also highlighted the importance of process as a factor in public policy development. Indeed, one could say that the slow emergence of democracy over the past 200 years has been marked by a series of struggles around who shall determine the role of the state, and how state power is to be used. Marx may have been correct in identifying the state as the executive committee of the bourgeoisie but, sadly, attempts to find an alternative vehicle for steering social development have failed. The role of democratic civil society in this context is critical at two levels: first, in the elaboration of sustainable self-governing institutions outside the sphere of government and the economy; and, second, in broadening the range and enriching the

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Global Media and Communication Policy quality of representation in democratic processes. Civil society engagement with policy has been a part of the media and communication environment since at least the emergence of PSB nearly a century ago, but its influence has waxed and waned. “Media and communication policy,” then, as we are defining it, refers to all efforts to influence media and communication systems, including those by the state, industry, and civil society. In this Handbook, we have sought to extend the boundaries of conventional thinking about media and communication policy, well aware that, as editors, we are supportive of a particular proactive bias. Our position is founded on the premise that as the media are paramount social institutions, public intervention with respect to their orientation is both legitimate and necessary. The notion of “public intervention” is often confused with that of government or the state. Our approach encompasses state and government activity, but it is not limited to these. Indeed, in the recent context of the state’s retreat from public policy involvement, media and communication policy has been handled on the periphery of formal state concerns. Global corporations are increasingly involved in direct negotiations with governments and other actors in promoting their projects. Civil society organizations have identified media and communication as being essential to the development of a democratic public sphere. Yet, the broad media-consuming public has not identified policy in this area as being on an equal footing with other sectors such as health care, education and the environment in terms of social priority. The question of GMCP is likely to rise on the agenda, as progressive politics are redefined in keeping with the new political challenges of the next wave of globalization. Global events such as the WSIS have begun to highlight the importance and scope of the media and ICTs as we advance through the twenty-first century. The arrival and breathtaking spread of the Internet and the accompanying transformation of the way people communicate are contributing to a generalized interest in this field on an unprecedented scale. In rethinking governance, then, it is necessary to pay special attention to media and communication: to the role of the media in emerging political structures and to the communicative contexts in which the global media and communication environment is evolving.

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Overview of the Handbook In this Handbook, the chapters are presented in five parts:

Part One. Contested Concepts: An Emerging Field In the emerging GMCP field, concepts, their applications and implications are contested depending on political interests and normative positionings. The early history of international institutions, some of which continue to shape policy at the global level, is discussed by Magder (ch. 2), followed by MacLean’s (ch. 3) account of the evolutionary dynamics of these and several other very influential international institutions, and by Melody’s (ch. 4) assessment of the likelihood that monopolizing forces can be countered through global policy measures in the face of contested interests at all levels. In GMCP, it is perhaps the concept of the “free flow” of media and information that most galvanized policy actors in the early post-World War II period. Nordenstreng (ch. 5) provides an historical analysis, tracing this strongly contested concept through its more recent articulations in the context of Internet governance. This concept is intimately linked to debates about human rights and, in particular, whether a “right to communicate” should be enshrined in international law. Jørgensen (ch. 6) examines the gap between the discourses of human rights advocates and those in the GMCP field. This part concludes with Carpentier’s (ch. 7) reality check on the limits of policy-making in the light of his deconstruction of the basic assumptions underlying global policy developments and the contested power relations among the multiple actors.

Part Two. Democratization: Policy in Practice In this part, we acknowledge just how far the GMCP regime had been transformed by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Now, the formal government institutions and corporate governors of media and communication work in tandem with multiple new actors or “stakeholders,” often loosely coupled, but, equally,

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committed strongly to the practice of fairness and justice. New departures in this respect are visible in the efforts of civil society at the global level, as demonstrated by Cammaerts (ch. 8) in the context of the WSIS, in the efforts of social movements aimed at policy reform, as discussed by Shade (ch. 9) in the global “North”, and in initiatives to foster community media in the global “South”, as portrayed by Coyer (ch. 10). New practices are also seen in actions taken to address the dilemmas faced by policy-makers and media practitioners operating in conflict zones, as discussed by Price (ch. 11), in post-Soviet countries, as depicted by Richter (ch. 12), and in Europe, generally, as presented by Jakubowicz (ch. 13). This part ends with Hintz and Milan’s (ch. 14) analysis of the contestations within these social movements and their effectiveness in meeting the goals of democratizing GMCP and media practice.

Part Three. Cultural Diversity: Contesting Power We begin this part with a narrative on the struggles among oppositional voices throughout the postcolonial history of Indian policy-making presented by Das and Parthasarathi (ch. 15). We move on to Boateng’s (ch. 16) analysis of contestations over power when the goal is to sustain cultural diversity through knowledge production that respects the interests of those in the global “South”. Karim (ch. 17) then assesses the prospects for media pluralism given the requirement for exclusionary policies of the global “North” to be countered. Kraidy (ch. 18), Naji (ch. 19), and Manyozo (ch. 20) offer insights into the changes in media and communication governance in the case, first, of Arab media policy aimed at satellite distribution of media; second, of the press; and, third, of communication initiatives in the African region. All of these contributors highlight intraregional contests over power and the inequality of global South–North exchanges, as well as controversies within regions. In the final chapter (ch. 21) in this part, Grant offers an insider’s view of the challenges of negotiations on trade in cultural products, culminating in the framework of UNESCO’s 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

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Part Four. Markets and Globality If media and communication markets have reached a phase of globality, this is due in part to the reach of networks, but networks arguably have always sustained and conditioned the role of media and communication, without necessarily determining the role of the market. In this part, we begin with Picard’s (ch. 22) explanation of the economic model of media market dynamics, which is then juxtaposed and interpreted through the lens of Empire and its influence on postcolonial media and communication by Alhassan and Chakravartty (ch. 23). Imperialism following from the power of Empire is visible in Calabrese and Briziarelli’s (ch. 24) discussion of bilateral trade agreements and in Dunn’s (ch. 25) examination of international trade agreements and policy as well as in the national case in South Africa, as discussed by Teer-Tomaselli (ch. 26). We complete this part with Lentz’s (ch. 27) illustration of an analytical approach to the discourses of power that so often are visible in periods of policy transformation, in this instance in the US, demonstrating the value of theoretical paradigms beyond the mainstream of economics.

Part Five. Governance: New Policy Challenges In the final part of the Handbook, the authors take up some of the big challenges for GMCP which are claiming attention, not because they are new but because they are crucial to human well-being and they remain contested, uncertain, and threatening in various ways. Gallagher (ch. 28) discusses gender and the media, Maxwell and Miller (ch. 29) examine the environmental issues raised by the promotion of digital technologies, Braman (ch. 30) offers insight into national and international developments implicating the media in anti-terrorism measures, Livingstone (ch. 31) assesses the claims for policy intervention for the protection of young people online, and Pauwels and Donders (ch. 32) examine how issues of convergence are being addressed with uneven success in the EU. Each chapter offers a distinctive perspective, but all of these authors indicate that a GMCP regime, consistent with fostering diversity, justice, and inclusion, and in line with respect for human rights,

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Global Media and Communication Policy is not yet in place. The final chapter in this part sets about the difficult task of defining a research trajectory for media and communication scholars who want to influence change – whether from “below” or “above” (i.e., through formal or informal policy-making processes). Padovani and Pavan (ch. 33) illustrate the “dynamic milieu of unequal interdependence” of the networks of actors present in GMCP-making, raising questions about why they emerge, who they influence, and why it is crucial that we understand their effectiveness, rather than simply calling for processes which include multiple stakeholders.

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Notes 15 1 “A largely new era of media policy is opening up in which economic, social, cultural and political issues carry equal weight and for which the concept of an information society provides a central organizing pillar” (McQuail 1998: 224). 2 A slogan first introduced by George Gilder (1993). 3 See also Milward-Oliver (2005). The Maitland Report was cited frequently during the WSIS debates. For discussions on the shift to markets, privatization and liberalization, see Kaplan (1990); Dunn (1995); and Petrazzini (1995). 4 Debate on the “right to communicate” has a long history, as discussed by Fisher and Harms (1983) and Kleinwächter (1998) in the context of press freedom and governance of the journalism profession (Curran 2000). This is a contested area because of the close association between media freedom and democracy (Keane 1991; Corner 2004; Stein 2004). For a recent synthesis of this debate see Raboy and Shtern (2010). 5 Lovelock and Ure (2002) provide a brief discussion of the history of the developments leading up to the GII vision. 6 For an overview of early discussions on the internationalization of the information society and trade, see Bressand et al. (1989); Henten and Skouby (2002); and Mansell et al. (2007). 7 This story is documented in ITU (1989; 1991) and Hills (1998). 8 See Garnham (1995); Humphreys (1996); Doyle (1998); and Freedman (2008). 9 For research including non-Western nations, see Venturelli (1998); Hallin and Mancini (2004); McQuail (2005); and Buckley et al. (2008). 10 See Becker (1984); Hamelink (1984); Melody (1986); and Flichy (1995). 11 These are documented in McChesney and Schiller (2003).

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Branscomb (1994) asked “who owns information?” while Lessig (1999; 2008) argued for preservation of the existing intellectual property governance regime while releasing information for all to “remix” in the open commons. See also Schiller (2000; 2007) and Benkler (2006). Note that these moves concern spectrum for civilian use; the military in many countries continues to use substantial portions of available spectrum. For example, in the UK, the Ministry of Defence had management rights to 35 percent of spectrum bands in the UK Frequency Allocation Table, with shared use for much of this by commercial or other public sector users (DTI 2007). The “digital switchover” is discussed by Marsden and Verhulst (1999) and the challenges of spectrum management are discussed by Melody (1980); Smythe (1987); and Ibarguen (2003). See also Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations–Civil Society Relations (2004); (also discussed in Raboy et al. 2010). An associated term is “governability,” referring to contexts in which policy may be neither implementable nor enforceable (Kooiman 1993). For discussions of the reforms needed in each of these areas see Melody (1997); Loader (1997); Mueller (2000); Kleinwächter (2001); Papathanassopoulos (2002); Jacint (2003); Goldsmith and Wu (2006); and Ludes (2008).

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ITU (1991) Tomorrow’s ITU: The Challenge of Change. Geneva: ITU. ITU–UNESCO (1995) The Right to Communicate – At What Price? Economic Constraints to the Effective Use of Telecommunications in Education, Science, Culture and in the Circulation of Information, CII-95/WS/2. Geneva and Paris: ITU and UNESCO. Jacint, J. (2003) Governing Telecommunications and the New Information Society in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Kahin, B. (ed.) (1996) Building Information Infrastructures: Issues in the Development of the National Research and Education Network. New York: McGraw-Hill. Kaplan, D. (1990) The Crossed Line: The South African Telecommunications Industry in Transition. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. Keane, J. (1991) The Media and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kendall, J., and Anheier, H. K. (2001) “The third sector at the crossroads? Social, political and economic dynamics,” in H. K. Anheier and J. Kendall (eds) Third Sector Policy at the Crossroads. London: Routledge, pp. 228–250. Kenis, P., and Schneider, V. (1991) “Policy networks and policy analysis: Scrutinizing a new analytical toolbox,” in B. Marin and R. Mayntz (eds) Policy Networks: Empirical Evidence and Theoretical Considerations. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, pp. 25–62. Kim, Y. (2008) Media Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia. London: Routledge. Kingdon, J. (1984) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. New York: HarperCollins Press. Kirchhoff, S. M. (2009) The U.S. Newspaper Industry in Transition ( July). Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/ misc/R40700.pdf (accessed 27/03/2010). Kleinwächter, W. (1998) “The people’s ‘right to communicate’ and a ‘global communication charter’: How does cyberspace change the legal concepts of human rights and participation,” Journal of International Communication, 5(1–2): 105–121. Kleinwächter, W. (2001) “The silent subversive: ICANN and the new global governance,” Info, 3(4): 259–278. Kooiman, J. (1993) “Governance and governability: Using complexity, dynamics and diversity,” in J. Kooiman (ed.) Modern Governance: New Government–Society Interactions. London: Sage Publications, pp. 35–48. Krasner, S. (1991) “Global communications and national power: Life on the Pareto optimal curve,” World Politics, 43(3): 336–66. Lane, R. E. (1966) “The decline of politics and ideology in a knowledgeable society,” American Sociological Review, 31(5): 649–662. Lasswell, H. D. (1972) “Communications research and public policy,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(3): 301–310.

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Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1941) “Remarks on administrative and critical communication research,” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, 9: 2–16. Lessig, L. (1999) Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books. Lessig, L. (2008) Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Levy, D. A. (1999) Europe’s Digital Revolution: Broadcasting Regulation, the EU and the Nation State. London: Routledge. Loader, B. D. (1997) The Governance of Cyberspace. London: Routledge. Lovelock, P., and Ure, J. (2002) “The new economy: Internet, telecommunications and electronic commerce?” in L. A. Lievrouw and S. Livingstone (eds) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs. London: Sage Publications, pp. 350–368. Ludes, P. (ed.) (2008) Convergence and Fragmentation: Media Technology and the Information Society. Bristol: Intellect Books. Lundvall, B.-Å. (ed.) (1992) National Systems of Innovation: Towards a Theory of Innovation and Interactive Learning. London: Pinter Publishers. Majone, G. (1989) Evidence, Argument, and Persuasion in the Policy Process. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Mansell, R. (1987) “Information sector policy analysis: Some implications of alternative conceptual frameworks,” Gazette, 39: 195–210. Mansell, R. (1992) “The West looks East: Reformulating telecommunication strategies,” Innovation in Social Science Research, 5(1): 67–86. Mansell, R. (1993) “Multinational organisations and international private networks: Opportunities and constraints,” in C. Steinfield, J. M. Bauer, and L. Caby (eds) Telecommunications in Europe: Policies, Services and Technologies in the European Community. London: Sage Publications, pp. 204–222. Mansell, R. (1996) “National governance: Designing new regimes,” in R. Mansell and R. Silverstone (eds) Communication by Design: The Politics of Information and Communication Technologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 187–212. Mansell, R. (1999) “New media competition and access: The scarcity–abundance dialectic,” New Media & Society, 1(2): 155–182. Mansell, R., Avgerou, C., Quah, D., and Silverstone, R. (eds) (2007) The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mansell, R., and Wehn, U. (eds) (1998) Knowledge Societies: Information Technology for Sustainable Development. Oxford: Published for the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development by Oxford University Press.

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Global Media and Communication Policy Marsden, C., and Verhulst, S. (1999) Convergence in European Digital TV Regulation. London: Blackstone. Martín-Barbero, J. (2001) “The processes: From nationalisms to transnationalisms,” in M. G. Durham and D. M. Kellner (eds) Media and Cultural Studies: Keyworks. Malden: Blackwell, pp. 351–383. Mattelart, A. (1996/2000) Networking the World 1794–2000. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. McChesney, R., and Schiller, D. (2003) The Political Economy of International Communications: Foundations for the Emerging Global Debate about Media Ownership and Regulation. Geneva: UNRISD Working Paper. McQuail, D. (1998) “Looking to the future,” in D. McQuail and K. Siune (eds) Media Policy: Convergence, Concentration and Commerce. London: Sage Publications, pp. 218–224. McQuail, D. (2005) McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory (fifth edition). London: Sage Publications. McQuail, D. (2005a) “Communication theory and the Western bias,” in Shi-xu, M. Kienpointner and J. Servaes (eds) Read the Cultural Other: Forms of Otherness in the Discourses of Hong Kong’s Decolonization (Language, Power, and Social Process). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co., pp. 21–31. McQuail, D., and Siune, K. (eds) (1986) New Media Politics: Comparative Perspectives in Western Europe. London: Sage Publications. McQuail, D., and Siune, K. (eds) (1998) Media Policy: Convergence, Concentration and Commerce. London: Sage Publications. Melody, W. H. (1980) “Radio spectrum allocation: The role of the market,” American Economic Review, 70(2): 395–397. Melody, W. H. (1986) “Telecommunication-policy directions for the technology and information services,” Oxford Surveys in Information Technology, 3: 77–106. Melody, W. H. (1989) “The changing role of public policy in the information economy: The inaugural Charles Read memorial lecture.” Papers in Science, Technology and Public Policy No. 20, Science Policy Research Unit. London: University of Sussex and Imperial College, University of London. Melody, W. H. (1990) “Communication policy in the global information economy. Whither the public interest?” in M. Ferguson (ed) Public Communication: The New Imperatives. London: Sage Publications, pp. 16–39. Melody, W. H. (1991) “The information society: The transnational economic context and its implications,” in G. Sussman and J. A. Lent (eds) Transnational Communications: Wiring the Third World. London: Sage Publications, pp. 27–41. Melody, W. M. (ed.) (1997) Telecom Reform: Principles, Policies and Regulatory Practices. Lyngby: Technical University of Denmark. Milward-Oliver, G. (ed.) (2005) Maitland+20: Fixing the Missing Link. Bradford-on-Avon: Anima Centre.

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The Origins of International Agreements and Global Media: The Post, the Telegraph, and Wireless Communication Before World War I Ted Magder

Introduction “May the Atlantic Telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, and an instrument of Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty and law throughout the world. In this view, will not all nations of Christendom spontaneously unite in the declaration that it shall be forever neutral, and that its communication shall be held sacred in passing to their places of destination, even in the midst of hostilities” – President James Buchanan, Letter to Her Majesty Victoria, Queen of England, August 16, 1858. (McClenachan 1863: 24)

It arrived around noon on August 5, 1858. “To the Mayor of New York: Sir – The Atlantic Telegraph Cable has been successfully laid. From: Cyrus W. Field” (McClenachan 1863: 19). A simple enough message, sent from Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, announcing the completion of the first telegraph line running underwater between Europe and North America. It touched off quite a celebration. In New York, the festivities lasted weeks: a

fireman’s torchlight procession down Broadway, building ornamentations and illuminations, at least one 100-gun salute, a municipal dinner to honor Cyrus Field and his fellow telegraph entrepreneurs, and a succession of fireworks displays sponsored by local notables, one of whom, in spite of all precautions, set fire to the cupola of City Hall (McClenachan 1863). During those same weeks, roughly 400 messages made the passage under the Atlantic. At the best of times, the service was uneven and slow. President Buchanan’s salutatory greeting to Queen Victoria took roughly 16 hours to transmit. Early in September, the cable failed completely. England and the Americas had to wait eight more years for a permanent transatlantic link (Dibner 1964; Kieve 1973). Though the 1866 cable arrived without the same public fanfare, communication by electrical means was still something of a spectacle. Wherever telegraph operators could be found, people would gather not to send or receive a message but to marvel at the workings of the system. Public assemblies outside the post office were far less common. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the mail had become a routine, taken-for-granted component of daily life, so much a necessity in certain


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countries, such as the United States (US), that postal stations were required by law to open seven days a week, even on Sunday, the Lord’s Day. The telegraph’s connection to everyday life was less direct. Most people never sent one. More than 90 percent of telegraph traffic consisted of commercial messages, whether business-to-business correspondence or wholesale news reports assembled by agencies such as Reuters, Havas, and Associated Press, and delivered to local newspapers. By the 1860s, the mail had become an affordable means of public communication in many countries. Though telegraph prices dropped over time, telegraphy never became an affordable medium for routine interpersonal communication. Until nearly World War I, these two modes of communication, paper or wire, were the only effective means to send and receive messages across vast distances. Long-distance communication, increasingly routine and widely available, private, and reliable, emerges as a social phenomenon in the second half of the nineteenth century. Technical innovation had much to do with this: railways to move the mail faster, the propagation of electro-magnetic energy, steamships to lay underwater cables. The capital investment required for each of these innovations flowed readily from private sources and, in many cases, from state treasuries. In the building up of global communication networks, mechanical invention, entrepreneurial capital, and public subsidy worked hand-in-hand (Thompson 1947; Headrick 1981; Hills 2002). This was also a period of administrative and legal innovation on an international scale, arguably as noteworthy as the harnessing of electricity itself. Together, these two techniques for the distribution of messages, the post and the telegraph, became the basis for the first international agreements to structure the flow of communication across the borders of sovereign states and the first two international organizations dedicated to the task of managing the administrative and technical details of a global network (i.e., the International Telegraph Union in 1865 and the General Postal Union in 1875). These organizations, in conjunction with the various conventions and regulatory protocols under their watch, gave legal and political definition to the first era of global communication. Even today, the postal and telegraphic agreements are integral to the vastly more compli-

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cated set of instruments that underpin the contemporary system of global communication. While the elements that factor into the making of the postal and telegraphic accords run the gamut from personal determination to geopolitics, it is no coincidence that the effort to speed the movement of communication across borders coincides with a period of commercial expansion. Economists of all persuasions agree that the world experienced a massive wave of globalization involving capital, trade and migration, starting in the second half of the nineteenth century and lasting until the outbreak of World War I (O’Rourke and Williamson 1999; James 2001). More than is often recognized, this period of globalization was distinguished by extensive human migration, especially noteworthy in an exodus from Europe roughly equal to the US population in 1870 (Baines 1995). Mobility was easier to imagine and easier to do. Train travel became commonplace and steamships offered a dramatic improvement in the speed and safety of transcontinental voyages. Border controls on the movement of people were limited or non-existent. It is only in the aftermath of World War I that the passport becomes a requisite document for international travel, more symptomatic of a backlash against the easy movement of people across the earth than a sign of a new cosmopolitan spirit (Torpey 1999). And, while most people moved to improve their chances of survival, this period also saw a wave of religious missionary activity to save souls in Africa and Asia, mostly all of it Christianinspired. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to Foreign Parts, for example, took its place beside an ever-growing list of international, nongovernmental organizations consisting of individuals from more than one country with an interest in social reform, starting with the abolition of slavery and running through drug trafficking, prostitution, working conditions, public sanitation, and hygiene (Keane 2003: 47). It is sometimes forgotten that the nongovernmental organization is a nineteenthcentury phenomenon (Wallace and Singer 1970). Much of the increased movement of capital, goods, and people was tied to the commercial and political expansion of certain European countries (Hobsbawm 1989). This was not just an age of globalization. It was an age of empire, very much aided and abetted by faster and more reliable means of transportation and communication. Just how far to stretch the connection between

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Origins of International Media Agreements imperial ambition and the development of global communication networks is the subject of debate among media historians (Kennedy 1971; Headrick 1991; Hills 2002; Winseck and Pike 2007). Certainly the link seems fairly intimate, especially if we generalize from the example of the submarine telegraph and its relationship to the vast holdings of the British Empire. At the start of the twentieth century, British firms controlled close to two-thirds of the world’s submarine cables (Headrick and Griset 2001: 571). The British advantage rested on three pillars: first, the unparalleled strength of the British Navy and commercial shipping industry, earned over a few centuries of European wars. Laying submarine cables across an ocean floor required a vessel large enough to carry thousands of miles of cable and engineered to do the job quickly, since cable insulation deteriorates in the open air. Up until World War I, most of those ships were British; one, the Great Eastern, became the undisputed king of submarine cable trawlers. After much trial and error, the preferred form of insulation was identified as gutta percha, natural latex derived from tropical trees by the same name, abundant in the Malay Archipelago, most of which had been colonized by the British. As a result, the British controlled virtually the whole of the world’s supply of gutta percha. For a time, it was more expensive than copper. These advantages were linked to a third: the volume and flow of private venture capital in the city of London, some of it subsidized or guaranteed by Her Majesty’s Government (Brown 1927; Headrick and Griset 2001; Hills 2002). Yet even in the case of the telegraph, as Dwayne Winseck and Robert Pike have argued, the evidence sometimes points as much toward “interimperial collaboration” as it does toward imperial rivalry (Winseck and Pike 2007: xvii). The British, for example, became quite comfortable with the idea that many of the transatlantic cables were owned and operated by American capital, with the last United Kingdom (UK)-owned cable passing into American hands in 1911. Likewise, the effort to ring the world with a submarine cable that would run exclusively through British territorial holdings – England, Canada, Fanning Island, Australia, Hong Kong, Aden, Suez, Gibraltar – met with less enthusiasm than might be expected from the British state and its navy1 (Bright 1911; Barty-King 1979: Chapter 5; Boyce 2000). As

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Winseck and Pike conclude, it seems better to characterize this period as one of both rivalry and collaboration, with shifting alliances and interests along the way. One constant feature of the period is explosive growth in intercontinental investment and trade, and a globalization of the economy, under the sway of new multinational financial and corporate institutions in the private sector. The communication networks served as infrastructure to this period of rapid capital accumulation, with plentiful economic benefits accruing to telegraph companies and international news agencies themselves. As we shall see, the early international agreements for the post and telegraph were drafted with the interests of the leading political powers and general interests of private capital very much in mind. But the agreements also reflect the maturing form of the modern state – a territorially bounded unit, with authoritative and monopolistic command over legal, administrative and military resources. Many of the states we take for granted as sovereign entities – Germany, Italy, Australia, and China, to name a few – were newly founded during this period (Tilly 1975; Poggi 1978). Participation in the various international meetings and conferences and ratification or accession to the final protocols or conventions was and remains an important symbolic act in the establishment of statehood and a legitimate claim to sovereignty in international relations. While the legitimacy of the modern state is partly expressed through the capacity to enter into international agreements, the postal and telegraphic accords did more than reinforce the idea (and practice) of sovereignty. Alongside the commercial and political interests that underpinned the internationalization of communication, the political environment was charged with universalisms of many strands – some socialist, some liberal, some scientific, some messianic (Mattelart 2000; Keane 2003: 44–57). The spirit of universalism was evident in the various efforts to standardize the measurements of weight, distance, time, and money, in the push for a worldwide common language (such as Esperanto), in the expositions and fairs trumpeting technological innovation, and in the adoption of the gold standard to ease the international flow of capital. It was also evident in the advancement of international law as a basis for managing the affairs between states, especially the

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“civilized” states of Europe, and the proliferation of international organizations. The first of these were bilateral or regional entities, such as the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine (1815), and the Superior Council of Health, created in 1838 to reduce the spread of cholera from Asia to Europe via ports in the Ottoman Empire. A flurry of more fully multilateral and international organizations followed the establishment of the General Postal Union in 1875, including the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (1875), the International Union for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1896), the International Geodetic Association and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (1902).2 This “esprit d’internationalité ” was also embodied in the formation of the Institute of International Law in 1873, a learned society of jurists and scholars with a liberal internationalist orientation, one of whom, Louis Renault, would play a formative role in international law governing submarine cables (Renault 1880; Koskenniemi 2001). The postal, telegraph, and wireless agreements of this period reflect some of this liberal internationalist sentiment. They also reveal a myriad of tensions: some involving nationalist and imperialist aspirations, some involving the nature and pace of capital accumulation, and some involving unease about the value of liberal ideals in relation to the possibilities of communication across frontiers.

The Post The organized movement of messages across frontiers is as old as the coordinated practice of politics and empire. The words inscribed on the main branch pediment of the New York Post Office – “neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” – are those of Herodotus describing the Persian postal system in the sixth century BC (Codding 1964). They could just as easily apply to the Roman cursus publicus or the messenger system of the Mohammedan Caliphs (Eliot 1955). That empires would require a system for the efficient transportation of messages is obvious. But in Europe, after the fall of Rome, the delivery of mail was decentralized and privatized.

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Monasteries and notable trading cities, like Venice and Genoa, maintained their own networks of couriers toward the end of the Middle Ages. In France, the petits messagers of the University of the Sorbonne in Paris carried the mail for 150 years before a Royal Postal Service was established in the late fifteenth century (Barnard 1955). The most efficient and far-reaching system was a private network operated by the Thurn and Taxis family between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire. In Europe, the demise of these private services is concomitant with the emergence of the modern state. By the time the last Thurn and Taxis operation was nationalized by the Prussian government in the 1860s, most postal systems had become state monopolies. For most states, the added revenue of carrying private letters proved a boon to treasuries. Some treated the post more like a tax than a public service. Of course, carrying private letters also made it possible for the state to keep a watchful eye on the correspondence of its citizens and its enemies when the need arose. In all cases, a postal system that operated as a government monopoly was a formative institution of what was becoming the modern state, an embodiment of the state’s claim to territorial integrity and the management of public life. In the US, the Post Office Act of 1792 committed the debt-ridden new republic to spend lavishly on a continental network of roads, depots, offices, and local postmasters. By the 1830s, no federal institution, not even the military, employed more full-time employees than the US Postal Service (Roper 1917; Starr 2004). The peculiar feature of this service was that it was less a post “of the people and for the people,” and more a post “of the press and for the press” (Kielbowicz 1989). For one thing, publishers and printers were granted the privilege of exchanging their newspapers among themselves free of charge. Newspapers would comprise up to one-third of the mail’s total weight, with each publisher receiving on average more than ten exchange papers a day (John 1995: 37). For another, the cost of mailing a newspaper was much less than the cost of mailing personal correspondence. By design, personal letters subsidized the circulation of newspapers. In 1844, for example, postage on a single-sheet letter traveling 400 miles cost about 25 cents, while newspaper delivery through the mail cost one and a half cents for

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Origins of International Media Agreements distances of more than 100 miles, and one cent to travel less than that ( John 1995: 36; Henkin 2006: 18, 44). The difference in price was significant enough to encourage subterfuge, marking the margins of newspapers with private correspondence, or underscoring letters or words to avoid the price of private correspondence. The practice was also illegal. Any writing “that conveyed an idea to the person to whom the paper was sent, or informed him of a distinct fact,” was subject to letter postage, according to the Postmaster General ( John 1995: 48). But in spite of legislative attempts to suppress the habit by imposing a fine on the sender and requiring the addressee to pay the (extra) letter postage upon receipt, the subterfuge was widespread (Henkin 2006: 47). Advocates of postal reform concentrated their efforts on lowering the costs for regular mail and improving delivery time. The British led the way on both fronts, primarily through the dogged efforts of Sir Rowland Hill (Hill and Hill 1880; Coase 1939; Campbell Jr. 1991). Based on a meticulous reading of postal office accounts, Hill concluded that a substantial reduction in the price of posting a letter coupled with the elimination of variable rates based on distance traveled would increase revenues faster than costs. The reforms were introduced in 1840 when Britain issued what is widely regarded as the first postage stamp. Bearing a profile of the 18-year-old Queen Victoria, the Penny Black could be used for any inland letter in the UK. The stamp was one-eighth the price of the previous standard letter rate: one penny for each half-ounce. The surge in mail traffic might have overwhelmed the British Post Office but for a third innovation: prepaid postage. Until 1838, postage was paid upon delivery. Letter carriers had to make personal contact with each addressee, carry cash, make change, and keep a ledger. Hill showed that the postal system would cost less to operate, and operate more swiftly, with a uniform, prepaid stamp, purchased and affixed by the sender. Selfadhesive stamps, front-door mail slots, and sidewalk drop-boxes helped complete the transition. The self-adhesive, penny blacks were mass produced at a cost of 1/260th of a penny on a machine that could make more than two hundred a minute. In the first year, roughly 68 million letters bore the stamp (Robinson 1948: 303–320). “When it is considered how much the religious, moral, and intellectual progress of the people

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would be accelerated by the unobstructed circulation of letters,” wrote Sir Rowland Hill, “the post office assumes the new and important character of a powerful engine of civilization” (Campbell Jr. 1991:17). For Hill, a committed liberal in the Manchester mold, the post office was a means to extend commerce, trade, and rational, public debate. His language was also aligned with the view that European countries had a civilizing role to play in the management of world affairs, a view that underwrote the imperial adventures of Britain (and other states), as well as the efforts of his postal counterparts in Europe and the US, who quickly adopted most of the British innovations in their home territories. The momentum for reform was carried over into the international arena. While it was certainly possible to use the mail for international correspondence by the midnineteenth century, it was not easy. To send a letter from somewhere in the US to somewhere like Moscow, four rates would apply: a domestic rate for passage through the US; sea postage for the Atlantic crossing; transit rates for passage through intermediate countries – France, Prussia, and Poland, in all likelihood; and, finally, the domestic rate for Russia. To communicate with Australia, there were six different routes with six different rates (Hargest 1971). Not surprisingly, the British did have a uniform rate of six pennies per halfounce for destinations within the Empire. But otherwise a similar patchwork of rates applied: six different letter rates to Constantinople alone; four pennies to France per quarter ounce; and eight pennies to Germany and Holland, in some cases per half ounce, in other cases per quarter ounce. The table of Foreign and Colonial Rates took up 16 pages in the British Postal Guide of 1856 (Williamson 1930: 69–70). Postmasters also faced a dizzying array of weights and measures in the assessment of rates. The gramme in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands; the zolloth in Germany and Austria; and the ounce in Great Britain and its colonies and the US. Maximum dimensions varied as well. In Denmark, no piece of mail could be thicker than two and fiveeighths centimeters. In Great Britain, no foreign letter could be thicker than a foot. The whole system was bogged down further by the need to settle accounts country by country, with the mail being sorted and weighed at each border crossing.

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The effort to overhaul this patchwork system began in earnest when 15 countries met in Paris in 1863. That only 12 of them still exist – Austria, Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark, Spain, the US, France, Great Britain, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland – is a reminder that borders are not static; that recognized states come and go. Of the three that no longer exist, Prussia would become part of Germany, the Sandwich Islands would adopt the name Hawaii and would become part of the US in 1959, and the Hanseatic Towns (places like Lübeck, Deventer, Danzig, and Riga) were on the brink of being absorbed by larger territorial entities. Of the delegates, all but one came from the ranks of foreign affairs or the diplomatic corps. The exception was Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General of the US. The year before, Blair had sent a letter to those countries with which the US shared postal relations, summarizing the byzantine complexity of international mail and urging a meeting. Many embarrassments to foreign correspondence exist in this and probably in other postal departments which can be remedied only by international concert of action. … Without entering into details, it is evident that the international adjustment of a common basis for direct correspondence, and for intermediate land and ocean transit, and for an international registry system, and for the exchange of printed mail matter, is clearly of the first importance to the commercial and social intercourse between this and other nations. (cited in US 1894: 39–40)

It was another decade before an agreement could be reached: delayed by the Franco-Prussian War; propelled forward by the successful example of regional arrangements (e.g., the Austro-German Postal Union encompassed 16 separate postal administrations); and given final diplomatic momentum when France declared its willingness to proceed with the idea, in spite of the expected burden the country would bear as a main thoroughfare for international mail. The Treaty of Berne was negotiated in 1874 and came into force on July 1, 1875. Because of the speed with which countries signed on, the agreement’s name was changed from the General Postal Union to the Universal Postal Union within three years. Article 1 of the Treaty, which remains in force to this day, is a simple yet bold declaration. “The

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countries adopting this Constitution shall comprise, under the title of the General Postal Union, a single postal territory for the reciprocal exchange of correspondence between their Post Offices” (Treaty 1875: 1). What follows is one of the most remarkable agreements in the history of international relations, without question a major triumph of technical and administrative reform. Since the introduction of the Penny Black in the UK, Rowland Hill’s approach to postal reform had been adopted widely. Convention delegates well understood the importance of paying attention to such details as the collection, sorting, and delivery of the mail. Each step of the way the goal was to reduce transaction costs and standardize protocols. It helped tremendously that the delegates to the second conference were drawn from the ranks of acting postal administrators instead of the diplomatic core. All contracting parties agreed that prepaid postage would become an international norm. More specifically, the sender would pay the full price for international delivery to the originating postal administration in local currency, using a single rate system based on weight but not distance traveled. The gramme was set as the official weight standard; the centime became the baseline currency for postage and accounting purposes.3 Letters less than 15 grammes in weight would be assessed at the general rate of 25 centimes, though as a “measure of conversion” countries had the option to charge the equivalent of as little as 20 centimes or as much as 35 centimes (Sly 1927: 33). The movement of mail involves three stages: collection, transportation, and delivery to its final destination. Postal authorities in a number of countries had documented a basic reciprocity in the flow of international mail between countries: letters sent generally receive a reply. Based on this evidence, the contracting parties agreed to deliver each other’s mail to its final destination without charging additional fees.4 But as the mail moved from source to destination it often passed through intermediate countries, especially before air transportation became a viable option. The reciprocal exchange of correspondence in the words of Article 1 of the Berne Treaty meant that each nation was obligated to transport mail across its territory sent from one foreign county and destined for another. Mail from the Netherlands destined for Italy would normally travel through France. British mail destined for Japan might arrive

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Origins of International Media Agreements in New York for transportation by rail to San Francisco and then by steamer to Yokohama. Countries on the geographic perimeter, such as Britain, were far less likely to carry other people’s mail than countries in the middle of densely populated regions or trade routes, such as France. For transit countries, as they came to be known, the burden of processing and transporting other people’s mail would prove very costly. They insisted on some form of compensation. The “right of transit,” as laid out in Article 10, bound each country to carry one another’s mail without prejudice or discrimination, using the same routes and schedules as it would for its own mail. International transit of the mail was guaranteed – it was a right – but it was not free. Transit fees became the focus of considerable debate at Berne. Set too high, they had the potential to spoil the principle of a single worldwide postal territory. Set too low, high-transit countries would not sign the Convention, as France intimated on more than one occasion. The Berne Treaty included detailed provisions for the assessment of transit fees under Article X: The dispatching office shall pay to the Office of the territory providing the transit the sum of two francs per kilogramme for letters and twenty-five centimes per kilogramme for the several articles specified in Article 4 [i.e., commercial documents, newspapers, books, pamphlets, music, visiting cards, catalogs, etc.] … This payment may be increased to 4 francs for letters and to 50 centimes for the articles specified in Article 4, when a transit is provided of more than 750 kilometres in length over the territory of one Office. (Treaty 1875: 7)

Mail crossing a frontier would have to be classified and weighed. The applicable fee would reflect the distance traveled and the means of conveyance by land or sea. The introduction of a standard scale of measurement and currency would help simplify matters, but the border still presented a bottleneck problem: since the mail is in constant motion, the routine assessment of transit fees would certainly slow things down and raise transaction costs. The solution was an early and elegant example of periodic statistical averaging: twice each year, for seven consecutive days, postal employees would weigh transit mail at border crossings, estimate routings, and calculate the relevant transit fees (Sly 1927: 420, 434; Campbell 1991).

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The transit fee solution was a political compromise. The Berne Treaty and subsequent postal agreements contain a number of provisions that are both diplomatically shrewd and legally dexterous. In the first place, membership was made easy. Until it fell under the scope of the United Nations as a specialized agency after World War II, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) was an open union. Membership was automatically bestowed once a country declared its intention to abide by the Convention and its regulations. Doing just so became one of the earliest practical and symbolic acts for new states (see Williamson 1930: 71). Growth was rapid – from 22 countries in 1875, to 37 in 1878, to 71 members in time for the 1906 meeting in Rome. On the eve of World War I, membership was universal, except for a few small island states in the Indian and Pacific oceans (Williamson 1930: 71; Codding 1964: 80–81). The UPU also adopted provisions to give nonindependent entities – colonies and protectorates – membership status, though their votes generally were controlled by the imperial power. To this day, one of the more notable provisions of the postal Convention is the recognition that members can band together to create regional or restrictive unions, provided that such unions do not reduce the benefits that can be obtained under the basic Convention. One of the first and largest of these is the Pan-American Union founded in 1911. By 1931, it included Spain, the US, Canada, and all the countries of South and Central America. One of its first acts was to eliminate transit fees for mail circulating between Member States (BraunsPackenius 1962; Codding 1964: 229–31; Menon 1965: chapter 5).5 The UPU’s prudence is also evident in its arbitration procedures for disputes and openness toward optional clauses and exceptions under certain circumstances. One example will have to suffice. Shortly after joining the Postal Union, the kingdom of Persia raised a substantive objection to the axiomatic assumption that no country should be compensated for delivering mail to its final destination, since the flow of mail between any two countries is roughly equal in volume over time. The episode is retold by Leonard Woolf in a work commissioned by the British Fabian Society: “But now it is found,” recounts Woolf: that the kingdom of Persia stands in a curious relation to the kingdom of Great Britain and the

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Ted Magder Republic of the United States. The former is inhabited by Mohammedans, the two latter by Christians. British and American Christians have a passion for sending Bibles to the Persian Mohammedans, while the Persian never sends his Koran to Britain or America. Moreover, in Persia there are no railways, and transport is by camel, and extremely expensive. … The British and American Administrations retain all the postage on hundreds of Bibles dispatched by their Christian subjects. All the year round the Persian Administration has to provide at great costs strings of camels to convey the stream of foreign Bibles to its subjects. For doing this it gets no return, and meanwhile the Persians neglect to send letters or Korans to foreigners, the postage on which would be retained by their own Administration. (Woolf 1916: 204)

The response to Persia’s concerns came in the form of an appended service regulation to the 1906 Rome Convention permitting Persia to levy a 5 centimes tax on each packet distributed to a final destination within its territory. The 1906 Convention is also noteworthy for the provision to allow free correspondence for prisoners of war. Switzerland, which together with Sweden was given the task of fulfilling this provision, handled over 500 million letters and 92 million packages during World War 1 (Codding 1964: 46). “After a life of over 40 years,” Woolf wrote in 1916, “the UPU remains the most complete and important example of international administration” (Woolf 1916: 205).

The Telegraph Multilateral and regional agreements to manage cross-border transmission by electric telegraph were almost coincident with its first uses in mainland Europe. By the time the Dover to Calais cable under the English Channel became operative in 1851, Prussia, Austria, Saxony and Bavaria had created the Austro-German Telegraph Union. Over the next three years, France signed bilateral accords with Belgium, Switzerland, Sardinia and Spain, respectively. These countries, together with The Netherlands and Portugal, created the Western European Telegraph Union in 1858 (Codding 1952: 13–20). As was the case with international mail, the borders between states posed a challenge, in part,

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because telegraph systems on the European continent were financed and operated as state enterprises from the start. Frontier border stations were staffed by government operators from each country: telegraphs from Paris, for example, would be received at Strasbourg by a French telegraph operator, handed to a German telegraph operator conveniently housed in the same location, who would translate the message into German, turn it back into Morse code, and send it along to Berlin (Codding 1952: 14 fn 56). Similar human relay systems at other border crossings slowed the speed of a telegraph message, its most valuable attribute. The European unions of the 1850s addressed this problem head-on by requiring each contracting party to provide telegraph lines designed exclusively for international correspondence, eliminating the necessity for frontier operators. These agreements also established standard administrative procedures for classifying and pricing international telegraphs and outlined technical details for interconnection, many of which informed the meeting in Paris that culminated in the creation of the International Telegraph Union. British and American delegates were notably absent from the 1865 Paris meeting because in both countries, unlike the post office, the telegraph system was in private hands. International agreements were understood to be affairs of state. Private individuals, no matter their social status or corporate wealth, had no right to participate in the proceedings. In the continental US, Western Union was already hard at work securing its monopoly status, warding off multiple efforts to have the telegraph come under the arm of the federal government, and negotiating attractive partnerships with other emerging corporate entities such as the Associated Press (Thompson 1947; Czitrom 1982; Blondheim 1994). In the UK, Parliament nationalized the domestic telegraph system in 1870 and handed it over to the British Post Office. Much of the public money paid in compensation to private operators was poured into submarine cables. Worldwide, most domestic telegraph systems were operated by governments, but the trans-oceanic and transcontinental cables that connected these domestic systems were in private hands. It was hard to imagine a viable set of international rules and standards without their participation. As a result, from the 1870s onward private companies were given observer status at all conventions and

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Origins of International Media Agreements were included as discussants at all administrative and technical meetings. They could also pledge adherence to the conventions and their accompanying service regulations.6 Needless to say, private operators became keen participants in all proceedings, working effectively to establish a standardized system for international telegraph traffic that increased overall traffic without any significant restrictions on rates. Unlike the relatively low cost for international mail, the telegraph agreements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did next to nothing to make telegraphy more affordable, except for those governments that negotiated reduced rates for government correspondence in exchange for cable-landing rights and monopoly privileges. The core principles of the International Telegraphic Union received their fullest expression in the St. Petersburg Convention of 1875, which remained in place for the next five decades.7 The first two articles read as follows: Article 1 The High Contracting Parties recognise the right of all persons to correspond by means of the international telegraphs. Article 2 They undertake to adopt all the necessary measures to ensure the secrecy and prompt dispatch of telegrams’. (Nelson 1913: 54)8

The St. Petersburg Convention marks the first occasion that the phrase “droit de correspondre” appears in an international document. A cynic might claim that Article 1 reflects a well-worn tradition in international law of proposing an individual or social right that then goes unheeded and unmet. Even at the turn of the century, the telegraph’s pricing regime was such that this right to correspond was beyond the means of the vast majority of the population and was used only in cases of dire emergency or personal tragedy. Still, in the longue durée of international law, the “droit de correspondre” is the first effort to articulate something approximating a right to communication across borders. The Convention’s commitment to the privacy of correspondence is equally noteworthy and similarly subject to practical and political considerations. In postal matters, the sanctity of private

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correspondence was a well-earned, though not inviolate, social value and political right. In the US, postal regulations have treated unauthorized letter opening as a criminal offence from the time of the very first Postal Act. By 1800 postal workers in the UK could only detain and open private correspondence under an explicit warrant from a government minister. The practice was uncommon, as indicated by a parliamentary review in the 1840s following revelations that the Home Secretary was reviewing the private correspondence of Giuseppe Mazzini, a leader of the Italian nationalist movement then exiled in London (Turner 1918; Seipp 1983). In the mid-nineteenth century, two more innovations contributed to the privacy of postal correspondence: the elimination of an extra charge for letters placed in a sealed envelope, and the introduction of pre-gummed envelopes that could be sealed without the use of wax (Robinson 1948: 299–300). The logistics of telegraph communication posed a special challenge to private correspondence because of the unavoidable moment when telegraph operators read and transcribed each message before handing it off – and often sealing it – for delivery. For telegraph users, the only option comparable to a sealed postal envelope was the use of some secret code that telegraph operators could not decipher. None of the delegates at St. Petersburg was prepared to embrace an absolute right to privacy or secrecy. The Convention had this to say on the matter: Article 6 Government and service telegrams may be sent between all countries in secret language. Private telegrams may be exchanged in secret language between two States which admit that class correspondence. Article 7 The High Contracting Parties reserve to themselves the right of stopping the transmission of any private telegram which may appear dangerous to the safety of the State, or which may be contrary to the laws of the country, to public order, or decency. (Nelson 1913: 55)9

These two articles make it abundantly clear that national security and the authority of the state to preserve order and morality take priority over the rights of any private individual or corporation. Any

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lingering doubt about the state’s paramountcy is resolved by additional regulations requiring that all code books and private ciphers be placed on deposit with a designated government office. While telegraph operators themselves would not necessarily have access to the original codebooks, all messages – whatever their purpose or place of origin – are potentially subject to government oversight. In this regard, the St. Petersburg Convention provides shadowy confirmation of the nineteenth and early twentieth century cabinets noirs (or black chambers) where political operatives worked in secret, monitoring both personal and diplomatic correspondence (Yardley 1931; Kahn 1996). National security issues, or the “safety of the state” as it is phrased in Article 7, are far more evident in international negotiations concerning the telegraph than the mail. Notably, the St. Petersburg Convention provides the first enunciation of the principles that can be invoked by contracting parties to limit their legal commitment to a seamless network of private, international communication. The “safety of the state” provides one justification. “Public order,” “good morals,” and the “laws of the country” are others. These phrases, mutatis mutandis, became part of the basic lexicon of international treaties and agreements.10 The telegraph brought the tension between security and networked communication into the open in part because of its speed, but also because the use of code became commonplace. Code, in this case, does not refer to Morse’s system of dots and dashes, but to plain words or uncommon combinations of letters that have to be deciphered to be comprehensible. Given its expense, and because the price of a telegraph message was calculated not by time or weight but by the word, code was used as much for economy as for secrecy (US 1929; Codding 1952: 65–75). Over time it spawned a booming side-business in the publication of codebooks such as The Adams Cable Codex or Bentley’s Complete Phrase Code (“nearly 1,000 million combinations with at least 2 letters difference between each half-code word,” according to its preface).11 In an effort to boost traffic among the general public, the Eastern Telegraph Company published a social code book (Barty-King 1979: 147). The increasingly common use of coded messages became a major preoccupation of telegraph conventions, conferences, and special committees. Until 1875, telegraph operators would accept messages in any of the major European

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languages, with a minimum price for all messages up to twenty words and with no word to exceed seven syllables. At St. Petersburg, delegates pointed out that certain languages, like German, easily accommodate long and elaborate compound words, creating international inequities in the labor required to translate plain words into transmission code. After much debate, the St. Petersburg delegates agreed to define words according to a character limit: 15 characters for inter-European communication and ten characters for extra-European messages (US Foreign Relations 1875: vol. II, 1070–1074; US 1929). Later, ten characters became the maximum allotted per word. Added service regulations providing details about the use of vowels and consonants, the pronounceability of the “words,” and a list of the eight languages that could be used to determine pronounceability: German, English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, or Latin.12 The St. Petersburg Convention was silent on one other issue of considerable importance to governments and commercial operators: the treatment of submarine cables on the “high seas,” outside the territorial jurisdiction of any one state.13 There were two main concerns: first, accidental damage caused to cables by fishing trawlers and other vessels; second, the status of cables in the event of war. The US was an early advocate for a treaty that would guarantee the neutrality of submarine cables during wartime. Cyrus Field, whose Atlantic Telegraph Company had financed the first transtlantic cables, broached the idea at the 1871 Rome conference, with a written endorsement from Samuel Morse expressing “the hope that in war as in peace the telegraph in the air and in the sea should be considered a thing sacred, protected by universal agreement against all attack and damage” (Clark 1931: 127). Facing the possibility of financial ruin if cables were damaged or seized, either by accident or on purpose, private companies rallied behind the need for a convention. The Institute of International Law endorsed the position that destruction or injury of a cable on the high seas should be an offense against the law of nations, similar to piracy, but remained silent on the treatment of submarine cables during wartime. When an agreement was finally reached, it included provisions for compensation in the event of accidental or intentional damage, and details on the search and policing procedures to be used on the high seas. But the rules regarding compensation were only applicable

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Origins of International Media Agreements during peacetime (Woolsey 1905; Higgins 1922). Blanket neutrality was decidedly unpopular among the core European powers – Britain, France, and Germany. When the International Convention for the Protection of Submarine Cables came into effect in 1888, after more than twenty years of discussion, Article 15 was unambiguous on the issue: “It is understood that the stipulations of this convention shall in no wise affect the liberty of action of belligerents” (Malloy 1910: 1954, Volume II).14 There would be no shortage of test cases, beginning with the Spanish–American War. Shortly after the start of hostilities, the US Navy severed all cables running to and from Cuba, as well as the main cable lines connecting the Philippines to Hong Kong. Most of the lines were owned by British companies, which sued unsuccessfully for compensation (US Foreign Relations 1883; Benton 1908; Higgins 1922: 30). Cable cutting was also one of the first significant – and pre-planned – acts of World War I. The British and French cut the German cables in the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea on August 4, 1914, the very first day of the war, including those running from Germany to the US. One of the German cables was towed to Penzance on the south coast of England; the French attached their spoil of war to a telegraph station in Brest. In both cases, the western end was still connected to the US. The only means of direct and speedy communication between Germany and the US was provided by two still radiotelegraphic stations on the eastern coast of the US – one in Saville, Long Island, the other in Tuckerton, New Jersey – both owned and operated by German firms and capable of communication with wireless stations on the German mainland or ships at sea (Wilke 2004). Heated diplomatic correspondence with the British, French, and Germans convinced President Wilson to issue a series of Executive Orders putting those stations under US control with Navy censors on the watch for messages of an “unneutral nature” (US Foreign Relations Supplement 1914: 667–681; Howeth 1963: espec. Chapters 16–20).

Wireless Eventually cable’s monopoly on fast, long-distance communication would be challenged by wireless communication. In the pre-war period, radio was

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still very much an experimental technology: the Sayville and Tuckerton stations, for example, were unable to send voice transmissions and could send only about fifty words an hour. But radio’s potential for mobile, long-distance communication had already captured the attention of commercial and military interests, especially as a means of point-topoint communication between shore stations and ships at sea. Only two years separated the first successful transatlantic signaling by the Marconi Company and the first International Radiotelegraphic Conference, held in Berlin in 1903. Nearly synonymous with the early uses of radio, the Marconi Company moved quickly to negotiate exclusive contracts with the British and Italian navies, the Cunard line of passenger ships, and Lloyd’s of London, the world’s most prominent maritime insurance company. The Lloyd’s contract included the stipulation that Marconi operators would neither transmit nor receive messages from any other radio apparatus (Douglas 1987: 70). Marconi claimed that exclusive contracts were necessary to cover his exorbitant research and development costs; he also claimed that his radio apparatuses would not work properly with other machines or systems, a claim that was most certainly false. Marconi was trying to corner the market for wireless telegraphy and his company’s policy of exclusivity put the issue of monopoly firmly on the international agenda. Even by 1903, the Marconi Company had become the focus of suspicion and criticism from high-ranking public officials, such as Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and senior US naval officers, as well as a long list of would-be competitors in the market for radio communication. At the Berlin conferences of 1903 and 1906, German and US delegates insisted on the principle of interoperability. All other issues were secondary. The 1903 conference revolved around a German proposal that “radiotelegrams coming from and sent to ships shall be received and transmitted without regard to the system employed” (Tomlinson 1945: 14). At the 1906 Berlin meeting, the US pushed to extend the principle of interconnection to include ship-to-ship as well as ship-to-shore communication. The British pushed back at every opportunity. When it became apparent that ship-to-shore communication would be adopted at the 1906 meeting, the British pressured delegates to table the language on ship-to-ship communication.

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Though Marconi’s business practices made interconnection a commercial issue, it was also widely regarded as a humanitarian issue. The 1906 International Wireless Telegraph Convention is notable for the inclusion of language concerning safety at sea and the humanitarian uses of radio communication. In the midst of growing hostility among the leading European powers, Article XVI of the service regulation was a poignant reminder of a lingering “esprit d’internationalité.” It reads:

which were also exempt from the interconnection requirements. After the war, wavelength allocation would become the main preoccupation of international negotiations, as the uses of radio multiplied in the twenties to include aeronautical communication, meteorological services and broadcasting.

The Horizon

XVI Ships in distress shall use the following signal: …___… repeated at brief intervals. As soon as a station perceives the signal of distress it shall cease all correspondence and not resume it until it has made sure that the correspondence to which the calls for assistance has given rise is terminated. In case the ship in distress adds at the end of the series of her calls the call letters of a particular station the answer to the call shall be incumbent on that station alone. If the call for assistance does not specify any particular station, every station perceiving such call shall be bound to answer it. (Malloy 1913: 2907, Volume III)15

For those schooled in the arcane language of telegraph regulations the intent was clear enough. Once an S-O-S signal was received, shore stations were to focus all their attention on the ship in distress, without regard to nationality or cargo. Article XVI was given added force when the British withdrew their objection to ship-to-ship communication after the Titanic disaster of 1912. By then, the British were inching ever closer to endorsing a blanket principle of interoperability. That two nearby ships did not communicate with the Titanic, one because it did not have a wireless set, the other because its only wireless operator was asleep, made it hard to argue with the humanitarian value of interconnection (Tomlinson 1945: 27–46; Douglas 1987: 227–228). The early radiotelegraphic conventions are noteworthy for one more foundational feature of global communication: spectrum management. German and American delegates took the lead in the decision to allocate the wavelengths of the electro-magnetic spectrum to different services, proposing to reserve the largest – and best – part of the spectrum for government and military uses,

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A little more than a year after the end of World War I, US newspapers carried some curious headlines: “U.S. Navy Bars Western Union,” “SubChaser’s Shot Stops Cable Ship: Crew Are Arrested” (Atlanta Constitution 1920; New York Times 1921). Five US warships patrolling the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay were under orders to prevent the connection of a submarine cable linking Western Union’s coastal station in Miami, Florida with stations in the Caribbean. This was no trifling matter. The US State Department was concerned that Western Union, with a monopoly on domestic telegraph traffic in the US, was entering into an alliance with the British-owned Western Cable Company to control telegraph traffic between North and South America. The standoff in Biscayne Bay lasted almost a year. In Washington, the incident led to a major Congressional hearing that culminated in legislation confirming the President’s sole authority to grant (or revoke) cable-landing rights (US 1921; Wilson 1922). It was just one dramatic sign that the politics and regulation of international communication were not yet settled matters. There were others: At Versailles, the Allies were at odds over how to divvy-up the German cables, with the US and Japan engaged in a drawnout dispute over the island of Yap, virtually uninhabited and therefore quite useful as a cable landing station in the Pacific Ocean. One of the US negotiators at Versailles was Walter Rogers, who also served as technical advisor on communications to President Wilson and the State Department. Rogers pushed for the idea of a conference to create a Universal Electrical Communications Union. “The time had come,” said Rogers at the Congressional hearings into cable licenses, “for a world-wide survey of communications in all aspects of the problem” (US 1921: 361; Rogers 1922). The Council of Five – Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and the US – agreed to meet in

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Origins of International Media Agreements Washington to consider “all international aspects for communication by land telegraphs, cables, and wireless telegraphy, … with a view to providing the entire world with adequate facilities … on a fair and equitable basis” (US 1919: 2). The postal and telegraph conventions and administrative protocols dating from the midnineteenth century had established a series of principles and precedents to build on. It was obvious that international communication required an international legal and regulatory framework; it was equally obvious that this quasi-juridical infrastructure would reflect the conflicting, sometimes incompatible, interests of imperial rivalry, national self-interest, commercial ambition, and human rights. Foundational to all these agreements was the idea of interconnectivity and the creation of a common set of technical and administrative standards to ease the movement of messages across borders. These standards ran the gamut from weights and measures in the case of the postal agreements, to the currency of exchange on which transit fees and pricing would be based, to the technical details of the apparatuses used to connect the terminal points of telegraphy, whether line-based or wireless. Of course, behind each of these practical measures, the commercial interests of private capital jockeyed for position alongside the imperial ambitions of certain states and the security concerns of virtually all states. There was nothing in these agreements that profoundly negated the ambitions of the modern, sovereign state. If anything, the reluctance to offer blanket protection to submarine cables during wartime, and provisions which allowed states to police incoming and outgoing messages in the interests of morality, order, and security were unambiguous enunciations of the prerogatives of sovereignty. Still, we would be unwise to interpret these agreements solely as instruments of dominance and power, whether in the form of sovereignty or of global capital. The St. Petersburg Convention, for example, went so far as to declare a general right to correspondence. Early wireless agreements revolved – in part – around the importance of protecting human life at sea. While international instruments enable the modern state and global markets, they also limit the capacity of states and capital to act without regard for others. Any optimism that a new spirit of internationalism would prevail in the 1920s was quickly dashed.

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Between the two world wars, nationalism became virulent, states became more isolationist, and global trade slowed to a trickle. The prospects for any sort of universal electrical communications union were bleak. Even as it was taking place, the scuffle between Western Union and the US government over submarine cables was becoming something of an anachronism. Radio was swiftly emerging as an instrument of international communication, not only for point-to-point communication but also as a mechanism for broadcasting to the general public. And radio, far more than the post or the telegraph, would challenge the capacity of states to police their communication frontiers. “We are confronted with an entirely new situation of radio between countries,” Walter Rogers explained at the Congressional cable landing hearings, “and if the basic reason for requiring permits to a cable company is to control communication between two countries … we cannot dodge the fact that we are heading for trouble here because we have no laws dealing with the international radio traffic” (US 1921: 45). Radio became the focus of attention and the draft proposal for a Universal Electrical Communications Union was put aside.

Notes 1

2

3

4

The Pacific Cable was completed in 1902. Except for a short detour through the US, it circled the rest of the world via territory belonging to the British Empire. Just before the outbreak of World War I, there were 49 intergovernmental organizations in operation ( Jacobson 1984). To these should be added over 400 international voluntary, or nongovernmental associations, including the International Association for the Suppression of Useless Noises and an International Association for the Rational Destruction of Rats (Woolf 1916: 165–167). Use of the gramme and the centime represented a small triumph for the adoption of a worldwide metric system based on revolutionary ideals. It is worth noting that French was also the official language of discussion and record at Berne and at early meetings of the International Telegraphic Union. English had not yet become the lingua franca of international affairs. Article IX of the Berne Treaty states: “Each Administration shall keep the whole of the sums which it collects … Consequently, there will be no necessity for any accounts between the several Administrations of the Union” (Treaty of Berne

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36

5

6

7

8

9

10

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Ted Magder 1875). Terminal dues, as they are known in the lexicon of postal administration, did not become a feature of international mail until 1969. James Campbell reports that actual local delivery costs differ by as much as a factor of 16 (Campbell Jr. 1991: 12; 2002). It is now referred to as Postal Union of the Americas, Spain and Portugal (PUASP); members include: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Suriname, the US, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The Arab Postal Union, created in 1954, also abolished transit fees among its members. At the time of writing, there are 17 such restricted unions. Ten private companies participated at the Vienna meeting of 1868, including the Anglo-American Telegraph Company, the Great Northern China and Japan Extension Telegraph Company, and the British Indian Extension Telegraph Company (Codding 1952: 26 fn. 117). Returning Delegates included: Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Persia, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey. Great Britain – having nationalized its domestic system – was represented for the first time. Egypt was given standing independent of Turkey. Romania, Luxembourg, and Serbia were absent but later ratified the Convention. Japan and the US sent observers (Codding 1952: 27 fn. 124). By 1908, membership had grown to 52 countries and 25 private companies. In 1885 Western Union became the first US company to participate in ITU deliberations. By 1925, all the major US companies were active participants – including AT&T and RCA – though the US itself was not a member of the Union. Article 1 in the original French reads: “Les Hautes Parties contractantes reconnaissent à toutes personnes le droit de correspondre au moyen des télégraphes internationaux.” Article 2 reads: “Elles s’engagent à prendre toutes les dispositions nécessaires pour assurer le secret des correspondances et leur bonne expédition” (see Nelson 1913: 54). In the original French document the last phrase of Article 7 reads: “ou qui serait contraire aux lois du pays, à l’ordre public ou aux bonnes mœurs.” Bonnes mœurs is rendered as “good morals” in most translations. For example, Article XIV, the General Exceptions clause of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), includes the following language: “Subject to the requirement that such measures are not applied in a manner which would constitute a

11

12

13

14

means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination between countries where like conditions prevail, or a disguised restriction on trade in services, nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent the adoption or enforcement by any Member of measures: (a) necessary to protect public morals or to maintain public order;” (World Trade Organization 1994). Using Bentley’s Complete Phrase Code, the 13-word message, “referring to your telegram of 20th avoid legal proceedings settle on best terms” could be sent as two words: “ugtobattof japnarebug,” with each word consisting of two five-letter code words (ugtob = referring to your telegram of the 20th + attof = avoid). In accordance with the rules concerning the use of coded messages, the title page notes that “this code includes the Telegraph Cyphers entered according to the Act of Congress in the year 1906, by E. L. Bentley, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington D.C.” (see Bentley’s Complete Phrase Code 1906). The eight languages were fixed at the London Conference in 1879, but only for extra-European regimes. Inter-European communication could be in any recognized European language until 1885. During that six-year period, senders of messages in extra-European regimes could use any of the eight languages in the same message. The effort to simplify matters led to a decade-long effort to produce a standard code dictionary in four volumes and consisting of more than one million words from all eight languages. The work was abandoned in 1903; see: “Explanations by the Belgian Delegation: Report of the Subcommittee on Tariffs to the Telegraph Conference of Paris, 1925” in US (1929: 35–40). International telephone service received very little attention prior to World War I, primarily because telephone service, especially in Europe, was quite limited. In general, telephone traffic was subject to the same principles as the telegraph with one specific regulation in 1896 fixing the total length of any conversation at six minutes (two time-units of three minutes each) because of demand for a very limited number of lines (Codding 1952: 77). As it turns out, Article 15 did not put the matter to rest, especially since between wartime belligerents there are often neutral parties, as the US was for much of World War I. The Institute for International Law, for example, recommended that cables between belligerents and neutrals could not be cut in neutral waters. The Fourth Hague Convention of 1907 expected signatories to leave cables connecting an occupied territory with a neutral one untouched except “in case of absolute necessity: they must also be restored and the

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indemnities regulated at the peace” (Higgins 1922: 30; Colt de Wolf 1936). Susan Douglas reports that the delegates quarreled over whether to use CQD (a British preference that purportedly meant “seek you”) or the German SOE. Because E is represented by only one dot, and could go unheard, delegates settled on SOS as the standard distress signal. The letter S, easy to send and decipher, was the first signal Marconi sent across the Atlantic in 1901 (Douglas 1987: 140–141).

References Atlanta Constitution (1920) U.S. Navy Bars Western Union (November 26). Atlanta: The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, p. 12. Baines, D. (1995) Emigration from Europe, 1815–1930. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barnard, H. C. (1955) “The messageries of the University of Paris,” British Journal of Educational Studies, 4(1): 49–56. Barty-King, H. (1979) Girdle Round the Earth. London: Heinemann. Bentley’s Complete Phrase Code (1906) New York: C. Bensinger Co. Benton, E. (1908) International Law and Diplomacy of the Spanish–American War. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press. Blondheim, M. (1994) New Over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Information in America, 1844–1897. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Boyce, R. (2000) “Imperial dreams and national realities: Britain, Canada and the struggle for a Pacific telegraph cable, 1879–1902,” The English Historical Review, 115(460): 39–70. Brauns-Packenius, O. (1962) “The nature of restricted postal unions,” Union Postale, LXXXVII(4): 55a. Bright, C. (1911) Imperial Telegraphic Communication. London: P. S. King and Son. Brown, F. J. (1927) The Cable and Wireless Communications of the World. London: Sir Issac Pitman and Sons. Brown, F. J. (1918) “Telegraphic communication during war,” Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, 18(2): 210–215. Campbell, R. Jr. (1991) “International postal reform: An application of the principles of Rowland Hill to the International Postal System,” in M. Crew and P. Kleindorfer (eds) Competition and Innovation in Postal Services. Boston, MA: Kluwer: pp. 17–31. Campbell, R, Jr. (2002) The Politics of Postal Transformation: Modernizing Postal Systems in the Electronic and Global World. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Clark, K. (1931) International Communication: The American Attitude. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Coase, R. H. (1939) “Rowland Hill and the Penny Post,” Economica, 6(4): 423–435. Codding, G. A. (1952) The International Telecommunication Union: An Experiment in International Cooperation. Leiden: E. J. Brill. Codding, G. A. (1964) The Universal Postal Union: Coordinator of the International Mails. New York: New York University Press. Colt de Wolf, F. (1936) “Telecommunications and neutrality,” The American Journal of International Law, 30(1): 117–123. Convention for Protection of Submarine Cables (1884), in W Malloy (1910) Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements Between the United States of America and Other Powers (Volumes I–IV). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, Volume II: 1949–1956. Czitrom, D. (1982) Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Dibner, B. (1964) The Atlantic Cable. New York: Blaisdell Publishing. Douglas, S. (1987) Inventing American Broadcasting 1899–1922. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Eliot, C. W. J. (1955) “New evidence for the speed of the Roman Imperial Post,” Phoenix, 9(2): 76–80. Hargest, G. (1971) History of Letter Post Communication Between the United States and Europe, 1845–1875. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute. Headrick, D. (1981) Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press. Headrick, D. (1991) The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. Headrick, D., and Griset, P. (2001) “Submarine telegraph cables: Business and politics, 1838–1939,” Business History Review, 75(Autumn): 543–578. Henkin, D. (2006) The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Higgins, P. (1922) “Submarine cable and international law,” British Year Book of International Law, 2: 27–36. Hill, R. and Hill, G. B. (1880) The Life of Sir Rowland Hill. London: Thos De La Rue & Co., Volume I. Hills, J. (2002) The Struggle for Control of Global Communication: The Formative Century. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Hobsbawm, E. (1989) The Age of Empire, 1875–1914. New York: Vintage Books. Howeth, L. S. (1963) History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. International Telegraph Convention, St Petersburg (1875), in G. R. Nelson (1913) International Radiotelegraphic

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Convention Final Protocol and Service Regulations. London: “The Electrician” Printing and Publishing Co. International Wireless Telegraph Convention, Berlin (1906), in W. Malloy (1923) Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers (Volumes I–IV). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, Volume III: 2889–3048. International Wireless Telegraph Convention, London (1912), in W. Malloy (1923) Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers (Volumes I–IV). Washington DC: Government Printing Office, Volume III: 3048–3085. Jacobson, H. (1984) Networks of Interdependence: International Organizations and the Global Political System (second edition). New York: McGraw-Hill. James, H. (2001) The End of Globalization: Lessons Learned from the Great Depression. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. John, R. R. (1995) Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kahn, D. (1996) The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet (revised edition). New York: Scribner. Keane, J. (2003) Global Civil Society? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, P. M. (1971) “Imperial cable communications and strategy, 1870–1914,” The English Historical Review, 86(431): 728–752. Kielbowicz, R. (1989) News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700–1860s. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Kieve, J. L. (1973). Electric Telegraph: A Social and Economic History. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. Koskenniemi, M. (2001) The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malloy, W. (1910–38) Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers (Volumes I–IV). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Mattelart, A. (2000) Networking the World, 1794–2000 (transl. by L. Carey-Libbrecht and J. Cohen). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. McClenachan, C. T. (1863) Detailed Report of the Proceedings had in Commemoration of the Successful Landing of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, by Order of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1859. New York: Edmund Jones & Co. Menon, M. A. K. (1965) The Universal Postal Union. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. New York Times (1921) “Sub-chaser’s shot stops cable ship; crew are arrested” (March 6), 6(1), New York: The New York Times.

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O’Rourke, K., and Williamson, J. (1999) Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Poggi, G. (1978) The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Renault, L. (1880) “De la protection internationale des câbles télégraphiques sous marins,” Revue de droit international et de législation, XII: 251–275. Robinson, H. (1948) The British Post Office: A History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rogers, W. (1922) “International electric communication,” Foreign Affairs, 1(2): 144–157. Roper, D. (1917) The United States Post Office: Its Past Record, Present Condition, and Potential Relation to the New World Era. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. Seipp, D. (1983) “English judicial recognition of a right to privacy,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 3(3): 325–370. Sly, J. F. (1927) “The genesis of the Universal Postal Union: A study in the beginnings of an international organization,” International Conciliation, 233 (October): 393–443. Starr, P. (2004) The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications. New York: Basic Books. Thompson, R. L. (1947) Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1832–1866. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tilly, C. (ed.) (1975) The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tomlinson, J. (1945) International Control of Radiocommunication. Ann Arbor, MI: J. W. Edwards (reprinted 1979, Arno Press, first published 1938 Geneva). Torpey, J. (1999) The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Treaty (1875) Treaty Concerning the Formation of a General Postal Union, Berne. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Turner, E. (1918) “The secrecy of the post,” The English Historical Review, 33(131): 320–327. United States (US) (various years) Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. United States (US) (1894) Annual Report of the Postmaster General, 1894. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. United States (US) (1919) “House of representatives,” Conference on International Communication. Report 387. 66th Congress, 1st Session, October 16. United States (US) (1921) Cable-Landing Licenses Hearings. 66th Congress, 3rd Session. United States (US) (1929) Report of the American Delegation to the International Telegraphic Conference of Brussels,

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Origins of International Media Agreements September 10–22, 1928. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Wallace, M. D., and Singer, J. D. (1970) “The growth of international non-governmental organization in the global system, 1815–1964: A quantitative description,” International Organization, 24(Spring): 239–287. Wilke, J. (2004) “The telegraph and transatlantic communication relations,” in F. Finzsch, and U. Lehmkuhl (eds) Atlantic Communications: The Media in American and German History from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Berg, pp. 107–135. Williamson, F. H. (1930) “The International Postal Service and the Universal Postal Union,” Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 9(1): 68–78.

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Wilson, G. G. (1922) “Landing and operation of submarine cables in the United States,” The American Journal of International Law, 16(1): 68–70. Winseck, D., and Pike, R. (2007) Communication and Empire: Media, Markets, and Globalization, 1860–1930. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Woolf, L. (1916) International Government. New York: Brentanos. Woolsey, T. S. (1905) “Wireless telegraphy in war,” The Yale Law Journal, 14(5): 247–254. World Trade Organization (1994) General Agreement on Trade in Services, http://www.wto.org/english/ docs_e/legal_e/legal_e.htm#services (accessed 06/03/2010). Yardley, H. (1931) The American Black Chamber. Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute (reprinted 2004 edition).

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3

The Evolution of GMCP Institutions Don MacLean

Introduction This chapter has two purposes. The first is to introduce the main institutions that currently shape the carriage and content aspects of media and communication policy at the global level, either directly or indirectly. The second is to discuss how the institutional landscape of global media and communication policy (GMCP) has changed over the past thirty to forty years, and to suggest how it may evolve in the decade ahead, as a result of the interplay between technological, economic, social, and political forces. The first of these purposes will be achieved by presenting a series of short profiles of five institutions that have well-defined roles in GMCP: the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); the World Trade Organization (WTO); and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In addition, there will be a brief discussion of emerging multi-stakeholder governance structures, such as the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which are not yet fully institutionalized but may be harbingers of things to come.1

The second purpose will be achieved by constructing an account of the main trends and developments that have taken place in the GMCP institutional domain over the past three to four decades in response to the emergence of a series of policy paradigms. These paradigms have successively reshaped GMCP policy discourse; altered the regimes that govern communication carriage and content; and changed the institutions that embody these regimes. This account will be based on a framework that includes a “mash up” of relevant theoretical notions and empirical observations, and which incorporates the principal features that distinguish GMCP institutions from their national counterparts. In brief, the story that emerges from this thematic analysis goes as follows. Beginning in the 1960s and continuing into the 1990s, an economic paradigm that emphasized privatization, liberalization, competition, and globalization of carriage and content began to displace the public service paradigm that traditionally guided media and communication policy. It shifted the balance of power among international GMCP institutions away from ITU and UNESCO – institutions with direct GMCP responsibilities rooted in the public service regime – toward WIPO and WTO, economic institutions with only indirect GMCP responsibilities.


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Evolution of GMCP Institutions Beginning in the 1970s and continuing into the 2000s, a technological paradigm – triggered by the computerization of communications, the development of new kinds of networks, services, and applications, and the rise of the Internet as a public communication medium – challenged existing media and communication models, legal frameworks, policy-making processes, regulatory structures, and governance assumptions at both the national and international levels. Globally, these developments gave rise to a new kind of international institution, ICANN, and led the United Nations to convene a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) which, in turn, resulted in the creation of the IGF as an innovative experiment in global multi-stakeholder governance. Beginning in the first decade of the 2000s, a social paradigm still in its formative stages is leading toward new kinds of cooperative arrangements that are not yet fully institutionalized, and is creating new challenges and opportunities for established GMCP institutions of every paradigmatic color. The emergence of this paradigm has been triggered by concerns for the security of individuals, groups, societies, and the global community as a whole. Some of these concerns are internal to the GMCP domain; some arise from the role of networks as critical economic, social, and national security infrastructures; and some relate to the long-term sustainability of the relationship between human societies and the natural environment. The systematic study of GMCP institutions is a relatively recent phenomenon. Work done to date by both scholars and practitioners has tended to follow an approach similar to that used in this chapter – a combination of description and analysis, with the latter focussing on the general trends that have reshaped the GMCP institutional landscape in recent decades and the overarching themes that have dominated policy discourse. As well as providing an introduction to major GMCP institutions, this chapter contributes to the development of this new field of study by proposing a framework to help readers with little previous exposure to the institutional dimension of GMCP understand how GMCP institutions have functioned in the broader context of international relations; the characteristics that traditionally distinguished GMCP institutions from their national counterparts; and the forces that have shaped the evolution of GMCP institutional ecology.

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The perspective underlying this chapter is that of a practitioner who has been involved in GMCP for the past two decades as a staff member of one of the leading GMCP institutions; as a consultant on GMCP questions to national and international organizations; and as a voluntary participant in the effort to devise innovative arrangements for global Internet governance. Although it draws on strands of academic theory to help tell its story, the chapter’s aim is not to distance itself from GMCP institutions in order to critically evaluate their structures, processes, or performance in terms of internationally agreed goals, democratic ideals, economic efficiency, or other relevant standards. There are already a number of works, detailed in note 1, that provide these kinds of analyses, and more are sure to follow as the field of GMCP studies develops. Instead, the chapter has a more basic task – to give readers a sense of what the major GMCP institutions do, how the ecology of GMCP institutions has changed in response to the forces that have reshaped media and communication policy globally, and how it is likely to evolve in the next few years.

Part I: Institutional Profiles This part of the chapter presents short profiles of five institutions that have significantly affected the development of GMCP over the past three to four decades, covering their origins, purposes, and membership as well as their principal GMCP roles and policy instruments. Four of these organizations share a basic characteristic – they are international organizations founded on treaty agreements between national governments, which are their main or only members. Although nongovernmental entities and organizations are involved formally in the work of most of these organizations in at least advisory capacities, none of them provides a role for individual citizens, whose interests are assumed to be represented by their national governments. This form of GMCP governance structure is based on the principles and practices that have guided relations between sovereign nation-states since the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.2 However, these organizations are not really “global” in the

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same sense as other types of organizations that are committed, at least in principle, to engaging directly with people everywhere in the world, whether to promote the interests of business or civil society, or to further scientific, educational, religious, or other purposes. Given the increasingly important role played by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in GMCP and the relatively diminished role of national governments in both the content and carriage aspects of media and communication, there is a growing gap in a number of areas between global policy requirements and international institutional capabilities. Finding ways to narrow this gap is one of the principal governance challenges facing treatybased, intergovernmental GMCP institutions today. ICANN and some other Internet-related organizations are an exception to this general institutional pattern in that they provide no formal role for representatives of national governments, or limit their participation to an advisory capacity. So too are emerging forms of multistakeholder cooperation, which generally engage representatives of government, the private sector, and civil society on an equal footing with the aim of addressing policy issues that lie at the intersection of technology, economy, and society. General issues of global Internet governance, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support development, and measures to combat spam and other forms of Internet abuse are examples of policy domains where multi-stakeholder arrangements have been established, but are not yet fully institutionalized.

nologies as they developed. ITU became part of the United Nations system in 1947. ITU had 191 Member States in 2009 and more than 700 Sector Members – nongovernmental entities and organizations that manufacture information and communication technology (ICT) goods, provide telecommunication, broadcasting, and radiocommunication services, and engage in scientific research and development in telecommunication and related areas. This arrangement is unique in the UN system. ITU has four main roles in GMCP: global regulation of the allocation and use of radio frequency spectrum and satellite orbital positions; global standardization of ICT equipment, networks, and services; provision of policy and regulatory advice as well as technical and capacity-building assistance to developing countries; collection and dissemination of information on global ICT networks, applications, and services. ITU’s principal GMCP policy instruments are: the Radio Regulations, a treaty governing the allocation and use of the radio frequency spectrum and satellite orbital positions that is updated every few years; the International Telecommunication Regulations, a treaty governing the provision of telecommunication services between countries that was last revised in 1988 and is scheduled for review in 2012; and the technical, operational, and tariff standards that are continuously updated in response to technological developments, almost entirely by industry and scientific experts. In addition to developing its treaty instruments and recommended standards, ITU periodically convenes informal World Telecommunication Policy Forums to build consensus on key GMCP issues.3

International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

ITU, which is headquartered in Geneva, was the first international intergovernmental organization. It was originally established as the International Telegraph Union by twenty European countries in 1865 with a mandate to standardize and coordinate the operation of telegraph services among them (see Magder, ch. 2). The mandate was broadened to include telephone services in the 1880s, radiocommunication services in the early 1900s, and other telecommunication tech-

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UNESCO, which is headquartered in Paris, was founded in 1945 in the immediate aftermath of World War II. UNESCO’s fundamental purpose is to contribute to peace and security – as well as to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms – by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science, and culture. To achieve this purpose, UNESCO was given a mandate, to, among

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other things, recommend international agreements to promote the free flow of ideas by word and image, in order to advance mutual knowledge and understanding among peoples through mass communication media. In 2009, UNESCO had 191 Member States. It also had official relations with 330 international NGOs and 26 foundations working in its fields of responsibility. UNESCO has informal relations with many other such organizations, either directly or through the work of the 196 National Commissions that support its work. UNESCO also has cooperative relations with a range of private sector actors, including multinational corporations, smaller-scale enterprises, and business associations. UNESCO has adopted a number of legal instruments in the form of conventions, recommendations, and declarations relating to various aspects of GMCP, the two most recent being the 2003 Recommendation Concerning the Promotion and Use of Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace and the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.4 In addition to these formal instruments, UNESCO provides a forum for discussing the ethical dimensions of policy issues, such as the relationship between communication media, human rights, and fundamental freedoms; issues related to media content; and the relationship between communication media, education, and culture.

international agreements. In 1974, it became a specialized agency of the United Nations. WIPO had 184 Member States in 2009. Some 250 organizations were accredited observers at formal meetings of its Member States. These organizations include international and national NGOs and industry groups, as well as other intergovernmental organizations. WIPO also engages informally with both accredited and non-accredited stakeholder groups through consultative processes. The protection of intellectual property in ICT and media content is an important part of WIPO’s work in its two main areas of activity – industrial property and copyright. The framework for protecting industrial intellectual property includes conventions that cover integrated circuits and nontraditional trademarks, such as holograms. The framework for protecting copyright includes conventions on sound recording, broadcasting, and satellite distribution of programs. In 1996, WIPO adopted two treaties intended to modernize the international framework for protecting copyright in the age of the personal computer and the Internet. The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) provides a framework for protecting intellectual property in computer programs and databases. The WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) extends intellectual property protection for certain forms of creation and production into the digital environment.5

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

World Trade Organization (WTO)

WIPO, headquartered in Geneva, traces its roots to the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property and the 1886 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. These treaties established legal frameworks and administrative arrangements for protecting intellectual property through patents, trademarks, and copyright which continue to this day. The Paris and Berne Conventions were amended periodically and other international agreements were put in place as technology changed, new media developed, and intellectual property rights were extended to new areas of industrial and artistic creation. In 1967, WIPO was established with the mandate to protect intellectual property worldwide and consolidate arrangements for administering

WTO, which is headquartered in Geneva, was established in 1995 as the culmination of a process that began in 1948 to create an international trade organization that would help re-build a global economy shattered by the Great Depression and World War II, alongside the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (the Bretton Woods institutions). In the five decades preceding WTO’s creation, a policy framework for promoting international trade and a series of multilateral trade agreements had been developed through the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Although this agreement was provisional and ended with the creation of WTO, its basic principles have been preserved by the new organization.

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In 2009, WTO had 153 member countries. It also had 30 observer governments, which are committed to begin negotiating full membership within five years of being granted observer status (with the exception of the Holy See). In addition, a large number of intergovernmental organizations has observer status in WTO councils, committees, and working parties. There are binding WTO agreements in two major areas related to GMCP – telecommunication services and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights. These agreements are enforceable through the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, an arrangement that is unique among GMCP institutions. The 1994 agreement that established WTO also included a General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) which, in turn, included an annex on trade in telecommunication services. Under this agreement, WTO members can make commitments to open their markets to different forms of trade, ranging from the transborder supply of services to direct foreign investment. By 2009, 108 WTO members had made commitments to allow foreign competition in value-added services and 99 had opened their markets to competition in basic services. In addition, 82 had committed to follow a standard set of telecommunication regulatory principles.6 In addition to GATS, the 1994 agreement that concluded the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations included an agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Reflecting the increasing value of creativity and innovation in international trade and the variations that exist among countries in the protection of intellectual property, the TRIPS agreement established minimum levels of protection that signatory governments have to give to the intellectual property of other WTO members, on the basis of their WIPO obligations and other criteria.

coordinating the use of resources that are critical to the stable and secure functioning of the Internet. Two of these resources are particularly important to GMCP – the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that are uniquely assigned to devices connected to the Internet; and the Domain Name System (DNS), which translates numerical IP addresses into ordinary language equivalents through a hierarchical naming system that begins with generic top-level domains, such as .com, and country code toplevel domains, such as .uk. Prior to the establishment of ICANN, there was no formal organizational structure for performing these functions, which had been contracted out to the research community and the private sector by the US government. When the Internet began to change from a research network based almost entirely in the US into a public communication medium with rapidly growing commercial importance and global reach, an international debate began on policy and organizational options for governing critical Internet resources. Following a consultative process, the US government decided to entrust these functions to the private sector and the community of Internet users. ICANN is an innovative model for GMCP governance, unique in a field previously dominated by international intergovernmental organizations. Although it has gone through a number of structural changes since its creation, the basic ICANN organizational concept has remained the same. As constituted in 2010, ICANN is composed of three organizations representing its major stakeholder groups – regional registries of IP addresses; commercial and non-commercial registries of generic domain names; and registries of country code domain names. In addition, ICANN has a Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) that provides advice to the board on public policy issues related to its activities, as well as advisory committees on operational matters and the interests of Internet users at large.7

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

Emerging GMCP organizations

ICANN is a not-for-profit corporation headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California. It was established in 1998 following a review, by the United States (US) Department of Commerce, of policy and organizational options for managing and

International debate about the most appropriate arrangements for governing critical Internet resources did not end with the creation of ICANN. This question re-emerged in the negotiations that preceded the first phase of the World Summit on

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Evolution of GMCP Institutions the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 and led ultimately to the creation of the IGF in 2005 at the second phase of the Summit. Like ICANN, IGF is an innovative model for GMCP governance. Although established by the UN, it is a multi-stakeholder forum in which representatives of governments, the private sector, civil society, and the academic and research communities participate on an equal footing. IGF is primarily a forum for discussing public policy issues and exchanging information related to Internet governance, broadly understood to include governance of the Internet itself as well as governance of its economic and social impacts. The UN initially established IGF for five years and decided in 2010 to continue the experiment.8 Multi-stakeholder governance models of the kind embodied in IGF are beginning to be adopted nationally and regionally to tackle Internet-related policy issues that require new forms of cooperation and coordinated action among stakeholder groups. Initiatives of this kind have been used within countries, among countries, and through established international organizations to tackle issues related to cybersecurity and cybercrime, as well as to address more general questions of Internet governance.9

Part II: Thematic Analysis The short profiles in the previous section present a somewhat static image of the main organizations that currently shape GMCP. These thumbnail sketches will have given readers unfamiliar with the GMCP institutional landscape a rough idea of the main players, their origins, and their ongoing policy roles. The aim of this section is more ambitious – to tell the story of how the GMCP institutional system has evolved over the past thirty to forty years in response to changes in media and communication policy and in the broader global environment, as well as to forecast how the GMCP institutional landscape is likely to evolve in the next decade or more. The section begins by constructing a framework that captures and organizes the main forces that shape the evolution of GMCP institutions. This framework is then applied to tell the story of how

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these forces have given rise to a series of policy paradigms10 that have successively reshaped the GMCP institutional landscape, expanded its domain, given rise to new institutional structures, and triggered the decline of others. These evolutionary steps will be illustrated by a series of examples cross-referenced to the institutional profiles presented in the previous section. The thematic analysis resulting from this framework cannot claim to tell anything like the full story of the evolution of GMCP institutions over the past few decades. However, in the spirit of this Handbook, the principles underlying the framework, the variables and relationships it includes, and the examples it references are intended to equip readers with tools to help them explore the increasingly complex world of GMCP institutions.

Differences between national and global media and communication policy From a general point of view, there are functional similarities between policy-making structures and processes at every governance level from local to global. Policy-making typically takes place within a legal or organizational framework that sets out basic policy objectives, establishes the roles and responsibilities of policy-making institutions, and prescribes policy-making processes built on the rights and obligations of participants. However, there are also fundamental differences between policy-making structures and processes at different governance levels, and it is important to be clear on these differences as they affect GMCP. One of the basic conceptual issues facing students and practitioners of GMCP is how differences between national and international media and communication policy (MCP) legal frameworks, institutional structures, and policy-making processes shape the GMCP domain and limit its possibilities. To understand these differences, it is useful to begin with the fact that, in spite of globalization, from a legal, institutional, and policy-making point of view, we still live in a world in which the primary actors are sovereign nation-states. This means that the legal authorities, policy-making responsibilities, and operational capacities of most GMCP institutions depend largely or exclusively on the decisions of national governments.

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The fact that the main GMCP authority structures remain international rather than global, in turn, means that important differences exist between national and international MCP institutions, in terms of legal frameworks, the scope and substance of MCP, institutional structures, and policy-making processes. These differences demarcate the boundaries of GMCP. Legal frameworks At the national level, there is usually a comprehensive legal framework within which MCP is debated, developed, and implemented. This legal framework typically includes laws on telecommunication and broadcasting, and possibly other media; civil and criminal laws that apply to speech and other communication acts; and general laws on such matters as intellectual property rights, competition, and consumer protection that indirectly affect MCP. In addition, in many countries there are basic laws relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms that provide grounds for challenging MCP laws, regulations, and practices through processes of judicial review. At the international level, in contrast, there are no comparably comprehensive legal frameworks for MCP, although there are individual treaties that establish international laws in particular areas, as well as non-binding instruments that establish norms and standards. There is an International Bill of Human Rights that includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).11 However, the UDHR is not binding, and does not provide a basis for challenging international legal instruments or the practices of international institutions in a manner analogous to national human rights law. Although there is no international process for judicial review of MCP treaties or other kinds of policy instruments, there are various mechanisms for resolving disputes between national governments and between nongovernmental actors.12 The scope and substance of MCP For a number of reasons, the scope of MCP tends to be wider and its substance richer at the national level than at the international level. National MCP usually takes place within a comprehensive MCP

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legal and institutional framework that is itself situated in a coherent constitutional and political setting in which actors share a common political and policy-making culture that includes principles, norms, conventions, traditions, expectations, and customs. In addition, at the national level, the objectives and interests at stake in MCP policy processes are usually concrete, the concerns clear, and the likely consequences of decisions predictable. It is acknowledged that this is a somewhat idealized description of the setting for national MCP. In fact, there are large variations among countries in the extent to which these attributes exist. In contrast, GMCP institutions and processes are not part of a larger legal and institutional framework in the way that national MCP institutions are. Even though there are important general goals underlying the international institutional system as a whole, there is no global political culture comparable to the political cultures typically found in nation-states. Although international MCP institutions tend to develop organizational cultures, their members generally do not share wider sets of principles, norms, conventions, traditions, expectations, and customs to the same extent as participants in national MCP institutions and processes do. Because of the significant differences that exist between developed and developing countries and among different regions of the world, the range of objectives and interests at stake in international MCP processes tends to be much more diverse than in national forums, running the gamut from those of the poorest Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to those of the richest nations. As a result of this diversity, policy debates in international MCP institutions sometimes focus on issues that are so general they may be more symbolic than substantive (which does not mean that they are not important). Even if this is not the case, the outcomes of these debates are often compromises among competing national interests that represent the minimum set of agreements on which consensus could be achieved, and leave room for considerable variation in national implementation. Some of the results of the United Nations WSIS could be considered examples of these features of GMCP, including the decisions it made with respect to Internet governance.13

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Evolution of GMCP Institutions Institutional structures and policy-making processes At the national level, the MCP legal framework usually includes provisions establishing institutional structures with policy and regulatory responsibility for both carriage and content aspects of MCP; processes for carrying out these responsibilities in the context of the overall legal structures and policy-making processes of the country; and procedures for resolving conflicts between the policy outputs of different institutions through either political, administrative, or judicial action. In many countries, these structures and processes permit interested parties from the commercial and non-commercial sectors, MCP stakeholders, and the general public to engage in MCP policy-making and regulation – for example, by participating in political processes, through government consultations on policy proposals, or by intervening in regulatory hearings. At the international level, the GMCP legal framework includes institutional structures with policy and regulatory responsibility for both carriage and content aspects of MCP, as well as processes and procedures for carrying out these responsibilities. However, there are a number of significant differences between national and international MCP institutions. GMCP institutional structures cover a much smaller part of the total MCP domain than national structures do. Their presence is essentially limited to those areas where a significant number of states agree there is a need for international cooperation for their mutual benefit. Accordingly, there are large areas of MCP policy that have no institutional home at the global level. For example, there are no international equivalents to the institutional structures and processes that exist in many countries to provide publicly funded carriage and content services; to issue licenses and provide regulatory oversight for private and not-for-profit entities that provide such services; or to promote and protect the rights of citizens and consumers. Yet it is principally in these kinds of areas that much of the richness of MCP lies. The opportunities for nongovernmental actors to engage in the policy and regulatory processes of GMCP institutions are, in general, much more limited than at the national level. This is particularly the case in the international intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) that dominate the GMCP space. In

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most cases, IGOs provide no formal role in decisionmaking for nongovernmental actors, and engage representatives of the private sector and civil society only in advisory capacities. There is no role for members of the general public in most international GMCP institutions, with the notable exception of ICANN and some other Internet-related organizations, such as the Internet Society (ISOC).14 In the absence of a global political authority and a comprehensive GMCP legal framework, there are no international mechanisms analogous to those found at the national level for resolving conflicts between the provisions of different GMCP treaties, or between the policies and practices adopted by different GMCP institutions. This has led to the phenomenon known as “forumshopping” in which countries or groups of countries seek to pursue their policy interests in the international institution which is likely to yield the most favorable result, even if it would be contrary to the policies adopted by another institution with equal standing in international law. An example of the kinds of policy discrepancies that can arise is the conflict some have seen between the provisions of the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) that bind all Member States of the ITU and the obligations some of these Members have taken under the WTO Trade in Telecommunication Services Agreements.15 An example of the kinds of organizational and procedural conflicts that can arise is the ongoing debate about whether at least some of ICANN’s functions should be brought under the control of more than one government, either by creating a new intergovernmental arrangement or by transferring these functions to the ITU.

Elements for a thematic framework In the light of the differences between national and international MCP legal frameworks, institutional structures, and policy processes, GMCP students may be tempted to wonder how much GMCP institutions really matter, and to ask the following kinds of questions: given the disparity in power between developed and developing countries, are these institutions really anything more than a convenient way for rich nations to force or entice

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developing countries to accept policies that favor the interests of developed countries, and to legitimize the results in the name of international law or other forms of agreement? Given the relatively restricted policy domain these institutions occupy, how significant are they in setting GMCP compared to other actors such as: multinational enterprises with significant global market power; general market forces that determine demand for and supply of media and communication products and services; NGOs from both the private and public sectors that help shape the MCP climate; and the Internet community, which so far has operated largely outside GMCP institutions? Attempting to answer these kinds of questions fully is beyond the scope of this chapter. At their base, they raise a theoretical debate that has taken generations of international relations scholars – between “realists,” who tend to believe that international relations ultimately reduce conflicts between the interests of nation-states; “idealists,” who tend to believe that a better world order can be constructed on political principles that carry a universal claim; and “materialists,” who tend to believe that a series of major changes in technology, broadly understood to include not just tools but the economic and social systems built on top of them – determine the evolution of global economic, social, and political relationships.16 Rather than directly addressing the fundamental questions involved in this debate, the framework presented in this section adopts a point of view derived from a relatively new strain of international relations theory known as regime theory.17 From this point of view, international institutions can be significant actors in international affairs and can affect the conduct of states on the basis of shared principles and norms that have a universal claim, but are more circumscribed in their scope and application than their more fully fledged national counterparts. As the previous section acknowledges, the shared principles and norms underlying GMCP institutions tend to be weighted more to policymaking procedure and less to policy substance than their national counterparts, and their scope of application tends to be limited to the “lowest common denominator” set of issues on which

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cooperation is necessary among nations for their mutual benefit, regardless of the differences that exist among them in interests and ideology. However, this does not mean that the scope of the principles, norms, and processes underlying GMCP institutions is fixed for all time, or that there is a “hard cap” for their activities. The domain of GMCP has been enlarged progressively, and the principles, norms, and programs underlying GMCP regimes progressively enriched, as communication media increasingly connect countries and peoples in real time. Even so, there remains a significant gap between the substantive and procedural richness of media and communication governance at the national and international levels that is unlikely to be closed in the foreseeable future. The thematic framework constructed to analyze the evolution of GMCP institutions includes the following postulates, assumptions and other elements. Institutions and international regimes To take account of the relationships between national and international MCP legal frameworks, the thematic framework borrows from international regime theory to postulate as follows: ●

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GMCP institutions are independent actors in international relations that can modify the conduct of nation-states and other actors through cooperative action undertaken on the basis of “shared principles, norms, rules, and decisionmaking procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given issue area.”18 But these attributes are more circumscribed in scope and area of application than their national counterparts. The convergence of actors’ expectations in GMCP institutions takes place in relation to top-down global goals that are external to any particular issue area, as well as in relation to bottom-up interests that are driven by economic, technological, and social forces. The response of GMCP institutions to these two different kinds of policy drivers is asynchronous. The conduct of nation-states and other actors with respect to bottom-up interests in specific GMCP issues is modified through short cycle feedback loops, measured in years, while the conduct of these same actors

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Evolution of GMCP Institutions with respect to top-down global goals is modified through long cycle feedback loops, measured in decades.

Institutions and policy paradigms To take account of the relationships between the substance of national and global MCP, the framework borrows from paradigm theory19 to postulate that over the past thirty to forty years a series of GMCP paradigms has set the agenda in international GMCP institutions, framed outcomes, determined institutional winners and losers, and driven governance innovation and reform. ●

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GMCP policy paradigms are comprehensive and systematic accounts of the technological, economic, social, and governance policies needed to achieve GMCP objectives. They include explicit arguments about the linkages between policies in these areas, their relative priority for decision-making procedures, and their relationship to the ends and means of cooperative action. They are rooted in national experience and extrapolated to the international level through the mediation of regional organizations or communities of interest involving states and/or other actors, where they compete for positions of policy dominance. The policy agendas and outcomes of decision-making procedures in GMCP institutions have been shaped over the past thirty to forty years by the interplay between dominant and non-dominant policy paradigms that are associated with underlying differences in technological, economic, and social power – between developed and developing country actors in traditional intergovernmental international organizations and/or between different stakeholder groups in traditional hybrid or emerging multi-stakeholder organizations. Although applicable to specific GMCP issues, dominant and sub-dominant policy paradigms are not limited to the GMCP domain, but provide more comprehensive accounts of the interrelationships between the general goals of the international governance regime, as well as their relationship to related domains of international governance.

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The external goals of GMCP institutions Because this chapter tells the story of the evolution of GMCP institutions from the point of view of policy debate, and because policy involves debate about values as well as facts and ends as well as means, the framework makes the following assumptions about these parameters in the context of the relationship between GMCP institutions and the broader global governance system of which they are a part. ●

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With respect to the goals of the global system of which GMCP institutions are a part, the framework assumes that the fundamental ends of cooperative international action that are most valued by all actors are the basic goals underlying the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions that were established following World War II – most notably peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development. The framework assumes that state and other actors involved in international GMCP institutions accept, as a fundamental principle, that communication is essential to achieving these goals, and that improving access to and use of communication media increases the chances they will be realized. The framework also assumes that the basic goals of peace and security, human rights, and sustainable development are not fungible and cannot be conflated as long as we live in a world of scarcity and division, so that priorities and trade-offs among goals and means are necessary, and contestation between different worldviews – or policy paradigms – is inevitable. The framework therefore assumes that GMCP debates in international institutions are ultimately about the best means of achieving these goals through cooperative action, and that these debates fundamentally turn around the following kinds of questions: ● What policy paradigm provides the most convincing account of the relationship between economic, technological and social forces, the interests to which they give rise, and the achievement of the basic goals of international cooperation – peace

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Policy Drivers

Technological, Economic, Social Forces

Non-Dominant Actors

Non-Dominant Policy Paradigm

Policy Drivers

Dominant Actors

Dominant Policy Paradigm

GMCP Institutions

Short cycle, institutionrelated feedback loops

MCP Outputs

Global System Goals

Long cycle, systemwide feedback loops

Figure 3.1 Evolutionary model for GMCP institutions Source: Author.

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and security, human rights, and sustainable development? Which policies, including priorities and trade-offs, are likely to be most effective in achieving the desired results? How should policy decisions be made and implemented, who should be involved in the process, and what should be the rights and obligations of those involved?

Institutional congruence and evolutionary paths Finally, to take account of the relationships between national and international institutional structures and policy-making processes, the framework borrows from congruence theory20 and institutional evolutionary theory21 to postulate that the relative success of different GMCP institutions in fostering international cooperation that modifies the policy of actors depends on the following relationships, with respect to both specific institutional GMCP

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objectives as well as the more general goals of the broader global system. ●

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In the shorter term, the political success of GMCP institutions – whether they are winners or losers with respect to specific GMCP issues – depends on the “congruence” or “fit” between their regime, with its constituent principles, norms, rules and decisionmaking processes, and the dominant policy paradigm. In the longer term, the evolutionary path of GMCP institutions depends on their success in adapting the principles, norms, rules and decision-making processes that constitute the regime they express so as to reconcile dominant and non-dominant GMCP paradigms with respect to the general goals of the global governance system.

This framework can be given the graphical expression shown in Figure 3.1.

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The evolutionary path of GMCP institutions The framework set out in the preceding section can be used to highlight some of the main trends and developments that have taken place in the GMCP institutional environment over the past thirty to forty years. This story will be told from the point of view of the major paradigm shifts that have taken place during this period as a result of the interaction through GMCP institutions of dominant and non-dominant actors. From this perspective, the policy paradigms championed by different actors serve as proxies for the different national and regional interests formed in response to the economic, technological, and social forces driving MCP in developed and developing countries. These paradigm shifts have the following kinds of results: changes in the short term in the media and communication policies of national governments and other actors as a result of their par ticipation in the policy-making processes of international GMCP institutions; changes in the medium term in the structure and functioning of existing GMCP institutions, along with the emergence of new governance structures in the GMCP domain; and changes in the longer term in the paradigms themselves as a result of dissonance between the results of their sustained, systemic application and the general goals underlying the functioning of the global system as a whole. In the thematic framework, the notion of policy paradigm is the key to linking the realistic elements of the framework – the recognition that GMCP is driven bottom-up by national and other interests formed around economic, technological and social forces – with its idealistic elements – the notion that GMCP is pulled topdown by universal goals inspired by fundamental principles of democracy and human rights in the international regime embodied in the United Nations. This linkage between the realistic and idealistic elements of the framework takes place through the mechanism of GMCP regimes and the institutions that express them. These institutions serve as the forums where principles, norms, rules, and procedures shared by different actors enable their

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expectations to converge through cooperative action. It is not possible in this chapter to give a detailed account of the evolution of GMCP policy paradigms. Instead, this section has the more modest aim of illustrating the utility of the framework by highlighting a number of important transitional events involving major GMCP institutions.22 This focus on transitional events also helps highlight important features of the notions of policy paradigm and paradigm shift as they are used in the framework – namely that paradigms are never universal; they are always in contention even if they are non-dominant; and they have a dialectical relationship that results in their reciprocal enrichment over time as they contend for power and influence in GMCP institutions. Paradigm shifts Every story needs a point of departure, and the story of the evolution of the GMCP institutional landscape is no exception. In the regime that governed GMCP until it began to be challenged three to four decades ago, both the carriage and content aspects of media and communication were seen as national public services. Telecommunication and broadcasting generally were provided by departments of government or other public institutions. In countries where private ownership of telecommunication and broadcasting media was permitted, governments regulated all aspects of these industries. International services were provided between cooperating national entities. At the global level, the only GMCP institutions were ITU for carriage issues and UNESCO for content issues. This policy paradigm and the public service regime associated with it began to break down in the 1960s when the technologies that ultimately enabled the transformation of both the carriage and content aspects of communication media were in a nascent state. Microwave, satellite, cable television, computer communication (i.e. the Internet), and cellular telephony technologies all began to develop during this decade. Around the same time, policy-makers in some countries began to allow new entrants into the telecommunication and broadcasting sectors that used these technologies to complement or compete with incumbent service providers. There was growing recognition among policymakers that electronic communication media were helping to change the structure of national

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economies and social relationships, and beginning to transform the world from a collection of sovereign nation-states – divided at the time into hostile camps by the Cold War – into a “global village” in which people could communicate with each other in ways not previously possible. As a result, interest was beginning to grow at both national and international levels in the relationship between MCP and broader issues of economic and social policy. In the half century that has elapsed since technology began to challenge – and policy began to question – the public service paradigm for MCP, three great waves of change have transformed GMCP and its institutional landscape. These waves of change were generated by technological, economic, and social forces. Although each wave was the product of interaction among all these forces, one of them emerged as the dominant driver of change in each successive wave.23 The policy paradigms associated with the dominant drivers in each of these waves were: the economic paradigm that saw media and communication primarily as a competitive and increasingly global business which began to displace the national public service paradigm in the 1970s and 1980s; the technological paradigm that arose in the 1980s and 1990s as a result of the convergence between ICTs, and which saw media and communication as the fundamental infrastructure for all economic and social activities in the information society;24 and the social paradigm that began to develop in the 2000s which sees the progress of ICTs as raising serious questions about economic stability, social security, and environmental sustainability and, at the same time, creating opportunities for restoring balance in and among these different areas of life. The paradigms that emerged as dominant in each successive wave of change progressively broadened the scope of GMCP. They also significantly redefined (and in some cases narrowed) the role of government policy-makers and intergovernmental institutions in relation to other actors. The traditional public service paradigm was largely focussed on the internal structure of the telecommunication and broadcasting sectors, although some attention was also paid to the relationship between these media and their broader economic and social consequences. It saw government as the main agent for guiding the growth of the sector, either through direct public ownership or detailed regulatory oversight.

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The economic paradigm both expanded and transformed this view. It saw content and carriage media not only as increasingly important sectors of economic activity in their own right but also as enablers of innovation and improved performance throughout the economy, society, and culture. In this view, the private sector and market forces became the main agents for developing media and communication technologies and services, and government’s role was reduced to creating enabling conditions for a fair and efficient marketplace. The technological paradigm took a broader and more revolutionary view of the relationship between ICTs, the economy, and society. It saw ICTs as enabling the wholesale transformation of economic, social, and governance structures through the replacement of top-down, hierarchical, command-and-control organizational models with bottom-up, democratic, participative arrangements. In this view, traditional tools of governmental and intergovernmental policy had a relatively minor role in guiding the development of Internet-based media and communication systems, although public authorities did have an important part to play in helping to construct the information society by using ICTs to transform policy-making processes and public services. In the technological paradigm, technical and civil society organizations began to be recognized as important players in GMCP because of their respective roles in developing the Internet and using it as a medium for social and economic change. The emerging social paradigm consolidates and builds on these previous paradigms. It recognizes the need for government to play a significant, proactive role in protecting rights and freedoms, and promoting equality and justice. However, it also recognizes that traditional policy-making and regulatory models are unlikely to be effective either nationally or internationally in the borderless, highly distributed, real-time world made possible by the Internet and ICTs, and that new governance models are needed. A central feature of the emerging social paradigm is the notion of multi-stakeholder governance. This concept is not yet well defined and its relationship to traditional governance models at the national and international levels is not yet clear. However, there is a growing sense that new approaches that engage all stakeholders in new ways are needed for GMCP issues that cannot be effectively resolved by government, the

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Evolution of GMCP Institutions private sector, or civil society, each acting at arm’s length from the other through traditional institutional structures and policy-making processes.25 As well as consolidating previous paradigms, the emerging social paradigm also shifts the focus of GMCP toward issues of security, broadly understood to include the security of individuals and social groups in the online environment; economic security in a globalized economy that depends on electronic networks; public and national security in a world where crime and terrorism are supported and conducted online; and security in the relationship between human societies and the natural environment in the face of climate change and other threats to the stability of economic and social structures. Dominant/non-dominant dialectics Although these paradigms have dominated GMCP, they have not always been universally shared. In each of the transitions discussed in the previous section, the ascendant paradigm first emerged in the developed world – in individual countries, in bilateral relations between nations, in regional groupings such as the European Union, and in communities of interest such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) – before ultimately being adopted and applied worldwide by GMCP institutions, under the leadership of developed countries. Over the past three to four decades, each time a new paradigm has emerged from the developed world and begun to challenge an established paradigm in GMCP institutions, developing countries generally have constructed an alternative account of the principles, policies, and practices that should govern the technological, economic, and social forces driving change. In periods of GMCP paradigm shift, the policy paradigms initially espoused by developing countries generally have been based on the paradigm that was in the process of being superseded, and attempted to apply old order assumptions and policy prescriptions to the new environment created by the forces of change. In some cases, significant efforts have been made to re-think how emerging forces could be shaped by cooperative action through GMCP governance structures to achieve the goals desired by both dominant and nondominant actors.26

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Since contention between dominant and nondominant paradigms – and the underlying contention between the interests of developed and developing countries – is one of the central themes of GMCP, it may be helpful to highlight a few examples of conflict between established and emerging paradigms from the history of the GMCP institutions profiled in Part I of this chapter. In the first wave of change – which saw the traditional GMCP public service paradigm embodied in UNESCO and ITU eclipsed by the new economic paradigm embodied in WIPO and WTO – leading developing countries initially resisted change and developed a contending paradigm that was based on principles of national sovereignty, international solidarity, and development assistance, and which aimed to channel the economic, technological, and social forces transforming the media and communication sector in the interests of non-dominant actors. However, attempts to apply this paradigm in UNESCO in the early 1980s and in ITU in the late 1980s were largely unsuccessful. In the case of UNESCO, the attempt to construct an alternative paradigm based on the concept of a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) proposed in the 1980 MacBride Report (ICSCP 1980/2004) not only failed but effectively relegated the institution to the sidelines of GMCP development during a critical period, particularly after the US and the UK withdrew their membership in the organization.27 In the case of ITU, the attempt of nondominant actors to maintain the traditional, monopoly-based, public service model of international telecommunication in the face of rising pressures of globalization at the 1988 World Administrative Telegraph and Telecommunication Conference (WATTC) almost had equally serious consequences. These were only averted by a lastminute compromise that allowed consenting countries to establish whatever international telecommunication arrangements they wished. This experience helped launch an ITU reform movement which, although it has moved at a glacial pace, has managed to maintain the relevance of the institution as an important GMCP player. As the economic paradigm rose to ascendancy, many developing countries embraced it (with support and encouragement from The World

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Bank), and signed on to the WTO trade in telecommunication services and TRIPS agreements. When the economic globalization paradigm associated with WTO and WIPO began to be superseded in some areas of GMCP by the technological paradigm associated with the Internet, instead of following the lead of developed countries and abandoning important areas of the MCP domain to nongovernmental actors, many developing countries took the view that the Internet was just another communication medium and sought to assimilate the Internet to existing models for content and carriage governance. The tensions arising from the global consequences of these different approaches led, as described in Part I of this chapter, to the ongoing debate about the role of ICANN in the management of critical Internet resources and the creation of the IGF. When the dominant paradigm shifted once again from the top-down, sector-specific, economically oriented GMCP policies that dominated in the 1980s and 1990s to the bottom-up, generalpurpose, technologically oriented GMCP policies that began to dominate in the 1990s and 2000s, developing countries often lacked organic connections between technology, economy, society, and governance of the kind that had begun to emerge in developed countries in response to the novel governance challenges posed by the Internet. This lack of connectedness may leave them ill-equipped to participate in the inclusive, socially oriented multi-stakeholder policy-making model that is a central feature of emerging GMCP governance arrangements, particularly in the area of Internet governance.

The Path Ahead The dialectical relationship between successive waves of dominant and non-dominant paradigms outlined in the preceding sections has been reflected in the changes that have taken place in the GMCP institutional landscape over the past three decades, changes that have been highlighted by a series of significant transitional events. In some cases these events marked the failure of established GMCP institutions to adapt successfully to the evolutionary forces underlying the emergence of a new policy paradigm. As we have seen, this is the fate

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that befell both UNESCO and ITU in the 1980s, during the transition from the national public service paradigm on which they were founded, to the then-emerging economic paradigm. In other cases, these transitional events marked the emergence of new GMCP players – either existing institutions whose mandates expanded into the GMCP domain or new institutions created in response to new GMCP needs. The emergence in the 1990s of WIPO and WTO as central players in the content and carriage aspects of GMCP is an example of the former, while the creation of ICANN in the late 1990s and the IGF in the 2000s is an example of the latter. The history of the last three decades also suggests that the dialectical nature of the relationship between dominant and non-dominant actors, and between the policy paradigms that express their differing interests, has made it possible for GMCP institutions to rise again after a fall, if they have been successful in adapting their institutional principles and norms and modifying the behavior and expectations of their members sufficiently to evolve. For example, this appears to have happened in the case of ITU, which maintained its role as a significant GMCP institution during the ascendancy of the economic and technological paradigms, thanks to its private sector and technical membership, and is positioning itself to be a leading actor on GMCP issues related to cyber and environmental security. This history also suggests that it is possible for GMCP institutions to fall from positions of GMCP dominance rather quickly, if the principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures they embody are unable to reconcile the interests of dominant and non-dominant actors, or if the regime they embody is successfully challenged by a new paradigm. WTO’s future role in GMCP appears to be somewhat in question on the former grounds, as a result of the difficulties it has experienced in advancing the Doha Round of trade negotiations, which were intended to address the needs of developing countries. Questions are also being raised about WIPO’s future role in GMCP on the latter grounds, as a result of an emerging paradigm that sees the fruits of intellectual creation as common goods rather than as private property. It is too early to fully assess the consequences of the emerging social paradigm for GMCP

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Evolution of GMCP Institutions institutions founded on regimes that reflect its public service, economic, or technological predecessors. However, it is clear that the seeds for new kinds of GMCP institutions have been planted through the search for innovative models for Internet governance that began in the mid-1990s, and this has led to the creation of ICANN and IGF, and continues today through work being done at the OECD, in regional organizations in both the developing and developed worlds, and at the national level in some countries. In different ways and to different degrees, these emerging Internet governance arrangements embody principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures that differ from those underlying existing GMCP institutions. They point toward new kinds of global governance arrangements, adapted to new kinds of policy challenges raised by the transformative effects of the Internet and other ICTs, and the broad sweep of issues envisaged by the emerging social paradigm.

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This bibliographic note suggests sources of more detailed information on these organizations and provides references to recent works by scholars and practitioners on the origin and evolution of GMCP institutions. Readers who wish more detailed information on the GMCP institutions may wish to consult the following web sites: International Telecommunication Union (ITU): www.itu.int, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): www.icann.org, Internet Governance Forum (IGF): www.igf.org, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization: www.unesco.org, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): www.wipo. org, and World Trade Organization (WTO): www. wto.org. Readers who wish more detailed information on the trends, developments, and issues related to the evolution of the GMCP institutional landscape may wish to consult the following works by scholars and practitioners which present different perspectives on these topics from a range of analytical and ideological points of view: Association for Progressive Communications and Third World Institute (2007), Braman (2004), Burchill et al. (2009), Buzan (2004), Chakravartty and Sarikakis (2006), Cowhey and Aronson (2009), Drake and Wilson (2008), Eckstein (1998), Freeman and Louçã (2001), Krasner (1983), Kuhn (1962/1996), Hall (1993), Hodgson (1999),

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Loasby (1999), Mansell (2009), Mansell and Nordenstreng (2006), Ó Siochrú et al. (2002), and Ostrom (1990). The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years War in Europe, is generally considered to have established the principles of territorial integrity and national sovereignty that provided the foundation for the nation-state system and international relations. See www.itu.int for information on the organization, its activities, and its GMCP instruments. See www.unesco.org for information on the organization and its activities. See in particular http:// portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=12024& URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201. html for information on UNESCO’s GMCP legal instruments. See www.wipo.org for information on the organization and its activities. In particular, see http://www. wipo.int/treaties/en for information about WIPO’s GMCP legal instruments. See www.wto.org for information on the organization and its activities. See in particular http:// www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/serv_e/serv_e. htm for information on the GATS agreement; http:// w w w. w t o. o r g / e n g l i s h / t r a t o p _ e / s e r v _ e / telecom_e/telecom_e.htm for information on the WTO agreements on trade in telecommunications services; and http://www.wto.org/english/ tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm for information on the TRIPS agreement. See www.icann.org for information on the organization and its activities. Because of its innovative nature, there has been considerable interest in ICANN among MCP scholars. See Mueller (2002) for an analysis of the issues and account of the events that led to ICANN’s creation. See www.intgovforum.org for information about the forum and its activities. The OECD is an example of an established GMCP organization that has adopted a “multi-stakeholder tool kit” approach to spam and other issues of cybercrime and cybersecurity. See http://www. oecd-antispam.org/sommaire.php3 for an example of this approach. In Brazil, the Internet Steering Committee pre-dates the IGF as a multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance; see http:// www.cgi.br/english/index.htm. Since the first IGF in 2006, a number of countries and regions have used similar models to prepare for the annual IGF meetings and to begin to address Internet governance issues at the national and regional levels. See http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/index. php/igf-regional for links to these activities. See Hall (1993) on policy paradigms.

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Don MacLean See http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ for an overview of the International Bill of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. Although intergovernmental GMCP institutions generally have mechanisms for attempting to resolve disputes among their members, only the decisions of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body are binding on the parties to a dispute. The UN Permanent Court of Arbitration is available to assist state and non-state actors in resolving disputes. In addition, there are private services available to help resolve commercial disputes. WSIS took place in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005. The results of the Summit are embodied in the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action and the Tunis Commitment and Agenda for the Information Society. They are available at http:// www.itu.int/wsis/index.html. For an analysis of the WSIS process, see Kleinwächter (2008). In ICANN, Internet users among the general public are represented through the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC); see www.atlarge.icann.org. Membership in ISOC is open to individuals as well as organizations. In 2009, it had 28,000 individual members and 80 chapters around the world; see http://www.isoc.org/isoc. ITU has scheduled a World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT) in 2012 to review the International Telecommunication Regulations and held a World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF) in 2009 to help prepare for this event. The results of the WTPF indicate that issues other than potential conflicts with the WTO trade in telecommunication services agreements are likely to dominate the WCIT agenda, particularly issues related to the Internet, convergence, and next-generation networks; see http://www.itu.int/ md/S09-WTPF-C-0004/en. See Burchill et al. (2009) and the main Wikipedia article on international relations theory and the links it provides to specific schools of thought, including realism, idealism, materialism, and regime theory, which provides a useful point of entry into this vast and complex body of research, http://en. wik ipedia.org/wik i/International_relations_ theory (accessed 09/12/2009). See Buzan (2004) and Krasner (1983a) and the Wikipedia article on regime theory, http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regime_theory (accessed 09/12/2009). This formulation, the classic definition of regime theory, was given by Stephen Krasner and is available at Krasner (1983a: 1). Paradigm theory, more specifically the notion of paradigm shifts, is a construct originally borrowed from the history and philosophy of science,

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particularly Thomas Kuhn’s (1962/1996) seminal book. Since then the concept has been widely applied in a number of fields including the ICT and media and communication field (see Freeman and Louçã 2001) and has gained common currency as a term referring to important economic and social shifts of one kind or another. The Wikipedia article on “Paradigm shifts,” at http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Paradigm_shift (accessed 09/12/2009), gives a useful overview of the evolution of this term. The basic tenet of congruence theory, as it was developed and applied by the political scientist Harry Eckstein, is that “governments perform well to the extent that their authority patterns are congruent with the authority patterns of other units of society” (see Eckstein 1997:np; 1998). As applied in this chapter, the theorem could be re-formulated to say that GMCP institutions perform well to the extent that their authority patterns are congruent with patterns of effective MCP authority among their government members and non-government stakeholders. See Steinmo (2008). For a discussion of the application of concepts of evolutionary biology to the study of social and political institutions, see Lewis and Steinmo (2007). For the social science perspective on evolution and institutions and from an economics perspective, see Loasby (1999) and Hodgson (1999); from a politics perspective, see Ostrom (1990). For a consideration of these issues in the field of information policy, including some aspects of GMCP, see Braman (2004). See Freeman and Louçã (2001) for an institutionalist discussion of “waves of change.” The term “information society” and related terms such as “information revolution,” “information age,” “information economy,” “Internet economy,” and “digital economy” have been used for the past three decades by scholars and practitioners to characterize the increasingly important role played in the economies by industries that produce information and communication technologies, suppliers of telecommunication, computer, and information services, and media that produce and distribute digital content; for a comprehensive history, see Mansell (2009). WSIS marked the apogee of this discourse within the current global governance regime. For a discussion of the evolution of GMCP regimes and the need for an holistic approach to global network governance, see Drake (2008). In the 1970s and 1980s, as the public service paradigm began to be challenged and replaced by the emerging economic paradigm, both UNESCO and ITU established international commissions with mandates to re-think their traditional policies and practices in ways that would find common ground

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between the interests of their developed and developing country members – but with somewhat different results. Many Voices, One World, the 1980 report of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (also known as the MacBride Report) (ICSCP 1980/2004) proposed an ambitious program to establish a NWICO that not only failed to gain the support of the UNESCO membership, but also caused a serious rift in the organization that took years to repair. The Missing Link, the 1984 report of the ITU Commission for Worldwide Telecommunication Development (known as the Maitland Report) (ITU 1984), set out a much less ambitious objective that gained the support of the ITU membership and led to the creation of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau. See Ó Siochrú et al. (2002) and Mansell and Nordenstreng (2006) for a discussion of the NWICO.

References Association for Progressive Communications and Third World Institute (2007) Information Society Watch 2007: Focus on Participation, http://www.giswatch. org/gisw2007 (accessed 09/12/2009). Braman, S. (ed.) (2004) The Emergent Global Information Policy Regime. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Burchill, S., Linklater, A., Devetak, R., Donnelly, J., Nardin, T., Paterson, M., Rues-Smit, C., and True, J. (2009) International Relations Theory (fourth edition). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Buzan, B. (2004) From International to World Society? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chakravartty, P., and Sarikakis, K. (2006) Media Policy and Globalization. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cowhey, P. F., and Aronson, J. D. (2009) Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Drake, W. J. (2008) “Introduction: The distributed architecture of network global governance,” in W. J. Drake and E. J. Wilson III (eds) Governing Global Electronic Networks. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1–79. Drake, W. J., and Wilson III, E. J. (eds) (2008) Governing Global Electronic Networks: International Perspectives on Policy and Power. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Eckstein, H. (1997) Congruence Theory Explained, http://www.democ.uci.edu/publications/papers seriespre2001/harry2.htm (accessed 09/12/2009). Eckstein, H. (1998) “Congruence theory explained,” in H. Eckstein, F. J. Fleron Jr., E. P. Hoffmann, and W. H. Reisinger (eds) Can Democracy Take Root in Post-Soviet Russia? Exploration in State–Society

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Relations. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 3–34. Freeman, C., and Louçã, F. (2001) As Time Goes By: From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hall, P. A. (1993) “Policy paradigms, social learning and the state: The case of economic policymaking in Britain,” Comparative Politics, 25(3): 275–296. Hodgson, G. (1999) Evolution and Institutions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP) (1980/2004) Many Voices, One World. Report of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (1984) Commission for Worldwide Telecommunication Development: The Missing Link. Geneva: ITU. Kleinwächter, W. (2008) “Multistakeholderism, civil society and global diplomacy,” in W. J. Drake and E. J. Wilson III (eds) Governing Global Electronic Networks. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, pp. 535–581. Krasner, S. D. (ed.) (1983) International Regimes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Krasner, S. D. (1983a) “Structural causes and regime consequences: Regimes as intervening variables,” in S. D. Krasner (ed.) International Regimes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 1–23. Kuhn, T. (1962/1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lewis, O., and Steinmo, S. (2007) “Taking evolution seriously,” ARENA Working Paper, Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo, No. 19, December. Loasby, B. (1999) Knowledge, Institutions & Evolution. London: Routledge. Mansell, R. (ed.) (2009) The Information Society (Critical Studies in Sociology), 4 vols. London: Routledge. Mansell, R., and Nordenstreng, K. (2006) “Great media and communications debates: An assessment of the MacBride Report after 25 years,” Information Technologies and International Development, 3(4): 15–36. Mueller, M. (2002) Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ó Siochrú, S., and Girard, B., with Mahan, A. (2002) Global Media Governance: A Beginner’s Guide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steinmo, S. (2008) “Institutional analysis and evolutionary theory,” paper presented at the APSA 2008 Annual Meeting, Hynes Convention Center, Boston, August 28, http://www.allacademic.com/meta/ p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/7/8/3/3/ p278338_index.html (accessed 09/12/2009).

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4

Whose Global Village? William H. Melody

Introduction1 The marketplace of ideas has never been very inclusive or fair. Most of society has always lived at the margins trying to adapt to the ideas, policies, and practices of the privileged and powerful few. Throughout the history of communication studies, a central theme of research and debate has been the development and implementation of policies and practices to reduce and overcome barriers to participation in this most fundamental of all markets. These have focussed primarily on enabling public education and training, access to information, and opportunities to communicate. With the establishment and growth of information and communication industries, corporate and government policies have shaped the terms of engagement in an increasingly commercialized marketplace of ideas. The extensive policy and policy research literature in media and communication reflects the discussion and debate relating to their effects and effectiveness. The new information and communication technologies (ICTs) have enhanced significantly both the breadth and depth of information generation and communication possibilities while, at the same time, calling into question established ways of doing things and threatening to render obsolete, older

technologies, services, and policies. Their widespread application is enabling fundamental changes in the requirements for access to, and participation in, an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving marketplace of ideas. In this dynamic and uncertain environment, the communication foundations of most societal institutions are changing quite fundamentally. New information and communication products, services, markets, and policies are providing opportunities for some, creating difficulties for others and marginalizing many. For communication theorists and researchers, a paradigm shift is underway. The inherited body of knowledge and conventional wisdom must be reassessed and revised. When Marshall McLuhan (1962) coined his famous term “the global village,” he was describing the mass media effect of the spread of broadcast radio in the 1920s in providing access to information from around the globe, as publicly shared communication experiences. Extrapolating from this observation, he claimed that by providing the instantaneous movement of information around the world, “electric technology” was contracting the globe into a village.2 More recently, the term “global village” has been used to describe the Internet and the World Wide Web, where the constraints of distance have fallen further and those who are connected have opportunities to participate in enhanced global communication networks.


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Whose Global Village? Based on experience since McLuhan coined the term, one would have to say that the global communication expansion has provided a very mixed blessing. The evidence suggests it will not create an electronic village environment with universal participation in the marketplace of ideas. Internet access is being provided to those who already have access to a telephone service, not to those without it. There are more people in the world without access to any form of electronic communication than there are those with Internet access. Most major providers of the global broadband communication networks for the future information society – the information superhighway – are not much interested in serving “villages” at all, anywhere. The anticipated financial returns are poor. The “digital divide” of the information age is showing signs of following the network development pattern, documented a generation ago, as the “missing link” of the telephone era (ICWWTD 1984). This raises some fundamental questions. Whose interest is the future global village being designed to serve? Is it likely to be more or less inclusive than the “pre-digital” communication era? Can a policy environment be established to generate and implement policies that will promote, on a global scale, universal access to and participation in the new communication opportunities? This chapter provides a contribution to a research agenda framed by these questions. Policy-makers, researchers, and analysts are confronted with the challenges of acquiring an understanding of the essential characteristics of this new, evolving electronic marketplace of ideas, and designing and implementing policies that will enable ever greater participation.

Unique Characteristics of Communication and Its Policy Research Externality and public good benefits Although the right to communicate is acknowledged as a basic human right, communication capabilities and opportunities have been determined primarily by economic resources and national government policies. Historically, the

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common pattern for telecommunication network development has been to serve the military and administrative needs of national governments and the requirements of businesses first, with later extensions to those households and general public locations where costs can be recovered from users. Further expansion of the networks in the direction of universal access has depended on policy commitments that justify subsidies of the necessary economic resources. Interestingly, these policy commitments have never been seen as helping to satisfy the basic human right to communicate. They generally have been justified as providing a desirable, but relatively low-priority, social service, resulting in very weak policy commitments in most countries to achieving universal access. This identification of subsidies for universal access as a drain of economic resources for unproductive social benefit has failed to recognize the “externality” and “public good” characteristics of communication (Noll 1987; Garnham 1994; Collins et al. 2001). The larger communication networks are, the greater the benefits to both those initiating and receiving communication exchanges will be. Established members of communication networks benefit when the network is extended to the previously unserved, as more people can be contacted whether or not they initiate communication exchanges. These “contacting opportunity” benefits are public benefits, realized across the whole network, that are not captured in narrow economic calculations used to justify network extensions. In addition, communication networks permit the production and dissemination of information. Unlike most economic products and services (e.g., cars, restaurant meals, and haircuts) that must be reproduced for new customers each time they are consumed, information need not be reproduced each time it is “consumed.” The identical information can be provided to many people. It can be available for widespread “public” consumption to those who can be reached by the communication network. The information transmitted provides economic (e.g., prices in the market town) as well as social, political, and cultural benefits that far exceed the cost of providing particular communication connections. But most of these benefits are realized externally from the specific communication exchange where the information is transmitted. They are not part of the direct economic transaction where the communication

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service is purchased, and they cannot be captured in the prices charged for it. The capability of the mass media to reach a significant portion of the population rapidly with emergency, public service and other messages of high individual and public value provides a public good benefit that is also external to the narrow economic calculations of revenue and cost. The existence of these very significant public good and externality characteristics of communication networks means that the societal benefits of communication networks, whether telephone, broadcast or Internet, far exceed those obtained from narrow market-based economic calculations of direct costs and revenues. As distinct and independent networks, the post, telegraph, telephone, radio, and television each have had a profound influence on the structure and patterns of economic development as important services facilitating commerce. More recently, mobile phones have become a catalyst for economic activity in many developing countries (Samarajiva and Zainudeen 2008; Mahan and Melody 2009). The Internet has begun to absorb the content of all these networks and is increasingly penetrating economic activity to the point where most aspects of commerce are expected to gravitate to e-commerce. Internet access is becoming essential for businesses, government agencies, workers, consumers and citizens (Mansell and Steinmueller 2000). The current and potential societal economic benefits of access to the rapidly evolving Internet are increasing exponentially, as are the difficulties being imposed on those without access. If the public good and externality effects of communication networks are recognized, universal access is justified on economic grounds alone, let alone the non-economic social, political, and cultural justifications that also support it.

Public interest research and policy advocacy The arena for communication policy development and implementation is structured differently in different countries, but in democratic societies broadly similar institutional structures and policy objectives prevail. Government policy-makers have quasimonopolies in the determination of the formal

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policies that will guide development, but they have limited knowledge and bounded rationality, and must contend with a significant degree of uncertainty, both with respect to their policy processes and the external economic, social, and political environments in which they must function. They must seek information and understanding in an attempt to deepen their knowledge and reduce uncertainty.3 But almost all the information provided to them is deliberately partial and intended to bias their views to favor one of the many special interests that will be affected by their policy decisions. Most research is undertaken to bolster the case of some special interest that expects sufficient benefit from the policy decisions to justify the costs of its intervention. Thus, the arena for policy research is highly contested ground, but it remains within the restricted bounds of a limited group of conflicting special interests. It is a very constrained and narrowly focussed contest, often excluding both small and large (but diffuse) interest groups in society (e.g., general consumers/ citizens, the poor, minorities), as well as more detached, independent, and objective policy research that reflects broader public interest considerations, such as the benefits arising from the externality and public good characteristics of communication networks. In these respects, the structures and processes of policy development and policy research are often deficient. For research on the implications of policy options for less powerful interest groups that typically are not participants in policy processes, and for more detached critical research on the implications of policy options for broader public interests, one looks to the academic community and other sources of independent policy research.4 This has always been a minority of the research community, but plays a fundamentally important role in preventing policy from being captured by the most powerful special interests. It helps overcome the common structural deficiencies of policy development and policy research processes. It opens policy-making to a broader range of policy options, information sources, ideas, and understanding, and makes it more representative of the society for which policy is being made. Public interest policy research is the “public good” of the policy-making process. If policy-making is to consider the public interest implications of communication policy options,

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Whose Global Village? research documenting this must be undertaken in a timely fashion and presented to policy-makers. Unless there is an active public interest research community that is provided with access to communication policy-making processes, these considerations are unlikely to arise as significant ones in the formal policy debates, let alone the policies. A major challenge for public interest policy researchers is to provide the evidence and analysis to justify much stronger policy interventions to stimulate universal access and other public good communication benefits than have prevailed in the past.

Lessons from Twentieth-Century Experience Institutional structures for policy-making Respecting national sovereignty Throughout most of the twentieth century, the telecommunication and broadcast sectors of most countries were developed under national policies and regulations that promoted and protected internal development. International issues were comparatively minor matters that related primarily to coordinating radio frequency allocations, technical standards and services, and negotiating the shared revenues from the relatively small, although steadily growing, volumes of international traffic and trade. Relatively smaller countries developed policies to try to protect their mass media communication environment from being overwhelmed by the spillover of broadcast signals from much larger neighbors (e.g., Canada and the United States (US)), and some countries (e.g., France) were concerned about protecting their cultural traditions from an overdose of foreign media influence, usually from US films and television programs (Smythe 1981; Collins 1990; Schlesinger 1997). A number of countries had external broadcast radio services for expatriates and propaganda purposes. The US provided the greatest volume of international traffic in communication products and services, and had the largest number of firms and other organizations with a multinational presence.

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The “free flow of information” was adopted as a plank of US foreign policy in the 1960s to support these interests and in an attempt to soften the restrictions of other countries on free speech and free trade. In the 1970s, communication researchers documented the highly imbalanced structure of international information flows between the rich, developed (North) and poor, developing (South) countries, noting its primary effect as a vehicle facilitating foreign domination rather than local development (see Nordenstreng, ch. 5). Free flows of information, like free trade and free markets, are unlikely to be mutually beneficial if they are essentially used as tools for domination by monopolies. These international developments were not seen as a policy for liberalizing international communication sector development but rather as extensions of national policies in other domains. In the communication sectors, protecting national sovereignty was the dominant focus of the common international policy of nations which was preserved and respected in international organizations such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Broadcasting Union (IBU), where participation was restricted to national government delegations. When international communication satellites were launched in the 1960s, the new Intelsat organization was carefully designed to protect the national sovereignty of participating countries (Pelton 1984). International communication activities, which went beyond the coordination of nation-state policies, began to be recognized in the 1980s and became a force to be reckoned with in policy deliberations in the 1990s. Centralized national provision of services Throughout most of the world, national policy in both telecommunication and broadcasting has been implemented by national government entities in highly centralized policy structures where governments exercised direct control over budgets, investments, services and employment. Although telephone operations began with local community public and private networks, in most countries national governments soon took them over and awarded a national telephone monopoly to the established Post–Telegraph administration, creating an integrated Post, Telegraph and Telephone (PTT) service provider. Although

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universal access was a policy for the postal service, it was not generally extended to the telephone service. However, in those countries that permitted local and regional networks to maintain control over network development, confining the national operator(s) to intercity and international traffic (as in the Nordic countries), a form of universal access was achieved. National broadcasting organizations were established initially in radio and then extended to television, with limited frequency and program licensing of regional and local stations in some countries. A few governments (e.g., the United Kingdom (UK), with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)) established a degree of autonomy for the national operators, and a periodic public performance review process,5 but in most countries there has been little autonomy or transparency. Programming policy has been primarily a mix of central governments’ views on news, entertainment, education, and political propaganda, with some governments (especially non-democracies) being more paranoid than others. Within this institutional structure for policymaking and service provision, there has been little opportunity for independent public interest research to contribute to the formal processes of sector performance and policy review. These have been confined essentially to politicians, government ministries, and government agencies providing the services and have been far from transparent. Critical research has been neither supported nor welcomed as the centralized government authorities have believed they represent the public interest. In this environment, independent public interest researchers must present their evidence to the press and other institutions that influence public opinion and policy processes in informal ways. Occasionally, this has contributed to pressure on governments to undertake public reviews of sector performance and policy (i.e., special government commissions) as background for the development of new policies for the future. In some countries, these inquiries have been more receptive to the contributions of independent public interest research. This most often occurs when political interests have changed significantly or the established institutional structure of communication policy-making has been challenged. For example, Canada has had a number of such reviews focussing

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on the role of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), (Melody 1987). Government regulation of private provision of services In a few countries, the provision of telecommunication and broadcast services has been provided primarily by private corporations subject to government regulation, in a model of policy development and implementation initially established in the US and later adopted in Canada and a few other countries (Trebing 1984; Noll 2003; Petrazzini 1996). Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone in the US in 1876, receiving a 17-year monopoly on his invention, during which period private telephone service was established in many US cities. Government regulation was established, initially at the state level, when it was recognized that telephone service was a public utility being provided by a private monopoly. Policy was established by government in legal statutes which were, and still are, implemented by an independent regulatory authority bound by transparency, administrative due process, and public accountability requirements. The primary policy objective was to provide universal access to the telephone service at reasonable prices and with agreed quality standards. The US also established a similar general model for the regulation of private broadcasting. Private broadcasting began with the licensing of frequencies for local privately owned radio and later television stations throughout the country (Streeter 1996). As the frequencies were considered to be public resources and in limited supply, competition had to be restricted and, as there were also public service and public interest dimensions to broadcasting, national policy was established for implementation by an independent national regulatory authority.6 This has included, among others, minimum levels of public interest programming such as local news and public affairs and children’s programming, limits on the amount of advertising, and a tri-annual performance review for license renewal using a transparent public process. Now that the broadcast networks have become the dominant players in the industry, regulation has attempted to limit mass media market concentration by placing restrictions on the number of local television stations that can be owned, and the extent of cross-ownership with the major newspapers.

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Whose Global Village? In a number of mostly wealthy countries, cable television networks have been licensed to deliver programs in local communities, generally offering more channels and higher-quality reception than over-the-air broadcasting. Most are privately owned and subject to regulation by local and/or national government authorities, which have focussed primarily on the pricing practices and service quality of these monopoly providers (although in some countries resolving disputes with over-the-air broadcasting over programming has been a continuing issue). As a result of mergers, large cable network operators are common in most countries where cable has become significant. From a communication policy perspective, cable operators do not provide a distinct communication service (as do telecommunication and broadcasting), but rather provide an alternative method of delivering broadcast signals, mostly to those viewers who are already capable of receiving overthe-air broadcast signals. In the future, cable providers hope to become competitive, multi-service providers of Internet and other telecommunication services as well. The model of policy implementation through an independent regulator of private providers of broadcast and telecommunication services generally has opened up the formal policy process to participation by a broader range of interests. Formal policy-making remains with government and is only as open as government permits. But the key to policy implementation is effective regulation, which can be passive or proactive in its performance. As most policies tend to be statements of objectives and goals (e.g., a universal service to the degree practicable), there is, normally, fairly wide discretion to be exercised by the regulatory authority on policy implementation. The regulator stands at the policy interface with the regulated industries and others affected by the policy rules it is implementing or considering to adopt, and the general public. The regulator provides feedback to the policy-makers on the effectiveness of policy implementation and the need for policy modification. It is generally required to adopt a public transparent process, and to be held accountable both by the courts and government, as there are strict limits to its independence (Melody 1997). By opening up the regulatory process, policy implementation has tended to become a more

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adversarial and often litigious process, perhaps, inevitably, as a greater number and diversity of interests participate. This can lead to significant delays as powerful interests attempt to manipulate the process as well as the substance of regulatory proceedings to gain advantage. Moreover, regulatory capture by the dominant industry players has been a problem (Laffont and Tirole 1991; Hills and Michalis 2000), and regulators are not totally protected from political interference in technical violation of their “independence.” In this more competitive arena for influencing policy implementation, the interests of the regulated companies tend to be sharply focussed on their private economic interests. Public interest research on the implications of proposed regulatory rules for segments of society not otherwise considered must come from elsewhere. Greater diversity of potential participants in policy implementation debates increases potential opportunities for public interest research to be included in the process. On occasion, regulatory authorities have sponsored it themselves. In addition, opportunities are increased for public interest researchers to find common cause with others in the larger environment of indirect, informal policy influence. But public interest research has not become an institutionalized part of the regulatory process.

Sector performance: telecommunication The challenge of universal access The idea of universal access has been part of telecommunication sector mythology for the better part of a century, and is written into the policies of many countries. It has been, and still is, the primary objective of policy for telephone access, and is so for future Internet access (Feijoo and Milne 2008). But the idea has been honored more in the breach than in actual implementation. Most developed countries did not make serious attempts to achieve a universal telephone service until the more recent era of telecommunication reform and the challenge of competition to the national monopolies.7 Until the mobile phone explosion of recent years, most developing countries had fixed network

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penetration rates of less than 10 percent of the population with geographical coverage for only a small part of the country (Melody 2011). Prepaid mobile has dramatically improved coverage, now to more than half the world’s population. The challenge of universal access today is to extend network coverage “to the other 2 billion” for voice, and more than twice that number for Internet access (Samarajiva and Zainudeen 2008; Mahan and Melody 2009). The traditional models used in attempting to implement universal access policies have involved subsidies intended to cover the higher costs of serving rural areas and to enable poor people to afford the basic public voice service (Melody 1989). Historically, the most common approach has been the internal cross-subsidy model, where the national operator is expected to extend its network to provide universal access to basic services, and to cover the costs by charging uniform prices to all users regardless of location. In most countries, attempts to implement this model have failed dramatically. The national operators have had (and many still have) a virtual monopoly over fixed networks with little incentive to operate efficiently or extend networks beyond profitable market segments. When networks have been extended marginally into unprofitable areas, costs have been high and networks have achieved little. In the US, the passage of the Communications Act of 1934 established a clear policy objective of providing a basic telephone service to everyone “to the extent feasible.” However, during the depression years of the 1930s, telephone penetration declined. By 1940, only 25 percent of farms were connected and AT&T resisted unprofitable network extensions.8 In many countries, especially developing countries, telecommunication services have been considered much less important than other social services such as postal services, education, health, and welfare (including the welfare of the government).9 Funds for investment raised from telecommunication services have been allocated not for universal service network extensions but for other government services and activities. In many developing countries, extremely high prices have been set for international services to raise hard currency for the treasury from the shared revenues of inbound calls from developed countries, rather than for extending networks and services to the domestic population.

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In recent years, there has been increasing use of direct subsidy funds to support universal access network extensions (Hudson 2004). The funds are provided primarily by a small, universal access surcharge or tax on telecommunication service prices, and occasionally by government grant or donor contributions for limited periods. To date, the results of this approach have been mixed. Some governments have allocated these funds uneconomically, for example, to politically motivated yet unsustainable projects. Others have not allocated the funds at all, seeming reluctant to invest in universal access network extensions. But there have been success stories from countries where there has been a credible commitment (Levy and Spiller 1997) to implementing universal access policies. These typically specify the particular areas and services that the funds will support as part of a coherent network development plan. Competitive bids are invited based on specific license conditions and include provisions for transparency, accountability, and the monitoring of performance. Where the funds have been allocated in this manner, the subsidy amounts needed for network development typically are a fraction of those forecast, which usually have been based on the national operator’s costs. The new entrants rarely win these bids. The successful experience of Chile, in this regard, has received considerable attention (Wellenius 2002).

Universal access and local participation A common element one finds in the cases of successful programs targeting universal access network extensions is a significant role for local participation. It has been the initiative and commitment of those living and working in unserved areas who, with various kinds of external support, have played a major role in extending the network to their localities and ensuring sustainable operations. In the US, when it became clear in the 1930s that the monopoly operators were not going to provide universal telephone access, an alternative program was established in response to demands primarily from farmers. The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was established by the federal government in the 1940s to provide low-cost loans, technical support, and training for the development

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of local electricity and telephone distribution networks in unserved rural areas. Many thousands of rural cooperatives, local municipal operators, and small private companies were established. Farmer lines10 were employed allowing the local residents to provide a significant portion of the labor so as to reduce costs. This process of focussing directly on the specific conditions in the rural areas provided opportunities for new initiatives and innovations. It helped pioneer adaptations to technologies and services to serve rural areas at much reduced cost with a service that met the local needs. In the 1970s, the REA program was instrumental in extending universal access to Alaska, where innovations in satellite applications11 and small earth station development made backbone connections to local village distribution networks possible. Today, there are still several thousand of these small local operators throughout the US active in getting Internet connections extended to rural schools, hospitals, community centers, and homes (Parker 2000; Hudson 2006). The experiences in Canada and the Nordic countries have been similar. In Finland,

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there are more than 60 local co-operative telecommunication operators. Parallel developments in developing countries have been rare for a variety of reasons. In addition to the barriers – extreme poverty, government bureaucracy, and sometimes corruption – that have characterized many developing countries, national policies reserving all telecommunication development to the national monopoly provider have made the possibility for local initiative in network development virtually impossible. The absence of a national backbone network to which local operators could connect has provided a second formidable barrier. With few exceptions, in both developed and developing countries, the national fixed line monopoly operators failed to develop universally accessible networks. In developing countries, they generally failed to develop national networks at all. In recent years, the spread of cellular mobile services provided by new operators has extended voice network coverage so substantially that in most countries mobile penetration exceeds fixed network penetration by a large and ever-increasing margin. Figure 4.1 shows

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the growth in ICT access to telecommunication services in developed and developing countries between 2000 and 2008, broken down into the following categories: fixed line, mobile, Internet, broadband, and personal computers. It documents the failure of fixed network telephone development and the success of mobile in developing countries and the formidable barriers to achieving Internet access. The key factor driving the extension of mobile networks and services to the poor in rural areas has been the adoption of a new business model around prepaid rather than pre-approved subscriber services. Mobile networks have been extended to provide coverage in many poor rural areas because subscribers in the cities traveled to and through these areas and wanted continuous access. The prepaid option made access possible for the poor or for those who could not qualify for subscription service. With the rapid improvements in handset technology, secondhand handsets became affordable. Although prepaid prices have been significantly higher than subscription prices, with prepaid cards, costs and usage could be directly controlled by the user. Receiving calls in most countries costs nothing. Usage could be shared with family and friends. Minutes of use could be sold to others in the community. Local villagers have been able to create small businesses managing a local prepaid mobile phone (Samarajiva and Zainudeen 2008). The real innovation that has stimulated the extension of mobile voice access to previously unserved areas has been the innovation by the rural poor in controlling their costs and managing local demand. This was a business model not contemplated until the rural poor were given the opportunity to shape local voice service connections to their own unique circumstances (Melody and Mahan 2007; Richardson et al. 2000). Today, prepaid accounts for more than 80 percent of the mobile market in virtually all developing countries and represents a majority in most developed countries (Samarajiva and Zainudeen 2008). It is noteworthy that the success of the prepaid mobile, in extending voice access to the rural poor, was not the result of universal access policies or subsidies. In fact, in many countries they provided policy barriers that had to be overcome. The evidence has demonstrated that the conventional wisdom that universal access can be achieved either by a national public or a regulated private monopoly is demonstrably false. Both have failed dramatically. Significant advances have been made

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only when competitive operators were allowed into the market and local initiative was permitted to play a role in network development. Yet national fixed network operators still have significant monopoly power in most countries, and are the designated universal access carriers in many. In most countries they are a major barrier to achieving universal access. As Figure 4.1 demonstrates, the challenge of achieving universal Internet access, is far greater than achieving voice access, as it requires a computer and a connection of greater bandwidth than that provided for prepaid mobile voice service. It will require the participation of many operators and institutional arrangements, including public– private partnerships and the direct participation of local initiative (Ó Siochrú and Girard 2005).

Sector performance: broadcasting In contrast to telephone, universal access to radio and television broadcasting was achieved fairly rapidly in most countries. The former allowed people to initiate and receive private conversations. The latter allowed the government and its licensed agents to send messages to the population. Wireless technology for cross-country transmission and local broadcasting made the cost of broadcast networks much cheaper for the one-way delivery of mass media communication signals, and a single television set could be viewed by many people. Governments quickly realized the value of broadcasting for nation-building, emergency communication, news and propaganda, as well as entertainment. This was all stimulated by the fact that at the nation-state’s boundaries, many citizens could receive the spillover broadcast signals from neighboring countries (Negrine 1988; Price 1999). Broadcast coverage became a way of marking a nation-state’s electronic territorial boundaries and influencing border residents of neighboring countries. Where advertising has been permitted, broadcasting has been an effective vehicle for the mass marketing of goods and services. With access achieved, broadcasting policies have related more to its content. During the earliest days of broadcasting, there was a widespread expectation that its principal use would be for education,

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Whose Global Village? but as the attention of broadcasters and policymakers was drawn to its value for other purposes and the need to justify the significant costs of programs, popular entertainment (to achieve high viewer ratings) became the main form of content. National policies have determined the acceptable boundaries of entertainment (e.g., the US restricts sex, Europe restricts violence) as well as the priorities that are given to other categories of content (e.g., local news, and children’s programs). The main thrust of national broadcasting policies has ranged from paternalistic education by the BBC under Lord Reith; the national culture promotion of France, Canada, and other countries; to the electronic billboard of the US and the ceaseless propaganda of undemocratic governments. In democratic countries, criticisms of national broadcast policy and programming have focussed primarily on the lack of diversity and balance in responding to the needs of minority interests that arise from a preoccupation with attracting large viewer audiences, the threat to independence in programming decisions from the government and the political party in power, and a range of program quality issues, including, among others, bias, violence, sex, and language. Occasionally, concerns have been raised about the license fee, funding, and efficiency of the national broadcaster as payment of the license fee does not provide a voice in programming or broadcast policy decisions. Programming structures and priorities depend entirely on the judgment of the national broadcaster and those who can influence that judgment. This must invite controversy. The model of commercial broadcasting adopted by the US, and increasingly other countries, introduces advertisers as the key players in the process. The economic incentive of broadcasters is to deliver viewing audiences to the advertisers who are financing the private broadcast system. The viewing audience is not the client to be served as in the public broadcasting model but the product to be sold to advertisers. The programs are not the product to be served to viewing audiences but the bait to attract audiences for advertisers (Melody 1973; Smythe 1981a). Programs play a very specific and limited role attracting audiences for the marketing of mass market products and services. In fact, broadcasting has played a key role in making mass markets possible. But national policy statements do not acknowledge this central role of broadcasting as a tool for mass

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marketing. Rather, they claim similar objectives to countries with national public broadcasters – to serve the diversified interests of the viewing public. These objectives are to be implemented by the national communication regulatory authority. But implementation has been much more difficult to achieve because most of what the regulator attempts to achieve conflicts directly with the economic interests of the private broadcasters. Public interest programming standards established by the US regulator (the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)) in the early years of television broadcasting have been eroded over the years by the enormous political power of the broadcast industry, which plays a major role in the marketing of politicians as well as of products (McChesney 2004). As a result, program diversity has been sought through a much smaller public broadcasting network financed primarily by contributions from viewers and institutions, which shows a significant number of programs from public broadcasters in other countries. Many economists have pointed out that if broadcasting is to be fully responsive to the diversity of viewer interests, then pay-per-view television is the best model as viewers will pay directly for what they wish to see (Picard 2002). Cable television program packages are a step in that direction. This would be true if the program supply market fostered continuous experimentation to determine the full range of viewer interests; if all viewers had sufficient income to participate in the program market at least at some minimum level; and if broadcasting were not a public good providing large market externality benefits to society. Unfortunately, none of these is true. Nevertheless, Pay TV does help in diversifying the number of financing models for broadcasting. It is arguable that a broadcasting system with a balance of three different models of financing – public, advertising, and Pay TV – may provide the broadest range of viewer choice, but not if they are all provided by a single broadcaster.

Public interest policy research The institutional structures of national public broadcasting, advertiser-funded “free TV,” and Pay TV, all require the continuous input of public

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interest policy research if they are to achieve their fundamental policy objectives to provide a diversity of programming content for a diversity of viewers and the public good benefits associated with a society of informed viewers. Such research applies a public interest accountability standard to broadcaster performance. It appears in many forms, ranging from documenting and comparing programming practices with the goals of policy and standards of regulation, and assessing the programming needs of special interests likely to be neglected or badly served in programming decisions, to discovering ways in which public good benefits of public service programming can be increased. There is no single standard by which public interest research can expect to judge broadcaster performance, but a variety of standards exists, depending on which of the different public interests are being examined and the particular issues under investigation. Public interest research, from a variety of perspectives, is needed on a continuing basis in order to ensure that the public interest standards of broadcasting are maintained in an institutional structure. These standards are unlikely to be maintained without the continuing presence of this research, as well as the necessary advocacy (both in formal policy proceedings and in the informal policy environment of the press and public opinion) that draws from this research. Similarly, in telecommunications, ongoing public interest research is needed to provide the supporting information and analysis to justify universal access, and not just network extensions, to unserved communities in rural areas. This research needs to support access in poor areas of central cities, and populations including, among others, the disabled, those speaking minority languages, and those with other special needs, at reasonable prices and with reasonable quality standards. And similarly, for the future, the research needs to support access to the Internet, at sufficient bandwidth, to obtain needed and desired services. Public interest policy research traditionally has come primarily from the academic community and secondarily from a variety of independent research centers. Important contributions have been made, and continue to be made, in both telecommunication and broadcasting. But they have tended to be sporadic rather than continuous contributions. They have not provided a permanent

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presence to be reckoned with, which explains at least in part why public interest policy objectives have not been achieved. The research community has been small, and it has become smaller as commercial interests have become increasingly dominant in both the telecommunication and broadcast industries and in the control of university and academic research funding (Melody 1997a). To be fully effective, public interest research needs to have an established and recognized presence in the institutional structure of communication policy-making. That will require a reversal of the current trend.

Toward Global Media and Policy The growth of distinct global media enterprises and markets, and policy issues relating to them, has been made possible by changes in national policies associated with the introduction of new communication technologies and the liberalization of international trade. Global media have developed for those with global interests – transnational corporations, international organizations, certain government agencies, some professional people, and tourists from the elite classes of all societies. These now have access to instant electronic communication from almost anywhere in the world, including vast regions where the local people have little or no electronic communication. Global media are providing services for those who already have access to the most advanced communication services. They eliminate prior geographic restrictions and enhance services to better meet the needs of global traders and travelers. The question to be considered is: will these expanded communication opportunities for the powerful and privileged be a catalyst for major extensions of networks and services toward universal access or a vehicle to facilitate new forms of exploitation? The experience of history would suggest it will be both, with the balance shaped by evolving global policies and the roles that public interest research and advocacy play in their development and implementation. The need for global media and communication policies has arisen because of the rapid growth of international communication markets and

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Whose Global Village? transnational corporations in the field that are no longer dependent on the national policies of any single country (Raboy 2002). It is increasingly difficult for countries to make national policies without coordinating through international organizations. National sovereignty with respect to communication policies is being steadily eroded and the development of global policies for the rapidly growing international communication markets is at an early and uncertain stage of development.

Telecommunication reform Telecommunication networks provide the facilities infrastructure for all electronic communication services. Historically, voice telephone service has been provided primarily over fixed-wire networks by public or private monopoly providers. The monopoly has covered ownership of the facility networks and the provision of services. This began to change when the FCC adopted a series of market-liberalizing regulations between the late 1960s and early 1980s, in response to applications from firms outside the telephone industry to enter the closed telecommunication markets (Melody 1986). Policy changes permitted users to buy their own phones and attach them to the network. Specialized service providers were permitted to lease communication lines and sell their services directly to users. The network could be used to provide data services as well as voice; and computer/communication services, using the digital technical standards of computing, were permitted. This began the gradual conversion of the telecommunication network to digital standards enabling a convergence of services on a single network. Voice, data, pictures, music, and video could be provided over the same network as long as the user had the appropriate terminal equipment to send and receive the messages. The equipment and services innovations in the US prompted other countries to consider telecommunication liberalization policies. The UK privatized British Telecom in 1984 and the European Union (EU) published a Green Paper in 1987 beginning a series of initiatives to liberalize telecommunication over the next decade (European Commission 1987). Throughout the 1990s, most developed countries adopted liberalization poli-

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cies and, by the turn of the century, liberalizing telecommunication reforms were being considered by many developing countries. The liberalization trend was also stimulated by improvements in the technologies of mobile handsets and network signaling, which prompted rapid growth in mobile voice communication beginning in the late 1980s, and opportunities to license additional operators. Perhaps the most significant export from the US during this period was its model of policy implementation using an independent industry-specific regulatory authority. If national telecommunication monopolies are to be privatized and competitive operators licensed, then a regulator is needed to ensure the monopoly power is not abused, consumer interests are protected and, public interest policies are implemented (Melody 1997). But the model of the independent regulatory authority is a product of the unique division of powers specified in the US Constitution. Few other countries had employed such a governmental construct for policy implementation. This has raised issues not only of learning how to use this institutional structure constructively but also of whether other countries are capable, within their own constitutional and legal systems, of delegating such a relatively powerful and discretionary mandate to the regulator, as has been done in the US (Samarajiva 2000). Moreover, the US has had mixed results with this model of policy implementation over a century of experience (Samuels and Trebing 1972; Trebing 1984). The liberalization of national telecommunication networks and services had an immediate impact on international services. New high-capacity, fiber optic transoceanic cables and advanced communication satellites were reducing transmission costs dramatically. Services among countries with liberalized policies immediately became competitive, significantly driving prices down and putting pressure on other countries to do the same. This facilitated the expansion of trade in global markets in many industries where trade was being liberalized under World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements. The combination of these two factors has provided the great stimulus to the modern era of economic globalization. Many companies that had been linked primarily to national markets planned their primary future growth in international markets.

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In the telecommunication sector the equipment industry rapidly became global with the home markets of most of the major players (such as Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola) representing a relatively small share of their global business. In communication services, Vodafone became a global provider, and many other mobile operators have operations in many countries. But most of the former national monopoly, fixed network operators have given priority to defending their markets and monopoly power in the home countries, with only limited ventures into markets in other countries.12 Liberalization policies remove barriers to markets so that competitors can enter, normally bringing new products and services, lower prices, and a stimulus to market growth. For developed countries with firms capable of entering the market, and large consumer markets capable of benefiting from this competition, support for telecommunication liberalization has been widespread. For most developing countries, the case for liberalization has been much less clear and many have been reluctant reformers (Gillwald 2003). With highly inefficient national telecommunication operators serving only a small percentage of the population, long waiting lists for service, and minimal expansion plans, it would be hard to imagine circumstances where reform was more needed. But if liberalization is seen as losing control over the telecommunication sector to the entry of powerful foreign private operators that are expected to maximize monopoly profit and drain resources from the country, as some countries have experienced with their natural resources, then perhaps one should tread carefully. If the capital, management, technology, equipment, skills, laws, licenses, regulatory institutions and standards, and consultants relating to all of the above must be imported, then liberalization is not an internally driven national policy reform but an externally driven reform for the primary benefit of foreign interests. There is nothing reciprocal in this policy liberalization. It may succeed in dramatically improving the telecommunication infrastructure for profitable services and customers, but it is unlikely to serve the unprofitable regions or the poor, a major portion of the population. Thus, telecommunication reform in most developing countries has been driven from outside by international agencies, foreign telecommunication

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corporations and their home governments. The Washington Consensus policies of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and many development agency providers of donor funds required liberalization of national markets in return for their loans, grants, and other support (Williamson 2004). In 1998, the WTO adopted an agreement on telecommunication services by which 69 countries, representing 90 percent of global telecommunication traffic, committed themselves to specific programs of liberalization over specified future periods (WTO 1996). This included many developing countries and many others also joined in the years that followed. Certain trade advantages were denied to those countries that did not join. The World Bank and development donor organizations offered assistance in drafting laws, licensing, regulation, and related activities. Very few initiatives offered programs to train and educate local professionals to undertake these functions independently. As a result, telecommunication reform has been a slow process in most developing countries, with strong resistance from the national fixed network operator and limited advocacy from users within the country. There has been relatively little fixed network development and the new industry regulators struggle with skills shortages. Nevertheless, these countries have benefited tremendously from the explosive growth of prepaid mobile voice communication, which continues to drive communication development (Samarajiva and Zainudeen 2008). The long-standing international telecommunication agency, the ITU, has liberalized modestly with respect to its organization and activities. It remains an organization for national government coordination on technical issues of standards, frequencies, and related matters and holds periodic world conferences on sector developments and meetings on special topics. It publishes comparative national statistics on telecommunication development (including penetration rates), but has not taken up the issue of global policies and practices for achieving universal access on a global scale. That remains a problem for national governments to address individually, not collectively. After telecommunication reform and market liberalization had become widespread, the ITU began to allow industry and other selected observers to attend some of its formerly closed activities. But it continues to function like a stereotypic

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Whose Global Village? bureaucracy with minimal transparency of policy and regulatory deliberations to the outside world. It has clearly chosen to be a follower, not a leader, on issues of policy change and reform, perhaps to minimize its involvement in controversy. It has come to be perceived as an organization primarily devoted to preserving the status quo. Policy researchers and other interested groups wishing to raise or contribute to issues at the ITU must act through their national government representatives. The global policy arena for telecommunication liberalization issues has been the WTO, the agency responsible for negotiating global liberalized trade agreements among its Member countries, which represent the majority of world trade in most industries. In contrast to the ITU, the WTO has been at the forefront of negotiating telecommunication liberalization, not as an internal national reform policy but as a global trade agreement (Naftel and Spiwak 2000). The WTO’s rulings on formal trade complaints are enforceable in international law. The WTO has been an increasingly controversial organization over the years primarily because of the biases built into its organization and structure. It has two main functions. It is a center for broad trade negotiations among the largest countries and regional blocs of countries to seek agreement for reciprocal reductions in trade barriers. Until recently, the US, the EU, and Japan have dominated the negotiations, but the most recent Doha Round of negotiations has been upset by the appearance of a new bloc, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries, that is changing the balance of power. The interests of small and most developing countries are seldom considered. They must adapt as best as they can to whatever is agreed upon by the larger and more developed ones. The WTO also investigates complaints from one country about unjustified trade barriers being imposed by another country in a specific industry. Defending against complaints is an expensive, complex, time-consuming exercise requiring specialized legal and technical expertise. For small and developing countries, this is a major barrier. The WTO complaint process is used by large firms in developed countries to force unilateral reductions in specific trade restrictions in targeted industries and countries. There is no reciprocity.

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If a country (really an industry, and often a large transnational firm) wins a complaint, it may punish the offending country by imposing penalty duties on imports from that country. Large countries can benefit from doing this. Small and developing countries generally cannot. They lose if they win and lose if they lose. Thus, the WTO has been a tool for the most powerful economic interests to extend their market power over weaker interests. As a result, the WTO has become a focal point for the attention of many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including those concerned with telecommunication and media issues, which have concluded that the WTO path to globalization must be resisted and the WTO reformed (Stiglitz 2002; Stiglitz and Charlton 2005).

Global broadcasting Although international broadcasting involving the extension of a nation’s domestic broadcasts into other countries, radio broadcasts for political purposes (for instance, Radio Free Europe), and the sale of programs to other countries have existed since the earliest days of broadcasting, the modern era of global broadcasting, by enterprises specifically targeting their content to a multinational rather than a domestic audience, is generally dated to the launch of CNN in 1976. Global broadcasting is primarily a response to the rapid growth in international travel, the reduced costs of transmitting programming, and recognition of the significant economies in broadcasting the same specialty programs (sport, music, and nature) to much larger viewing audiences. It has been facilitated by improvements in commercial satellites and, more recently, by the conversion of broadcast transmission from analog to digital technology, and by changes in national government policies relating to the liberalization of broadcast markets. In international agreements liberalizing trade, the cultural industries have often been reserved for a degree of protection. Thus, the cultural industries can be subsidized by governments and certain restrictions placed on the import of cultural industry products and services. The latter have been difficult to maintain and most often ineffective. In practice, the policies adopted by the EU – Television

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Without Frontiers and the recent Audiovisual Media Services directives (European Union 1989; 2007) – represent the reality for most countries. Countries can subsidize or restrict broadcast production in the home market, but they must be open to receiving the broadcasts of other countries. The increased globalization of broadcasting has contributed to an increasing role for commercialization of the industry. Global markets in broadcasting are commercial, even when they involve trade among national public broadcasters. There is no equivalent to a national public broadcaster in the global market (i.e., global public broadcasting)13 and no serious attempt to identify public interest programming from a global perspective. Whereas commercial broadcasters have been quick off the mark to exploit opportunities in the evolving global market, for the most part, national public broadcasters have stayed within their national boundary remits and have seen their influence decline. Notable exceptions are the BBC, which has experienced growth in its global market activities amidst a declining influence in the UK, and the international broadcast channels from China. In his book, The Media Monopoly, Ben Bagdikian noted that in 1984 fifty corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the US. In the 1992 edition, he wrote “in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media,”14 including newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services, and photo agencies. In the 2000 edition, the number had fallen to six.15 The 2004 edition identifies five and notes that the mergers continue and the scope of coverage now includes the Internet. Today, the “Five Sisters,”16 unless there have been more mergers, are: (1) News Corp (Murdoch)–Fox TV–HarperCollins– Weekly Standard–New York Post–London Times– DirecTV–B-Sky-B; (2) GE–NBC–Universal–Vivendi; (3) Time-Warner–CNN–AOL; (4) Viacom–CBS– MTV; and (5) Comcast Disney–ABC–ESPN. Although the US market is the largest national market in the world, all of these corporations are expanding their global influence. If one were making a global list of dominant players in the industry, it would grow only by a few more players (e.g., Bertelsmann). Multinational broadcasters such as the BBC, China TV and Al Jazeera are significant players in television broadcasting, but

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remain relatively small and specialized compared to the US/global media conglomerates. Commercial broadcast interests, beginning in the US, have driven the development of global broadcasting where there has been an absence of both public interest broadcast policy or economic development policy other than the liberalization of trade under the WTO. As a result, global conglomerates with enormous market power have developed and are exercising their substantial leverage to reduce traditional national public interest broadcast regulations in many countries. It is an open question whether the global policy vacuum with respect to both limiting monopoly power and promoting the public interest in broadcasting can be filled, especially as there is no central global forum with sufficient influence and credibility to confront these issues, and the role of the mass media declines in a communication environment increasingly dominated by the Internet.

Growth of the Internet The Internet has grown directly from policy changes separating content from carriage and liberalizing access to the telecommunication network by independent service providers. Prior to 1995, the Internet had been restricted to US military users, government agencies, and certain university programs funded by the National Science Foundation, and subject to an “acceptable use policy.” From 1996, the US government privatized the central coordinating functions for Internet names and addresses (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)) and the address allocation and assignment function (American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)) (Mueller et al. 2007). From its beginning as a specialized research network, the Internet has grown rapidly to become an ever more pervasive network reflecting the convergence of information and communication technologies and services. The traditional distinctions between telecommunication and broadcasting are disappearing rapidly, calling into question the traditional policy justifications applied to both. The conversion of all forms of media and information content, including broadcasting to digital standards, has made possible the convergence of

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Whose Global Village? these formerly discrete services on a single telecommunication network. More recently, extended applications of the Internet Protocol (IP) have permitted the convergence of services on the Internet to include not only data, pictures, music and video but public voice services as well. This permits all types of communication services to be provided in an integrated manner over the Internet by many different service providers as long as there is sufficient capacity in the underlying telecommunication network. As IP is integrated into mobile networks and their broadband capacity is expanded in the future, the distinctions between fixed and mobile gradually will be narrowed. The new structure for network and services provision is now breaking down into four distinct unbundled layers of activities (Melody and Mahan 2007): 1

2

3

4

Network Infrastructure Facilities – the cables, wires, microwave towers, mobile cells, satellites, and others, that provide the raw capacity that enables telecommunication connections (for instance, telecommunication operators); Network Management – the standards and protocols that permit the routing of communication signals and determine the technical quality of network services (e.g., the public voice telephone network and the Internet); Communication Services – access to and use of operational services, such as telephone or Internet services (e.g., Google, MSN, Internet service providers). Information Content Services – this includes the content of web sites of all kinds.

It is now possible to provide telephone, television, and Internet access to consumers as a single package of services, sometimes called triple play services. Books are also being integrated into the Internet. Amazon has developed a digital book reader that significantly reduces the price and increases the convenience of digitized books. A landmark copyright settlement between Google and US publishing interests has enabled the integration of Internet search technology and bookselling (US District Court 2009). Google has digitized millions of library books and is capable of selling copies of these digitized books. In addition, television and motion picture content is

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migrating to the Internet. Local broadcasters in the US and public broadcasters in several European countries (e.g., the BBC) are making a large amount of their content available online. Subscription services such as Netflix are now delivering movies online. In addition to the gravitation of familiar services and products to the Internet, such as mail, games, music, and movie distribution, the Internet has also fostered user-generated content and peer production (Benkler 2006; Wunsch-Vincent and Vickery 2007). User-generated content is produced by users of web sites rather than by media producers such as broadcasters and production companies. Blogs, social networking sites, wikis, and various forms of peer-to-peer collaborative networks are examples. A growing share of the Internet-based market for content and applications is offered for free, and revenue is earned from advertising. Google, Yahoo, and similar portals offer users a growing array of online tools and services, ranging from maps and directions to simple email, all for “free.” Usergenerated video content sites such as YouTube now host hundreds of millions of short videos posted for free. These user-generated content sites, like social networking sites such as Facebook, make their money from exposing these users to advertisements. Thus, the advertiser-based model of US over-the-air private broadcasting is returning as a key feature of Internet media. A survey in March 2010 recorded that Facebook accounted for more than seven percent of all US Internet visits, slightly more than Google.17 From 2003 to 2005, a United Nations (UN) World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) debated the issue of global governance of the Internet (Kleinwächter 2004; Klein 2005). The traditional approach where national governments attempt to solve international coordination and policy problems through special international government organizations and multilateral agreements was resisted as inappropriate for a form of communication that had been global from its inception. There was considerable support for a transnational, contractual approach associated more with the private sector and civil society. The WSIS did not attempt to bring ICANN into an intergovernmental regulatory regime. Rather it created a new international institution, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), to continue discussions of

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Internet governance on a non-binding basis, where the private sector, civil society, and national governments are given legitimate status (Mueller et al. 2007). This will be a test case to see whether this more inclusive approach can be made operational as a forum for the development and implementation of global Internet policies. The problem of US unilateral control of ICANN remains a highly contentious issue. Security and privacy are major areas of policy concern. Both authoritarian and democratic governments are increasingly attempting to block access to Internet content that is considered illegal or objectionable (e.g., child pornography). At both national and international levels there is growing recognition of a “digital divide,” both within and among countries, in access to a modern broadband telecommunication infrastructure that will be necessary to realize the benefits of the Internet (Unwin 2009). The WSIS showed little inclination to take this up as an issue for global policy resolution. The conditions for access to the Internet infrastructure will be determined by the national governance policies that are established and the effectiveness of their implementation. Within this conventional framework for telecommunication network development, it is clear that if the matter is left to the market alone, access to the future information economy could be even more narrow and exclusive than it has been to the industrial economy. Although the need for governance policies to extend access beyond that which the market is likely to provide is widely recognized, the extent of government policy commitments to maintain and extend access opportunities in the new media environment has yet to be determined.

Conclusion In contrast to the development of national media industries, the global electronic media markets have grown in a communication policy vacuum. The established international agencies have stuck to their remits of coordinating national interests on technical matters. To the extent there has been policy direction it has come indirectly from the WTO with its trade-liberalizing agenda driven by large transnational corporations based in the US, the EU and Japan.

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Recognizing the widespread failure of national monopoly policies in telecommunication before the reforms, and the general positive results from market liberalization after them, there is a very strong case for increased participation in sector development. But liberalized markets are only efficient and in the best interests of consumers if they are competitive. In national communication markets, there are telecommunication regulatory authorities; and in many countries, competition authorities have powers to address monopoly issues. But there is no competition authority at the WTO or elsewhere to redress monopoly power abuses in global markets, and the global concentration of monopoly power in the media industries is steadily increasing, undermining the effectiveness of national policies. Moreover, even in competitive communication markets, the public good and externality implications require public interest policies supporting expanded access to global communication possibilities. It is not clear how effective global communication policies can be established and implemented. The track record of the formal international government agencies like the ITU does not generate enthusiasm for the establishment of another such institution, or even a global regulator. Most formal policy and regulation will continue at the national and, in some cases, at regional levels. The difficulty with national government policies in communication, as in other areas, has not been with the policies themselves, which are fairly uniform across the world, but rather with failures of implementation by supposedly independent and objective industry regulators. The major weaknesses in regulation relate to the lack of an unambiguous, strong legislative remit, insufficient public transparency, an uncritical monitoring of industry performance, and only weak accountability of the regulators for their performance in implementing policy objectives. This has created an environment receptive to inaction as regulators have tended to redefine their role from public interest enforcers to arbitrators and judges for resolving industry disagreements and, in some cases, they have been vulnerable to regulatory capture and/or political corruption. For the future, the remits of the regulators need to be strengthened substantially to address the implications of monopoly power in global markets on national sector performance, and to encourage

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Whose Global Village? multinational cooperation among national regulatory authorities in implementing common public interest policies. Regulators must become proactive implementers of public interest policies. This has begun to happen occasionally by competition authorities in different countries, for example, with respect to Microsoft tying its new products to Windows. In the media sector, a good place to start would be Murdoch’s News Corporation, which leverages its global dominance to weaken national public interest policies in many countries and has been doing so for some time. The growth of global communication has been in synergetic association with global economic activity, including trade and finance. Paralleling this has been a rapid growth in the activation of civil society through widely diversified NGOs, including a significant number in the media field. One of their main activities is attempting to provide more effective monitoring of global, as well as national, industry performance on a range of public good and externality issues that are central to public interest policy and regulation. To date, this activity has been noted primarily for resisting what are seen as undesirable aspects of the present path to globalization. NGO influence has been felt primarily via the informal paths to public opinion and political influence provided by the media and other such avenues. These civil society resources need to be used more constructively in the formal policy-making and regulatory processes if the current march to globalization is to be altered to reflect public interest considerations, rather than just slowed down by periodic resistance. This means that policy and regulatory processes need to be made more transparent and accessible to participation by public interest groups. Regulatory authorities need to gather and publish more information about media industry developments and performance so that all participants in policy processes are better informed. Civil society groups need ongoing contributions from in-depth public interest research on the policy issues and options being considered and contested. The academic community needs to rediscover its role as the primary provider of public interest research and training in society. Collectively, these groups can institutionalize informed public interest advocacy in the arenas for policy-making and regulation in the media industries, the wider economy, and society. The new

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(IGF) may be a test case on whether public interest considerations can shape the development path of a new medium of communication, or whether monopoly power, self-interested politics, and bureaucratic inertia will continue to dominate. Today, most readers of this chapter live in the electronic global village. It is a gated community. Although steadily growing, on the basis of current trends it is doubtful that half the global population will qualify for membership within the next generation. The qualification standards for participation in the Internet community are far more rigorous than in the voice telephone community. The “digital divide” is a much wider chasm than “the missing link.” The extent to which it will be overcome will depend heavily on how effectively public interest considerations influence media policies, regulations, and sector development.

Notes 1 The title of this chapter is inspired by the memory of Dallas Smythe, who enjoyed punctuating policy debates by asking such questions. 2 See also McLuhan (1964). 3 This section draws upon Melody (2004). 4 On the characteristics and implications of administrative and critical research, see Melody and Mansell (1983). 5 The BBC Trust published a BBC Strategy Review report in March 2010 inviting public comment on its future direction and priorities for a 12-week period; see BBC Trust (2010). 6 The FCC was established in 1934 to regulate both “interstate and foreign” telecommunication and national broadcasting. 7 Australia, Canada, the US, and the Nordic countries have been the leaders in telecommunication network development and achieved near-universal telephone service some time ago. The comment relates to the rest. For the other European countries, network development toward universal access has been driven primarily by EU policies and directives. 8 See references in Melody (1989). 9 There was a general failure both in policy and in the literature to recognize telecommunication services as an essential input to the universality, efficiency, and quality of the perceived higher-order services. 10 Farmers installed the last mile (or several miles) of connection to the farm, typically by running it along their fences (Melody 1989).

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11

Most notably, Demand Assignment Multiple Access (DAMA) allowed thin route locations to be served efficiently. 12 TeleNor (in Norway) is a notable exception, operating in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Asia. 13 National public broadcasters have collaborated on a number of cooperative multinational programming activities, but these have been barely noticeable in the sea of European and global commercial programs. 14 See Media Reform Center, http://www.corporations.org/media (accessed 25/03/2010). 15 See Media Reform Center, http://www.corpora tions.org/media (accessed 25/03/2010). 16 Safire (2004) and www.corporatepolicy.org (accessed 25/03/2010). 17 See http://www.hitwise.com/us (accessed 30/03/2010).

References Bagdikian, B. (2004) The Media Monopoly. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Benkler, Y. (2006) The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. BBC Trust (2010) BBC Strategy Review. London: BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_work/strategy_ review (accessed 29/03/2010). Collins, R. (1990) Culture, Communication & National Identity: The Case of Canadian Television. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Collins, R., Finn, A., McFayden, S., and Hoskins, C. (2001) “Public service broadcasting beyond 2000: Is there a future for public service broadcasting?” Canadian Journal of Communication, 26(1): 3–15. European Commission (1987) “Towards a dynamic European economy: Green Paper on the development of the common market for telecommunications services and equipment,” ( June) COM (87) 290. Brussels: European Commission. European Union (1989) Council Directive of 3 October 1989 on the Coordination of Certain Provisions Laid Down by Law, Regulation or Administrative Action in Member States Concerning the Pursuit of Television Broadcasting Activities. Brussels: European Union. European Union (2007) Directive 2007/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2007 Amending Council Directive 89/552/ EEC on the Coordination of Certain Provisions Laid Down by Law, Regulation or Administrative Action in Member States Concerning the Pursuit of Television Broadcasting Activities (Audio Visual Media Services Directive). Brussels: European Union. Feijoo, C., and Milne, C. (2008) “Rethinking universal service policy for the digital era: An introduction to

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the special issue on universal service,” Info, 10(5/6): 4–11. Garnham, N. (1994) “The broadcasting market,” The Political Quarterly, 65(1): 11–19. Gillwald, A. (2003) “Transforming telecom reform for development,” International Development Research Centre Meeting on ICT for Poverty Alleviation, Harvard University. Ottawa: IDRC, http://link.wits.ac.za/ papers/ag20030920.pdf (accessed 31/03/2010). Hills, J., and Michalis, M. (2000) “Restructuring regulation: Technological convergence and European telecommunications and broadcasting markets,” Review of International Political Economy, 7(3): 434–464. Hudson, H. E. (2004) “Universal access: What have we learned from the e-rate?” Telecommunication Policy, 28(3–4): 309–321. Hudson, H. E. (2006) From Rural Village to Global Village: Telecommunications for Development in the Information Age. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers. Independent Commission for World Wide Telecommunications Development (ICWWTD) (1984) The Missing Link: Report of the Independent Commission for World Wide Telecommunications Development (Maitland Report). Geneva: International Telecommunication Union, http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/ sfo/missinglink/The_Missing_Ling_A4-E.pdf (accessed 25/03/2010). Klein, H. (2005) “Understanding WSIS: An institutional analysis of the UN World Summit on the Information Society,” Journal of Information Technology and International Development, Special Issue on WSIS, 1(3–4): 3–13. Kleinwächter, W. (2004) “WSIS and Internet governance: Towards a multi-stakeholder approach.” Paper presented at the ITU Workshop on Internet Governance, Geneva, February 26–27, http://www. itu.int/osg/spu/forum/intgov04/contributions. html (accessed 25/03/2010). Laffont, J.-J., and Tirole, J. (1991) “The politics of government decision-making: A theory of regulatory capture,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106(4): 1089–1127. Levy, B., and Spiller, P. T. (eds) (1997) Regulations, Institutions, and Commitment: Comparative Studies of Telecommunications (Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mahan, A., and Melody, W. H. (2009) “Network development: Wireless applications for the next billion new users,” Info (special issue), 11(2): np. Mansell, R., and Steinmueller, W. E. (2000) Mobilizing the Information Society: Strategies for Growth and Opportunity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McChesney, R. (2004) The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.

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Whose Global Village? McLuhan, M. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill. Melody, W. H. (1973) Children’s TV: The Economics of Exploitation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Melody, W. H. (1986) “Telecommunication: Policy directions for the technology and information services,” in P. I. Zorkoczy (ed.) Oxford Surveys in Information Technology, vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 114–130. Melody, W. H. (1987) “The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s contribution to Canadian culture,” The Royal Society of Arts Journal, 145(5368): 286–297. Melody, W. H. (1989) “Efficiency and social policy in telecommunication: Lessons from the US experience,” Journal of Economic Issues, 23(3): 657–688. Melody W. H. (ed.) (1997) Telecom Reform: Principles, Policies and Regulatory Practices. Lyngby: Technical University of Denmark. Melody, W. H. (1997a) “Universities and public policy,” in A. Smith and F. Webster (eds) The Postmodern University? Contested Visions of Higher Education in Society. London: Society for Research into Higher Education, pp. 72–84. Melody, W. H. (2004) “On muddling through contested terrain,” in P. Verhoest (ed.) Contradictions, Confusion and Hubris: A Critical Review of European Information Society Policy. Montpellier: ENCIP, pp. 52–60. Melody, W. H. (2011) “Wi-Fi in developing countries: Catalyst for network extension and telecom reform,” in W. Lemstra, J. Groenewegen, and V. Hayes (eds) The Innovation Journey of Wi-Fi: The Road Toward Global Success. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 197–299. Melody, W. H., and Mahan, A. (eds) (2007) Diversifying Participation for Network Development: Report for the Third Cycle of the World Dialog on Regulation. Montevideo: LIRNE.NET. Melody, W. H., and Mansell, R. (1983) “The debate over critical vs. administrative research: Circularity or challenge,” Journal of Communication, 33(3): 103–116. Mueller, M., Mathiason, J., and Klein, H. (2007) “The Internet and global governance: Principles and norms for a new regime,” Global Governance, 13(2): 237–254. Naftel, M., and Spiwak, L. J. (2000) The Telecoms Trade War. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Negrine, R. M. (ed.) (1988) Satellite Broadcasting: The Politics and Implications of New Media. London: Routledge. Noll, R. G. (1987) “Communications,” in J. Eatwell, M. Milgate, and P. Newman (eds) The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, 1: 507–512. Noll, R. G. (2003) “Telecommunications reform in developing countries,” in A. O. Krueger (ed) Economic

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Policy Reform: The Second Stage. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 183–242. Ó Siochrú, S., and Girard, B. (2005) “Community-based networks and innovative technologies: New models to serve and empower the poor,” A Report for the United Nations Development Programme. New York: UNDP, http://propoor-ict.net/ content/pdfs/Community_Nets.pdf (accessed 02/04/2010). Parker, E. (2000) “Closing the digital divide in rural America,” Telecommunications Policy, 24(4): 281–290. Pelton, J. N. (1984) “INTELSAT, communications development and world communications year,” Telematics & Informatics, 1(1): 75–85. Petrazzini, B. (1996) Global Telecom Talks. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics. Picard, R. G. (2002) The Economics and Financing of Media Companies. New York: Fordham University Press. Price, M. E. (1999) “Satellite broadcasting as trade routes in the sky,” Public Culture, 11(2): 387–403. Raboy, M. (ed.) (2002) Global Media Policy in the New Millennium. Luton: Luton University Press. Richardson, D., Ramirez, R., and Haq, M. (2000) “Grameen telecom’s village phone programme in rural Bangladesh: A multi-media case study,” Final Report for the TeleCommons Development Group (Guelph). Ottawa: Canadian International Development Agency, http://www.t-forum.org/ mausklick/background/Grameenfinalreport.pdf (accessed 25/03/2010). Safire, W. (2004) “The f ive sisters” (February 12), International Herald Tribune. Samarajiva, R. (2000) “Establishing the legitimacy of new regulatory agencies,” Telecommunications Policy, 24(3): 183–187. Samarajiva, R., and Zainudeen, A. (eds) (2008) ICT Infrastructure in Emerging Asia: Policy and Regulatory Roadblocks. London and Ottawa: Sage Publications and IDRC. Samuels, W. J., and Trebing, H. M. (eds) (1972) “A critique of administrative regulation of public utilities,” Michigan State University Public Utilities Papers. East Lansing, MI: MSU Public Utilities Papers. Schlesinger, P. (1997) “From cultural defence to political culture: Media, politics and collective identity in the European Union,” Media, Culture and Society, 19(3): 369–391. Smythe, D. W. (1981) Dependency Road: Communications, Consciousness, Dependency and Canada. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Smythe, D. W. (1981a) “On the audience commodity and its work,” in Dependency Road: Communications, Consciousness, Dependency and Canada. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, pp. 22–51. Stiglitz, J. E. (2002) Globalization and its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton.

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Stiglitz, J. E., and Charlton, A. (2005) Fair Trade for All. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Streeter, T. (1996) Selling the Air: Critique of the Policy of Commercial Broadcasting in the United States. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Trebing, H. M. (1984) “Public utility regulation: A case study in the debate over effectiveness of economic regulation,” Journal of Economic Issues, 18(1): 223–241. Unwin, T. (ed.) (2009) ICT4D: Information and Communication Technology for Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. US District Court (2009) The Authors Guild Inc., Association of American Publishers, Inc. et al. Plaintiffs v. Google Inc. Defendant, Amended Settlement Agreement, Case No. 05 CV8136 DC, November 9. New York: US District Court Southern District of New York. Wellenius, B. (2002) “Closing the gap in access to rural communication: Chile 1995–2002,” World Bank

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Discussion Paper No. 430. Washington, DC: World Bank. Williamson, J. (2004) “A short history of the Washington Consensus.” Paper presented at From the Washington Consensus Towards a New Global Governance, Barcelona, September 24–25, http://www.iie.com/ publications/papers/williamson0904-2.pdf (accessed 30/03/2010). World Trade Organization (WTO) (1996) “Ministerial Declaration on trade in information technology products,” WT/MIN(96)/16 (December 13), Singapore. Geneva: WTO, http://www.wto.org/ english/docs_e/legal_e/itadec_e.pdf (accessed 25/03/2010). Wunsch-Vincent, S., and Vickery, G. (2007) “Participative web: User-created content,” Working Party on the Information Economy. Paris: OECD, http://www. oecd.org/dataoecd/57/14/38393115.pdf (accessed 25/03/2010).

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5

Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy Kaarle Nordenstreng

Introduction1 If I were to be granted one point in foreign policy and no other, I would make it the free flow of information.

This statement by John Foster Dulles, one of the chief American architects of the Cold War (Schiller 1976: 30), can be read as a reminder of the fact that global media policy did not ascend to the global level for the first time at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which took place in the new millennium. Rather, global media policy was part and parcel of high politics during the Cold War. The statement also highlights the strategic importance of the idea of freedom in global media policy. It invites us to take a critical look at how freedom has been employed as an ideological device in concepts such as “free media” and the “free marketplace of ideas.” The title of this chapter refers to the “free flow doctrine,” suggesting that we are not dealing with an objective or neutral phenomenon but instead with a construct made up of political and ideological elements derived mainly from United States (US) geopolitical interests. In this chapter, the classics of liberal thought are first reviewed taking us back to John Milton’s Areopagitica of 1644 and John Stuart Mill’s On

Liberty of 1859. Neither of these texts proves to be the source of the “free flow doctrine” in which there must be a free marketplace of ideas that, itself, ensures truth will prevail. This doctrine only took shape in twentieth-century America, initially, in legal and political debates between the two world wars in the 1920s and 1930s and then later during the Cold War in the 1950s. Hence, it is a myth to take the concept of a “free marketplace of ideas” as part and parcel of the original ethos of liberalism.2 Second, the analysis in this chapter exposes the biases of the phrase “free flow of information” mainly in the light of its use by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Third, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948 and the Millennium Declaration of 2000, as well as the WSIS Declarations of 2003 and 2005, are highlighted and discussed with respect to their implications for global media policy. The argument demonstrates that freedom of information is something assigned to people – not to institutions, such as the media. The owner of the right to freedom is clearly the individual; the media merely borrow this right for their use, which is bound by duties and responsibilities. Accordingly, freedom under international law is quite versatile and balanced – far from the absolutist notion conventionally advocated, especially by commercial media


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proprietors who typically take it to mean market freedom and the absence of state control. The standard, instead of a notion of negative freedom (i.e., freedom from outside powers), is a positive freedom whereby freedom is not an end product to be protected as such, but a means to ensure other more general objectives such as peace and democracy. Finally, the notion of freedom of information is considered in the light of how it is being understood in the contemporary international community as manifested in intergovernmental organizations and also in the nongovernmental spheres of professionals and academics. It turns out that the notion of freedom of information is, in practice, quite a balanced notion wherein freedom is inseparable from the highest ethical and professional standards (i.e., responsibility), as well as the internationally recognized legal standards (e.g., state sovereignty). The “free flow doctrine” has become a ghost of history.

Deconstructing the “Free Marketplace of Ideas”

This text, more than anything else, has fueled the idea that the notion of a “free marketplace of ideas,” with its mechanism of self-righting truth, belongs to the core of liberalism, based on Milton and Mill. The Four Theories text became a baseline for thinking about media systems in the world. It filled a gap in textbooks on journalism and mass communication. However, its popularity did not correspond to its scholarly weight and its ideological basis was quite shaky, as shown by the critical assessment which came from its home base, the College of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Nerone 1995). In point of fact, the doctrine of a “free marketplace of ideas” with a self-righting truth cannot be found in the works of Milton and Mill. Neither of these classical contributors to liberalism introduced the concept of a marketplace of ideas, although both did advocate freedom of thought and speech without prior censorship. The following sentences from Milton’s pamphlet Areopagitica usually are quoted as evidence that he is the father of the concept of self-correcting truth:

Fred Siebert summarizes his essay on the libertarian theory of the press in Four Theories of the Press, as follows:

And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? (Milton 1644: np; see also Altschull 1990: 40)

The libertarian theory of the function of the mass media in a democratic society has had a long and arduous history. This history has paralleled the development of democratic principles in government and free enterprise in economics. The theory itself can trace a respected lineage among the philosophers of ancient times, but it received its greatest impetus from the developments in western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From Milton to Holmes it has stressed the superiority of the principle of individual freedom and judgement and the axiom that truth when allowed free rein will emerge victorious from any encounter. Its slogans have been the “self-righting process” and the “free market place of ideas.” It has been an integral part of the great march of democracy which has resulted in the stupendous advancement of the well-being of humanity. It has been the guiding principle of western civilization for more than two hundred years. (Siebert et al. 1956: 70)

Milton actually does not claim here that truth automatically will prevail; his point is to oppose the licensing and censorship of printing. He insisted that all kinds of views should be allowed to be brought to the public and permitted to clash without hindrance. His philosophical view would nowadays be called a maxim of pluralism, whereby we cannot find truth without also encountering falsehood. Milton was passionately opposed to forbidding anything to be published, comparing censorship to murder: “he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God” (Milton 1644: np: see also Peters 2005: 72). In his work Paradise Lost (1667), Milton elaborated on the struggle between truth and falsehood and made a fervent appeal to challenge official truths, including God’s commandments, with an invitation to commit even sins as a means to acquire knowledge and to achieve human growth and development. Accordingly, truth will not prevail automatically but must be cultivated in

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Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy an active and radical process. This view is simply incompatible with the concept of self-righting truth. In short, Milton cannot be taken as an early advocate of market liberalism: “Call him radical, call him puritan, call him republican, but do not call him (neo)liberal” (Peters 2005: 72). The myth about Milton as a source of the doctrine of a “free marketplace of ideas” and selfrighting truth began to emerge in the trial of Thomas Paine, held in absentia in the late eighteenth century. Paine, author of The Rights of Man (1791/1984) and activist in both the American and French Revolutions, was accused in Britain of inciting revolution in his native country. The elite was furious about his revolutionary ideas. Paine’s defense lawyer, Thomas Erskine, used Milton’s Areopagitica to argue that no good government need be afraid of open discussion. In his argumentation, Erskine twisted Milton’s point toward the concept of selfrighting truth. This argument availed nothing in the proceedings against Paine in 1792, but it gave rise to an erroneous version of Milton’s original thinking on the subject (Keane 1991: 2–5, 148). John Stuart Mill, who had minutely scrutinized what Milton had written two centuries earlier, shared the position about the free encounter of ideas and the inadmissibility of censorship. His On Liberty (1869) is a fine elaboration of the same theme but it does not include anything about markets, let alone the “free marketplace of ideas.” The rest of Mill’s works are likewise void in this respect. For a liberal, he was far from dogmatic about the role of the state, considering that state intervention may well be necessary to ensure social justice and other higher values. In addition, the freedom of opinion and its expression were not, for Mill, ends in themselves. He viewed them as “the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends),” (Mill 1869: np) as he expressed the ultimate objective for pursuing this freedom. As to the concept of self-righting truth, Mill held a contrary view whereby it was quite possible that truth failed to prevail in a free encounter and falsehood became a dominant public opinion. In On Liberty, he dismissed the concept of self-righting truth as a “pleasant falsehood.” Later, Mill had a bitter personal experience of how falsehood may prevail: with his wife Harriet Taylor-Mill he fought for women’s emancipation but failed to gain broad support and even became an object of ridicule, finally losing his seat in Parliament.

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Consequently, it is a myth that the standard justification for press freedom, derived from the doctrine of a “free marketplace of ideas,” comes from the classics of liberalism. Milton and Mill do not provide direct support for contemporary neoliberalism and cannot be taken as the basis for a libertarian theory of the press. The legacy of the original liberalism is, instead, social democracy and corresponds to a social responsibility theory of the press proposed by the Hutchins Commission on Freedom of the Press in the US in 1947. The concept of freedom in the original liberal philosophy was positive rather than negative: freedom for something rather than freedom from something. Where, then, are the roots of the doctrine of a “free marketplace of ideas,” apart from the trial of Thomas Paine in the 1790s? One frequently quoted source in the literature is the proceedings in 1919 against Russian emigrants in New York, who were accused of distributing anti-American leaflets supporting the Socialist Revolution of 1917. In this process, Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes referred to “free trade in ideas – that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market” (quoted in Peters 2004: 71). However, as John Durham Peters points out, this is not literally speaking the doctrine and slogan of a “free marketplace of ideas.” Peters (2004) traces the first uses of the phrase to the pages of The New York Times (NYT) in the routine political discourse of the 1930s. In the 1940s, the only time the phrase appears on the pages of the NYT was in the American Communist Party platform for the 1948 election: “We Communists seek only the opportunity to compete fairly in a free marketplace of ideas” (quoted in Peters 2004: 73). Obviously, American leftists employed the slogan as a defense against anti-Communism, and later in the 1950s also other defenders of civil liberties used it as an argument against McCarthyism. However, Peters (2004: 72–79) shows that the context of the Cold War soon turned the political sponsorship of the slogan around. As early as 1953, the NYT used it as an argument against the East European countries which had censorship to prevent the emergence of a “free marketplace of ideas.” It was in this intellectual and political climate that the doctrine became ingrained in the libertarian theory of the “Four Theories of the Press.” Accordingly, it is correct to say, as suggested by

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Nerone (1995), that this theoretical construct was built on ideological Cold War grounds and that it has little in common with the legacy of original liberalism. What this means for global media and communication policy is that free market advocates of the so-called neoliberal school are deprived of their customary argument suggesting that the idea of a free market is a logical extension of the Western tradition of liberal and democratic thought. Moreover, the European Union (EU) cannot elevate the free market idea as an honest argument in support of its policies in media and communication, because freedom in this sphere is much more social in nature than when it is considered in a purely economic sphere.

Contextualizing the “Free Flow of Information” UNESCO presents itself as a defender of freedom – not the least, press freedom. Its web site3 introduces the relevant sector dealing with matters of communication, under “About the Sector,” as follows: “The Communication and Information Sector (CI) was established in its present form in 1990. Its programmes are rooted in UNESCO’s Constitution, which requires the Organization to promote ‘free flow of ideas by word and image’.” Let us now turn to the UNESCO Constitution (1945) to see exactly what it says about the promotion of the “free flow of information by word and image”: Article 1. The purpose of the Organization is to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations. Article 2. To realize this purpose the Organization will: (a) Collaborate in the work of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through all means of mass communication and to that end recommend such international agreements as may be necessary to promote the

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free flow of ideas by word and image. (UNESCO 1945: Articles 1 and 2)

Here, the free flow of ideas is supposed to serve the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples (Article 2(a) ) which, for its part, is subject to the overriding purpose of contributing to peace and security (Article 1). Thus, UNESCO’s constitutional mission is not to promote the free flow as such – that is, as a simple and isolated aspect – but to do so to the end of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples for the higher cause of peace and security. Moreover, Article 2(a) specifies that UNESCO’s promotion of the free flow should take place by means of collaboration and through international agreements. It is also noteworthy that Article 1 determines UNESCO’s overall mandate to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for human rights and fundamental freedoms as affirmed by the United Nations (UN) Charter. The conceptual structure of the constitutional stipulation is quite clear, with the mandate to promote free flow placed on the third level below (1) peace and security and (2) mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples. The reference to human rights and fundamental freedoms in Article 1 does not provide an unconditional license for free flow, but rather ties UNESCO’s mandate to the general principles of international law, as laid down in the UN Charter. In fact, here we have a textbook example of the notion of positive freedom – free flow serving other objectives (freedom for), instead of being an end in itself as the notion of negative freedom is understood (freedom from). Reading UNESCO’s contemporary presentation of itself in the CI sector (as above) leads one to wonder whether the Constitution, since 1990 (i.e., the period that marks the end of the Cold War), has been forgotten. For example, under the theme Freedom of Expression in the CI sector, the abovequoted web site reads: “UNESCO promotes freedom of expression and freedom of the press as a basic human right. . .” Here, the “press” appears as the subject of freedom – without it being mentioned anywhere in the Constitution or in other sources of international law – and freedom of information has been elevated as a top priority with a self-serving objective. To be fair, one should note that the CI sector is displayed in the web site with this subtitle: “Empowering

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Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy people through the free flow of ideas and by access to information and knowledge.” Here, free flow is at least tied to people and their emancipation, but the main constitutional points of peace and security, as well as mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, are conspicuously absent from practically all the presentations and programs accessible on the web site. Of course, the blame goes not only to the Secretariat headed by the Director-General but ultimately to the Member States with whose blessing the organization operates. It is not difficult to find an explanation for UNESCO’s departure from its constitutional line. The organization wanted to realign itself and move away from a reputation associated with socialist and authoritarian regimes. This reputation had developed in the West during the antiimperialist drive of the developing countries in the 1970s, along with the rise of such concepts as the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). By adopting freedom as a leading theme, especially in the media field, UNESCO drew a line at the world before 1990 – with its division into three worlds, including the socialist bloc of the East and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of the South. Entering a new millennium, UNESCO presented itself as being rid of the burdens of the past. Psychologically, this may be understandable as treatment of a trauma, but it is fatally wrong in terms of UNESCO’s constitutional status and its role in international politics. By wrapping its CI sector in a freedom banner, this organization has dissociated itself from its basic mandate and supports the myth that its mission is to promote an unconditional free flow. To use an old metaphor: the baby has been thrown out with the bath water. In order to understand what has happened at UNESCO, one needs to recall the history of the anti-imperialist drive of the 1970s (Vincent et al. 1999: 235–268).4 This was part and parcel of a more fundamental development in the global arena with landmark events such as the introduction of the UN Resolution on a New International Economic Order, and the equating of Zionism and racism. During this radical period in international politics, UNESCO made history by producing the Mass Media Declaration (1978), the MacBride Report (ICSCP 1980/2004) and setting up the International Programme for the Development of

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Communication (IPDC).5 It is remarkable that all of this was done by diplomatic consensus, although the “global media debate” in the 1970s (Gerbner et al. 1993) went through three war-like stages: (1) decolonization offensive; (2) Western counterattack; and (3) truce (see Mansell and Nordenstreng 2006: 21–22). What followed after these stages is crucial to understand UNESCO’s traumatic relationship to freedom of information: The balance of global forces changed dramatically soon after the MacBride Report was published and the rebalancing process led to a shift in the fortunes of the NWICO concept and its lobbyists. Following Ronald Reagan’s election to president in 1980 the policy of the United States was redirected from multilateralism toward unilateralism and the employment of power politics, with a relative weakening of the then USSR and the nonaligned movement. The truce of the late 1970s was followed by a new Western offensive in the 1980s. At this stage the elements of compromise that earlier had been regarded as valuable and honorable, very suddenly went out of fashion and became liabilities. M’Bow departed, mainly for political reasons, although his management style and profile were used to veil the real reasons for his departure, and NWICO became a taboo topic at UNESCO. In a broader context of Western politics, UNESCO came to be regarded as a burden. The Reagan administration decided that the USA should leave the organization, and the United Kingdom under Margaret Thatcher followed suit soon after. It is important to understand that the reasons for the American and British departures from UNESCO were not primarily the NWICO debate, MacBride Report, or M’Bow’s leadership. The underlying cause in both cases was a strategic shift away from multilateralism – a warning to the international community that leading Western powers refused to be outvoted by the majority of the world’s nations. As expressed in a Newsweek interview with a former assistant secretary of state in the Carter administration, “UNESCO was the Grenada of the United Nations” – a relatively small target used to demonstrate what can be done on a larger scale if the interests of the big powers are not respected. (Mansell and Nordenstreng 2006: 22)

As pointed out by Nordenstreng (2001: 159), at the height of the NWICO battles in the 1980s, a

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coalition dominated by US press proprietors and led by the World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC) engineered the Declaration of Talloires,6 which advocated the US First Amendment notion of press freedom as a basic human right. This Declaration by the self-proclaimed “independent news media” was endorsed by a letter from President Ronald Reagan, the highest representative of the US state. The Talloires group went around proudly quoting the letter, without seeing the paradox: the state actively advocating a denial of state involvement in the media! The ideological struggles around NWICO exposed the central role that the concept of the state occupies in media policies, both national and international. Given the libertarian bias of even many leftist media intellectuals, it was relatively easy to construct the big lie that the NWICO promoted state control such as licensing of journalists. A demonized notion of the state travelled so well that many professional and academic experts failed to see that while opposing state control and supporting media freedom they were, in fact, subscribing to a corporate initiative, conspicuously directed against democratic interests. True, the situation was quite complicated in the international arena, with the Soviet-led socialist countries, as well as several less democratic “Third World” countries, supporting the NWICO. Later, when East European countries became fellow travellers with Western powers, the balance also shifted at UNESCO, which switched from advocating to opposing the NWICO. This reversal reveals another paradox: The US had left UNESCO, citing, among other reasons, its displeasure with the NWICO as an instrument of state control of the media, while in the postNWICO period, the US, no longer a Member State, gained significant influence over UNESCO’s liberal media policies, mainly through the surrogate body WPFC. In a still broader historical context, UNESCO’s post-1990 approach to the free flow of information meant a return to what Americans had been fostering and pushing onto its agenda since its foundation in 1945, and which figured largely in its communication policies in the 1950s and 1960s – regardless of what is stated in its Constitution. As Herbert Schiller (1976) has shown, the American doctrine of free flow of information has an ironic prehistory between the two world wars when Associated Press

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(AP) used it as an argument to encroach on the territories of the British and French news agencies, Reuters and Havas. Referring to American expansionism, the British Economist magazine noted that Kent Cooper, the executive manager of AP, “like most big business executives, experiences a peculiar moral glow in finding that his idea of freedom coincides with his commercial advantage” (Schiller 1976: 29). In the early 1940s, the American Society of Newspaper Editors proposed to the US Congress that it support “world freedom of information and unrestricted communications of news throughout the world” (Schiller 1976: 31). This lobbying was successful, as demonstrated by the testimony of John Foster Dulles. Despite initial hesitancy among the European allies, the doctrine of free flow of information became a central element in the common Western arsenal of the Cold War. It also found its way to UNESCO, although, as shown by Joseph Mehan (1981), Americans did not succeed in totally turning the organization into an instrument of the Cold War. A muted, but still noticeable, line in keeping with the Western free flow doctrine continued until the 1970s, when it was challenged by what was characterized above as an anti-imperialist drive. Schiller wrote his disarming historical review at this time in the middle of the 1970s, suggesting that American hegemony was on the decline, giving way to a more balanced notion of free flow whereby the developing world would also have its fair share. After the Cold War in the 1990s, one could say that Schiller was wrong and American domination was back again. The lesson from this history is, first, that the free flow of information has never been a neutral and ecumenical concept but rather a tactical argument in socioeconomic and ideological struggles. Second, the constitutional mission of UNESCO, a text drafted in the idealistic spirit toward the end of World War II, was contradictory to the free flow doctrine created in the US for Cold War purposes. Third, by following the free flow doctrine, UNESCO deviated from its constitutional mission until the 1970s, when the Mass Media Declaration, the MacBride Commission and the NWICO brought it back on track. This return, however, was only short lived, derailed by political shifts taking place globally in the early 1990s. In any case, we may say with just a little exaggeration that in the media and communication

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Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy field, UNESCO has never been closer to its constitutional mission than during the 1970s. After all, the concept of the NWICO is more compatible with UNESCO’s Constitution than is the free flow doctrine. And the positioning of UNESCO on this question does matter, because the organization is a central platform for deliberating global media and communication policies.

Balanced United Nations Declarations While the discussion in the preceding two sections took us on a lengthy historical excursion, this section treats a fairly simple and straightforward statement: that is, that the subject or beneficiary of human rights and fundamental freedoms is not an institution called the press or the media but is, instead, an individual human being. Therefore, the phrase “freedom of the press” is misleading as it extends the privilege of individual human rights to the medium, its owners and managers, rather than to the people for expressing their voices through the media. Article 19 of the UDHR (1948) reads as follows: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The subject of the right here is “everyone” in the sense of “all human beings” (the phrase is used in Article 1). Beyond everyone, there appears only “a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized,” as stipulated in Article 28 (introducing the concept of “international order” which, later in the NWICO debates, was rejected by the Western advocates of press freedom). Nothing in Article 19 suggests that the institution of the press has any privileged right to this freedom. And the word “media” appears as an open means for the use of “everyone,” a vehicle to seek, receive and impart information and ideas. The human right in question is not confined to the mass media, though it does fit well with the current understanding of Internet-based “social media.”

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In fact, Article 19 stipulates that media should be in the service, if not the ownership, of the people. It is a myth that the press and the media themselves enjoy the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. In this respect, some human rights lobbyists, including the organization bearing the name ARTICLE 19, have pursued doubtful policies in favor of media proprietors and against individual people. Pedantically, Article 19 introduces the right of “freedom of opinion and expression” – neither “freedom of information” nor “free flow of information,” let alone “press freedom.” Moreover, it is important to remember that the UDHR (1948) does not constitute proper international law; this is actualized only by the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted 18 years later. And that document adds to the definition of Article 19 in the UDHR through the provision that the exercise of this right “carries with it special duties and responsibilities” (Article 19(c) ) and may be subject to certain restrictions under specific circumstances to be provided by the law. Accordingly, the legal form of what is referred to as “press freedom” includes a concept of freedom which is far from the unconditional license to do anything, as is typically suggested by media proprietors and also by many journalists. As in the preceding two examples, the concept of freedom under human rights turns out to be qualified and leads us to be wary of the conventional myth. Another landmark UN document is the Millennium Declaration of September 18, 2000. It contains a largely overlooked sentence under “Human rights, democracy and good governance,” which resolves: “To ensure the freedom of the media to perform their essential role and the right of the public to have access to information” (United Nations 2000: Article V). Here, we finally have an authoritative document of the international community – although only a declaration, rather than a text of proper international law – which speaks literally about the freedom of the media. But how? It is not an abstract freedom granted to the media but a call, or even an obligation, to perform a certain role in society and to assist people to gain access to information. Once more, it is a concept of positive freedom to perform a certain role that is captured by this clause – not a negative freedom from restraint to do whatever the media may want to do. The

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parameters for the “essential role” are not specified, but the Millennium Declaration leaves little doubt about what is meant under the preceding four chapters “Values and Principles,” “Peace, Security and Disarmament,” “Development and Poverty Eradication,” and “Protecting our Common Environment.” The latest articulations of media freedom and related issues were done at the highest level of the international community at the WSIS, in two phases: Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005.7 A declaration from each phase was adopted after long and painful negotiations, by consensus involving all the geopolitical quarters. In the history of the “global media debate,” WSIS stands as a culmination of the post-Cold War period of globalization, which succeeded the Western offensive of the 1980s. Many issues of the NWICO came back onto the international agenda and the MacBride Report (ICSCP 1980/2004) was even reprinted for students to discover. The WSIS Geneva Declaration of Principles (2003), a nine-page document of 67 paragraphs, declares in its first paragraph, in the name of the peoples of the world: our common desire and commitment to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (WSIS 2003: A1)

After endorsing the Millennium Declaration, the document goes on to “reaffirm the universality, indivisibility, interdependence and interrelation of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development,” and “to strengthen respect for the rule of law in international as in national affairs” (WSIS 2003: A3). In subsequent paragraphs it highlights human rights in the context of communication as an exceptionally strong claim,8 and strikes a delicate balance between human rights and fundamental freedoms, on the one hand, and responsibilities and sovereign equality of states, on the other:

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We reaffirm, as an essential foundation of the Information Society, and as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the Information Society. Everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers. (WSIS 2003: A4) We further reaffirm our commitment to the provisions of Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of their personality is possible, and that, in the exercise of their rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. In this way, we shall promote an Information Society where human dignity is respected. (WSIS 2003: A5) In keeping with the spirit of this declaration, we rededicate ourselves to upholding the principle of the sovereign equality of all States. (WSIS 2003: A6)

The three elements of individual freedom, duties, and responsibilities in a community, and sovereign equality of states were tied together as a cornerstone of the Information Society. Their combination ensured that the declaration was finally acceptable to all countries and regions – from the US and the EU to Cuba and China.9 The same conceptual and political elements have long been present in all major consensus documents of the international community concerning media and communication,10 but here the package deal is extended to the new sphere of the Information Society, including the Internet. This extension was a significant step that nearly ruined the WSIS during the negotiations before the Summit.11

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Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy The Declaration listed key principles under 11 headings, including one devoted to media: We reaffirm our commitment to the principles of freedom of the press and freedom of information, as well as those of the independence, pluralism and diversity of media, which are essential to the Information Society. Freedom to seek, receive, impart and use information for the creation, accumulation and dissemination of knowledge are important to the Information Society. We call for the responsible use and treatment of information by the media in accordance with the highest ethical and professional standards. Traditional media in all their forms have an important role in the Information Society and ICTs should play a supportive role in this regard. Diversity of media ownership should be encouraged, in conformity with national law, and taking into account relevant international conventions. We reaffirm the necessity of reducing international imbalances affecting the media, particularly as regards infrastructure, technical resources and the development of human skills. (WSIS 2003: B9, 55)

A separate Plan of Action was adopted in Geneva in 2003 with a long list of concrete actions (WSIS 2003a). Two years later in 2005, the second phase of WSIS issued the Tunis Commitment, a five-page document consisting of forty paragraphs, which reiterated “our unequivocal support for the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action” (WSIS 2005a: Article 1). The Tunis Commitment specifically reaffirmed the above-quoted paragraphs of the package deal and was accompanied by a separate Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, a twenty-page document of 122 paragraphs. New elements, as a result of and following the first phase of WSIS in Geneva, were a recognition of “the potential of ICTs to promote peace and to prevent conflict” (WSIS 2005a: Article 36), an agreement on the establishment of a voluntary Digital Solidarity Fund as well as a consensus about how to proceed with Internet governance without creating a new intergovernmental agency for it, by asking the UN Secretary-General to establish the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).12 In addition to the IGF, the compromise also entailed “the process towards enhanced cooperation” (WSIS 2005: Articles 68–71) – and this has become an epicenter of a fierce Internet governance debate ever since. The UN’s positions, since the Constitution of UNESCO in 1945, and the adoption of the UDHR

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in 1948, through to the WSIS Declarations in the new millennium, convey a strikingly balanced reading of official media policy of the international community. Moreover, we can trace a centurieslong historical line from the early modern age to the post-modern world, with a surprisingly coherent idea of freedom of information. In this context, liberalism is not a partisan ideology hijacked by American diplomacy; rather it is a balanced philosophy, one that is far from outdated.

Contemporary Notions of Freedom of Information After the WSIS, the “global media debate” lost momentum. The summit follow-up has proceeded with a low profile on various platforms. UNESCO is involved in this follow-up but it also continues its regular activities in the CI Sector. Its new Director-General, Irina Bokova, advocates a “new humanism” and stresses the ethical, legal, and sociocultural aspects of the Information Society. In October 2009, the General Conference adopted a program and budget for 2010–11 for all UNESCO sectors. The objectives for the CI sector are based on two earlier priorities: (1) Promoting freedom of expression and information; and (2) Building capacities for universal access to information and knowledge (UNESCO 2009: 60). The first priority lays down a list of objectives, beginning with the following: (i) sensitize governments, public institutions and civil society to the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, in particular through the annual celebration of World Press Freedom Day and the awarding of the UNESCO-Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, and raise awareness of the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of information, including on the Internet, for development, democracy and dialogue; monitor the situation of press freedom and the safety of journalists, with special emphasis on cases of impunity for violence against journalists; (ii) assist Member States in building capacity for the establishment and application of internationally recognized legal and regulatory standards for freedom of expression, freedom of information and free and independent media; assist Member States in the establishment of an enabling environment for freedom of expression and

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Kaarle Nordenstreng freedom of information; promote Internet governance based on the principles of openness, diversity, including cultural and linguistic diversity, and transparency; (iii) enable media professionals to apply the highest ethical and professional standards, and enable people to access information, and critically assess and use it; encourage the development of media accountability systems based upon selfregulation. (UNESCO 2009: 60)

This document can be taken as a manifestation of UNESCO’s contemporary position regarding the free flow doctrine. It shows that freedom of expression and information – even “freedom of the press” – are taken as central objectives. However, they are not self-serving targets; they are, instead, supposed to serve broader objectives of development and democracy. The Member States are supposed to build capacity for “internationally recognized legal and regulatory standards,” and the media themselves are invited to “apply the highest ethical and professional standards.” This suggests a policy which continues the long historical line discussed above – combining freedom, responsibility and state sovereignty – without any drastic diversion. Surely there is a difference in perspective between this view and that of the high noon of the NWICO in the 1970s? The starting point today is freedom, while thirty to forty years ago it was an international order. Yet it is, arguably, a difference in perspective rather than a radical paradigm shift. The international community has not allowed the private media proprietors to push out a balanced freedom of information notion to replace it by a free flow doctrine inherited from the Cold War arsenal. Meanwhile, the NAM, the political platform of 118 developing countries, soon endorsed the WSIS outcome in its Havana (Cuba) Summit in 2006: toward achieving the development oriented outcome of the Summit and the Tunis commitment and the full implementation of the agenda for the Information Society, and urged UN Member States, relevant UN bodies and other intergovernmental organisations, as well as civil society, including non-governmental organisations and private sector, to contribute actively, inter alia, by initiating actions, as mandated in the outcomes, to the implementation and follow-up of the outcomes of the Geneva and Tunis phases of the Summit. (NAM 2006: Paragraph 253)

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This endorsement was confirmed by the NAM Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) in 2009. Its Final Document called for “responsible use and treatment of information by the media in accordance with codes of conduct and professional ethics” (NAM 2009: Paragraph 252) and for “an immediate end to the misuse of media for inciting and launching campaigns against NAM members” (459.3); it also stressed the “strengthening and consolidating the work of the NAM News Network (NNN)” (454). Moreover, the document urged to “increase cooperation to promote a New World Information and Communication Order, based on universal, inclusive and non-discriminatory access to information” (459.2). Thus, politically, the NWICO was signaled as being alive as a concept of relevance to the South. However, this NWICO is introduced in a way that is quite different from the concept as it was presented in the NAM documents of the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, it was presented as a major articulation of decolonization and anti-imperialism, whereas now it is presented as one initiative among others in the chapter “Development, Social and Human Rights Issues,” under the subtitle “Information and Communication Technology” which is mainly devoted to the WSIS. Another subdivision, “Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,” reaffirms “that the freedom of thought, expression and dissemination of ideas and information, are fundamental for the exercise of democracy” (NAM 2009: Paragraph 417). Accordingly, freedom of information is acknowledged more or less in accordance with the WSIS agreement but without direct reference to the media and with a perspective that is strikingly different from that of UNESCO. Outside the intergovernmental organizations such as UNESCO and the NAM, professional journalists have proceeded in their own sphere to defend their safety against the increasing risk of being killed in service and coping with the dramatic changes in the media world where “quality journalism has been a casualty as media managers and owners have cut editorial budgets, reduced investment in journalism and created a precarious work environment for hundreds of thousands of media staff,” as stated in the editorial of “The Ethical Journalism Initiative” of the International Federation of Journalists (2009: np).13 Surrounded by the turmoil of media structures and employment uncertainty, the voice of the profession is far from being one of surrender: “Journalists and their

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Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy unions and associations say we need to invest in quality information and quality journalism.” Media scholars and educators have a more nuanced record of participation in global media and communication policy in the new millennium. The MacBride Round Table of professional and academic media associations, convened annually between 1989 and 1998, in order to promote the legacy of the NWICO after UNESCO abandoned it (Vincent et al. 1999: 313–351), was discontinued after 2000. A coalition of academics and NGO activists launched a call for a new global movement for “people’s voices in media and communication in the 21st century” in 1999 “with a view towards building a new social movement around media and communication issues” (Raboy 2002: 261–270). This informal coalition, Voices 21, was associated with the People’s Communication Charter, a declaration for people’s communication rights foreseen as being endorsed by thousands of people and associations. On the eve of the WSIS process, in 2001, these groups and others came together to form the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS).14 All these civil society initiatives were formed with enthusiasm, backed by broad coalitions, but none of them turned out to be of permanent significance with the same level of visibility as, for example, Amnesty International. Nevertheless, they have exerted significant influence on the way freedom is understood in global media and communication policy: by placing people and their communication rights in the center and by being critical of market-driven neoliberalism and globalization, they have undermined the impact of lobbies such as the WPFC and thus, effectively, have neutralized the standard free flow doctrine. By the beginning of 2010, there was after all some momentum in global media and communication policy on several platforms, through both intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations. Some of it is to be found at UNESCO, but most of the potential is looming as result of the follow-up to the WSIS in the IGF. As pointed out by Wolfgang Kleinwächter, who has attended many policy forums since the 1980s and who has participated actively in the Internet governance developments, it is the WSIS-IGF that nowadays serves as a central meeting place for the global media debate with all the essential elements of the NWICO. The main difference here is with respect to the principle of multi-stakeholderism: the

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involvement of governments, civil society, the private sector and the technical community in their respective roles in policy development and decision-making. Although still vaguely defined, with the IGF operating as a laboratory, multistakeholderism can be taken as perhaps the biggest conceptual achievement of the whole WSIS process (Kleinwächter, 2009). Based on this multi-stakeholder concept, all the previous nongovernmental media democracy initiatives – from the MacBride Round Table to Voices 21 – that took place in parallel with the government-led political negotiations in the 1990s have, for the first time in history, direct access to a global policy discussion platform. In the IGF, all stakeholders – leaders of nongovernmental organizations, ministers, chief executive officers and individual experts – are treated equally and have the same access and speaking rights. As an insider, Kleinwächter offers a thought-provoking perspective: It is no surprise that the US/EU governments, which support the principle of multistakeholderism in the IGF and ICANN, want to keep it out when it comes to the hard Internet issues of security or intellectual property at the World Trade Organization/World Intellectual Property Organization Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations – something that has been widely criticized by civil society organizations. Nor is it a surprise that the Chinese Government wants to stop this and has proposed to move the IGF multistakeholder process back to a one-stakeholder, intergovernmental process. The IGF’s mandate terminated at the end of 2010 and was extended by the UN General Assembly for five more years, and now the focus is on how the IGF can be further improved. With the Internet as the most critical global infrastructure, the discussion on the management of its key resources and the regulation of its applications, the 2010s will see perhaps an even hotter “great debate” covering human rights, including freedom of expression, privacy, data protection, access to knowledge and culture, etc. The recent Google vs. China controversy and the speech by Hillary Clinton in the Newseum in Washington in January 2010 demonstrate that we will see soon a revival of the old conflicts in the new sphere of cyberspace. Clinton’s speech has already been compared to the speech of John Foster Dulles in 1947 when he used for the first time the slogan “iron curtain.” It was updated by Clinton when she referred to China’s “Golden Shield Project” known in the West as the “Great Firewall.” And when we look at what China is

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Kaarle Nordenstreng doing – in particular with the registration of domain names after the introduction of IDN [internationalized domain name whose top-level domain (TLD) is also internationalized, thereby eliminating the language barrier] and the plan of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to start its own new generic TLD process with Chinese characters – one can expect that we may soon have another “Cold Internet War.”15

While the IGF has opened a unique negotiation platform for civil society groups including media professionals and academics,16 we have to ask how efficient and successful they can be in countering governmental and corporate interests. After all, multi-stakeholderism is like collective trade agreements or wage negotiations where stakeholders are interdependent and prevented from excessive misuse of their rights against the other parties. So it is win–win or lose–lose. As far as the notion of freedom of information is concerned, the WSIS balance remains as an overall framework for all these deliberations. However, it is worth noting how the US Assistant Secretary of Commerce, in the inaugural meeting of the United States Internet Governance Forum in Washington, DC in 2009, wanted to ensure “that the Internet continues to be a transformative technology; a technology that empowers people around the globe and enables the free and unfettered flow of information and commerce.”17 The same view is widely held within the EU. Given the political influence of the US/EU-based Western coalition, it would be naive to suggest that the free flow doctrine has been defeated totally; it is just buried under conflicting global forces.

Conclusion An overall conclusion to this excursion through the history of these debates about freedom of information is indeed that much depends on the global balance of forces. In this respect the world has undergone a drastic change since the 1990s: the Soviet Union and the “East” around it has collapsed, China has become a leading economic player next to the US, and Brazil has emerged as another major power in the global arena. Although the NAM continues to unite the developing

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countries, its profile in international politics, including global media and communication policy, has diminished to the point of marginalization. Its powerful members such as Brazil, India, and South Africa have shifted much of their strategic thinking to economic platforms with leading Western countries, notably the G20, which was established “to bring together major advanced and emerging economies to stabilize the global financial market.”18 This means that economic, rather than political, considerations dominate and, contrary to the NAM and the UN, issues of global media and communication policy do not reach the agenda unless they are seen as crucial factors influencing the global financial market. Such a framework favors corporate interests over civil society. While multi-stakeholderism offers nominal equality to various parties, those whose main concern is economic survival and success (private business, multinational corporations) enjoy a tacit bonus as a result of the market approach, while those who represent the political and cultural interests of citizens and their special interests (civil society) are easily regarded as dissidents. It was quite different in the tripolar world of the capitalist West, socialist East and non-aligned South. In the present world, capitalism dominates and this has brought much of the South into the global market economy. Nevertheless, there are serious challenges to global capitalism, notably national intervention to safeguard social equality and political democracy, and international intervention to control global financial crises. In addition, civil society is supported by structural developments such as a new consumer– producer relationship: such that in the Internet economy, providers of services need to be much more sensitive to user needs and governments must seek ways of strengthening consumer rights. In the light of all these developments in different policy forums, the free flow doctrine as inherited from the American Cold War arsenal no longer presents itself as a legitimate element in global media and communication policy. It was wiped out by the decolonization offensive of the developing countries in the 1970s and, although a corporate counteroffensive in the 1980s tried to revive it, it never reached the status of official doctrine in the international community. Today, it is a ghost of history – a notion which belongs to the history of ideas and which may occasionally appear as a ghost

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Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy in contemporary policy debates. The international community entered a new millennium with essentially the same balanced notion of freedom of information that was adopted in the 1940s.19 When the claim is made in this chapter that freedom as applied to the media is a highly problematic notion which should be placed in an historical context, this does not suggest that freedom – in general or as applied to the media – should be undermined or suspected as a dubious ploy. On the contrary, freedom of thought, of expression, and of media are cherished as vital elements in the lives of individuals as well as the societies in which they live. Yet the concept of freedom should not be elevated above critical assessment and debate, as is often done, especially by press freedom advocates, who tend to mystify the notion of freedom and stigmatize others who question the absolutist nature of (press) freedom.20 It is precisely because of its great value that freedom should not be denigrated or allowed to become an ideological instrument. This happens easily as freedom is a conspicuously ideological concept – especially when it is erroneously understood to be a simple and apolitical concept.21

Notes 1 2

3 4

This chapter is an extended version of an earlier article, Nordenstreng (2007). This claim is drawn from a doctoral dissertation on John Stuart Mill and his relation to the libertarian theory of the press, conducted under my supervision by Jorma Mäntylä at the University of Tampere. It is published in Finnish, with an abstract in English, and is available at http://acta.uta.fi/english/teos.php?id= 10964. The credit for earlier work on this topic goes to Peters (2004; 2005). See www.unesco.org. A small, but significant, chapter in this history was a study on television program structures around the world and the import and export flows related to them. Initiated by me, as then head of research at the Finnish Broadcasting Company in 1970–71 and carried out with research assistant Tapio Varis in 1971–73, it was supported by UNESCO. UNESCO commissioned my new base at the University of Tampere to hold a symposium in May 1973 to discuss the results of the study. The symposium was addressed by Finland’s then President, Urho Kekkonen, who criticized the Western notion of

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(anti-Communist) freedom and who used the term “communication imperialism” in referring to the imbalance of media flows around the world. This speech, as well as the summary results of the study and the symposium, was published by UNESCO in several languages, and became a bestseller in its Reports and Papers in Mass Communication (Nordenstreng and Varis 1974). What began as a small, technical study grew into a classic in the “great media debate.” See http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID= 13270&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_ SECTION=201.html (accessed 26/02/2010). See http://www.wpfc.org/index.php?q=node/32 (accessed 21/03/2010). The Geneva Declaration of Principles, the Geneva Plan for Action, the Tunis Commitment and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, http://www.itu.int/wsis/html (accessed 26/02/2010). Claiming in paragraph four that “communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization” – especially the last point: the foundation of all social organization – appears, initially, to a social scientist, to be an overstatement. While it can be understood in this political context to serve as lubrication for diplomatic consensus, it is highly problematic in terms of social theory in which communication is seldom assigned the status of foundational importance. Before an agreement was reached, a hard diplomatic battle was waged behind the scenes known as “status quo plus vs. status quo minus.” As described by Professor Wolfgang Kleinwächter, who closely followed the negotiations from the civil society caucus, the Chinese government wanted to shift the balance toward state sovereignty and the UN Charter, while the civil society coalition wanted to shift the balance toward an enhanced understanding of Article 19, including the right to communicate with physical access to communication technologies. The final outcome was a reaffirmation of the status quo without plus or minus (personal communication with W. Kleinwächter, February 22, 2010). In addition to UN and UNESCO documents since their foundation in the mid-1940s, an important stocktaking to the same effect was the Final Act of the Conference of Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975 with the Helsinki Accords (see Nordenstreng and Schiller 1976). A key player in the tough negotiations through a number of preparatory meetings before Geneva 2003 was Finland and its WSIS Ambassador Asko Numminen. At that time, Finland happened to hold the rotating chairmanship of the UN regional

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Kaarle Nordenstreng negotiation circle, Western European and Other Countries Group (WEOG), and Numminen took the task very seriously, counting on Finland’s reputation as a neutral mediator between conflicting parties. There was also a Finnish connection to the WSIS at its inception: the International Telecommunication Union, which started the process towards WSIS in its 15th Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis in 1998, was headed by then Secretary-General Pekka Tarjanne, from Finland. WSIS Implementation Mechanism, Internet Governance Forum, http://www.itu.int/wsis/implemen tation/igf/index.html (accessed 26/02/2010) and Internet Governance Forum, http://www.intgov forum.org/cms (accessed 26/02/2010). The manifesto of the Ethical Journalism Initiative is a book by the International Federation of Journalism’s General Secretary (see White 2008). See www.crisinfo.org and www.centreforcomm unicationrights.org. CRIS was central in catalysing the mobilization of NGOs and other civil society organizations that resulted in the Civil Society Declaration to WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/ docs/geneva/civil-society-declaration.pdf. Personal communication with W. Kleinwächter, February 22, 2010. For example, the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) meets regularly on the eve of the annual IGF assemblies, as well as between meetings of the IGF. The Third International Workshop on Global Internet Governance as an interdisciplinary field of research organised by GigaNet and other sponsors was held in Montreal May 30–31, 2010, see http:// giga-net.org/page/2010-international-workshop (accessed 21/03/2010). NTIA, see http://www.ntia.doc.gov/speeches/ 2009/Strickling_USIGF_091002.html (accessed 21/03/2010). See G20 meeting in South Korea 2010 at http:// www.g20.org/index.aspx (accessed 21/03/2010) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-20_major_ economies (accessed 21/03/2010). This is suggested by the text accompanying UNESCO’s web site for World Press Freedom Day 2010 at http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.phpURL_ID=29293&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_ SECTION=201html (accessed 21/03/2010). A confrontation in this regard developed around the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published in Denmark. An international study of this case was coordinated at the University of Tampere, with 14 national reviews of the way freedom of speech was understood in professional and journalistic debates (Kunelius 2009). In a Finnish debate stimulated by this study, its principal researcher, Professor Risto Kunelius, was attacked by journalists after he

21

used the term “fundamentalist” to characterize an extreme libertarian view (one in a typology of four) whereby the publishing of the cartoons can under no circumstances be denied on grounds of principle. Kunelius pointed out that such a fundamentalist version of freedom places itself beyond reflection and thus turns against the idea of liberty as an open and tolerant approach. His opponents, for their part, accused him and his fellow researchers of condoning censorship. The same kind of debate – a dialogue of the deaf – takes place elsewhere with stimuli such as the Danish cartoons. It is important to deconstruct freedom in the context of power and its two different traditions, as, for example, in Christians et al. (2009: 192). First, there is the dominant Anglo-American tradition following the Galilean metaphor of a universe of freely moving objects, including human beings with free will and the absence of external impediments. In this tradition, power means intervention against freedom. Second, there is the German tradition following the Kantian and Hegelian philosophy, whereby human beings are determined not only by the laws of nature but also by moral reasoning. In this tradition, power is not an obstacle distracting natural movement but a way to ensure moral order in society; freedom means autonomy from nature based on the rational and moral capacity of human beings.

References Altschull, H. (1990) From Milton to McLuhan: The Ideas behind American Journalism. New York: Longman. Christians, C., Glasser, T., McQuail, D., Nordenstreng, K., and White, R. (2009) Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Gerbner, G., Mowlana, H., and Nordenstreng, K. (eds) (1993) Global Media Debate: Its Rise, Fall, and Renewal. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP) (1980/2004) Many Voices, One World [MacBride Report]. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. International Federation of Journalists (2009) The Ethical Journalism Initiative, http://ethicaljournal isminitiative.org/en/contents/editorial (accessed 26/02/2010). Keane, J. (1991) The Media and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kleinwächter, W. (2009) “Multistakeholderism and the IGF: Laboratory, clearinghouse, watchdog,” in W. Drake (ed.) Internet Governance: Creating Opportunities for All. The Fourth Internet Governance Forum, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, November 15–18. New York: United Nations, pp. 76–91.

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Free Flow Doctrine in Global Media Policy Kunelius, R. (2009) “Lessons of being drawn in: On global free speech, communication theory and the Mohammed cartoons,” in A. Kierulf and H. Rønning (eds) Freedom of Speech Abridged? Cultural, Legal and Philosophical Challenges. Göteborg: NORDICOM, pp. 139–151. Mansell, R., and Nordenstreng, K. (2006) “The great media and communication debates: WSIS and the MacBride Report,” Information Technologies and International Development, 3(4): 264–272. Mehan, J. (1981) “UNESCO and the U.S.: Action and reaction,” Journal of Communication, 31(4): 159–163. Mill, J. S. (1869) On Liberty. London: Longman, Roberts and Green, http://www.bartleby.com/130/ (accessed 26/02/2010). Milton, J. (1644) Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/608/608-h/608-h. htm (accessed 26/02/2010). Milton, J. (1667/2000) Paradise Lost, London: Penguin Books. Nerone, J. (ed.) (1995) Last Rights: Revisiting Four Theories of the Press. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) (2006) Final Document. Havana: 14th Summit Conference of the Heads of State and Government of the NonAligned Movement, http://www.namegypt.org/ Relevant%20Documents/final_document[1].doc (accessed 26/02/2010). Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) (2009) Final Document. Sharm el Sheikh: XV Summit of Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement, http://www.namegypt.org/Relevant%20Doc uments/01FINAL%20DOCUMENT.DOC (accessed 26/02/2010). Nordenstreng, K. (2001) “Epilogue,” in N. Morris and S. Waisbord (eds) Media and Globalization: Why the State Matters. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 155–160. Nordenstreng, K. (2007) “Myths about press freedom,” Brazilian Journalism Research: Journalism Theory, Research and Criticism, special issue on Freedom of the Press, 3(1): 15–30. Nordenstreng, K., and Schiller, H. (1976) “Helsinki: The new equation,” Journal of Communication, 26(1): 130–134. Nordenstreng, K., and Varis, T. (1974) Television Traffic: A One-Way Street? A Survey and Analysis of the International Flow of Television Programme Material. Reports and Papers on Mass Communication, No. 70. Paris: UNESCO, http://unesdoc.unesco. org/images/0000/000075/007560eo.pdf (accessed 30/04/2010). Paine, T. (1791/1984) The Rights of Man. With an introduction by E. Foner and notes by H. Collins, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Peters, J. D. (2004) “ ‘The marketplace of ideas’: A history of the concept,” in A. Calabrese and C. Sparks (eds)

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Toward a Political Economy of Culture: Capitalism and Communication in the 21st Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 65–82. Peters, J. D. (2005) Courting the Abyss: Free Speech and the Liberal Tradition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Raboy, M. (ed.) (2002) Global Media Policy in the New Millennium. Luton: University of Luton Press. Schiller, H. (1976) Communication and Cultural Domination. White Plains, NY: International Arts and Sciences Press. Siebert, F., Peterson, T., and Schramm, W. (1956) Four Theories of the Press: The Authoritarian, Libertarian, Social Responsibility and Soviet Communist Concepts of What the Press Should Be and Do. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. UNESCO (1945) Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Paris: UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/ about-us/who-we-are/history/constitution (accessed 26/02/2010). UNESCO (1978) Declaration on Fundamental Principles concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media to Strengthening Peace and International Understanding, to the Promotion of Human Rights, and to Countering Racialism, Apartheid and Incitement to War. Paris: UNESCO, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ I D = 1 3 1 7 6 & U R L _ D O = D O _ TO P I C & U R L _ SECTION=201.html (accessed 26/02/2010). UNESCO (2009) Records of the General Conference, 35th Session, Paris 6 October–23 October 2009. Volume 1: Resolutions Paris: UNESCO, http://unesdoc.unesco. org/images/0018/001864/186470e.pdf (accessed 26/02/2010). United Nations (1948) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: United Nations, http:// www.un.org/en/documents/udhr (accessed 26/02/2010). United Nations (1976) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. New York: United Nations, http:// www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm (accessed 26/02/2010). United Nations (2000) Millennium Declaration. New York: United Nations, http://www.un.org/millennium/ declaration/ares552e.htm (accessed 26/02/2010). Vincent, R., Nordenstreng, K., and Traber, M. (eds) (1999) Towards Equity in Global Communication: MacBride Update. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. White, A. (2008) To Tell You the Truth: The Ethical Journalism Initiative. Brussels: International Federation of Jour nalists, http://ethicaljournalis minitiative.org/pdfs/EJI_book_en.pdf (accessed 26/02/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2003) Geneva Declaration of Principles. Geneva: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/official/ dop.html (accessed 26/02/2010).

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World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2003a) Geneva Plan of Action. Geneva: WSIS, http://www. itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/off icial/poa.html (accessed 26/02/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2005) Tunis Commitment. Tunis: WSIS, http://

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www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/7.html (accessed 26/02/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2005a) Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. Tunis: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/ tunis/off/6rev1.html (accessed 26/02/2010).

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Human Rights and Their Role in Global Media and Communication Discourses Rikke Frank Jørgensen

Introduction From its emergence as an identifiable field of study, “global media and communication policy” has been intersected by debates about human rights, the implications of Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the controversy surrounding the “right to communicate,” and how and why such rights are contested from a variety of vantage points within Western and non-Western contexts. This chapter will critically examine how strongly human rights issues are – or are not – embedded in discussions of global media and communication policy. The chapter will first provide a broad and historical account of the human rights regime and, second, will examine the presence of human rights within global media and communication policy discourses. Presuming that human rights are used quite differently in different arenas and by different actors, the chapter will examine the interface of human rights with media and communication policy in four different arenas which coexist and sometimes overlap: the nongovernmental organization (NGO)/civil society arena, the intergovernmental/ institutional arena, the business arena, and the academic arena. The discussion will include some examples of recent policy controversies that have

occurred when attempts have been made to combine communication policy with the human rights regime. Concluding the chapter, the reasons why human rights have, up until now, not made a stronger impact on global communication policies will be discussed together with some suggested steps forward.

History of Human Rights1 The institutionalization of international human rights standards has constituted one of the major normative shifts in world politics since World War II. In December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly approved the UDHR by a vote of 48 to 0, with eight abstentions. Later referred to by the then UN Secretary-General U Thant as the “Magna Carta of Mankind,” the UDHR comprised thirty articles dealing with two broad categories of human rights: civil and political rights; and economic, social and cultural rights. The General Assembly subsequently decided that the two categories would be detailed in separate treaty instruments – the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), both agreed


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upon by the General Assembly in December 1966. Together, the UDHR, ICCPR, and ICESCR constitute the International Bill of Human Rights which is the overarching framework for global human rights today.2 Civil and political rights are often referred to as first-generation rights because they were recognized at the national level in a number of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century constitutions, whereas economic, social, and cultural rights were generally developed in national constitutions and international instruments in the post-World War II era. As such, the former are more deeply embedded in multiple legal systems and traditions. Moreover, political and civil rights have often been described as “negative” rights in that they proscribe state interference with individual freedoms, whereas economic, social, and cultural rights have been described as “positive” rights that require states to create the conditions in which individuals and collectivities can enjoy a certain quality of life, or to provide certain goods or services to that end. In operational terms though, the distinction is not so clear-cut.3 The German sociologist Jürgen Habermas has argued that the catalog of human rights is closely related to the liberal model of the public sphere and entails five broad categories of rights. The first three categories represent the basic negative liberties, membership rights, and dueprocess rights that together guarantee individual freedom of choice and autonomy. The fourth group entails the rights of political participation which guarantee public autonomy, whereas the fifth group represents social-welfare rights which are necessary since the exercise of the other rights depends on certain social and material conditions being met (Habermas 1996: xxvii). Human rights are historically formulated in response to concrete experiences with human suffering, most notably revulsion against fascist atrocities during World War II, which played a catalytic role in expanding the scope and domain of human rights to be elaborated and enshrined in binding international agreements. In addition, they traditionally concern the relationship between state and individual, thus protecting the individual against the arbitrary use of power by the state. The “horizontal effect,” however, is part of this relationship, implying that state obligations include a positive obligation to protect a private party against another private party by legislation and/or preventive measures or by investigating violations.4

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While the International Bill of Human Rights provides the overarching foundation, the global human rights system also entails a range of other universal instruments. Four additional core treaties are the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (United Nations 1965); the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (United Nations 1979); the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (United Nations 1984); and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations 1989). In addition, there are many other universal instruments dealing with the interpretation and application of rights in particular areas or contexts. These take a variety of legal forms, ranging from “hard law” covenants and conventions to “soft law” declarations, guidelines, and recommendations.5 The global governance of human rights is substantively and architecturally very complex. Human rights is a deeply institutionalized field involving, at the global level, the UN Human Rights Council,6 a multitude of monitoring mechanisms, interpretation guides (general comments on specific rights), special rapporteurs, and so on – working in a dense policy space to elaborate and interpret internationally agreed rights, build capacity, and promote compliance. The UN-based human rights system is supplemented by regional human rights mechanisms which vary widely in constitution and effectiveness. The European regime is more “legalized” than the international regime, and is based on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which was agreed upon by the Council of Europe (CoE) in 1950. It includes a European Court of Human Rights to which unresolved cases may be presented for binding rulings. The Council of Europe also has adopted a series of additional human rights instruments. In parallel, within the European Union (EU), the European Court of Justice and other EU institutions have been progressively expanding the scope and strength of human rights protections and have reinforced the ECHR’s influence. The most recent example is the Charter of Fundamental Rights,7 which is included in the Treaty of Lisbon.8 The inter-American regime is also institutionally well developed, and shares broad commonalities with the European system. The Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS), signed in 1948, lists human rights as one of the organization’s guiding principles. In 1959, the OAS created an

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Human Rights and Global Discourses expert Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which later acquired the ability to receive complaints from individuals. The American Convention on Human Rights, which was agreed upon in 1969 and came into force in 1978, created an Inter-American Court of Human Rights that can issue nominally binding rulings. Regional regimes elsewhere are less developed and operate under far more constraining conditions. The African Charter of Human Rights and Peoples’ Rights, adopted in 1981, is supposed to extend protections not only to individuals but also to collectivities. It also contains an expansive menu of third-generation rights, including the rights to a healthy environment, development, and peace, and has bolder provisions on economic, social, and cultural rights than its counterparts in Europe and the Americas. The Charter also created an African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and, more recently, established an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which entered into force in January 2004. Similarly, the League of Arab States adopted an Arab Charter on Human Rights in 1994, and there is an Arab League Human Rights Committee. In contrast, Asia still lacks a regional human rights regime, and, given the cultural and political diversity of India, China, and Japan, among others in the region, this is not likely to happen any time soon. Finally, complementing the international and regional regimes and associated organizations are a variety of national mechanisms. These include national human rights institutions (NHRIs), which increasingly interact and cooperate on promoting human rights compliance and national capacity-building. The NHRIs operate under a mandate established by the UN Paris Principles that were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1993.9 In sum, the international community has made significant progress in establishing human rights standards and mechanisms for the ongoing monitoring of progress toward their realization. This is not to suggest that human rights are not consistently violated all around the world, often on a massive scale. However, the existence of a global framework for human rights provides mechanisms through which political and legal pressure can be applied to compel states toward greater conformity. Moreover, since the millennium, development agencies have increasingly adopted a humanrights-based approach in relation to development

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projects.10 According to the definition used by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a rights-based approach is a conceptual framework for the process of developing policies that is normatively based upon international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights.11 A rights-based approach integrates the norms, standards, and principles contained in international human rights treaties and declarations into the policies, plans, and processes in question. It is thus a way to provide the normative basis for a given policy area, and to use agreed human rights standards as benchmarks for measuring progress in relation to policy implementation. In the following, I will argue that a rights-based approach has not been applied to global media and communication policy, despite numerous formal commitments to human rights standards, not least concerning the right to freedom of expression.12 I will start by discussing the interface between human rights and communication policy from a civil society perspective.

Human Rights and Communication Policy: A Civil Society Perspective Civil society groups have embraced the link between human rights and communication policy since the mid-1970s, and have done so in a variety of ways. Media and journalist groups and academics were among the first to address communication policies from a human rights/social justice perspective. From 1975 to 1985 the call for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) was raised at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) by the Non-Aligned Movement of UN countries, together with a group of civil society organizations and academics. The campaign for a NWICO concerned the dominance of Western media and news content combined with a growing concentration in media production and ownership, thereby making it difficult for less developed countries to take part in the global sphere of communication. The debate eventually became so controversial that the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US), as well as Singapore, withdrew

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from UNESCO.13 Following the NWICO controversy, more civil society groups became involved and continued to rephrase and pursue the issue of inequality in access to communicate, with the Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) campaign as the most recent example. I shall return to communication rights in more detail below. Another link between human rights and communication policy is the leverage of the Internet to empower human rights activists.14 There are countless illustrations of how the Internet has facilitated the communication capacity of suppressed groups and enabled human rights activists to report on violations to campaign across borders and to reach global information and support to strengthen their case.15 Also, various resources have been developed to secure communication for human rights defenders handling sensitive information,16 or to expose and challenge censorship and surveillance measures.17 A related but different type of civic activity is the various groups who campaign to protect and enforce human rights standards in an online context. Not least North American and European NGOs have, since the mid-1990s, focussed on specific human rights challenges within an online environment, especially in relation to the right to privacy18 and the right to freedom of expression. The groups are concerned that various state and commercial initiatives may undermine the level of human rights protection in the online environment by introducing new means of online censorship and surveillance. Campaign topics include data retention and anti-terrorism legislation more generally, national ID cards, DNA and genetic privacy, workplace surveillance, and Internet censorship in various forms such as illegitimate blocking of web sites, filters at public access points, and privatized regulation of online content.19 The initial North American/European focus on so-called cyber rights has today turned into an increasingly large number of civil society groups from all over the world, who to a varying degree focus on protecting and promoting human rights standards online.20 Traditionally, these cyber rights organizations have not, to any large extent, positioned themselves as human rights organizations in the way that they would systematically refer to international human rights treaties and declarations in their advocacy work. Though most of

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them refer to human rights as an overall normative framework, and often reference UDHR Article 19 on freedom of expression, or Article 12 on the right to privacy, they typically do not identity themselves with doing “human rights work” in the more classical sense, and do not have substantive knowledge of the whole human rights regime, including the connected mechanisms of monitoring, statereporting, state-examination, and human rights courts.21 Some of the North American groups do litigation and challenge the state on new legislation,22 but the majority remain more advocacy-oriented. In addition to the original focus on online liberties there is a growing focus on social, economic, and cultural rights, thus using the broader spectrum of human rights to promote development and social justice.23 This broader focus was also reflected at the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)24 where two distinct human rights controversies took place within the civil society arena. The first concerned the idea of a right to communicate, promoted as a new human right by the CRIS campaign.25 Different rationales were expressed in support of such a right, which reiterated the NWICO concerns of media becoming increasingly homogenized and commercialized, and that minority, dissenting, or local voices are being excluded from decision-making processes due to a lack of information and a lack of access to the means of communication. The claim for a right to communicate was challenged by the WSIS civil society Human Rights Caucus,26 and the organization ARTICLE 19 in particular. The groups argued that a broadly defined right to communicate might undermine long-established media freedoms, and claimed that the concerns raised by the CRIS campaign could be met under the existing regime of rights. It was stressed that the right to freedom of expression is recognized to include the right to diverse, pluralistic media and equitable access to the means of communication, as well as access to the media. Rather than suggest a new broadly defined right, enforcement of these provisions may provide for democratization of media and communication and address the concerns of the CRIS campaign. The debate was resolved by the end of the first WSIS when most groups agreed that the claim for a right to communicate need not invent new legal standards but should rather call for enforcement of existing human rights standards.27

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Human Rights and Global Discourses The second major controversy unfolding within civil society groups active in the WSIS process concerned the relation between human rights and development. In the process of finalizing the civil society declaration for the Geneva Summit,28 a number of organizations claimed that the issue of development (poverty reduction and economic and social development) was to take priority over human rights, thus insisting that the civil society declaration should not open with language affirming the commitment to human rights standards. Advocates of the development perspective argued that development and human rights represent different spheres with diverging objectives and policy agendas, whereas human rights groups argued that rights are the normative foundation for any society, independent of the level of development. In the last days leading up to the Geneva Summit, several heated discussions took place among the civil society organizations participating in the Summit, and in the end a compromise was reached. It was decided to open the declaration with a section on Social Justice and People-Centered Sustainable Development, followed by a section on the Centrality of Human Rights.29 The debate is indicative of the perceived dichotomy between the development and human rights spheres which existed until the late 1980s, and where even UN agencies were reluctant to recognize the relationship between the two. The formal recognition of the convergence between development and human rights came at the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, and in 1997 the UN Secretary-General called for the integration of human rights into all principal UN activities and programs (Filmer-Wilson 2005: 214–15). While WSIS has been one of the major civil society spaces in relation to global communication policy over the past years, numerous other spaces coexist. Below follows a brief outline of some of the current civil society initiatives concerned with communication policy and human rights, that is, the Public Voice initiative, the Access to Knowledge (A2K) movement and the Freedom of Expression project. The Public Voice initiative is organized by the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), with the aim of fostering a civil society platform for engagement in information society policy.30 The platform has been running since 1996, mostly in the form of ad hoc teleconferences debating issues and policy agendas of concern to the participants. Also, the Public Voice

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coordinates a coalition of civil society groups which came together around the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ministerial conference on the Information Economy, in Seoul, June 2008.31 As a contribution to the ministerial conference, the civil society coalition drafted the Seoul Declaration, which spells out policy principles that are to guide the information economy. The Declaration has human rights and the rule of law as one of its guiding principles, just as it reaffirms the commitment to international human rights treaties.32 The document also mentions various human rights violations related to freedom of expression and the protection of privacy, and urges the OECD to defend these rights. The A2K movement was initiated in 2004 by US-based CPTech and is a consolidation of various local and global social movements. A2K is concerned with fairness in structures of knowledge access, more specifically, copyright law and other regulations that affect access to information and education rights. One element of the initiative is the drafting of a proposal for a treaty to protect and promote access to knowledge.33 At an A2K conference in 2008, a panel was dedicated to exploring the relationship between A2K topics and human rights, especially within the scope of the right to participate in the cultural life of the community,34 including access to so-called cultural goods. Judging from the debate at the meeting, the relationship between A2K and human rights still seems unresolved, including whether and how human rights are a relevant point of reference for the A2K movement.35 The Freedom of Expression project is organized by UK-based Global Partners and Associates as a global collaboration to research and develop public policy principles for the networked communication environment.36 The project, which started in 2006, has developed four principles/values – accessibility, independence, diversity, and navigability – that are suggested as guiding principles for the networked communication environment. Moreover, analysis has been made suggesting how each value is underpinned by human rights standards and how they may conflict with one another (Lipson 2008). The analysis provides an overview of the interface between human rights standards and each of the four principles, based on human rights case law. A final group to be mentioned is the national human rights institutions (NHRIs). The NHRIs

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represent the national presence of the international human rights regime and ideally serve as a human rights resource for civil society groups at the local level. Up till now, the link between human rights and global communication policy and practice has only been addressed by a few of these organizations, and the vast majority have not participated in global communication policy processes such as the WSIS or the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).37 Currently, there is little exchange between the civil society groups and policy spaces where global communication policy is debated and the NHRIs. Only a limited number of people cross-cut the various communities and, generally speaking, they also have different professional references. Whereas the NHRIs are rooted in a legal regime, and tend to focus on long-established areas of human rights work, the organizations concerned with global communication policy often have a stronger media and technology constituency and focus. In sum, various civil society groups, especially from the media and cyber rights arena, have addressed global communication policy with reference to human rights and social justice arguments. Despite the overall human rights framing of issues such as media concentration, rights of community media, and online censorship and surveillance, the concrete use of human rights is often limited to either a general framework without specific human rights analysis or referencing the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy only. Few of the organizations refer to the broader array of rights, or develop detailed analysis based on human rights case law. With regard to the NHRI, there is hardly any focus on the human rights issues which arise from global communication policy and practice except some limited attention to issues of online privacy. Leaving for now the civil society arena, I will next examine human rights and communication policy from the perspective of international organizations.

Human Rights and Communication Policy: An Institutional Perspective Intergovernmental institutions preoccupied with global communication policy have, to some extent, taken onboard the human rights framing, more or

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less starting with the WSIS process. Below I outline some of these initiatives and argue that, despite many programmatic commitments to the human rights framework, they have not substantiated a rights-based approach to communication policies. The strongest example of a rights-based approach to communication policies is found within the Council of Europe, which is not surprising as it represents the European human rights system, including the European Court of Human Rights. Starting with the WSIS as a space for intergovernmental policy deliberation, there were two human rights issues on the agenda that were especially controversial. The first issue was to establish links to the International Bill of Human Rights as overarching guiding principles in the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action. The second issue was the treatment of specific information society issues within a human rights framing, including reference to relevant human rights standards. The explicit reaffirmation of human rights in the Geneva Declaration of Principles was realized, but only in the final days of the negotiations, and as a result of strong pressure from the Western group of delegates. The Geneva Declaration of Principles reaffirms the universality, indivisibility, interdependence and interrelation of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development. It further stresses that democracy, sustainable development, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as good governance, are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. This commitment to human rights was reaffirmed in the Tunis Commitment and the Tunis Agenda, at WSIS phase two. Moreover, the Tunis Agenda has an explicit linkage between human rights and Internet governance.38 While the policy documents adopted at WSIS acknowledged the importance of international human rights agreements and principles, there was little intergovernmental debate on how human rights might apply to specific communication policy issues. During the plenary sessions and working group negotiations, the Human Rights Caucus and other groups presented numerous interventions suggesting the incorporation of specific human rights standards within the Geneva Declaration of Principles in relation to issues including, among others, discrimination, data protection, labor rights, regulatory environments, press freedom and information access. However,

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Human Rights and Global Discourses human rights considerations hardly figured in the governments’ negotiations on these topics.39 As such, the WSIS process demonstrated that for many governments the linkage between human rights and communication policy issues is far from obvious. However, some human rights references did make their way into the final version of the Geneva Declaration of Principles, (e.g., a direct reference to the right to freedom of expression (UDHR Article 19) and to the due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others (UDHR Article 29), plus more general references to the rights of children, the rights of authors and artists, the principle of non-discrimination, and the right to privacy).40 With regard to follow-up, the Tunis Summit decided on various mechanisms: to create a global Internet policy forum (the IGF), to establish a UN coordination group on the Information Society within the UN’s Chief Executives Board, and to create a mechanism for stock-taking and implementation under the UN Economic and Social Council’s (ECOSOC) Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD). The Human Rights Caucus proposed to create an Independent Commission on the Information Society and Human Rights to monitor practices and policies on human rights and the information society; however, the proposal was never adopted by the government delegates. Several years past the Summit, and with five IGFs completed, there is still no clear indication of how the WSIS human rights commitment shall be measured or monitored. The most visible result of the IGFs has been the creation of several multi-stakeholder arrangements in the form of so-called Dynamic Coalitions working to develop principles to guide information society policy-making. These include Coalitions concerned with the Framework of Principles for the Internet, Privacy, Child Online Safety, Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the media on the Internet, an Internet Bill of Rights, and many more.41 Several of the Coalitions refer to human rights, especially the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression, as well as to the overall human rights framework, but only at a very general level. The UN agencies active during and post-WSIS, especially the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and UNESCO, play a central


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role as overall coordinators of the Geneva Plan of Action. Of particular relevance to communication policy is UNESCO, which is responsible for WSIS initiatives related to ethical dimensions, access to information, cultural diversity, e-learning, and media. UNESCO has traditionally had a strong human rights focus on communication policies, especially in relation to freedom of expression, media freedoms, universal access, open access, and cultural diversity, and has at the strategic level stressed that it applies a human rights approach to all of its projects.42 Also UNDP has, since 2000, declared a rights-based approach to its development activities.43 In relation to WSIS, UNDP is involved in capacity building, enabling environments for the telecom sector (including how ICTs may be used as a tool for development), e-government, and international and regional cooperation. Despite UNESCO’s and UNDP’s use of human rights framing neither has substantiated analysis on how human rights are affected by their respective policy areas with regard to WSIS follow up. Regarding ITU, the agency is involved in infrastructure, access to information and knowledge, security, e-learning, enabling environments for the telecommunication sector, and several more related activities, but it has no particular human rights framing of the agency’s activities.44 A final UN mechanism to be mentioned is the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, who on several occasions has stressed the importance of protecting freedom of expression in an online environment and has urged that information technology must also be made accessible for the developing world.45 Other intergovernmental organizations occupied with human rights and communication policies include the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe (CoE). The OSCE works on security, conflict prevention, and post-conflict rehabilitation amongst 56 participating states, and has a special representative on Freedom of the Media.46 In 2003, 2004, and 2005, the OSCE representative on Freedom of the Media organized conferences to develop recommendations and best practices with regard to Internet policy. The 2004 conference resulted in a Media Freedom Internet Cookbook which addressed media literacy, hate speech on the Internet, access to networks and information, and future challenges to the information society.

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The OSCE is especially concerned with protecting and promoting freedom of expression online; however, in so doing, it also addresses more general regulatory issues related to the rule of law in the global communication environment (e.g., state regulation vis-à-vis self regulation by private parties). The CoE is one of the regional organizations which has done more comprehensive work in terms of human rights and communication policy. Based in Strasbourg, the CoE covers the entire European continent and seeks to develop common principles based on the ECHR and related human rights documents. The Council has been active in linking human rights and communication policy, both prior to and post-WSIS, not least in relation to data protection, cybercrime, protection of children, Internet governance, and freedom of expression media freedoms.47 Since 2005, the CoE has had specialized working groups on human rights and information society issues (i.e., a Group of Specialists on Public Service Media in the Information Society,48 Media Diversity,49 and Human Rights in the Information Society50) which have produced a number of standard-setting documents. In 2009 the groups were replaced by ad hoc advisory groups on Public Service Media Governance, Cross-border Internet, and the Protection of Neighboring Rights of Broadcasting Organizations. The Council also focusses on public participation in Internet governance processes and is, at the time of writing, working on a draft code of good practice on information, participation, and transparency in Internet governance, in cooperation with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).51 Some of the Council’s standard setting has been criticized substantively by civil society groups for being overly invasive on individual freedoms, not least the Cybercrime Convention.52 In the follow-up to WSIS, the CoE has increasingly worked to flesh out the relationship between human rights and communication policy and has done so through a number of recommendations. The CoE Recommendation on Measures to promote the public service value of the Internet and its appended recommendations present various Internet communication principles within a framework of human rights, democracy, and the


rule of law, and is one of the more specific attempts to spell out a human rights approach to global communication policy.53 Another example is the CoE’s contribution to the first IGF in Athens, where the Council argued that states need to prepare themselves to deal with, for example, situations related to the ECHR Articles 2 (the right to life) or 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) with regard to incitement on web sites to suicide or self-harm, to Article 8 (the right to private life and correspondence) with regard to disseminating other people’s personal information or illegal eavesdropping or control of communication, or to Article 10 (the right to freedom of expression and information) when confronted with online hate speech inciting violence in blogs (Council of Europe 2006: 16). The document also emphasizes that the security and stability aspects of the Internet may be interpreted in a human rights context, and can involve state responsibility under the ECHR, if it can be established that the state has failed to take appropriate measures within its powers to protect those under its jurisdiction from personality theft, online fraud, or e-attacks causing loss or damage (e.g., through spam or viruses) (Council of Europe 2006: 17). An important part of the CoE system is the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter the Court), which has jurisdiction to rule, through binding judgments, on individual and interstate applications alleging violations of human rights. In relation to communication policy, the Court has issued judgments, especially in relation to ECHR Article 8 (the right to private life and correspondence), stressing the protection of the human rights provisions, including communication via email or the Internet. With regard to the privacy of communication, the Court recently dealt with the unlawful monitoring of a civil servant’s telephone, email, and Internet usage.54 In the case, the Court held that emails sent from the workplace should be covered by the notions of “private life” and “correspondence,” as should information obtained from monitoring of personal Internet use. As the applicant had been given no warning that her calls would be liable to monitoring, she had a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to her emails and use of the Internet. More generally, the Court stated that surveillance measures may constitute a violation of the right

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Human Rights and Global Discourses to privacy, especially if the people or offences which might justify such surveillance are not clearly defined.55 Also the UN Human Rights Committee (1988) has made a general comment on the right to privacy, which stresses that the protection of the article covers all forms of communications, electronic or otherwise.56 With regard to freedom of expression, the Court has, time and again, emphasized the importance of press freedom and debate on matters of public interest as inherent characteristics and necessary conditions for a democratic society. The case law, which considers the established human rights provisions in the light of the Internet, is still limited. However, it gives no indication that the Court considers the Internet as a regime unto itself and/or beyond the realm of human rights. On the contrary, it is emphasized that the Internet in its very essence is comparable to other means of content delivery.57 In one of its first Internet cases, the Court underlined the right of Member States to take action to stop harmful (illegal) Internet content from reaching children and young people. The Court held that it was proportionate for the authorities to resort to criminal prosecution for publishing obscene content on an Internet site, as it pursued the legitimate aim of protecting morals and the rights of others and considered this as necessary in a democratic society.58 In sum, a number of intergovernmental organizations and conferences have addressed global communication policy with reference to human rights; and organizations such as UNESCO and UNDP explicitly submit to a rights-based approach to their activities. However, few of the organizations have engaged with substantive analysis of policy issues from a human rights perspective. The WSIS process, which is still active through various implementation mechanisms, has not substantively advanced the human rights commitment which was made at the Geneva Summit in 2003 and reaffirmed in Tunis in 2005. The Council of Europe represents one of the only organizations which has contributed more comprehensive analysis and recommendations to guide global communication policy, based on case law from the European Court of Human Rights. Following this institutional perspective, I will next outline some of the business-led initiatives that focus on human rights and communication policy, often in partnership with civil society and academia.


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Human Rights and Communication Policy: A Business Perspective The Global Network Initiative (GNI) was initiated in 2008 to promote human rights standards among companies. The GNI is designed as a multi-stakeholder partnership among companies, technology leaders, civil society groups, and academics.59 The project was initiated in response to government pressure on information and communication technology (ICT) companies to comply with domestic laws and policies in ways that may conflict with human rights standards of freedom of expression and privacy. The GNI has developed principles and implementation guidelines related to freedom of expression and privacy which may inform a voluntary code of conduct for ICT companies. The group held its first public forum in 2008 in conjunction with another corporate initiative in the area, the Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights (BLIHR). UK-based BLIHR is chaired by former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Mary Robinson and has among its activities the development of concrete tools that may encourage businesses to comply with the standards set out in the UDHR (e.g., a Guide for Integrating Human Rights into Business Management).60 A third related initiative is the Human Rights and Business Project of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, which develops guidelines and training material to help companies comply with international human rights standards. The initiative is currently being applied in more than 200 companies, although there is no particular focus on the ICT sector.61 Finally, at a more general level, there is the UN-driven Global Compact Initiative which targets the business community at large. The Global Compact Initiative is structured as a public–private partnership and seeks to promote voluntary commitment amongst corporations to align their operations with universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. As illustrated, several initiatives target either corporate human rights compliance generally or the ICT sector more directly. However, all the initiatives are based on voluntary principles or codes of conduct, thus leaving it up to the companies to decide whether and how they comply with human rights standards. Moreover, the global nature of the communication

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environment makes the enforcement of these standards vis-à-vis private companies increasingly complex. While international companies may experience pressure from governments to comply with national laws that conflict with international human rights standards, as reported in the GNI, citizens increasingly find that the protection of their rights is in the hands of private companies located abroad and subject to varying legal regimes. Recent years have exposed a number of cases where companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have been criticized for violating their users’ rights to privacy or their right to freely seek information, and where national enforcement of human rights standards is complicated by the transnational nature of these companies (e.g., the challenge of enforcing European data protection law towards US-based Facebook).62 As such, the transnational character of the Internet forces a direct collision between diverse national legal cultures and ways of balancing competing human rights standards. In sum, it is fair to say that private companies have started to address their role and responsibility with regard to human rights. Over the past ten years, guidelines and toolkits have been developed which address the business sector at large, and the ICT sector specifically. In the global communication environment, ICT companies play an increasingly important role vis-à-vis citizens rights and freedoms. Also, coalitions such as the GNI illustrate that companies are beginning to address this responsibility. At the same time, it is important to note that the business-driven initiatives are based on voluntary commitment, thus leaving the level of human rights compliance up to the company itself. Though states have an obligation to protect their citizens’ enjoyment of human rights, even in the realm of private parties, the transnational character of the Internet makes it legally complex to enforce this principle. I now turn to the scholarly landscape related to global communication policy and human rights.

Human Rights and Communication Policy: The Academic Perspective63 The WSIS process provided a meeting point for many of the scholars interested in global communication policy, many of whom were active in and


around the issues advocated by the CRIS campaign. By contrast, few legal scholars in the field of human rights participated in the WSIS. This is indicative of the challenge of combining two arenas which currently have few cross-cutting academic initiatives. As a result of the WSIS, various publications dealing with information society issues were produced.64 In terms of academic institutions which combine human rights and communication policy, some of the most well-known are the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (Harvard University) and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society (Stanford University), both affiliated with law schools. However, at both centers, the focus is more on national legal standards than on the international human rights system. Likewise, research institutions such as the Oxford Internet Institute (Oxford University) and the School of Information Studies (Syracuse University) are prominent on global information communication research, but rarely with a human rights framing. One of the projects that has conducted extensive empirical research related to violations of online freedom of expression and privacy is the Open Net Initiative (ONI).65 ONI is a partnership between the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs (University of Toronto), the Security Group at Cambridge Computer Laboratory (University of Cambridge),66 the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and the Oxford Internet Institute. Not surprisingly, numerous legal departments deal with information and/or communication law, such as the Institute for Information Law (University of Amsterdam), which claims to be the largest research facility in the field in Europe. With regard to human rights law, countless faculties specialize in the field,67 but with limited focus on information and communication policy, though there are exemptions, such as the Institute of International Law and International Relations (University of Graz).68 The field of technology and data protection is one of the areas where more specific research combining human rights and communication policy is conducted; however, this research is mostly in relation to the right to privacy. The institutions active in this field include the Information Law Institute (New York University School of Law), the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre (University of New South Wales), the

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Human Rights and Global Discourses Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (University of Ottawa), the Department of Management and the Department of Law (London School of Economics and Political Science) and the George Washington University Law School. In sum, while global communication issues are subject to research from a variety of technical, legal, and social science perspectives, the efforts to combine such research with human rights studies are still limited. The human rights research community has not, to any great extent, taken on the global communication environment as a research topic. And for communication or information science scholars, the topic of human rights is often dealt with as a normative framework at a very general level or in relation to a few specific rights only.

Conclusion: The Impact of Human Rights on Global Communication Policy Summing up the previous sections, the international human rights perspective appears visible but not operationally applied in global communication debates. References to the human rights regime, especially to the UDHR, have been made on many policy occasions during and beyond the WSIS, but, mostly in a very general form or with reference to selected rights only. The right to freedom of expression has been iterated time and again, and is by far the most debated human right in relation to communication and media policy debates. The emphasis on freedom of expression is not surprising, since the right protects various freedoms both in relation to individual and media communication, and thus is crucial when debating the rules and conditions of the global communication environment. However, the enjoyment of freedom of expression must be seen in conjunction with the whole human rights regime pertaining to multiple dimensions and contexts of social life (e.g., the right to a minimum standard of living; the right to basic education; the right to health; the right to not be discriminated against based on one’s gender, racial or ethnic background, faith or religion; the right to enjoy one’s own culture; the right to political participation). The protection and promotion of the broad range of rights may be affected in a negative manner by the ways in which


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the global communication environment is used and governed by both public and private sector actors. Moreover, assessing communication policy from the baseline of human rights standards may point toward policies and practices that are substantially different from the approaches currently being pursued. First, this implies ensuring that states refrain from establishing national or international laws, policies, and practices that erode the agreed upon human rights standards. One example of a recent policy that has been criticized for undermining agreed privacy standards is the retention of all communication data by telecommunication and Internet service providers, as prescribed in EU countries by Directive 2006/24/EC.69 Also, the increasingly common arrest and imprisonment without due process of Internet users who have simply expressed their political views online violates rights of expression and the right to a fair trail. Second, it means proactively taking steps to create conditions in which rights can be realized more fully and effectively. Currently, national, regional, and global communication policies are routinely being formulated without giving any real attention to the relevance of, or impact on, human rights standards. Increasingly important in the latter connection is the growing need to establish national and international public policy frameworks that discourage practices by private actors, most notably the business sector, that may undercut the strength of human rights protection. However, in many cases, particularly involving socalled second- and third-generation rights, there may be great ambiguity as to the application of human rights standards. Does the right to express oneself, seek out information, or participate in political dialogue, culture, and development mean that governments are obliged to provide the technological means to these ends? Is the failure to provide affordable access to telecommunication or the Internet inconsistent with human rights obligations? Some analysts and advocates would argue that it is, while others would view this as an overly expansive claim that risks diluting the moral force and legal coherence of rights guarantees. As a result of the WSIS controversy around the claim for a right to communicate, some agreement has emerged among the involved groups, shifting the focus from a right to communicate toward the enforcement of a number of existing and

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interdependent rights. It is thus fair to say that the various media and human rights groups active at WSIS and beyond have grown closer to a common approach towards global communication policy.70 However, the communities of expertise and practice involved in human rights and information and communication policy have not yet undertaken the sort of mutual and sustained dialogue that would be required in order to advance the debate. Information and communication groups, scholars, or policy-makers typically are not trained in the legal complexity of human rights; they are unsure how human rights standards might apply to the given policy issues and are unclear on the practical implications of such an effort. As for the human rights communities, they have largely avoided delving into the full complexities of the global communication arena. Those which have launched programs usually focus on challenging governmental restrictions on freedom of expression rather than protecting and promoting the broader array of political, economic, and social rights in light of the global communication environment. Moreover, the civil society groups launched in the 1990s to defend cyber rights have usually stayed within their original mandates, rather than expanding their focus to the broader human rights agenda. Their initiatives often concentrate on opposing specific new laws, policies, and programs rather than on framing the issues in terms of long-standing and internationally agreed human rights. Intergovernmental organizations concerned with human rights have mostly devoted attention in a loose, schematic, and aspirational manner. As such, human right standards have not been internalized as key criteria for evaluating the various policy measures in relation to global communication policy. In sum, the integration of human rights criteria into the assessment and development of global media and communication policies will need to be further substantiated. One of the possible obstacles to this end may be that human rights are often presented with emphasis on the civil liberties and freedoms of the individual. Not least in the context of communication policy, it is important to reiterate the whole array of social, economic, and cultural rights which speak to a more nuanced understanding and application of the human rights framework. Human rights entail individual freedoms and liberties as a safeguard against state


repression and the illegitimate use of power, but they also entail duties whereby the state is committed to provide the conditions and services necessary for the individual to enjoy a certain standard of living, and for him or her to be able to participate in public and political life. A major challenge is therefore to give greater detail to the full array of rights and to clarify their meaning and applicability under diverse conditions. In particular, as new types of behavior and policy emerge that were not envisioned when human rights were initially established, it is essential to consider how human rights can be not only respected but also advanced in the resulting environments. As previously mentioned, the Council of Europe is one of the only intergovernmental organizations which have taken steps to flesh out the challenges that occur when confronting global communication policy with existing human rights standards (e.g., in the area of Internet governance). Also, various multi-stakeholder initiatives have started to address communication policy with reference to human rights (e.g., the Freedom of Expression project, and the various Dynamic Coalitions active in the WSIS follow-up). While trying to retain an optimistic note with regard to these initiatives, they generally lack the participation of human rights professionals. It is thus crucial that the human rights community that holds specific expertise engages with groups concerned with global communication policy in order to provide concrete guidance to advocacy, policy-making, and monitoring. In the longer term, this may eventually happen when more judgments related to human rights and communication policies are provided, and human rights professionals, to a larger extent, start to deal with these cases. In the shorter term, the process may be advanced if a rights-based approach to communication policy is substantiated (e.g., by some of the civil society communities that crosscut development, communication policy, and human rights).71 Human rights represent international legal standards that have taken states decades to negotiate and agree upon, and currently there are tremendous challenges in bringing practical reality to these rights in most parts of the world. A way forward in addressing the concern for greater diversity and participation in the global flow of communication may be for media, human rights, and other groups to combine their efforts more systematically to build and promote

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Human Rights and Global Discourses communicative capacity on the ground, not least in less developed countries.72 Addressing communication policy from the broader perspective of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights may provide a mutual platform for civil society groups concerned with communication policy and the human rights communities. One step in this direction would be to develop analysis and guidelines that clarify how specific areas of global communication policy may be related to human rights, and to suggest best practices for policies that protect and advance human rights standards within each area.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6 7 8

The account of human rights in this section and in the conclusion of this chapter as well is a shortened and revised version of Drake and Jørgensen (2006). The UDHR was drafted and approved in the short period of just two years. In contrast, negotiations over the two legal instruments dragged on for over a decade before concluding in 1966. The process of national ratification, thus getting binding commitment from states, has taken much longer and is still incomplete. The ICCPR and ICESCR build directly on the UDHR, reinforcing, through codification, the strength of its injunctions. For a discussion on the complexity of this distinction, see, for example, Koch (2005: 81–103), and see (UNESC 2004). Legal scholars speak of “Drittwirkung” (effect by third party), which is used to stress that contracting states that have ratified human right treaties must protect individuals’ human rights in the realm of private parties as well. See van Hoof and van Dijk (1998: 23). While many of the instruments amplify rights previously established in the International Bill of Human Rights, there are also additions. These sets of rights are often described as “third-generation rights.” Leading examples include the rights invoked in the UN General Assembly’s 1984 Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace and its 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development. The aspirational principles of these declarations have been affirmed in subsequent political statements or soft law, but they have not been embodied in binding treaties. The Human Rights Council is a successor to the Human Rights Commission, which was replaced in 2006. Available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/treaties/ dat/32007X1214/htm/C2007303EN.01000101.htm. The Treaty of Lisbon was signed on December 13, 2007. The treaty revises the working processes of


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the European Union and came into force on December 1, 2009. It is available at: http://europa. eu/lisbon_treaty/index_en.htm. 9 For a global overview of NHRIs, see www.nhri.net. For a discussion on the role of NHRIs, see Kjærum (2003: 631–653). 10 See, for example, Filmer-Wilson (2005). 11 See http://www.unhchr.ch/development/approaches. html. 12 Broadly stated, the right to freedom of expression entails a right to express oneself (e.g., to voice opinions and disseminate information), and a right to receive information (e.g., to receive or access already existing and available information, be it in electronic form or otherwise). As expressed in Article 19 of the UDHR: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (UDHR Article 19). 13 In short, the US and others saw NWICO as a means for non-democratic states to restrict freedom of expression, especially media freedom, while the other side claimed that media should be under stricter (state) control, and that media concentration should be limited in order to allow for a more pluralistic flow of information. 14 See, for example, Richards (2002: 161–186), as well as the essays in Hick et al. (2000). 15 Groups such as Human Rights Watch, Reporters sans Frontières, Amnesty International, International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), ARTICLE 19, and Human Rights in China have, to a varying degree, documented and reported on Internet usage by human rights groups and independent journalists since the mid-1990s. The groups also document and publicize information on human rights violations in relation to conventional media. 16 See, for example, Frontline (2007), or the attached toolkit available at www.NGOinabox.org. Also, Canadian Privaterra (www.privaterra.org) has been active in this field. 17 See, for example, the Open Net Initiative (ONI), which aims to investigate and expose Internet filtering and surveillance practices. ONI is a collaborative project carried out by several research institutions. For more information, see http://opennet.net. 18 The right to privacy is stipulated in Article 12 of the UDHR: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks” (UDHR Article 12).

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108 19

20

21

22

23

24


Many of the groups were organized under the Global Information Liberty Campaign (www.gilc. org), which is no longer active. Current examples include groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Privacy International (PI), and European Digital Rights (EDRI). See, for example, the numerous national contributors to EPIC/PI’s annual report on Human Right and Privacy, available at: http://www.worldlii.org/ int/journals/EPICPrivHR/2006/PHR2006.html. London-based organization ARTICLE 19 is one of the NGOs which seems more substantively anchored in the human rights framework. EFF and ACLU, in particular, have been involved in some landmark court cases regarding online freedom of expression. One of the better-known cases concerns the Communication Decency Act, which the US Supreme Court struck down in Reno vs. ACLU in 1997. US groups also have a long history of using the First Amendment to advocate for freedom of expression in the press and on television. Since 2008 EFF has been leading lawsuits against AT&T, the US Government and Bush and Obama Administration officials to stop warrant-less wiretapping; see www.eff.org. The global NGO network Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an example of an organization that increasingly frames its policy initiatives with reference to human rights. See, for example, the following excerpt from the APC Internet Rights Charter: “APC believes that the ability to share information and communicate freely using the Internet is vital to the realisation of human rights as enshrined in the UDHR (1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976) and the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1980).” The Charter is available at: http://www.apc.org/ en/pubs/briefs/apc-internet-rights-charter. The WSIS represented the first attempt by the UN to debate global communication policy. The WSIS comprised two global summits. The first was held in Geneva in December 2003 and the second in Tunis in November 2005 (WSIS 2003, 2003a, 2005, 2005a). The preparatory process involved a series of regional conferences and meetings. Broadly stated, the overarching objectives of the WSIS were to foster a global dialogue about the information society; to adopt shared principles (Geneva Declaration of Principles) and a plan of action (Geneva Plan of Action) to help guide the international community’s


25

26

27

28

29

30 31

32

33

information society initiatives; and to define an approach to follow-up and implementation of efforts related to the Plan of Action. At the onset of the WSIS, organizations that had been involved in NWICO and newcomers gathered around the CRIS campaign, this time not calling for a state- or industry-led effort to create a new global orders but instead advocating for democratization of media and communication. For an analysis of the CRIS campaign by one of its founders, see Ó Siochrú (2005). As part of a larger civil society coalition that came together around the WSIS, a small group of civil society organizations concerned with getting human rights on the WSIS agenda launched the Human Rights Caucus at the first preparatory conference in July 2002. At the Summit in 2005, the Caucus comprised more than 60 organizations. See http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis. This was stressed during the World Forum on Communication Rights, organized by, among others, the CRIS campaign and the Human Rights Caucus as a side event at the Geneva Summit in 2003. WSIS, Civil Society Plenary, Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs, adopted in Geneva, December 8, 2003. For an assessment of the first phase of the WSIS from a human rights perspective see Marzouki and Jørgensen (2004: 86–88). See http://thepublicvoice.org. Paris-based OECD has, at the time of writing, 30 member countries representing the most developed countries of the world. The OECD conducts analyses, research, and forecasting in relation to economic and social developments within these countries; see www.oecd.org. “Compliance with international human rights standards and respect for the rule of law, as well as effective human rights protection, must be the baseline for assessing global information society policies”; see Civil Society–TUAC (Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD), The Seoul Declaration to the OECD Ministerial Conference on the Future of the Internet Economy, June 16, 2008: 1. Civil society documents are available at: http://thepublicvoice.org/events/seoul08. The draft treaty suggests provisions regarding limitations and exceptions to copyrights and related rights. The idea behind this part of the treaty is the need to preserve and promote a number of uses of creative works that should not be inhibited by exclusive intellectual property rights (e.g., in the areas of education, science, or preservation) or use by groups with special needs and interests such as persons with disabilities, distant education institutions, the media

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Human Rights and Global Discourses or developing countries; see http://www.cptech. org/a2k. 34 The right to participate in the cultural life of the community is stipulated in Article 27 of the UDHR: “(1) Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author” (UDHR: Article 27). 35 See http://a2k3.org/2008/09/access-to-knowlegeand-human-rights-panel/#comments. 36 The project includes civil society groups, academics, public regulators, and business; see http://www. freedomofexpression.org.uk/resources/about+ the+project. 37 The Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) was one of the few NHRIs active in the WSIS process and was the co-coordinator of the Human Rights Caucus. 38 “We reaffirm our commitment to the freedom to seek, receive, impart and use information, in particular, for the creation, accumulation and dissemination of knowledge. We affirm that measures undertaken to ensure Internet stability and security, to fight cybercrime and to counter spam, must protect and respect the provisions for privacy and freedom of expression as contained in the relevant parts of the UDHR and the Geneva Declaration of Principles” (Tunis Agenda: Paragraph 42). 39 See statements and speeches available at: http:// www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory/prepcom/pc2/ index.html. 40 See the preamble and paragraphs 3, 4, 5, 11, 18, 36, 52, 58 of the Geneva Declaration of Principles. 41 For a full list of IGF Dynamic Coalitions, see: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/index.php/ dynamiccoalitions. 42 See UNESCO Medium-Term Strategy 2008–2013: 8 “Overall, the Organization will pursue in all its fields of competence a human rights-based approach to programming,” available at http://unesdoc. unesco.org/images/0014/001499/149999e.pdf. 43 “Adopting a human rights-based approach may not necessarily change what we do, but it will raise questions about how we do it. As stated before, a human rights-based approach provides both a vision of what development should strive to achieve (to secure the freedom, well-being and dignity of all people everywhere), and a set of tools and essential references (human rights standards and principles). It is essentially based on the values, standards and principles captured in the UN Charter, the UDHR and subsequent legally binding


44

45

46

47

48 49 50

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human rights conventions/treaties” (UNDP 2001: 2). See also Filmer-Wilson (2005: 214–216). An overview of all action lines is available at: http:// www.itu.int/wsis/implementation/facilitators. html. “The Special Rapporteur believes that guaranteeing freedom of opinion and expression on the Internet and other new communication tools is the central challenge for the future. The achievement of a global information society, in which the poor can also have access to modern technologies, may represent a leap forward for mankind, opening new paths for human and economic development. Should the information society miss the opportunity of making technologies available globally, the social and economic cleavage between developed and developing countries will deepen” (E/CN.4/ 2005/64: 14). All annual reports are available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/opinion/ annual.htm. Special representatives are mandated to report on specific themes or countries. The UN system has a number of special representatives (rapporteurs), and so does the Organization of American States (OAS), the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), and the OSCE (see www.osce.org). See, for example, the CoE Convention on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (1981); the CoE Convention on Cybercrime (2001), the Declaration of the Committee of Ministers on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in the Information Society (2005); the Recommendation on Promoting Freedom of Expression in the New Information and Communication Environment (2007), the Recommendation on Measures to Promote the Respect for Freedom of Expression and Information with regard to Internet Filters (2008), and the Resolution on Internet Governance and Critical Internet Resources (2009). Conventions are available at: http://conventions. c o e . i n t / Tr e a t y / C o m m u n / L i s t e Tr a i t e s . asp?CM=8&CL=ENG; recommendations, declarations, and resolutions are available at: http://www. coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media/Themes/ Free_en.asp. For a summarised report on CoE measures in relation to communication policies, see Internet – Creating Opportunities for All, document presented by the Secretary General of the CoE to IGF in Sharm-El-Sheikh 2009. See http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/ media/MC-S-PSM/Mandat_en.asp#TopOfPage. See http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/ media/MC-S-MD/default_en.asp. See http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/ media/MC-S-IS/Mandat_en.asp#TopOfPage.

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110 51


For more information, see: http://www.coe.int/t/ dghl/standardsetting/media/Themes/Free_en. asp. 52 Groups such as Privacy International, EPIC, and GILC (see note 15), have strongly opposed the Cybercrime Convention. 53 A recommendation to promote the public service value of the Internet (2007) is available at: http:// www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media/ Themes/Internet_en.asp. 54 See Copland vs. the United Kingdom (2007), available at http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?i tem=1&portal=hbkm&action=html&highlight=u nited%20%7C%20kingdom%20%7C%20copland& sessionid=23727232&skin=hudoc-en. 55 See, for example, Kruslin vs. France (1990), available at: http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?ite m=1&portal=hbkm&action=html&highlight=FR ANCE%20%7C%20kruslin&sessionid=23727271& skin=hudoc-en; or Amann vs. Switzerland (2000), available at: http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view. asp?item=1&portal=hbkm&action=html&highlig ht=SWITZERLAND&sessionid=23727329&skin= hudoc-en. 56 “Compliance with [ICCPR] Article 17 requires that the integrity and confidentiality of correspondence should be guaranteed de jure and de facto. Correspondence should be delivered to the addressee without interception and without being opened or otherwise read. Surveillance whether electronic or otherwise, interceptions of telephonic, telegraphic and other forms of communication, wire-tapping and recording of conversations should be prohibited” (United Nations Human Rights Committee, The right to respect of privacy, family, home and correspondence, and protection of honour and reputation (Article 17), HRC 1988). 57 Anne Sofie Greve, former judge at the European Court of Human Rights, in CoE 2006: 11. 58 In Perrin vs. the United Kingdom (2005), the applicant challenged a 30-month prison sentence in connection with pornographic material exhibited on a US-based web site. The Court held that the fact that the dissemination of the images in question may have been legal in the US did not mean that, in proscribing such dissemination within its own territory and in prosecuting and convicting the applicant, the UK had exceeded the margin of appreciation afforded to it. The complaint was found to be manifestly ill-founded under Article 10 of the ECHR (available at: http://vcmiskp.echr.coe. int/tkp197/view.asp?item=1&portal=hbkm& action=html&highlight=united%20%7C%20 kingdom%20%7C%20Perrin&sessionid=23727329& skin=hudoc-en).


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Partners include Business for Social Responsibility, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Vodafone, France Telecom, International Business Leaders Forum, UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and the Center for Democracy and Technology (see www.globalnetworkinitiative.org). 60 The initiative is scheduled to end in 2009; see www.blihr.org. 61 See www.humanrightsbusiness.org. 62 As an example of the ongoing dialogue between Facebook and data protection authorities, see, for example, the resolution agreed between Facebook and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada available at http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/ nr-c/2009/let_090827_e.cfm. Also, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party of the European Commission has, on June 22, 2009, issued an opinion on how social networking sites are affected by European data protection law. The opinion is available at http://ec.europa.eu/ justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2009/ wp163_en.pdf. 63 This outline is not comprehensive but rather illustrative of some of the institutions with research agendas within this field. 64 Several of the WSIS publications represent a mixture of academic and activist contributors, such as Word Matters – Multilingual Perspectives on Information Societies (Caen: C&F Editions, 2005), Human Rights in the Global Information Society (R. Jørgensen (ed.), MIT Press, 2006), Visions in Process I, and Visions in Process II (Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2003, 2005), Assessing Communication Rights: A Handbook (CRIS Campaign, 2005), Incommunicado Reader (Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2005). However, more academic publications were also produced, for example, Making the Global Information Society Governable (M. Flyverbom, Copenhagen Business School, Phd Series December 2006), Macht und Geld im Cyberspace (W. Kleinwächter, H. M. Gruppe 2004), The World Summit in Reflection: A Deliberative Dialogue on WSIS (a thematic issue produced by the journal Information Technologies and International Development and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, MIT Press 2004), Civil Society, Communication and Global Governance: Issues from the World Summit on the Information Society (M. Raboy and N. Landry, New York: Peter Lang Academic Publishing, 2005), Democratizing Global Communication? Global Civil Society and the Campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (M. Mueller, B. Kuerbis, C. Pagé, International Journal of Communication, 1, 2007). 65 See, for example, Deibert et al. (2008).

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67

68 69

70

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Until December 2007 the Cambridge partner to ONI was the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme. See, for example, the network of academic institutions affiliated with the European Master in Human Rights and Democratization program, carried out jointly by more than forty European Universities (available at: www.emahumanrights.org). See, for example, Benedek et al. (2008). See, for example, opinion 3/2006 from The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party of the European Commission: “the Art. 29 Working Party had voiced its reservations since the provisions of the Directive will have far reaching consequences for all European citizens and their privacy. The decision to retain communication data for the purpose of combating serious crime is an unprecedented one with a historical dimension. It encroaches into the daily life of every citizen and may endanger the fundamental values and freedoms all European citizens enjoy and cherish.” The opinion, adopted on March 25, 2006, is available at http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/ fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2006/wp119_en.pdf. For civil society campaigns against data retention, see http://www.edri.org/campaigns/dataretention. Despite a growing convergence in positions, there are still communication rights advocates and scholars who would argue that merely enforcing existing human rights does not suffice in providing communication rights; see, for example, Kuhlen (2003). APC (2009) provides an overview of the various components in ICT policy-making, and has references to human rights. As such it may serve as a starting point for elaborating the various policy elements in global communication policy from a human rights perspective. See, for example, Global Voices Online, initiated by E. Zuckerman and R. Mackinnon in 2005, which “seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online – shining light on places and people other media often ignore” (see www. globalvoicesonline.org).

References Association for Progressive Communications (2009) ICT Policy Handbook (second edition), http://www.apc. org/en/node/9555 (accessed 27/02/2010). Benedek, W., Ketterman, M. C., and Senges, M. (2008) The Humanizations of Internet Governance: A Roadmap Towards a Comprehensive Global (Human) Rights Architecture for the Internet, Contribution to the Third Annual GigaNet Symposium, December 2, 2008, Hyderabad, India.


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Council of Europe (2006) Blogged Submission to the Internet Governance Forum (October 30 to November 2), Athens: Council of Europe. Council of Europe (1950) Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Strasburg: Council of Europe. Deibert, R., Palfrey, J., Rohozinski, R., and Zittrain, J. (eds) (2008) Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Drake, W. J., and Jørgensen, R. F. (2006) “Introduction,” in R. F. Jørgensen (ed) Human Rights in the Global Information Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1–49. Filmer-Wilson, E. (2005) The human rights-based approach to development: the right to water. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 23(2): 213–241. Frontline (2007) Digital Security & Privacy for Human Rights Defenders. Dublin: Frontline. Habermas, J. (1996) Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hick, S., Halpin, E. F., and Hoskins, E. (eds) (2000) Human Rights and the Internet. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kjærum, M. (2003) “National human rights institutions implementing human rights,” in M. Bergsmo (ed) Human Rights and Criminal Justice for the Downtrodden: Essays in Honour of Asbjørn Eide. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, pp. 631–653. Koch, I. (2005) Dichotomies, trichotomies, or waves of duties?. Human Rights Law Review, 5(1): 81–103. Kuhlen, R. (2003) “Why are communication rights so controversial?” in Heinrich Böll Foundation (ed.), Visions in Process: World Summit on the Information Society Geneva 2003. Berlin: Heinrich Böll Foundation, pp. 54–58. Lipson, M. (2008) “Situating the values of the networked communications environment within the international human rights framework”. Paper for the Freedom of Expression Project, April. Marzouki, M., and Jørgensen, R. F. (2004) A human rights assessment of the World Summit on The Information Society. Information Technologies and International Development, 1(3–4): 86–88. Ó Siochrú, S. (2005) “Communication rights,” in Word Matters: Multicultural Perspectives on Information Societies. Caen: C&F Editions, pp. 475–502. Richards, D. L. (2002) “Making the national international: Information technology and government respect for human rights,” in J. E. Allison (ed.) Technology, Development, and Democracy: International Conflict and Cooperation in the Information Age. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 161–186. UNDP (2001) A Human Rights-based Approach to Development Programming in UNDP: Adding the Missing Link. Geneva: UNDP.

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UN Economic and Social Council (2004) E/CN.4/2005/64 Civil and Political Rights, Including the Question of Freedom of Expression: The Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. Report of the Special Rapporteur, Ambeyi Ligabo, December 17. Commission on Human Rights, Sixty-first session, New York. UN Human Rights Committee (1988) CCPR General Comment No. 16: Article 17 (Right to Privacy), The Right to Respect of Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence, and Protection of Honour and Reputation, April 8. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva. United Nations (1984) Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. New York: United Nations, http://www2.ohchr. org/english/law/cat.htm (accessed 27/02/2010). United Nations (1948) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: United Nations, http://www. ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx? LangID=eng (accessed 01/04/2010). United Nations (1965) International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. New York: United Nations, http://www2.ohchr. org/english/law/cerd.htm (accessed 01/04/2010). United Nations (1966) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. New York: United Nations, http:// www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ccpr.htm (accessed 01/04/2010).


United Nations (1966) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. New York: United Nations, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm (accessed 01/04/2010). United Nations (1979) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. New York: United Nations, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/ law/cedaw.htm (accessed 01/04/2010). United Nations (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child. New York: United Nations, http://www2.ohchr. org/english/law/crc.htm (accessed 01/04/2010). van Hoof, G. J. H., and van Dijk, P. (1998) Theory and Practice of the European Convention Human Rights. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. World Summit on the Information Society (2003) Declaration of Principles. Geneva: WSIS, http:// www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/official/dop.html (accessed 01/04/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (2003a) Plan of Action. Geneva: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/ geneva/official/poa.html (accessed 01/04/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (2005) Tunis Commitment. Tunis: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/ docs2/tunis/off/7.html (accessed 01/04/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (2005a) Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. Tunis: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1. html (accessed 01/04/2010).

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7

Policy’s Hubris: Power, Fantasy, and the Limits of (Global) Media Policy Interventions Nico Carpentier Introduction Over the past decades, global policy has gained a place high on the agendas of political, civil society, business, and academic forums. The resources invested within this field are considerable and diverse, and there are many ideological projects launched to deal with this once so poorly charted territory media policy being no exception. Without wanting to discredit the relevance of global policy development, and its intentions to “civilize” the many territories that are still open, this chapter aims to take a step back in order to deconstruct some of the basic assumptions that circulate within this field. I should start immediately with a reminder that deconstruction has to be distinguished from demolition, a point made by Derrida (1978: 10). This chapter will deploy post-structuralist theory (and, more specifically, a combination of the work of Foucault and Lacan1) to theorize the existence of three basic fantasies that feed into the field of the political, politics, and policy. In order to analyse the power dynamics (and hegemonies) that these fantasies trigger, this chapter will start with a discussion on power. More specifically, two approaches to power will be developed: the first is based on the distinction between causal and strategic power, while the second is based on the differences

between discursive power, material body-related power, and material object-related power. In the next part of the chapter, the focus is placed on specific components of discursive power within the field of policy which are termed fantasies (in alignment with Lacan’s work). These fantasies play a crucial role: they drive policy interventions, and influence and legitimate how, within a society, discursive and material power operate and are distributed. In the last part of the chapter, this conceptual reflection will be applied within the context of the global media policy debate, showing how a number of hegemonies and fantasies circulate within the field of global media policy development, and how they exercise their discursive power. As hegemony can never be total, and fantasy can never fully attain reality, this chapter will also discuss how these hegemonies and fantasies become frustrated and dislocated, providing support for the argument that, when discussing the potential power of policy, hubris should be avoided.

Power Power’s complex dynamics have generated a long history of theoretical elaborations that is impossible to summarize within the scope of a book chapter.



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Despite this early disclaimer, it is still necessary to briefly sketch two basic models of power, namely, the causal model and the strategic model of power. The causal model goes back to Weber’s (1947: 152) definition of power (and before), which he saw as “the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests.” Similarly, the (traditional) Marxist model used a definition of power which focussed on the dominance of the bourgeoisie, as the owners of the means of production. Also Dahl (1969: 80) used a linear-causal model of power when he defined power as: “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do.” Later additions to the causal power model distinguished different levels, claiming that power not only intervened in decisions but also in non-decisions and no-decision logics. Barach and Baratz (1970: 7) added a layer to this discussion when they said that: “power is also exercised when A devotes his energies to creating or reinforcing social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to public consideration of only those issues which are relatively innocuous to A.” Another layer was added by Lukes (1974) when he pointed to latent conflicts, emphasizing the role of power in such conflicts. The strategic model of power was developed by post-structuralists like Foucault who pointed out that, in the traditional interpretation, power was often reduced to a negative approach. In his two major works of the 1970s – Discipline and Punish (1977) and the first part of the History of Sexuality2 (1978) – Foucault rejects this exclusively repressive meaning of power, and defines power as productive, as “a general matrix of force relations at a given time, in a given society” (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983: 186). It is this approach to power as productive which brought him to a strategic model of power, as Foucault saw power relations as mobile and multidirectional: power is practiced and not possessed (Kendall and Wickham 1999: 50). This multiplicity of power relations also detaches the outcome of the power play from the actors’ intentions. As Foucault (1978: 95) puts it in his History of Sexuality, power relations are “intentional and nonsubjective,” which he later explained as follows: “people know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don’t


know is what what they do does” (Foucault quoted in Dreyfus and Rabinow 1983: 187). Foucault (1978: 94) also explicitly stresses that power relations are non-egalitarian, although domination should not be considered the essence of power. Simultaneously, resistance to power is considered part of the exercise of power (Kendall and Wickham 1999: 50). As Hunt and Wickham (1994: 83) argue: “Power and resistance are together the governance machine of society, but only in the sense that together they contribute to the truism that ‘things never quite work’, not in the conspiratorial sense that resistance serves to make power work perfectly.” As no actor, however privileged, can exercise full and total control over the social, and more dominant positions will often generate resistance, the Foucauldian model presents us with a multitude of strategies that form a complex power game.

Power, Materiality and Ideology (and Some Hegemony and Fantasy) The difference between strategic and causal models of power is mainly at the (power) theoretical level, and clearly this is not the only way to categorize the omnipresent workings of power. One other (but crucial) way to theorize power is to incorporate its object(s), as power can (be intended to) affect many different realms of the social. Here, it can be helpful to use the two concepts of idealism and materialism as the main structuring categories to look at power’s objects, as these two concepts allow me to distinguish discursive power from material power. Discursive power functions within the world of ideas and has a close connection to notions of representation, ideology, and hegemony. If we turn to an early Foucauldian model (as for instance developed in his Archaeology of Knowledge; 2002) we can find a strong emphasis on the role (and power) of discursive formations in constructing and producing their objects. When Foucault, for instance, talks about madness in Archaeology of Knowledge, he claims that: “mental illness was constituted by all that was said in all the statements that named it, divided it up, described it, explained it, traced its developments, indicated its various correlations,

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Power, Fantasy and Limits of Global Policy judged it, and possibly gave it speech by articulating, in its name, discourses that were to be taken as its own” (Foucault 2002: 35). A similar argument can be found in Althusser’s work, although he prefers the concept of ideology to theorize the importance of the ideal for the social. Here, ideology has discursive power as a “representation of the world” that “relates men and women to their conditions of existence, and to each other, in the division of their tasks and the equality and inequality of their lot” (Althusser 1990: 25). Through the logics of interpellation, ideology offers overdetermined frameworks of knowledge that allow subjects to (actively) make sense of the social while, at the same time, pre-structuring the social and excluding other frameworks. Later, authors like Hall (1997) and Laclau and Mouffe (1985) (re)used the concepts of representation and discourse to emphasize the importance of meaning in accessing (and controlling) the social. Laclau and Mouffe (1985) stress the importance (and power) of discourse to generate meaning, where discourse is defined as “a structure in which meaning is constantly negotiated and constructed” (Laclau 1988: 254). With his emphasis on representational practices, grounded in language, Hall (1997) stresses the necessity of representations to meaningfully interpret the world, but he (more than, for example, Laclau and Mouffe (1985) ) also explicitly links the concept of representation to the subject, and how individuals (and mainly their egos – to use a Freudian concept) negotiate their individuality and subjectivity by using these discursive structures (or subject positions) provided to them by the cultures that surround them, without losing their freedom and independence. These later approaches (in contrast to the Foucault of the 1960s, but in accordance with his later work) move away from structuralism and allow for the introduction of more human agency. They also provide the space for more contingency. Through these rearticulations, discursive power becomes less anonymous, as different actors are seen actively to develop strategies in their attempts to fix reality that, in turn, will generate counter-strategies and counter-ideologies. Societal contingency then becomes both the consequence and the condition of possibility of this discursive struggle to represent the social. The never-ending struggle to fix reality structurally unsettles any attempt to provide reality’s ultimate and universal fixation.


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But at the same time, the struggle itself is conditioned by the impossibility to fixate reality. Especially by bringing in Gramsci’s work (with hegemony as the most obvious concept), these rearticulations provide a political-ideological support structure for the concept of discursive power. Originally, Gramsci (1999: 261) defined this notion to refer to the formation of consent rather than to the (exclusive) domination of the other without, however, excluding a certain form of pressure and repression. Howarth (1998: 279) describes Laclau and Mouffe’s interpretation of the concept as follows: “hegemonic practices are an exemplary form of political articulation which involves linking together different identities into a common project.” This does not imply that counter-hegemonic articulations are impossible and that hegemony is total (Sayyid and Zac 1998: 262). As Mouffe (2005: 18) formulated it: “Every hegemonic order is susceptible of being challenged by counter-hegemonic practices, i.e. practices which will attempt to disarticulate the existing order so as to install other forms of hegemony.” The ambition of these hegemonic projects is to become a social imaginary which is defined by Laclau (1990: 64) as “a horizon: it is not one among other objects but an absolute limit which structures a field of intelligibility and is thus the condition of possibility of the emergence of any object.” The strength of these social imaginaries is based on what Stavrakakis (1999: 96) calls “an ethics of harmony,” a desire for reality to be coherent and harmonious, which is always frustrated and unattainable because of the contingency of the social. If we turn to psychoanalytical vocabulary, we can say that social imaginaries are fantasies that enable an overcoming of the lack generated by the contingency of the social and the structural impossibility of attaining reality (or the Real, as Lacan would have it). In Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, fantasy is conceptualized as having (among others) a protective role (Lacan 1979: 41). In providing the subject with (imaginary) frames which attempt to conceal and finally to overcome the lack (Lacan 1994: 119–120), fantasy functions as “the support that gives consistency to what we call ‘reality’ ” (Žižek 1995: 44). Subjects “push away reality in fantasy” (Lacan 1999: 107); in order to make the reality (imaginary) consistent, social imaginaries are produced, accepted, and then taken for granted.

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Although these more recent theorizations of discursive power do not ignore the importance of the material, they still remain (to different degrees) embedded within an idealist framework. A more materialist framework yields a different perspective, focussing on the exercise of power over and through material objects and bodies, which I will call material power here. In his work in the 1970s,3 and especially in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault strongly advocates looking at how (disciplinary) power works upon bodies. Here, he distinguishes four components in how bodies are turned into “docile [bodies]” that “may be subjected, used, transformed, and improved” (Foucault 1977: 136). First, the body is stripped of its signifying dimensions, turning the subject into an object. The body itself is further divided into units, each subjected to detailed training, while the spaces in which the bodies are located are carefully managed. Finally, the application of control over bodies is not applied sporadically but consistently and continuously. Obviously, although power can (quite easily) turn into domination, even in these circumstances there is, for Foucault, still space for reciprocity in power relations and resistance to unequal power relations. Without claiming that all bodies are permanently subjected to “total institutions” (à la Goffman (1961) ), we can still witness the presence of ideological and repressive state apparati (in the Althusserian sense) that exercise power in relation to individuals and organizations. Through the monopoly of violence, states can, at all times, surveil, control, and discipline the bodies of their citizens, for instance, through penal systems. But as the governmentality school has argued (Burchell et al. 1991; Barry et al. 1996; Rose 1999), the subjection of bodies to power is organized not only by the state but by a wide variety of aligned organizations. Individual freedom plays a key role in the functioning of governmentality, as this mechanism is based on management through freedom. In his essay “Subject and Power,” from the early 1980s, Foucault writes that power is: “exercized only over free subjects, and only insofaras they are free. By this we mean individual or collective subjects who are faced with a field of possibilities in which several ways of behaving, several reactions and diverse comportments might be realised” (Foucault 1983: 221). One significant example can be found in the field of employment where large quantities of people


freely surrender part of their freedom in order to function within hierarchically structured organizations, to have their bodies perform specified tasks that serve aims which are not necessarily theirs. Again, it is crucial to remark that these types of exercise of power are always characterized by a unique and specific combination of structural constraints and agency-related opportunities, and that these strategies always allow for tactics (de Certeau 1988) to resist the strategies. Like discursive power, body-related material power remains incorporated in struggle and conflict, and bodies maintain a degree of autonomy to enter into power practices themselves. Next to body-related material power, we can also distinguish object-related material power. Although this distinction runs the risk of anthropocentrism (see below), humans can still exert control over a wide variety of objects (or resources) which incorporate varying degrees of technicity, complexity, and human intervention. This category ranges from basic material objects to complex configurations of objects (like the assets of a company). A crucial concept to negotiate the relationships between humans and objects is ownership. This concept creates the framework for generating individuated and privileged connections between (groups of ) individuals and (clusters of ) objects. Renner (1949: 73) argues: Whatever the social system, disposal of all goods that have been seized and assimilated must be regulated by the social order as the rights of persons over material objects. … The legal institutions which effect this regulation, subject the world of matter bit by bit to the will of singledout individuals since the community exists only through its individual members. These legal institutions endow the individuals with detention so that they may dispose of the objects and possess them.

But the concept of property has more levels of complexity. As Pels (1998: 20) says, there are, for instance, differences between physical possession and enforceable claims, and between borders that are easily passable or relatively obstructed. Moreover, he also points to the diversity encapsulated within the concept of the owner which may be “individuals, kinship groups, cliques, corporations, states, or supranational bodies” (Pels 1998: 20). As Wilpert (1991) argues, a legal basis is important to support the concept of ownership, but in the absence of a

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Subjects

Idealist component

Materialist component

Discourses Egos (and Ids)

Discursive power

Discursive power

Bodies Objects Body-related material power

Object-related material power

Figure 7.1 Dimensions of power Source: Author.

legal framework, even perceived property, what Wilpert calls “psychological property,” can generate this type of connection between individuals and objects. The same diversity applies to the object which may be “tangible or intangible, separable or non-separable from the person. Property can embrace the object in its entirety, or can be divided into a scatter of partial rights” (Pels 1998: 20). There has been a long tradition of critique which rejects the productive capacity of property and points to its exploitative characteristics. Not only Marxism, but for instance, also classic anarchist theory was “critical of private property to the extent that it was a source of hierarchy and privilege” ( Jennings 1999: 136). Although some care needs to be taken: even Proudhon’s (2008) famous dictum – property is theft – only relates to situations where the power balance is disturbed through so-called windfall earnings, such as interest on loans and income from rents, which move structurally beyond the legitimate ownership of what is needed in everyday life. Since then, numerous authors, for instance, working in the field of political economy, have criticized the impact of object-related material power on (equality in) society. These, sometimes critical, sometimes neoliberal, reflections do confirm the power relationship between humanity and the world of material objects where, in some cases, the impact of that relationship on the social is scrutinized. At the same time, I want to be careful not to presume too


strong an anthropomorphic bias in the power relationships between humans and objects. For instance, actor–network theory (ANT) makes a strong and legitimate claim for the agency of objects. As Latour (2005: 73) puts it: “objects are nowhere to be said and everywhere to be felt.” ANT’s claim is that objects should be integrated into the study of (power relations in) the social, first of all because materiality is an integrated and crucial component of the social: “When power is exerted for good, it is because it is not made of social ties; when it has to relate only on social ties, it is not exerted for long” (Latour 2005: 66). But more importantly in this context, objects enter into co-determining relationships with humans; after all: “any thing that does modify a state of affairs by making a difference is an actor” (Latour 2005: 71; emphasis in original). Through the connections with humans, objects can become mediators and/ or intermediaries and become implicated in the exercise of power. The model above (Figure 7.1) shows the relationships between the four basic components (disregarding the many synergies between the different spheres and more complicated societal structures). We should keep in mind, however, that the distinctions between discursive power, bodyrelated material power, and object-related material power are, at the same time, analytical, as they can be found in the social only in an integrated and intertwined form. Here, we can return to Foucault

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when he argues that power “reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their actions and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives” (Foucault 1980: 30). Power is all-pervasive and continuously manifests itself at the micro-levels of society through interlocking processes of discursive power, body-related material power, and object-related material power.

Power, the Political, and Policy (and Some More Fantasy) Power operates in many different systems, like the legal or the media systems. One other key system is the political system. Traditionally, it has been attributed a specific status as it (mainly as the state) was considered the ultimate site of power, but slowly this concept was abandoned. One line of argument can be found in democratic theory, where the introduction of pluralist, participatory, and deliberative democratic theories allowed situating (political) power beyond the state. In pluralist democratic theories, the emphasis was placed on the political role of non-state actors like interest groups and pressure groups, while participatory democratic theory tried to reconcile the representative character of current liberal-democratic systems with various degrees of inclusive participatory instruments in other societal realms. Deliberative democratic theory, in turn, emphasized the role of the public sphere as a place of opinion formation and, ultimately, of power. This theoretical shift away from the state is well captured by Lefort’s (1988) reflection on the empty place of power in contemporary democracies. He points out that (in contrast to monarchical and totalitarian powers) those who exercise public authority can no longer claim to represent or appropriate it. A second line of argument can be found in the distinction between politics and the political. For instance, Mouffe argues for this distinction: By “the political”, I refer to the dimension of antagonism that is inherent in human relations, antagonism that can take many forms and emerge in different types of social relations. “Politics” on


the other side, indicates the ensemble of practices, discourses and institutions which seek to establish a certain order and organize human coexistence in conditions that are always potentially conflictual because they are affected by the dimension of “the political”. (Mouffe 2000: 101; see also Mouffe 2005: 8)

In other words, the political “cannot be restricted to a certain type of institution, or envisaged as constituting a specific sphere or level of society. It must be conceived as a dimension that is inherent to every human society and that determines our very ontological condition” (Mouffe 1997: 3). The phrasing of Mouffe’s distinction confusingly diverges from a series of (structurally similar) arguments that retain the word “politics,” while broadening its meaning (see, in this context, for instance, Beck’s (1997) concept of subpolitics and Giddens’s (1991) concept of life politics). Despite these differences we also find in these intellectual projects the tendency to broaden the concept of politics (and the political) beyond the confinements of institutionalized politics. In turn, this allows situating (political) power relationships in this broadened context of the political and, at the same time, avoids the restriction of the workings of power to institutionalized politics. This then raises the issue of the position of policy within this debate. McGuigan (2003: 24) points to the etymological connection between “police” and “policy,” which allows me to emphasize the close connection to (bio)power and the government of individuals. Policy thus becomes linked to management and regulation, where discursive and material resources are (intended to be) committed in order purposely to achieve specific aims (Fenna 1998: 3) which brings about the deployment of discursive and material power strategies. As many sites of these types of management and regulation are possible, “public policy” is often used to delineate governmental policies. Considine (1994: 3) summarizes what is considered the classic definition of (public) policy as follows: “A public policy is an action which employs governmental authority to commit resources in support of a preferred value.” The black boxing of the role of institutionalized politics in this classic policy approach has resulted in a major debate in policy studies. McGuigan (2003: 24) describes both positions, explicitly favoring the second one. On the one hand, there is the

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Power, Fantasy and Limits of Global Policy classic view, based on the belief that policy is (and has to remain) detached from politics, and that it is an “ostensibly apolitical set of practical operations that are merely administered and policed by governmental officials.” In contrast, the second view emphasizes the relationship of policy to politics which renders policy “a field of contestation between rival discourses, ideologies and interests” (McGuigan 2003: 24). Or as Shore and Wright (1997: 35) put it: “policies work as instruments of governance, as ideological vehicles, and as agents for constructing subjectivities and organizing people within systems of power and authority.” From this perspective, the classic view hides the highly contested and conflictual nature of policy. This discussion on the nature of policy brings us to an encounter with a set of key assumptions which will be theorized here as fantasies, using a Lacanian framework.4 The reason for using this framework is that there are implicit claims embedded within policy debates that are partially (discursive) power strategies but, partially also, fantasies about control and harmony. And within a Lacanian framework, fantasy beholds the promise of the unachievable wholeness and the harmonious resolution of social antagonism. Although this access to the Real is impossible, the fantasy, as such, and the desire for wholeness and harmony that lies behind it remain crucial driving forces and feed into the strategies that the diversity of (policy) actors develop. This also implies that these fantasies become part of our social realities in many different ways, for instance, as utopian driving forces for political activity and as discursive strategies for legitimating policies. A first fantasy has already been mentioned in the discussion about the classic perspective on policy. In the introductory part of his discussion of media policy, which carries the title “Is policy political?,” Freedman (2008: 2) refers to the mechanical perspective of policy-making, which marginalizes “political agency in favour of administrative technique and scientific principles” and becomes “the domain of small thoughts, bureaucratic tidiness and administrative effectiveness.” This fantasy of isolating policy from politics (and from the political) is a protective strategy to generate a harmonious and consensual zone within the social, outside political conflicts and antagonisms, which is believed to be governed by bureaucratic principles and/or legalistic mechanisms. This way of


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thinking is very much related to the ideology of “endism,” which proclaimed the end of ideology and claimed that this would lead to the replacement of politics by a managerial culture (see, for instance, Burnham (1941) and Bell (1960) ). More contemporary critical frameworks refer to (and critique) the post-political and the post-democratic, where the latter is defined by Rancière (2007: 88) as “the rule of the principle of unification of the multitude under the common law of the One.” Not only does this lead to the conflation of the “pays légal” and the “pays reél” (to use the two marvellous French concepts that allow us to distinguish between legislation and social practice), but it also becomes a form of strategic power that allows for the mobilization of actors (and their minds and bodies), discourses, and objects to legitimize the hegemonization of specific political projects by reverting to the claim that these projects are outside the political. However important this fantasy may be, it is structurally frustrated by the permanent reemergence of antagonisms and conflicts. This brings us to Mouffe’s (2005: 9) argument that the political is structurally defined by “power, conflict and antagonism.” Her work challenges the post-political status quo, which assumes that a societal consensus is reached or reachable. Not surprisingly, the last sentence of her 2005 book On the Political is a plea for “abandoning the dream of a reconciled world that would have overcome power, sovereignty and hegemony” (Mouffe 2005: 130; my emphasis). Through the contingency of the social, any hegemony and social imaginary, however phantasmagorically comforting it may be, remains vulnerable to contestation, and even the most sedimented and taken-for-granted certainties can become unfixed and fluid, as they are permanently vulnerable to rearticulation. In Mouffe’s (2005: 18) words: “What is at a given moment considered as the ‘natural’ order – jointly with the ‘common sense’ which accompanies it – is the result of sedimented practices; it is never the manifestation of a deeper objectivity exterior to the practices that bring it into being.” A second and related fantasy of control and harmony that impacts on policy is the idea of society’s “makeability,” which becomes translated into social engineering and the primacy of politics. Clearly, (public) policy has, in many cases, the objective to impact on (parts of ) society – to “make a difference” – and can thus always be considered a

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form of social engineering. There are, of course, differences in intensity: Popper (2002) produced the distinction between piecemeal social engineering and utopian social engineering, where the latter is based on the prior construction of a blueprint of society which then needs to be realized at all costs. This is contrasted with the piecemeal social engineer, who will be “searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evils of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good” (Popper 2002: 167). Nevertheless, the fantasy of makeability feeds (albeit to a different degree) into both Popper’s types of engineering as it can be seen as a tendency to “regard more and more things … as possible to shape and produce according to a project or a plan rather than as an outcome of natural developments or given traditions” (Fornäs 1995: 45; see also Ziehe 19915). In a political context this fantasy again leads to the privileging of the realm of institutionalized politics (over the political). It also leads to a reliance on causal power, to the belief in the primacy of politics over other realms of the social, and to a belief in the linear effects of policy actions, combined with an unawareness of the intensity of perverse effects. The fantasy of makeability also becomes frustrated because of the multitude of the social and the political. The political (as a dimension of the social) incorporates a diversity of actors which all develop and apply specific discursive and material power strategies. Because of the complexity of contemporary democratic cultures, combined with processes of individualization and fragmentation, the overall outcome of political processes becomes fluid and unpredictable. Consciously establishing and maintaining hegemonies, in the Gramscian sense of creating alliances or in Laclau and Mouffe’s meaning of creating social imaginaries, becomes virtually impossible. Power thus becomes invisible and outside the reach of individual actors, as Foucault (1996: 233) described in one of his later interviews. Such is perhaps the most diabolical aspect of the idea and of all the applications it brought about. In this form of management, power is not totally entrusted to someone who would exercise it alone, over others, in an absolute fashion; rather this machine is one in which everyone is caught, those who exercise this power as well as those who are subjected to it.


Finally, the third fantasy of control and harmony is related to the universality and homogeneity of political, social, and cultural spaces. It is based on the illusion of the coherent, transparent, and controllable polis, where the small-scaled Greek direct democratic system still unconsciously, as I dare to suggest, serves as a model for the organization of contemporary political communities. But this fantasy transcends the political community and affects all types of communities. Here we can use Tönnies’ (1963) distinction between community and society to emphasize the phantasmagoric importance of communities defined through the presence of close and concrete human ties and by a collective identity. The (celebration of the) community is protected by the creation of constitutive outsides, or frontiers between “we” and “they.” Of course, as Mouffe (2005: 15; emphasis in original) remarks, not every we/they turns into an antagonistic friend/enemy relationship, but we should “acknowledge that, in certain conditions, there is always the possibility that this we/they can become antagonistic, that is, can turn into a relation of friend/enemy.” Žižek (1993: 201) points to the enjoyment this sense of belonging (in the case of nationalism) generates: “The element which holds together a particular community cannot be reduced to the point of symbolic identification: the bond linking together its members always implies a shared relation toward a Thing, toward Enjoyment incarnated.” Similar to the fantasy of the post-political, this fantasy can also inherently legitimize strategic power mechanisms that support a hegemonic project which may result in the exclusion of what (or who) is defined as outside. After all, if the Other is seen to threaten a community’s enjoyment, we can then turn against “the Other who stole it from us” (Žižek 1998: 209). This fantasy becomes frustrated by a number of dislocations. Structurally, the universal is always made up of a particular, as Laclau (1996) argues. For Laclau, the universal is an empty place, which does not imply that it does not exist. The very emptiness of the signifier of the universal always requires a particular, so that this particular can be universalized in order to attempt to saturate the universal. The universal thus cannot exist without the particular: “Now, this universality needs – for its expression – to be incarnated in something essentially incommensurable with it: a particularity”

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Power, Fantasy and Limits of Global Policy Table 7.1 Three key fantasies of policy Post-political

Social makeability

Universality

A desire for:

Political consensus

(Full) political agency and the primacy of politics

Political and social-cultural unity

Frustrated by:

Antagonism and conflict

The non-institutionalized component of the political

The particular and the Other

(Main) power logics:

Strategic

Causal

Strategic

Source: Author.

(Laclau 1996: 57). This relationship between the universal and the particular, however, is “unstable and undecidable,” since the way the universal and the particular relate to each other is “in the strict sense of the term, a hegemonic operation” and thus necessarily depends on a specific context (Laclau 1996: 14–15) that is susceptible to change. The particularity of a political community, for instance, becomes articulated through the permeability of its frontiers. Processes of globalization, although combined with glocalization (Robertson 1995) and translocalization (Appadurai 1995; Carpentier 2008), still destabilize the frontiers of political communities, confront them with a multipolar world and increase the scale of political localities, thereby often decreasing the democratic capacities of their populace. Although the first signs of the establishment of a global civil society (Keane 2003) exist and despite the models to rework the large-scale (global) political institutions (Zolo 1997; Held 2004), these international organizations are still “bureaucratic bargaining systems,” whose democratic cost should be acknowledged (Dahl 1999). Moreover, the existence of political frontiers protecting the homogeneity of the political community and the universality of its perspectives are not only dislocated at the macro level. Within even the smallest political communities, their political frontiers are threatened by internal diversity, generated through the above-mentioned processes of individualization and fragmentation. This observation needs to be combined with the argument that enclaves, free spaces, and temporary autonomous zones – again threatening the universality and homogeneity of political communities from the inside or from the outside – have a long (albeit poorly documented) history (Bey 1985). Table 7.1 summarizes the workings of the three fantasies.


The Struggle Over Global Media Policy If we now (finally) turn our attention to global media policy, we can analyze how the fantasies of the post-political, social makeability, and universality operate within this specific field of global policy. In some cases, these fantasies and their strategic translations by political (and societal) actors have contributed to the construction of particular hegemonies. In turn, these hegemonies then provide support for the imaginary belief that the fantasy can be fully realized. Here, we can see how these fantasies become powerful driving forces that allow for the development of (sometimes) successful hegemonizing strategies. These strategies are (to a high degree) able to fix our realities through the establishment of a hegemony which, in turn, fixes (again to a high degree) societal power relations at the level of subjects and their bodies, discourses, and objects. But, as hegemony is never total, the fantasies and the hegemonies that support them are permanently frustrated by social praxis. When we turn to the de-politicization fantasy of policy, we find a number of hegemonies that provide support for this fantasy, where a political consensus has been achieved, and where antagonism seems to be non-existent. In other words, in these cases power strategies have been successful in hegemonizing a specific political project and in establishing a social order on its basis. First, and most importantly, the discursive and material power of global capitalism and neoliberalism creates a horizon. This horizon offers the luxury of takenfor-grantedness to the idea that the media industries are part of a global (capitalist) market, and that the concentration of private media ownership is legitimate. One example is the “deregulation” of the

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media industries in the 1980s and 1990s (Freedman 2008: 47–49). Although Freedman (2008) rightly points to the political nature of this project, the successful implementation of this neoliberal project further naturalized the existence of capitalist media, based on material power relations (and especially ownership). Their existence seems to be sedimented and moved beyond the reach of the political. Second, another hegemony is situated at the level of politics: national states are still seen as vital political actors. Hocking and Smith’s (1990: 79) analysis remains convincing: “The state is still a major participant in the arena, generating influential actions and attracting attention. The state system, in consequence, still remains the most powerful set of organizing forces and activities, but it is not the only significant cluster of networks.” Additional layers of legitimate political actors have been added at the supranational level, but these remain firmly locked within the field of institutionalized politics and they remain linked, through logics of representation, to the national level. And in this sense, the national level remains a hegemonic site for the organization of politics. These hegemonies (that support the fantasy of de-politicized politics or the post-political) are not complete; they are met with a variety of complexities and resistances. Many actors (and their ideological positions) have entered the stage of media policy development. First, although the basic capitalist conjuncture remains firmly hegemonic, the degree to which the economic, and, more specifically, the cultural and media industries, are allowed to colonize the social, is highly contested. One example is the ways in which the free flow of information ideology has been resisted. The New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) movement within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) attempted to counter this ideology with the plea for a “free and balanced flow of information.” Very much at the center of these debates was the idea of the right to communicate, referred to by Jacobson (1998) as a third-generation human right. When this idea was first proposed in 1969 by the French civil servant Jean d’Arcy, it aimed to broaden the right to be informed, which is embedded in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 1948). In 1980, the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP) chaired by Sean MacBride pro-


duced its report, Many Voices, One World (ICSCP 1980/2004). The MacBride Report redefined communication as “a two way process, in which the partners – individual and collective – carry on a democratic and balanced dialogue” (ICSCP 1980/ 2004: 172). This repositioning expanded the traditional Western and liberal “right to be informed” and was, for this reason, met with fierce resistance by countries like the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), which, consequently, left UNESCO. As Winseck (2002: 21–22) remarks, by the end of the 1980s, UNESCO had, because of the persistent pressure, “unconditionally embraced the ‘free flow of information’ doctrine”, and “a new regime was created – one anchored in the philosophy of an augmented role for the private sector.” Another example is the negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which also showed the resistance towards an ultra-liberal stance. Here a number of states pleaded fiercely for the inclusion of a cultural approach towards the audiovisual industries. It should be added that the strategy of the US and some other countries towards bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) often bypassed these resistances (Freedman 2008: 201–205). The point is, however, that within hegemonic and postpolitical capitalism, a political struggle remains present, frustrating the post-political fantasy. Second, the hegemony of the (nation-)state as the privileged site of politics is also resisted. First of all, processes of multi-level governance generate multi-sited policy-making processes that involve supranational, national, regional, and local governments. Mainly aimed at analyzing the European political decision-making process (see Hooghe and Marks 2001), a discussion of multi-level governance can be used to show the complexity of contemporary political dynamics. From this perspective, multiple decision-making platforms cooperate with each other or resist each other, entering into a power struggle (see, for instance, Sarikakis’s (2002: 83) analysis of the “political activism of the EP [European Parliament]”). But the political (in a broad sense) is multi-sited, as multi-stakeholderism has facilitated the political activities of civil society beyond the level of the state, posing “a serious political challenge” (Hamelink 2002: 255). For instance, at the level of the United Nations (UN), the so-called Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations–Civil Society Relations (chaired by former Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso) produced a report in 2004

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Power, Fantasy and Limits of Global Policy to “enhance the interaction” between the UN and civil society (see Willetts (2006) for a critique). In a number of cases, the UN willingness has led to concrete (and somewhat successful) experiments in multi-stakeholderism, for instance, at the World Summit on the Information Society (Padovani and Nordenstreng 2005; Servaes and Carpentier 2005; Mueller et al. 2007). Multi-stakeholderism is, of course, not limited to civil society; industry is part of this relationship, represented by, for instance, so-called Business Interest International NGOs (or BINGOs). The world of business also poses a serious threat to the dominance of state politics outside the multi-stakeholder processes, especially through the role played by transnational corporations. As Hamelink (1994: 37) puts it: “the most serious attack on nation-state sovereignty would appear to originate with the most powerful protagonists of global integration, the transnational corporations (TNCs),” although he immediately continues by referring to Gurtov’s (1988) position which points to the symbiotic relationship between these transnational businesses and national states. The second fantasy, the makeability of the social through institutionalized politics, is materialized in the ideological struggle that is waged over the instruments of mediated communication. When applied to global media policy, a first step has to be made: “The media” have to be articulated as crucial components of the social in order to legitimize regulatory interventions and political interest. One way this hegemonizing logic works is through (the myth of ) the mediated center. Couldry (2003: 47) defines the myth of the mediated center as: “the mass of practices through which media power is legitimated.” He continues that the media’s power seems legitimate “because, through all sorts of arrangements of speech, thought and action, it is made to seem natural.” Another way this hegemonic role of media in the social is strengthened is through the logics of technological determinism, where (media) technologies are believed to have a direct impact on the social (for better or for worse). Once the idea of the hegemonic role of “the media” has been hegemonized, the power struggle over its regulation seems only to be a necessary consequence. Only then do the media become legitimate objects for this struggle. Apart from protecting economic interests, many regulatory initiatives have been organized in order to avoid or limit


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the alleged (and often feared) impact of the communicative on the social. These initiatives were grounded in the firm belief that they could impact effectively on the communicative and the social, or, in other words, that a society was makeable and that policy actors could (and should) “mold” it according to their ideologies. For instance, the Hays Code (the Motion Picture Production Code) was enforced in 1934 in order to regulate what was considered acceptable (and mainly what was considered not acceptable) in films that were produced for a US audience, in order to keep sexuality within the private sphere. Another example was the establishment of public service broadcasting (PSB), motivated by the need to construct and maintain (modernist) cultural hegemonies by anchoring them into a cultural institution. For this reason, Van den Bulck (2001) describes (early) public broadcasting as a modernist project of a “certain” cultural elite, promoting “the development of the majority in ways thought desirable by the minority” (Williams 1968: 117). As Jakubowicz (2007: 118), paraphrasing Szacki, says: “At the root of this thinking is the belief in the perfectibility of humankind.” These regulatory initiatives and the fantasy of societal makeability are mainly frustrated by social practices that originate from the non-institutionalized component of the political.6 Following de Certeau (1988), we can see many tactics that are (often non-explicitly) being developed as an answer to (regulatory) strategies. The result is the deployment of a multitude of power strategies. The above-mentioned examples of the Hays Code or the modernist basis of PSB were resisted persistently. Another example is the ways the Internet is used to resist and bypass regulation (including its own regulation). Although one should be careful not to overestimate the Internet’s potentiality for resistance (or underestimate the impact on state and business (Sassen 2000)), the Internet has been used as a tool for political activism aimed at explicitly resisting regulatory attempts. It has allowed people to bypass many other regulations and it has assisted in the development of alternative regulatory frameworks (like Creative Commons licensing). A second example is pirate (radio) broadcasting which has a long history of resisting the attempts to regulate the airwaves. To a large degree, it contributed to disrupting the public broadcasting monopolies in the 1980s and is still

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disrupting contemporary attempts to regulate community media (Bailey et al. 2007). A third (and related) example is the way copyright regulation, or what McLeod (2003: 241) calls the “private ownership of culture,” has been persistently bypassed on many different levels, including copying, performing, sampling, mashing-up, culture jamming, and file-sharing. The third fantasy, the universality and homogeneity of public spaces, can be found in the architecture of global institutions that are part of the UN family, like UNESCO, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) (without conflating the differences between these institutions). Mainly based on government representation, these organizations offer a forum for the negotiated development of joint (global) positions, attempting to create a global “we,” based on a political and social-cultural unity (often legitimized through concepts like “humanity”). Even when (cultural) diversity is at stake, as was the case with the UNESCO (2005) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (Freedman 2008: 205–207), this paradoxically is negotiated within an institutional framework that assumes that through the logics of global negotiations a textual consensus that spans the globe can be reached. Human rights provide us with one cornerstone of these power strategies of universalization. The intense dislocation created by the Nazi atrocities generated the main impetus for the universalization of human rights, beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). As Mwagiru (1997) argues, this process was supported by developments in international law, including the articulation of (some) policy problems as international, legalistic, conceptual innovations such as “common heritage” and “common concerns,” and doctrinal changes such as the increased weight of natural law. Apart from the universalist logics at the level of institutional politics, there is one more field where these universalist tendencies have played a key role. As Deleuze and Guattari (1994: 106) summarize it: “the market is the only thing that is universal in capitalism.” They immediately add that this does not imply that global justice is necessarily served. At the same time, however, the strategies of global capitalism have generated and celebrated an almost universal space that can (potentially) be penetrated


by products and services that originate from a different (often but not exclusively Western) space. Lash and Lury’s book on the global culture industry takes up this point by investigating the biographies of a series of cultural objects and by mapping how these products flow around the world. Although “it is the consumers, audience or users of global cultural industry who do a great deal of the deciding what these objects and these processes are” (Lash and Lury 2007: 182), spaces have opened up for cultural artefacts to travel. There is still a world business community (or global cultural industry) that permanently reinvigorates the fantasy of the universal market. This third fantasy is frustrated by the continuous reoccurrences of the particular and the Other, even when the universal opens up spaces for the particular and the Other to coexist (as in UNESCO’s (2005) cultural diversity convention). Universalized statements, like the universal rights declaration, remain vulnerable to confrontation with the particular and the Other as, for instance, formulated by Deleuze and Guattari (1994: 107): “Human rights say nothing about the immanent modes of existence of people provided with rights.” Although their plea for a focus on jurisprudence runs the risk of turning into casuistry, their argument does illustrate the permanent risk of the universal being de-sedimented by the particular. In the case of human rights, one of the main critiques is of the Western “bias” in human rights documents (Rajagopal 2003), again showing the mechanics and strategies of universalization, and its unavoidable particularity. But a broader point has to be made. It is the unavoidability of societal conflict, otherness, and diversity (Mouffe 2005) that leads to the frustration of the fantasy of universality and homogeneity. Social praxis ruptures and dislocates this fantasy as the social is characterized by a diversity of ideologies, subjects, and practices. At the global level these are only maximized. This diversity sometimes takes on an antagonistic form: for instance, the Danish cartoon case illustrates how a set of rather insignificant drawings can feed into a global conflict, rupturing the fantasy that the human rights discourse of the freedom of speech has a globaluniversal articulation, and that the (still always particular) relationship between this human right and other human rights (like the rights to dignity or belief ) is similar all over the world.

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Power, Fantasy and Limits of Global Policy

Conclusion This conclusion starts with a disclaimer to clarify that I do not align myself with a neoliberal agenda to minimize government intervention and regulation. Nor do I aim to discredit the regulatory attempts that are concerned with some of the key social problems that need to be addressed by the development and continual improvement of regulatory frameworks. The concept of fantasy does not have a negative signification as I use it here. Following a Lacanian position, fantasy is considered a crucial driving force of social activity and thus plays a key role in policy development. Fantasy is a horizon that opens up and closes off the societal directions that can be taken. It frames how discursive and material power are to be deployed and power relationships are to be structured. In other words, the beliefs that institutionalized politics can reach a consensus, that the social is makeable and that the universal/homogeneous exists, are basic characteristics of the social and the political. At the same time, the use of the fantasy concept allows for a deconstruction of the objects of these fantasies. The fantasies of the post-political, social makeability, and universality, however powerful and important they are, also pose a permanent democratic threat. This is because their attempted realizations not only lead to the neglect of the complexity of, respectively, the political, power, and the social-cultural but also support the strategic translation of particular societal projects into hegemonic social orders. In turn, these hegemonies fix societal power relations in ways that often neglect the multitude of the social and that exclude a diversity of others. For instance, the neoliberal hegemony, which supports the fantasy of the postpolitical and is, at the same time, used by the postpolitical as a legitimizing strategy, consolidates a specific media order that normalizes concentrated media ownership, weakens publicly funded alternatives (like PSB) through incorporation, and marginalizes civil society’s alternative media formations. Fortunately, the powerful fantasies can never be fully realized, as they are permanently frustrated by social praxis (at both the discursive and material levels). The dialectical process of fantasy and frustration is one of the most convincing reminders that


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power is an empty place in the social and that policy actors are only one of many societal actors that develop power strategies to deal with the political, to structure society and to create a (global) community. They have become part of a large, meshed political community, where they deserve and need to hold an important place. But there is no need to privilege or even to fetishize that place, as it is now a multitude of actors and places that yield discursive and material power (strategies). On the contrary, there are reasons to be careful; policy fantasies might lead to hubris and we should not forget that this type of arrogance was considered the greatest sin in classical Athens. For this reason, modesty, restraint, and respect for diversity remain crucial correctives for the phantasmagoric driving forces of the post-political, social makeability, and universality.

Notes 1 2

3

4 5 6

The use of Lacan’s concepts will not necessarily comply with the Lacanian orthodoxy. The first part of History of Sexuality has the French subtitle La volonté du savoir (The Will to Know), which was, in the English translation, replaced by the unimaginative “An Introduction.” When I use the title History of Sexuality in this chapter, I refer only to the first part of Foucault’s trilogy: La volonté du savoir. Already in the Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault had discussed what he then called the nondiscursive, which is “an institutional field, a set of events, practices and political decisions, a sequence of economic processes that also involve demographic fluctuations, techniques of public assistance, manpower needs, different levels of unemployment, etc.” (Foucault 2002: 174). But the role of the body as an object of (bio)power was thematized only later. For an overview of the many other approaches to policy, see Mansell and Raboy, ch. 1. Both authors focus more on the politics of the self. They are also frustrated by the ideological diversity within the system of institutionalized politics.

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Power, Fantasy and Limits of Global Policy Jennings, J. (1999) “Anarchism,” in R. Eatwell and A. Wright (eds) Contemporary Political Ideologies. London: Pinter, pp. 131–151. Keane, J. (2003) Global Civil Society? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kendall, G., and Wickham, G. (1999) Using Foucault’s Methods. London: Sage Publications. Lacan, J. (1994) Le Séminaire. Livre IV: La relation d’objet, ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil. Lacan, J. (1979) The Four Fundamental Concepts of PsychoAnalysis, ed. J.-A. Miller, trans. A. Sheridan. London: Penguin. Lacan, J. (1999) The Seminar. Book XX: Encore, On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge, ed. J.-A. Miller, trans. with notes B. Fink. New York: Norton. Laclau, E. (1988) “Metaphor and social antagonisms,” in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, pp. 249–257. Laclau, E. (1990) New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso. Laclau, E. (1996) Emancipation(s). London: Verso. Laclau, E., and Mouffe, C. (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Lash, S., and Lury, C. (2007) Global Culture Industry: The Mediation of Things. Cambridge: Polity Press. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor–Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lefort, C. (1988) “The question of democracy,” in D. Macey (transl.) Democracy and Political Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 9–20. Lukes, S. (1974) Power: A Radical View. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McGuigan, J. (2003) “Cultural policy studies,” in J. Lewis and T. Miller (eds) Critical Cultural Policy Studies: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 23–42. McLeod, K. (2003) “Musical production, copyright and the private ownership of culture,” in J. Lewis and T. Miller (eds) Critical Cultural Policy Studies: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 240–252. Mouffe, C. (1997) The Return of the Political. London: Verso. Mouffe, C. (2000) The Democratic Paradox. London: Verso. Mouffe, C. (2005) On the Political. London: Routledge. Mueller, M. L., Kuerbis, B. N., and Pagé, C. (2007) “Democratizing global communication? Global civil society and the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society,” International Journal of Communication, 1: 267–296, http://ijoc.org/ojs/ index.php/ijoc/article/viewPDFInterstitial/13/39 (accessed 02/05/2007). Mwagiru, M. (1997) “A return to basics: Media rights as fundamental human rights,” Africa Media Review, 11(3): 88–104.


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V. Rus (eds) International Handbook of Participation in Organizations (2) Ownership and Participation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 149–164. Winseck, D. (2002) “The WTO, emerging policy regimes and the political economy of transnational communications,” in M. Raboy (ed.) Global Media Policy in the New Millennium. Luton: University of Luton Press, pp. 19–37. Ziehe, T. (1991) Zeitvergleiche: Jugend in kulturellen Modernisierungen. Weinheim: Juventa. Žižek, S. (1989/1995) The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso. Žižek, S. (1993) Tarring with the Negative. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Žižek, S. (1998) “The seven veils of fantasy,” in D. Nobus (ed.) Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London: Rebus Press, pp. 190–218. Zolo, D. (1997) Cosmopolis: Prospects for World Government. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Part II

Democratization: Policy in Practice

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8

Power Dynamics in Multi-stakeholder Policy Processes and Intra-civil Society Networking Bart Cammaerts

Introduction1 In 2003 and 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations (UN) agency, and held, respectively, in Geneva and Tunis. The WSIS was set up by the UN General Assembly to address “the whole range of relevant issues related to the information society” (UN General Assembly 2001: 1). Given the breadth of the theme of the WSIS, it is surprising and, at the same time, highly relevant that it was the ITU that took the initiative with this Summit rather than, for example, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). While the ITU has its history in global telecommunication regulation, historically, UNESCO’s cultural agenda has engaged with media and communication matters. In this regard, the MacBride Report can be considered a genuine milestone in global debates on media, communication, and information issues and their societal impact (International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems 2004 [1980]). However, with the increasing convergence of broadcasting, computing, and telecommunication, the ITU is seeking a new role within the community of international organizations, and it was evident that the

WSIS fit well with the ITU’s aim of reasserting itself on the global scene. At a deeper level of analysis, Raboy (2003: 110) notes that “within the UNESCO logic, media are cultural institutions, part of the process of human development. Within the ITU logic, media are technical systems for information delivery.” This paradigmatic distinction, which ran through the Summit (and for obvious reasons constantly presented a clash), has implications for how different issues relating to the information society are addressed and how the role of technology in society is perceived. In many ways, the information society is a new meta-narrative, linked to (radical) changes in economic, social, cultural, and political values and practices, a leitbild whereby the meaning is flexible and rarely questioned anymore (Kubicek et al. 1997: 11–12). From this perspective, the meta-narrative of the information society is very much an empty signifier – “the very condition of hegemony” (Laclau 1996: 43). In fact, the information society is about everything and nothing at the same time, which is why it is so persuasive. The introduction of the Internet and the increased importance of information and knowledge in our post-Fordist societies are affecting all policy sectors – education, health, employment, economy, innovation, development



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aid, media, and politics itself. This explains why all kinds of lobby groups, movements, and, at times, conflicting interest groups, projected their causes and ideals onto the WSIS agenda and, further, why it was difficult to pin down what the WSIS was actually about. To put it bluntly, for some it was a means to reinvigorate the debates of the 1980s relating to communication and human rights; for others, it was about reasserting the global copyright regime. Despite the efforts of civil society (CS) to advocate a “people-centred, inclusive and equitable” information and communication society, “in which everyone can freely create, access, utilize, share and disseminate information and knowledge, so that individuals, communities and peoples are empowered to improve their quality of life and to achieve their full potential” (WSIS CS Plenary 2003: 3), it could be argued that the WSIS process amounted to a mere re-enforcement of the critical perspective. This suggests that “the information society is actually an advanced and very sophisticated stage of industrial-style capitalism” (Schement and Lievrouw 1987: 2). The mantra of liberalization, free markets, and copyright protection rang as strongly and unquestionably as ever before. In this regard, Vincent (2006: 9) remarks: The continuing dominance of the market-based neo-liberal ideologies of the 1990s meant that many platforms and agendas which served as foundations for the summit were not open to negotiation. Since a number of CS claims were based on challenges of the existing market structure and its philosophies, the evolving summit schema increasingly proved closed to serious discussion on a variety of topics.

However, while Mansell (2008: xix) agrees that “the United Nations’ effort to foster a multi-stakeholder dialogue changed very little,” she also acknowledges that: “the processes initiated during the UN-sponsored Summit did enable some representatives of civil society to play a watchdog role and to mobilise an alternative and more equitable perspective on the information society.” CS’s engagement with global policy processes clearly has increased and the WSIS was a case in point. The participation, or rather the engagement, of CS actors in policy processes can be addressed on two somewhat separate but, at the


same time, interconnected, levels of analysis: (1) the formal process, where access to limited forms of (partial) participation in the policy process is of relevance; and (2) the more informal level of networking and mobilization among CS actors and activists, which was extensive in the case of the WSIS and deemed by many to be the real success of the Summit (Bridges 2004; Ó Siochrú 2004; Cammaerts 2008). In this chapter, one of the most conflictual and visible issues of the Summit, namely, the debates about Internet Governance (IG), is used to address the power dynamics in formal multi-stakeholder processes, where CS is one of the new stakeholders. An analysis of the mailing list of the IG working group – one of the most active CS caucuses in the WSIS process, and email interviews with the most active members of that mailing list – exposes an intricate relationship to the formal policy process and intense networking within CS, largely sustained through mailing lists, but also by faceto-face meetings. This analysis confirms the importance of the dialectic between online and offline interactions in terms of networking and policy processes exposing internal power dynamics within CS, and problematizing issues of legitimacy. A quantitative analysis of the mailing list of the CS IG caucus enabled an assessment of its transnational character, the gender balance, and the number of postings per month or per participant. This was complemented by a qualitative assessment of the most active participants of the mailing list, in terms of networking, and the functions, opportunities, as well as the constraints of the list. At a process level, an appraisal of multistakeholderism in practice, relating to the case of IG, was also undertaken. The analysis adopts both an inward-looking perspective on CS’s engagement in the IG debates and an outward-looking perspective on multi-stakeholderism as a practice in relation to the IG case. The results of this research point to a much more positive – and, at times, enthusiastic – assessment of the multi-stakeholder approach in the debates on IG, than in the more conflict-ridden assessment of the WSIS as a whole. Notwithstanding these results, several respondents also voice criticisms, concerns, or reservations which, in retrospect, are shown to be highly relevant.

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Multi-stakeholder Policy and Civil Society First, the concept of multi-stakeholderism itself has to be problematized and theorized. In the next section multi-stakeholderism as a new mode of governance is introduced, embedded in political theory, and, subsequently, linked to the specific case of IG within the WSIS process. Using this empirical case, I discuss how multistakeholderism is operationalized in a global context where different actors and interests come together and clash.

Multi-Stakeholderism Beyond the State: The Case of IG Without disregarding the long history of non-state actors’ involvement at an international/transnational level, the multi-stakeholder discourse emerged in the aftermath of the disrupted World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle in 1999, as well as following several massive coordinated protests against the European Union (EU) and the G8. Multi-stakeholderism has been championed by many as a way to bring “the citizen” closer to decision-making processes at an international level and, as a result, to make such processes more democratic, legitimate, and accountable (Aksu and Camilleri 2002). In her research on democratic legitimization, Héritier (1997: 180) concludes that one of the main reasons for involving CS actors in decision-making processes beyond the nation-state “is to avoid conflicts by forming a broad consensus prior to embarking upon legislation and to sustain legislation once it is in place.” Along the same lines and also within a European context, Magnette (2006: 23–24) claims that “the emergence of ‘civil society’ in EU parlance is merely the result of strategies of legitimization developed by EU institutions in recent years.” An excellent illustration of this, beyond a European context, is the setting up of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations Civil Society Relations by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. In its final report, the Panel pointed out that: the United Nations should emphasize the inclusion of all constituencies relevant to the issue, recognize that the key actors are different for different


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issues and foster multi-stakeholder partnerships to pioneer solutions and empower a range of global policy networks to innovate and build momentum on policy options. (Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations Civil Society Relations 2004: 16; emphasis added)

Multi-stakeholderism is thus perceived to be the solution to a deep crisis in the legitimacy of international (and national) political institutions, a way to bridge “the gap between the governed and the governing” (Wind 2001: 1). Multi-stakeholderism also refers to the aspiration for a more effective, transparent, and legitimate decision-making process concerning complex contemporary issues. Multistakeholderism has, in the meantime, been formalized to some extent in policy documents. It has become part of a supranational public discourse and, as some argue, a “lexical innovation” (de la Chapelle 2007: 23). It remains, however, an elusive and fuzzy concept that is under-theorized and, as a consequence, variously perceived by stakeholders in real policy contexts. Often, the implicit assumption is that there is a consensus on how participatory political processes should be organized and managed. Research has shown, however, that the contrary is the case (Padovani and Tuzzi 2004; Hintz 2007; Milan et al. 2007; Cammaerts 2008). Nevertheless, the WSIS was the first UNsponsored world summit where CS actors explicitly were invited to be involved actively in the preparatory process. In 2001, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 56/183, which encouraged: intergovernmental organisations, including international and regional institutions, non-governmental organisations, civil society and the private sector to contribute to, and actively participate in the intergovernmental preparatory process of the Summit and the Summit itself. (UN General Assembly 2001: 2; emphasis added)

This represented a break with practices at previous summits, such as the World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) and the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban (2001), where CS was kept at a distance from the official process in so-called non-governmental organization (NGO) forums. This shift in approach is in line with efforts by the UN to raise its legitimacy and include as many actors as possible in its policy-making

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processes. As made clear by Fernando Henrique Cardoso (2004), the former Brazilian president and chair of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations Civil Society Relations, in a letter to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan: Global governance is no longer the sole domain of governments. The growing participation and influence of non-State actors is enhancing democracy and reshaping multilateralism. … This opening up of the UN to a plurality of constituencies and actors [should] not [be seen] as a threat to governments but as a powerful way to reinvigorate the intergovernmental process itself.

Theorizing multi-stakeholderism The “multi-stakeholder” approach is not as neutral as is often presented in policy documents. In this respect, there is a risk that multi-stakeholder processes merely serve as a way to neutralize criticism of institutional actors. From this perspective, multi-stakeholderism might give civil society organizations (CSOs) more access to political processes, but by no means does it foster the capacity of CS to have any genuine impact on their outcomes (Carpentier 2003). However, if multi-stakeholderism is to be conceived and implemented as a means to democratize (international) political processes, the conceptual nexus between democratic theory, participatory practices, and multi-stakeholder communicative interaction must be properly addressed. Hemmati (2002: 2) defines multi-stakeholderism as “processes which aim to bring together all major stakeholders in a new form of communication, decision-finding (and possibly decision-making) on a particular issue.” She emphasizes the importance of democratic principles of equity and accountability as well as transparency and participation in multi-stakeholder practice and design. Multistakeholder processes come in many shapes and forms; they can relate to different levels of governance and can be applied to distinct phases of policy formation, from formulation to implementation and evaluation. As such, multi-stakeholderism is a very flexible framework and is constructed as “a new species in the eco-system of decision-finding and governance structures and processes” (Hemmati 2002: 3). There are many assumptions embedded in these attempts to define the multi-stakeholder


approach within policy contexts that require further unpacking. First, the inherent tensions between the hegemonic representative model of democracy and participatory models are often not made explicit (Held 2006). Of crucial importance here is the need to clarify the precise relationship between the hegemonic representative model of democracy (on which international politics and diplomacy is still largely based) and participatory experiments which are embedded in a very different – more decentralized – paradigm (Pateman 1970; Macpherson 1977). In order to do so, it is paramount to elucidate and make explicit the conceptual connections or disconnections between multi-stakeholderism, participation, and power, especially in the light of the tensions between elitist and participatory paradigms. A second assumption relates to the core notion of participation which is often loosely used without precise definition, leading to diverging expectations among stakeholders. Just as is democracy itself, participation is an essentially contested notion in political theory. Pateman (1970: 70–71), for instance, distinguishes between full and partial participation, whereby the former refers to stakeholders having “equal power to determine the outcome of decisions” and the latter to when one stakeholder has “the final power to decide.” Others introduce further differentiations of concepts such as non- (Arnstein 1969), fake (Verba 1961) and manipulative (Strauss 1998) participation. As Pateman points out, power clearly emerges as a pivotal concept in relation to participation. This exposes itself both in the participatory discourses being produced as well as in the practices of participation. Combining Giddens’ (1984) dialectics of control, accounting for generative and restrictive power with a Foucauldian perspective (Foucault 1978) (which addresses power as nonsubjective, mobile, and constitutive of all social relations), allows one to approach participation both at a formal (macro-) and informal (micro-) level of analysis, thereby underscoring the productive capacity of power in the process and acknowledging resistance practices in the analysis. As argued elsewhere: Instead of almost unavoidably having to put an exclusive focus on the degree of structuralized participation, this theoretical framework emphasizes the importance of localized and fluid (micro) power practices and strategies without ignoring the overall (political) structure. (Cammaerts and Carpentier 2005: 22)

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Multi-stakeholder Policy and Civil Society A third assumption concerns the uncontested nature of the concept of “civil society.” It is also often assumed that CS is a singular actor, which is by no means the case. Key questions such as who is included, and, perhaps more importantly, who is excluded from such constituencies are not being addressed adequately. Following Hegel and Marx, CS can be conceptualized as everything that is non-state. However, more recent interpretations analytically separate CS from both the state and the market, following Gramsci (Cohen and Arato 1992). Some even make a case for a more minimalist model, limiting the scope of CS to a “solidarity sphere in which a certain kind of universalising community comes gradually to be defined and to some degree enforced” (Alexander 1998: 8), thereby excluding family life and the private. The whole issue of who and what CS “represents” can and should itself be problematized. This is especially the case in international forums where issues concerning the professionalization of CSOs prevail; ongoing geographic imbalances favoring Western CSOs lead to the exclusion of the distant; and the contentious issue of internal democracy within CSOs, their accountability and their political responsibility, can, in their conjunction, be seen to raise doubts as to the legitimacy of public interest nongovernmental actors in world politics. Fourth, multi-stakeholder processes are often portrayed as deliberative, which situates these participatory experiments squarely in a rational Habermassian consensual paradigm (Habermas 1984). This entails a number of normative “ideal speech” conditions that need to be upheld. Habermas emphasizes that deliberative communicative action not only requires open access for citizens but, at the same time, also presupposes participants to act rationally and to be knowledgeable. Furthermore, in deliberative “communicative” processes, the status of participants should be disregarded in favor of the strength of the rational arguments they put forward. The dialogue should not be centered on self-interest but instead focussed on, and to the benefit of the common good. According to those who see the political as conflictual, rather than consensual, this view of policy processes negates the complex power mechanisms and strategies as well as the many tensions between conflicting interests that are inherent in social and political relations (Mouffe 1999). Instead, political


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differences, passions, and conflicts of interest – present in every society and at all levels – should be made explicit, exposed, and mobilized, rather than brushed aside. This does not mean that no compromises need to be made in order to bridge or accommodate conflicts of interests in a democracy. But these compromises do not make the conflict evaporate; they are merely “temporary respites in an ongoing confrontation” (Mouffe 1999: 755) reached at a given moment in time. In addressing the complexity of contemporary policy processes, all the above-mentioned interlinked components – participation, power, inclusion/exclusion, and consensus/conflict – are to be properly addressed when it comes to promoting and analyzing multi-stakeholder arrangements. The danger of not elucidating these core components lies in generating high expectations and a perceived lack of opportunities to genuinely “participate,” which may produce more frustration and disengagement – the opposite of what initially was intended by introducing participatory arrangements. Finally, since the multi-stakeholderism discourse has emerged mainly in the supranational context, it is also relevant to relate this to international relations (IR) theory. The social constructivist tradition in IR, situated at the “intersection between rationalist and reflectivist approaches” (Smith 2001: 242), is considered useful to account for multi-stakeholder processes beyond the nation-state (see Cammaerts and Padovani 2006). Social constructivism in IR theory negotiates a position between features of world politics that are central components of rationalism – such as the anarchic nature of an international system inhabited by state actors – and concerns relating to the meaning actors in world politics attach to their actions. These are relevant to critical theories, feminist theory, and post-structuralist approaches to IR. Two interrelated aspects foregrounded by the IR constructivist approach are of particular interest here. The emphasis on transformations in actors’ identities and interests in international politics opens up the potential for agency and political change (Wendt 1992). IR constructivists point to the crucial importance of speech acts and discourse in the genesis and consolidation of rules, producing a “web of promises” made up of the rights and duties that actors know they possess with respect to others (Onuf 1989: 66–67).

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The WSIS and its follow-up processes, as well as the now diffused multi-stakeholder discourse, can be seen as small, but nonetheless significant, steps toward making global policy processes more participatory and democratic. Regardless of its relatively poor outcomes, the WSIS can be seen as a learning experience for all actors involved. The policy process not only formally adopts and legitimates the multi-stakeholder approach but also directly contributes to its “social construction” as an open-ended political horizon (Laclau 1993).

The case of Internet governance The Internet has, since its conception, been characterized by both a top-down hierarchical ethos as a military tool and a bottom-up hacker ethos, thriving on anarchy and a firm belief in consensus-building and participatory decisionmaking – “embed[ding] the free distribution of information within the technical structures and social mores of the Net” (Barbrook 1999: np). However, with the controversial subcontracting by the United States (US) National Science Foundation of the management of the domain names system (DNS) to a private company in 1994 and the establishment of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1998, the history of the Internet entered a new phase. In addition to the US government, military, and academics, this development brought new players to the fore. The most important and influential emerging actor was, of course, the corporate sector, but other nation-states and international organizations (e.g., the ITU) were influential and CS manifested itself more and more. ICANN presented itself to the world as an open public sphere, where the different interests could be represented and stakeholders would meet in order to reach a “deliberated” consensus. Esther Dyson, the former ICANN chair, claimed in 1999 during a hearing of the US House of Representatives that: [ICANN] reflects the participation of a large and growing number of technical, business, publicinterest, academic, and other segments of the Internet community. It is this collection of diverse interests and experiences that produces ICANN policies and decisions, as a statement of the consensus of the participants. (Dyson 1999: np)


However, as many observers have noted, ICANN did not quite live up to the participatory and inclusive expectations it raised (Mueller 2002; Malcolm 2008). On the contrary, ICANN – in essence a US-based private (non-profit) organization – increasingly came under attack “for its lack of transparency and accountability and Westerncentric mode of governance” (McLaughlin and Pickard 2005: 362). This particular debate not only exposed the conceptual flaws inherent in the deliberative model, as discussed above, but also pointed to a conflict between those who approach IG as a purely technical matter and those who, on the contrary, consider it to be a deeply political issue, having broad societal implications. Approaching the Internet merely as a neutral technical infrastructure or considering it a vital backbone of the economic, informational, social, and political fabric of societies is very different when considering which policies need to be enacted and which are required to support the public’s interest. Reducing IG to a technical issue, and thus denying its political implications, is in itself a political tactic to remove the need for a more voluntaristic agenda in relation to IG. This confrontation between a minimalist “technical” paradigm and a voluntaristic one made the calls for fundamental reform of ICANN, by (parts of ) CS and developing nation-states, stronger by the day. As a result, IG evolved, by far, into the most contentious issue being debated during the WSIS (although considerable attention was also devoted to the establishment of a digital solidarity fund to address the global digital divide). Unsurprisingly, during the negotiations and in view of the final Declaration in Geneva in 2003, no consensus on IG or ICANN could be reached and a decision was postponed to the second phase of the WSIS, held in 2005 in Tunis. Consistent with the minimalist technical paradigm, David Gross, the US Ambassador to the WSIS, downplayed the process and its outcomes by framing the WSIS as a political summit, unfit to solve mere technical problems: “It would be incorrect to see a political summit as a way to decide technological issues” (Gross in Malvern 2003: np). To keep the reformers from disengaging altogether, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was given the mandate to set up a Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) with “active and full participation” of all stakeholders. This group

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Multi-stakeholder Policy and Civil Society was asked to define IG and “to investigate and make proposals for action, as appropriate, on the governance of the Internet” (WSIS 2003: paragraph 50). The WGIG consisted of 40 members, representing the different stakeholders in equal measure, and they “all participated on an equal footing and in their personal capacity” (WGIG 2005: 3). Four physical meetings were held in Geneva,2 but, in addition, online communication also served as a potent tool in terms of CS interaction, consultation, and debates (see subsequent section). The WGIG’s (2005) report was acclaimed widely and deemed fairly balanced, adopting a broad definition of IG, including domain name administration, cybersecurity, copyright issues, and access issues in relation to development, gender, and so on. The report included CS discourses relating to the problematic nature of unilateral control of the root server by the US, development issues, freedom of expression, open source, intellectual property rights, consumer rights, and “meaningful” participation of CS in policy processes. Furthermore, several proposals were developed in relation to IG reform – from a very light reform of ICANN and involving other governments, to the abolishment of ICANN and the creation of a Global Internet Council. The US response was swift and unambiguous. One month after the publication of the report, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) let it be known that “the United States will continue to support marketbased approaches and private sector leadership in Internet development broadly” (NTIA 2005: np). Case closed. This also points to the unresolved relationship and tension between a hegemonic state-centered paradigm and the participatory discourses emanating from the UN; “between a traditional, hierarchical vision of global governance and a process of dynamic integration that is open to new actors participating at different levels” (Raboy 2004: 354). To sweeten the defeat of those who fought for a more fundamental reform of ICANN, the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society created the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and defined IG rather broadly, as: “the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures,


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and programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet” (WSIS 2005: np). The IGF is by no means a regulatory body; “it possesses no authority to establish policies or regulations,” but is rather “a place for open dialogue and discussion” (Napoli 2008: 3–4). According to some, this reduces the role of the IGF to that of a talking shop, “unable to influence significantly the hard issues and choices at stake” (Dutton and Palfrey 2007: 3). Without a clear mandate and also without the need to reach some sort of compromise at some stage on anything specific, research has shown that the stakeholders merely express normative positions and rarely engage beyond “broad, hardly controversial, proclamations about the importance of the Internet to civic participation, economic development, and the full realization of human rights; and about the need for an open, accessible, diverse, and secure Internet” (Napoli 2008: 20). However, despite these pertinent critiques and limited results, the IGF is, in many ways, a radically innovative body within the UN constellation. It is fairly open (only online registration is required) and it has procedures in place that are multilayered, enabling both top-down as well as bottomup initiatives to emerge. de la Chapelle, (2007: 26) argues that, recognition of the “multi-stakeholder principle” for Internet Governance is therefore a limited but essential step towards the global governance system our interdependent world needs, and the Internet Governance Forum constitutes a laboratory for new modalities to organize the international community.

It can, furthermore, be argued that the IGF also sustains CS internal dynamics and networks. Even more importantly, the IGF as a process and in line with a constructivist position produces alternative discourses and thus expands the political horizon of IG beyond the policy context.

Inward-Looking: Analysis of the IG Caucus Mailing List With about 3,000 messages in a period of more than two years, it is fair to say that the mailing list of the CS WSIS IG caucus was very active and vibrant before, during, and in

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between the two summits. The mailing list had some 100 active participants, but in addition to those posting messages, many more subscribed and received the postings. The period of analysis ran from March 3, 2003, the start of the mailing list, to July 3, 2005, or roughly two and a half years after its launch. A set of questions was sent to the most active participants of the WSIS IG mailing list, that is, those who had posted twenty or more messages during the two and a half years since the mailing list was put into operation (N = 26). Nine key participants responded in detail. They have been anonymized, apart from gender. The analysis assessed the degree of transnationality of the mailing list, the gender balance of its participants, the background and affiliation of participants, and the dynamics between offline and online interactions. A number of questions to respondents also related to their experience with and assessment of multi-stakeholderism as a process. This will be addressed in the subsequent section.

Transnational character of the mailing list According to many respondents, the email-based list allowed for a broader and more global constituency to be involved, to engage, and to be informed, than would have been possible if the only option was face-to-face engagement. As one respondent pointed out, the mailing list had “the capacity to involve people who could not attend and the capacity to get a wider range of viewpoints” (R 1, m).

This is confirmed in part by the quantitative analysis of the mailing list (see Table 8.1). As the Internet is a global medium, it is only logical that the participants of this mailing list are scattered around the world and that all regions of the world are represented. However, as with Internet access, there is a clear dominance of participants from the Western hemisphere, where about 65 percent of participants reside. Following behind Europe and North America are Latin America, Asia, and Africa. If the number of postings is taken into consideration, the underrepresentation of participants from developing countries is even more apparent. Participants from Europe and North America account for about 75 percent of all postings, while, for example, participants from Africa and the Arab world only posted three percent of all messages. Asia, on the other hand, has relatively few participants, but they are very active. If participants who posted 20 or more messages are isolated (N = 26), the dominance of European, North American, and, to a lesser extent, Asian participants increases even further. Within the population of most active participants, those residing in Europe, Asia, or North America account for almost 85 percent of participants and a staggering 95 percent of postings.

Gender balance Although gender balance is considered “a fundamental principle” by the WGIG (2005: 11), the gender balance on the IG mailing list is very skewed toward male dominance as more than 75 percent

Table 8.1 Distribution of participants by region No. of Participants Western Europe Eastern Europe North America Latin America Caribbean Asia Australia and New Zealand Southern and Sub-Saharan Africa Arab Countries Total:

36 1 29 10 2 9 5 8

%

No. of Postings

%

34 1 28 10 2 8 5 8

1192 163 831 143 44 471 66 56

40 5 28 5 1 16 2 2

4

4

17

1

104

100

2983

100

Source: Author.


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Multi-stakeholder Policy and Civil Society (N = 80) of participants are male (m) (see Table 8.2). This male dominance is also reflected in the number of postings where male participants account for more than 80 percent (N = 2,462) of sent messages. When only the most active participants are taken into account (N = 26), the lack of gender balance becomes even more apparent as less than 20 percent of participants are female (f ) and only 15 percent (N = 852) of messages originate from female participants. It could be argued that the highly technical nature of the IG debates is a factor at play here. At the same time, it should also be noted that policy and elite advocacy circles are often (white) male-dominated environments (Kathlene 1994; Lovenduski 2005). The unequal representation of women in the area of IG has been taken up by the UN. In the framework of the IGF, Nitin Desai, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on Internet Governance, has urged the gender coalition to compile a “directory of women who are active in this area, either from the side of industry or as civil society activists or in policymaking in Table 8.2 Participants by gender No. of Participants Female Male Total

%

No. of Postings

%

23 80

22 78

516 2462

17 83

103

100

2978

100

Source: Author. Note: One participant’s gender could not be determined and was not retained in the analysis.

government, or in Internet organisations involved in this at a global level.”3

Expertise vs. elitism Several respondents stated that the online space allows for more reflection on complex issues as well as debate on these issues to be aired and thought through. This can be related to the need for expertise, the issues that are being debated as well as the political skills required. The qualitative analysis of CS involvement in the IG process also indicated the importance of expertise in order to be taken seriously by other actors and to be able to make a difference. This might lead to what McLaughlin and Pickard (2005: 365) describe as “global neocorporatism,” raising the question of the representativeness and legitimization of the CS actors and advocacy groups working within the IG process. This importance of “expert-ization” shows in the affiliations of participants of the mailing list (see Table 8.3). Although the affiliations of participants in the WSIS IG mailing list reflect the different stakeholders within the IG debates, it is clear in the analysis of the number of postings that academics, in particular, have been the most active (posting about 50 percent of messages). Individual activists on the contrary were not so active. This reflects issues of time and resources as well as the fact that involvement in policy processes is voluntary and unpaid. One respondent is adamant in her critique of the mailing list for appearing to be the “vehicle of a few people who want to keep in contact before and after meetings and to present some document (in the name

Table 8.3 Participants by affiliation

Activist (Transnational) CSO Academics Independent researchers Consultants/software developers Internet regulatory agencies* Government-linked agencies International organizations Unknown Total

No. of Participants

%

No. of Postings

%

13 19 38 5 9 11 6 2 1

12 18 36 5 9 11 6 2 1

104 669 1402 27 116 627 8 10 20

3 22 47 1 4 21 1 1 1

104

100

2983

100

Note: *Internet Society, Internet Address Registry, ICANN, Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE). Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding error. Source: Author.


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Bart Cammaerts 400

380

350

Number of postings

300 250

235

227

210 200

184

150

131

100 59 50 2 7 8

29

106

76

137

96

146

97 91

40

62

47

57

66

49

27

Mar-03 Apr-03 May-03 Jun-03 Jul-03 Aug-03 Sep-03 Oct-03 Nov-03 Dec-03 Jan-04 Feb-04 Mar-04 Apr-04 May-04 Jun-04 Jul-04 Aug-04 Sep-04 Oct-04 Nov-04 Dec-04 Jan-05 Feb-05 Mar-05 Apr-05 May-05 Jun-05

0

209

195

Figure 8.1 Number of postings on the IG mailing list per month Source: Author.

of a larger group than they are) into the WSIS process” (R-5, f ). From her perspective, those actively involved in the IG process are no more than another elite group acting in the name of a larger constituency. Most respondents are aware of the danger of elitism and this awareness causes, among some, a feeling of unease as is illustrated by this comment: “we should not be too quick to assume that silence means agreement” (R-8, m). However, as many recognize too, if a controversial issue emerges, more people will respond and give their view. As such, the “silent lurking majority” also fulfils a watchdog function on those who are very active within the policy process and on the list. One respondent, who was not able to go to the meetings, refers to this specific function of the mailing list. “The global governance mailing list hasn’t really given much way to participate in what is happening, but rather the chance to watch those who seem to be able to go to the meetings” (R-5, female). A large number of (passive) lurkers is not necessarily detrimental and can even be construed as legitimating the online proceedings. As another respondent points out, gaps “between ‘insiders’ who are active on the ground, and people who’ve simply joined a listserv can occur, but under the circumstances it’s not that bad” (R-6, m). This last observation regarding the particular circumstances is reminiscent of a pragmatic perspective with regard to


CS involvement within formal policy processes which acknowledges the requirement of a number of (semi-)“professionals” ready and able to perform the difficult balancing act of, on the one hand, getting the alternative discourses through and forcing policy-makers to listen and, on the other, seeking consensus and support within the CS caucus.

Online vs. offline As argued by Diani (2001), it is not easy to sustain activism in an exclusively online environment. In relation to the IGF, de la Chapelle (2007: 25) also claims that “multi-stakeholder governance requires a combination of physical interactions and ‘intersessional’ online collaboration.” The importance of face-to-face encounters to reach agreement or organize concrete actions also became apparent within the WSIS IG caucus. As one respondent noted, “actual statements and agreements on particular courses of action tended to come from f2f [face-to-face] meetings” (R-2, m). Another respondent referred to the importance of social interaction between activists during faceto-face encounters: “as usual, the active people had beers together f2f many times, that is why the online collaboration goes so smoothly. It’s not either-or” (R-4, m). Indeed, many respondents

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Multi-stakeholder Policy and Civil Society stress the dynamic relationship between the online and the offline interaction, confirming other analyses of mailing lists (Hill and Hughes 1998; Wilhelm 1999; Cammaerts 2005). In Figure 8.1, the cyclical character of listserv use can be observed. As might be expected, the summer months are less active. Furthermore, the mailing list had to establish itself in the beginning and a surge in the number of emails can be observed in the run-up to the Geneva Summit (Dec-03). It is fair to state that the mailing list became more active after the first phase of the WSIS, but ups and downs can also be observed in the 2003 post-WSIS period. Surges in the level of communicative interaction on the mailing list can be attributed to the preparation for physical meetings. The big surge in messages in September 2004 relates to a deliberative voting procedure to nominate CS representatives to the WGIG, as well as the drafting and agreement of CS recommendations on its structure and modalities. In the period after that there were several WGIG meetings as well as the preparatory committee meeting (February 17–25, 2005) for Tunis at which it was discussed, which explains the many ups and downs. The online space, it is argued, assured “the continuity of work in between f2f meetings” (R-4b, m). But this necessary dynamic between the online and the offline also creates new barriers for those who are not able to attend face-to-face meetings or those who do not have the time and resources to be heavily involved. This can lead potentially to frustration, intra-movement tensions and the marginalization of minority or more radical positions.

Outward-Looking: Assessing MultiStakeholderism Almost all respondents felt that the impact of CS in terms of the debates on the issue of IG within the WSIS process had been substantial and, as a result, CS was able to provide serious and considerable input. As one respondent put it “civil society-actors … played a major role in setting the agenda, providing commentary on WGIG drafts that corrected or identified problems, and injecting specific ideas and proposals into that process” (R-2, m).


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It also emerges from the analysis that CS representatives active within the IG debates had a high level of expertise on the issues under debate and, as one respondent put it, the ability “to translate the technical into political issues and the other way round, while still having in mind the broader vision of global CS for a human-centred Information Society” (R-4, m). As pointed out earlier, this is also reflected in the final report of the WGIG. Most respondents were convinced that there had been a reasonable opportunity to make a major contribution to the IG debates in the working group. One respondent stated that “the caucus produced concrete language for the final document and pushed for a ‘multi-stakeholder composition’ of any IG follow-up mechanism,” which according to him demonstrates a “recognition of civil society as an ‘important player’ ” (R-3, male). Most refer to their positive experience with, extensive involvement in, and considerable impact on, the WGIG and its final report as demonstrating that the multi-stakeholder discourse is proving to be more than mere rhetoric, especially after the reality check of the first phase of the WSIS in Geneva. One respondent claimed: “In other WSIS issues … it has been mostly rhetoric; however, in the case of IG it has been different” (R-7, m). In many ways, the debates relating to IG are presented as an example of best practice in multistakeholderism, as suggested by this comment: “I think we have been successful and hopefully have set some precedent (small steps perhaps) for WSIS and also perhaps for future UN processes” (R-8, m). As is indicated by the words used in the comment above (“hopefully,” “perhaps”), most respondents had some reservations and were careful to stress that the relatively positive outcomes of the WGIG should indeed be seen as “temporary respites in an ongoing confrontation” (Mouffe 1999: 755). This is exemplified in the following comments: “Let’s see as we move to a more formal, nation state part of the negotiation” (R-7, m). “Let’s see what eventuates, but the process to date has been multi-stakeholder” (R-1, m).

When the participants in the IG mailing lists were surveyed (just before the Tunis Summit), it was, as one respondent pointed out, “too early to

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tell” (R-7, m). It was at that time unclear whether the CS discourses in the WGIG report would survive the final political negotiations in view of the second phase of the WSIS in Tunis (2005). One respondent asked the seemingly rhetorical question: “When the WSIS process goes back to traditional diplomacy mode … will the outcomes of CS involvement stay in or be forgotten and dropped out in the struggle between few governments over control of the root zone file?” (R-4, m). As pointed out above, it is clear that, ultimately, vested interests took priority over participatory discourses of equity, transparency, and accountability, which lost out, or as in this case, were reduced to vague commitments in terms of improved consultation through the IGF. Thus, this respondent was correct in his prediction: I think there will be some kind of forum or mechanism, it will be “lite”. But most likely there will be no agreement on the key issue of the role of the US … So I suspect Tunis will be seen as something of a failure in that it won’t bring consensus. (R-8, m)

Nevertheless, given the “contradicting positions” (R-4, m) and conflicting interests inherent in the issue of IG, this is hardly surprising for many respondents and observers. This brings us back to the question of the lack of theoretical grounding of multi-stakeholderism and its practices. As we argued elsewhere: “Different actors hold very different perspectives as to how stakeholders should be conceived, who is to be included and who is excluded and how their interaction should lead to information exchange, deliberation or decision” (Cammaerts and Padovani 2006: 1). In relation to IG, this translates into “a lack of foundational agreement on principles and norms” (Mueller et al. 2007: 252), leading Napoli (2008: 38) to conclude that: “future scholarly and advocacy organization work should be devoted to establishing these definitional boundaries in order to ensure that they adequately reflect the necessary public interest elements and priorities.”

Conclusion Dahl (1999: 23) asserts that “international policy decisions will not ordinarily be made democratically.” In this chapter, the aim was to assess a policy


process that, at the outset, made precisely the opposite promise. Multi-stakeholderism from the perspective of CS actors and their mixed experiences in relation to IG were analyzed on two levels: (1) inward-looking, through quantitative and qualitative analyses of the IG caucus mailing list over a period of two and a half years; and (2) outwardlooking, through a qualitative assessment of multistakeholderism as a practice of global governance and international decision-making in the case of IG, based on email interviews and desk research. On the inward-looking level of mobilization, the analysis confirms the increasing importance of the Internet in terms of intra-movement networking and access to policy processes. The analysis of the mailing list also enables us to deepen our understanding of the dynamics between the online interactions and the offline face-to-face interactions. In this regard, high levels of online interaction often precede offline meetings. However, while the Internet serves many functions, such as the diffusion of information beyond those who are directly involved, circulating draft proposals, and even choosing representatives, it is often during face-toface meetings and interactions that the real decisions are made. Despite this, “passive” participants also act as watchdogs over those who have the time, resources, expertise, and dedication to be actively involved, and, they provide some sort of implicit legitimacy for these elites within the network. At the same time, the analysis exposes constraints, such as a dominance of participants from the Northern hemisphere and of (male) experts and CS professionals which could lead potentially to a (neo-)corporatist relationship between CS and state actors. Sustained active involvement in policy processes requires different types of resources and skills to be able to travel to meetings, lobby officials, and advocate change within a formal political process. To a large extent, a complex issue such as IG requires expertise and a high degree of knowledge in order to be taken seriously by other actors and to be able to play the wheeling and dealing political game, typical of (global) politics, and diplomacy. This brings us to the more outward-looking perspective. According to most respondents and observers, the CS caucus was treated and accepted as a somewhat equal partner within the WGIG, introducing a social and democratic discourse into

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Multi-stakeholder Policy and Civil Society the debates and in the final report of the WGIG (2005). The way CS representatives were treated and the inclusion of their discourses in official documents, contrasted greatly with the experiences of exclusion and marginalization in the Geneva 2003 WSIS (see Ó Siochrú 2004a; Hintz 2007; Cammaerts 2008). However, while most respondents were fairly happy with the proceedings within the WGIG, many were doubtful and realistic as to its genuine impact once the “real diplomacy mode” would kick in again. Their skepticism was justified as the central role of ICANN and its embeddedness in the US remained intact. In return, an unthreatening IGF was set up to discuss and disagree “openly.” Many publications on the WGIG and IGF are unsurprisingly less enthusiastic about the WSIS experience and multi-stakeholderism than the respondents were at the time of data collection (see McLaughlin and Pickard 2005; Hintz 2007; Mueller et al. 2007; Padovani and Pavan 2007; Malcolm 2008). As Hintz (2007: 12) points out, the “WSIS sent mixed signals to civil society – sometimes offering unprecedented levels of participation, then again pushing it out of negotiation spaces.” It seems, as is often the case, that CS is only treated as a legitimate and equal partner when the stakes are not too high. Once difficult and real choices and decisions have to be made, things revert back to the old-style, state-centered diplomacy mode, and CS is sidelined while its emancipatory discourses are being ignored. McLaughlin and Pickard (2005: 365) point out that the promotion of multi-stakeholderism by states and international organizations can be viewed as “an attempt to defuse radical opposition by co-opting more moderate groups,” implicating or entrapping the reformists in the intrinsically neoliberal agendas of these international organizations. Given the poor results and the time and effort that went into trying to achieve change from within the policy process, many are wondering whether all of this was not to the detriment of organizing, mobilizing, campaigning, and informing outside the policy process. Instead, the argument is being made to redirect the fight for and mobilization of emerging emancipatory communication agendas “beyond the liberal-institutionalist base of global governance” (Hintz 2007: 12), translating them and making them relevant to local contexts and constituencies worldwide.


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However, when considering political and democratic theory, as well as the constructivist approach to IR, and relating this to global governance processes, it is not just visible victory or defeat in concrete outcomes that is of importance. Power is productive, and highly diffused while, at the same time, asymmetrical. And social change at a global level is often a slow and dialectical process whereby produced outcomes are always temporal and situated in a context of ongoing struggles among conflicting interests and goals. While CS has not been able to have a particularly significant impact on the official outcomes of the WSIS process, the WSIS has produced a stronger, more networked, and interconnected CS caucus, as well as a set of distinct counter-discourses (see WSIS CS Plenary 2003/2005) that will feed back into future governance processes and agendas for change. Nevertheless, given the growing criticism among key CS actors regarding the effectiveness of overt policy involvement, it remains to be seen whether, the next time around, the enthusiasm of CS to invest time, energy, and resources to engage with policy-makers at an international level will be as high as it was at the outset of the WSIS. Samuel Beckett once stated: “Ever tried. Ever failed. Never mind. Try again. Fail better” (Beckett in Cammaerts and Carpentier 2005: 23). But many CS actors and activists are getting tired of “waiting for Godot” and are advocating abstention. Dahl’s claim that international decision-making processes cannot be democratic by default has proven to be partially correct. Despite this, it has been shown that opening up international policy processes to CS actors also produces collateral benefits. Dahl also insists that the impossibility of democratization does not do away with the desirability of more transparency and democracy at a global level. It is argued here that a “democracy beyond borders”4 can only be strengthened and deepened by addressing the inconsistencies and diverging expectations surrounding the emerging multi-stakeholder regime. A strong need exists to expose the theoretical assumptions implicitly embedded in multistakeholderism, clarifying what its relationship is to the dominant state-centered paradigm in international politics. The question of who represents the global citizenry in terms of individuals active in policy processes and the advocacy groups for which they work also requires more attention

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than it is receiving. Power should be adequately integrated and accounted for. Generative aspects, the restrictive aspects, the productive nature of power, and practices of resistance, all need to be acknowledged and incorporated. Finally and most importantly, attempts to detach participation, as a concept and/or a practice, from its more radical meanings should be resisted. Consultation and other forms of tokenism should not be confused with participation, implying the ability of actors to influence outcomes of decision-making processes, to not only have their say – a voice – but also to be listened to.

Notes 1

2

3

4

The author would like to thank Robin Mansell, Nico Carpentier, and Claudia Padovani for their insightful contributions during our respective collaborations. They have helped shape my thinking and they should be acknowledged accordingly. Some of the empirical data in this paper was also used in Cammaerts (2005a). Face-to-face meetings of the WGIG were held on October 23–25, 2004, February 14–18, 2005, April 18–20, 2005, and June 14–17, 2005. IGF Open Consultation, February 23, 2009; for a transcript, see: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/ index.php/component/content/article/80-23-24feb-2009-open-consultations/380-open-consultation23-feb-2009-transcript (accessed 01/05/2009). See Commission on Global Governance (1995).

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cyber.law.harvard.edu/briefings/WSIS (accessed 01/08/2009). Cammaerts, B. (2005) “ICT-usage among transnational social movements in the Networked Society: To organise, to mobilise and to debate,” in R. Silverstone (ed.) Media, Technology and Everyday Life in Europe: From Information to Communication. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 53–72. Cammaerts, B. (2005a) “Through the looking glass: Civil society participation in the WSIS and the dynamics between online/offline interaction,” Communications & Strategies, Special Issue – WSIS Tunis: 151–174. Cammaerts, B. (2008) Internet-Mediated Participation Beyond the Nation State. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Cammaerts, B., and Carpentier, N. (2005) “The unbearable lightness of full participation in a global context: WSIS and civil society participation,” in J. Servaes and N. Carpentier (eds) Towards a Sustainable Information Society: Beyond WSIS. Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 17–50. Cammaerts, B., and Padovani, C. (2006) “Theoretical reflections on multi-stakeholderism in global policy processes: The WSIS as a learning space,” paper presented at the 25th IAMCR Conference, Cairo, 23–28 June. Cardoso, F. H. (2004) Transmittal Letter from the Chair of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations–Civil Society Relations addressed to the Secretary-General ( June 7), http://www.un-ngls.org/Final%20report %20-%20HLP.doc (accessed 01/08/2009). Carpentier, N. (2003) “Access and participation in the discourse of the digital divide: The European perspective at/on the WSIS,” in J. Servaes (ed) The European Information Society: A Reality Check. Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 99–120. Cohen, J. L., and Arato, A. (1992) Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Commission on Global Governance (1995) Our Global Neighbourhood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dahl, R. A. (1999) “Can international organisations be democratic: A sceptic’s view,” in I. Shapiro and C. Hacker-Cordón (eds) Democracy’s Edges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 19–36. de la Chapelle, B. (2007) “The Internet Governance Forum: How a United Nations summit produced a new governance paradigm for the Internet age,” in C. Möller and A. Amouroux (eds) Governing the Internet: Freedom and Regulation in the OSCE Region. Vienna: OSCE, pp. 19–28. Diani, M. (2001) “Social movement networks: Virtual and real,” in F. Webster (ed.) Culture and Politics in the Information Age: A New Politics? London: Routledge, pp. 117–128. Dutton, W. H., and Palfrey, J. (2007) “Deciphering the codes of Internet governance: Understanding the

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Multi-stakeholder Policy and Civil Society hard issues at stake,” Oxford Internet Institute/ e-Horizons Forum Discussion Paper 8, University of Oxford. Dyson, E. (1999) Prepared Statement of Esther Dyson to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the US House of Representatives (July 22). Washington DC, http://www.icann.org/correspondence/dysontestimony-22jul99.htm (accessed 01/08/2009). Foucault, M. (1978) History of Sexuality, Part 1: An Introduction. New York: Pantheon. Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Habermas, J. (1984) The Theory of Communicative Action: Volume 1, Reason and the Rationalization of Society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Held, D. (2006) Models of Democracy (third edition). Cambridge: Polity Press. Hemmati, M. (ed.) (2002) Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainablility: Beyond Deadlock and Conflict. London: Earthscan. Héritier, A. (1997) “Policy-making by subterfuge: Interest accommodation, innovation and substitute democratic legitimation in Europe – Perspectives from distinctive policy areas,” Journal of European Public Policy, 4(2): 171–189. Hill, K. A., and Hughes, J. E. (1998) Cyberpolitics: Citizen Activism in the Age of the Internet. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Hintz, A. (2007) “Deconstructing multi-stakholderism: The discourses and realities of global governance at the World Summit on the Information Society,” paper presented at the Standing Group on International Relations Conference, September, Turin, Italy. International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP) (2004 [1980]) Many Voices, One World: Towards a New, More Just, and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order. Report of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, first published by UNESCO in 1980 and reprinted by Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Kathlene, L. (1994) “Power and influence in state legislative policymaking: The interaction of gender and position in committee hearing debates,” The American Political Science Review, 88(3): 560–576. Kubicek, H., Dutton, W. H., and Williams, R. (eds) (1997) The Social Shaping of Information Superhighways: European and American Roads to the Information Society. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag and St. Martin’s Press. Laclau, E. (1993) “Politics and the limits of modernity,” in T. Docherty (ed.) Postmodernism: A Reader. New York: Harvester, pp. 329–343. Laclau, E. (1996) Emancipation(s). London: Verso. Lovenduski, J. (ed.) (2005) State Feminism and Political Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


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Macpherson, C. B. (1977) The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Magnette, P. (2006) “Democracy in the European Union: Why and how to combine representation and participation?” in S. Smismans (ed.) Civil Society and Legitimate European Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 23–41. Malcolm, J. (2008) Multi-Stakeholder Governance and the Internet Governance Forum. Wembley: Terminus Press. Malvern, J. (2003) “Status quo rocks,” Daily Summit, London: British Council December 10, http://www. dailysummit.net/english/archives/2003/12/10/ status_quo_rocks.asp (accessed 01/08/2009). Mansell, R. (2008) “Foreword,” in B. Cammaerts (ed.) Internet-Mediated Participation Beyond the Nation State. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. xvii–xxi. McLaughlin, L., and Pickard, V. (2005) “What is bottom-up about global internet governance?” Global Media and Communication, 1(3): 357–373. Milan, S., Hintz, A., and Cabral, A. (2007) “Broadening voices: Grassroots tech groups and policy objectives for Internet governance.” Paper presented at the second GigaNet Symposium, Rio de Janeiro, November 11. Mouffe, C. (1999) “Deliberative democracy or agonistic pluralism?” Social Research, 66(3): 746–758. Mueller, M. L. (2002) Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mueller, M. L., Mathiason, J., and Klein, H. (2007) “The Internet and global governance: Principles and norms for a new regime,” Global Governance, 13(2): 237–254. Napoli, P. M. (2008) “Issues and challenges facing Internet governance: A report from the 2007 Internet Governance Forum,” McGannon Center Working Paper Series, 14: 1–48. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) (2005) US Comments on the Report of the WGIG. WSIS-II/PC-3/CONTR/035-E, 17 August, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/pc3/ contributions/co35.pdf (accessed 01/08/2009). Onuf, N. (1989) World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Ó Siochrú, S. (2004) “Failure and success at the WSIS: Civil society’s next moves,” UNRISD News, 26(Spring/ Summer), http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/ web/599.htm (accessed 01/08/2009). Ó Siochrú, S. (2004a) “Will the real WSIS please stand up? The historic encounter of the ‘Information Society’ and the ‘Communication Society’,” Gazette 66(3–4): 203–224. Padovani, C., and Pavan, E. (2007) “Diversity reconsidered in a global multi-stakeholder environment:

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Insights from the online world,” in W. Kleinwächter (ed.) The Power of Ideas: Internet Governance in a Global Multistakeholder Environment. Berlin: Marketing fur Deutschland GmbH, pp. 99–109. Padovani, C., and Tuzzi, A. (2004) “The WSIS as a world of words: Building a common vision of the information society,” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 18(3): 360–379. Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations–Civil Society Relations (2004) We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations and Global Governance, Report to the 58th Session of the UN General Assembly, June 11, A/58/817. New York: United Nations, see URL: http://www.un-ngls.org/Final%20report%20-%20 HLP.doc (accessed 01/08/2009). Pateman, C. (1970) Participation and Democratic Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raboy, M. (2003) “Media and democratization in the information society,” in S. Ó Siochrú and B. Girard (eds) Communicating in the Information Society. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, pp. 103–121. Raboy, M. (2004) “The WSIS as a political space in global media governance,” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 18(3): 345–359. Schement, J. R., and Lievrouw, L. A. (eds) (1987) Competing Visions, Complex Realities: Social Aspects of the Information Society. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Smith, S. (2001) “Reflectivist and constructivist approaches to international relations,” in J. Baylis and S. Smith (eds) The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction for International Relations (second edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 224–251. Strauss, G. (1998) “An overview,” in F. Heller, E. Pusic, G. Strauss. and B. Wilpert (eds) Organizational Participation: Myth and Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 8–39. United Nations (UN) General Assembly (2001) World Summit on the Information Society, Resolution 56/183, December 21. New York: United Nations, http://


www.itu.int/wsis/docs/background/resolutions/56_ 183_unga_2002.pdf (accessed 01/08/2009). Verba, S. (1961) Small Groups and Political Behaviour. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vincent, R. C. (2006) “What does the future hold for civil society and ICT businesses in a post-WSIS world?” Paper presented at the Pacific Telecommunication Council conference, Honolulu, January 15–18. Wendt, A. (1992) “Anarchy is what states make of it: The social construction of power politics,” International Organizations, 46(2): 391–425. Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) (2005) Report of the Working Group on Internet Governance ( June), Château de Bossey: WGIG. Wilhelm, A. G. (1999) “Virtual sounding boards: How deliberative is online political discussion?” in B. N. Hague and B. D. Loader (eds) Digital Democracy: Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age. London: Routledge, pp. 154–178. Wind, M. (2001) “Bridging the gap between the governed and the governing,” in C. Joerges, Y. Mény, and J. H. H. Weiler (eds) Mountain or Molehill? A Critical Appraisal of the Commission White Paper on Governance. Jean Monnet Working Papers No. 6/01, http://cent ers.law.nyu.edu/jeanmonnet/papers/01/010601. html (accessed 01/08/2009). WSIS (2003) Geneva Declaration of Principles, First Phase of the WSIS (December 10–12). Geneva: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/index.html (accessed 01/ 08/2009). WSIS (2005) Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. WSIS-05/TUNIS/DOC/6(Rev. 1)-E (18 November), Tunis: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/ off/6rev1.html (accessed 01/08/2009). WSIS Civil Society (CS) Plenary (2003) Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs: Civil Society Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society (8 December). Geneva: WSIS CS Plenary. WSIS Civil Society (CS) Plenary (2005) Much More Could Have Been Achieved: Civil Society Statement on the World Summit on the Information Society (December 18). Tunis: WSIS CS Plenary.

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9

Media Reform in the United States and Canada: Activism and Advocacy for Media Policies in the Public Interest Leslie Regan Shade

Introduction1 In his keynote address at the fourth annual (American) National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) in Minneapolis, June 2008, legendary broadcaster Bill Moyers referred to media reform as: one of the most significant citizens’ movements to emerge in this new century … a movement to challenge the stranglehold of mega media corporations over our press and to build alterative and independent sources of news and information that people can trust.2

Over 3,000 activists, scholars, and policy-makers attended the conference, strategizing media policy interventions for the public interest and highlighting best practices for sustaining independent, community, and citizens’ media. Media reform as a locus of praxis and a venue for scholarly attention has burgeoned during the last decade in the United States (US) and Canada. Established civil society groups have picked up the mantle, grassroots groups have spontaneously mobilized, partisan politics have been cast aside to coalesce around policy interventions, and politicians

and citizens alike have been necessarily steeped in a learning curve about the arcane technical minutiae that ensures (or inhibits) the open and diverse communication system that many of us depend upon for our livelihoods and social enjoyment. Reforming the media can be framed as conceptualizing a vision for broader values vital for social well-being, democratic communications and the public interest. This chapter provides insight into particular policy moments in the US and Canada,3 from the mid-1990s to the present, that catalyzed activism around access, equity, ownership, diversity, content, control, and the governance of communication resources. “Media reform” refers to a social movement, citizen actions countering encroaching media consolidation and commercialization, and policy interventions to protect, promote, and promulgate the public interest.4 The chapter first summarizes government policy initiatives created to address digital convergence in a competitive and globalized climate. Many stakeholders questioned the increased commodification, privatization, and capitalization of culture and contested how communication resources could be deployed equitably. This tension and genuine interest in creating and renewing public spaces on the



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Internet and on the airwaves generated activism to restore and implement media policies for the public interest. After discussing several key policy decisions in the US and Canada that catalyzed advocacy, the chapter then examines some developments, organizations, and tactics in media reform. Following this, a critical analysis of the media reform movement is presented, examining some infrastructural challenges, the integration of media justice into the agenda, and offering some reflections on further research and policy impact.

From Digital Euphoria to Bust Over the last three decades, the US and Canadian governments restructured communications policy through a neoliberal agenda wherein communication policies increasingly became linked to economic interests (Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006). This set the stage for a global media system wherein a handful of companies became the conduits for broadcasting, telecommunications, and publishing. Neoliberalism, featuring commercialization, internationalization, liberalization, and privatization of communication structures, was also buttressed by continental industrial integration, enhanced by regional and global initiatives. The 1987 Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and later the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) promoted privatization, market liberalization, competition, and deregulation (although re-regulation is a more precise term, as policy became the conduit to support an increased reliance on market forces). In the mid-1990s, Internet services were promoted under the umbrella of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) and touted by US Vice President Al Gore and Canadian Minister of Industry John Manley (Gore 1996). Its five core principles – private investment, competition, flexible regulation, open access, and universal service – were adopted in 1994 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and affirmed by the 1995 G-7 Telecommunications Ministerial Meeting in Brussels (Drake 1995). Communication regulators in both countries – the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) – implemented a series of


rules to accelerate market regulation, and new legislation reflected this emphasis on competition and commercialization. Overhauling its predecessor, the US Telecommunications Act of 1996 set the parameters for a neoliberal and marketized communication environment counter to wider public interests. Passed without widespread public or media scrutiny, its ostensible objective was “to promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunication consumers and encourage the rapid deployment of new telecommunications services” (FCC 1996; Act 1). Meant to encourage “innovation,” the Act recognized rapid technological change through inter-networking technologies and lowered monopolistic barriers while encouraging competition in the cable and telephone industries. To achieve these goals, the Act ordered the FCC to relax rules on media ownership. Universal service provisions committed telecommunication companies to affordable Internet services for schools, hospitals, museums, and libraries through Section 254 (the “E-Rate”). Public interest and consumer groups condemned the Act as it linked “for the first time in law, the public interest, a competitive business environment, economic efficiency, and promotion of innovation” (Aufderheide 2002: 516). This begged the question: under a competitive environment, what kind of media environment would emerge? What would be its impact for democracy, social equity, and civic participation? Would it, as its promoters claimed, lead to a plethora of new media channels and owners, or would it create, as its detractors warned, an intensification of media concentration and commercialization? As the media and telecommunications industries grew in stature and influence throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the FCC became a powerful agency whose rulings influenced the economic hardiness of many companies. A potent lobbying industry of telecommunications and media firms dominated Washington’s Beltway to influence proposed regulatory mechanisms in favor of their corporate clients and in detriment to wider public interests (Koerner 2001: 41). One year after the passing of the Act, a flurry of media transactions led to oligopolistic control in many industries. This was starkly revealed in the radio industry where consolidation “ brought about the most tightly knit and homogenous group of

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Media Reform in the United States and Canada owners the radio industry has ever seen since Westinghouse and RCA dominated the airwaves prior to World War II” (Huntemann 1999: 395). Clear Channel Communications stood as the poster child, acquiring more than one hundred local radio stations, securing itself as second to Westinghouse in terms of total audience share, while overall radio station ownership decreased by 11.7 percent. Other concerns were raised by public interest groups: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) spoke up on Internet censorship, telecommunications price increases, and the widening of socioeconomic barriers.5 Mark Lloyd of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights argued that provisions of the Act “were meant to mollify, if not please, a communications industry dominated by global conglomerates” (Lloyd 2006: 201) and argued for a civil rights focus to communication policy, with democracy and community as fundamental attributes in policy formulation (Lloyd 1996). Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America warned that deregulation eroded attributes intrinsic to the public utility nature of telecommunications: public infrastructure, public resources, and public responsibility (Cooper 2002). The Clinton Administration initiated programs to address the digital divide. Notably, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) produced a series of studies measuring household telephone, computer, and Internet prices, demonstrating that access was correlated with socioeconomic and geographic factors and that there were disparities for peoples with disabilities, single-parent households, African-Americans and Hispanics (NTIA 2000). The elimination of two critical programs from the Bush Administration’s 2003 budget, the Community Technology Centers (CTC) program and the Technology Opportunities Program (TOP), signaled a retreat from digital divide funding programs, despite its persistence and the documented success of community technology investments (Servon 2002). In Canada, historically, federal public institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) led the development of national communication infrastructures with policy centered on the Broadcasting Act (adopted 1932, revised several times, most recently in 1991) and the Telecommunications Act (adopted 1993). The Broadcasting


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Act sets out the regulatory landscape for the ownership of the broadcasting system, mandates the provision of services in both official languages, French and English, and details the provision of offerings reflective of the diverse interests, cultures, and ethnic heritage of Canadians, in order to “safeguard, enrich, and strengthen, the cultural, political, social, and economic fabric of Canada” (Canada 1991: Sec. 3(1)(d)(i)). The Telecommunications Act states that “telecommunications performs an essential role in the maintenance of Canada’s identity and sovereignty” (Canada 1993: Sec 7). Some of its objectives are to: develop a telecommunications system that promotes and strengthens the economic and social matrix of Canada; deliver affordable and reliable services to all Canadians, regardless of geographic location; enhance national and international competitiveness of Canadian telecommunications; promote the ownership and control of Canadian carriers by Canadians; foster increased reliance on market forces while ensuring regulation where required; and contribute to the protection of the privacy of persons (Canada 1993). The public interest in broadcasting and telecommunications policy is thus envisioned as protecting and nurturing Canadian identity and culture as a counterbalance to the plethora of American media content that crosses the border. Cultural sovereignty, the ability of a country to enact laws and policies that protect and promote its culture and cultural industries, has been enacted in Canada through cultural policies on heritage, film, television, and multimedia, instituted through legislation, regulation, program support, and taxation measures. But in the 1990s, the public interest also came to be seen increasingly as the promotion and protection of Canadian media and telecommunications firms and encouragement of technological innovation, particularly in an era of unbridled capitalism and global economic competitiveness. Darin Barney (2005: 29) thus describes Canadian communication as fraught with “inherent contradictions and enduring tensions”: cultural versus industrial policy; nation-building versus commerce; democracy versus elite accommodation; and regulation by the state or regulation by the market. These tensions were evident in the establishment of the Information Highway Advisory Council (IHAC) and two key policy decisions made by the CRTC in the 1990s.

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The IHAC was symptomatic of the orientation of the techno-economic policy processes. Established in 1994 to recommend a national digital strategy to the Minister of Industry, its three main objectives were the creation of jobs through innovation and investment; the reinforcement of Canadian sovereignty and cultural identity; and ensuring universal and affordable access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Its final report (Industry Canada 1995) called for a competitive, deregulated, market-led environment. The CRTC, created in 1969, regulates and supervises all aspects of the Canadian broadcasting system as per the Broadcasting Act, including price regulation and other services offered by telecommunications common carriers under federal jurisdiction. Increasingly in the 1990s, CRTC recommendations reinforced the role for a deregulated and competitive market in ensuring access to ICTs. CRTC Public Notice 1994–130, announcing the so-called “convergence hearings,” evaluated the “vision of competition” from technological convergence and digitization. The ensuing report recommended fostering a culture of competition, but recognized the need to reinforce Canadian content protections in broadcasting policies: “In the marketplace of ideas, Canadians wish to be more than consumers; they wish to be participants in a system that reflects their lives and values” (CRTC 1995: 28–29). Some public interest issues were addressed; the “public lane” was described as an approach to ensure universal and affordable public access through “market forces, subsidies and cooperation” (CRTC 1995: 43) and they recommended that the federal government expedite Internet community access programs. Despite public interest interventions, the CRTC’s concessions to market-driven competition allowed future licensing decisions favoring cross-media ownership. Canada now has the dubious distinction of possessing one of the most consolidated media systems in the developed world with a high degree of crossmedia ownership (Skinner et al. 2005). The 1998 CRTC New Media hearings considered whether new media could be regulated given the traditional broadcasting and telecommunications regulatory regime. The final ruling stated that there would be no regulation of Internet content under the Broadcasting Act because “the majority of services now available on the Internet consist predominantly of alphanumeric text, and, therefore,


do not fall within the scope of the Broadcasting Act and are thus outside the Commission’s jurisdiction” (CRTC 1999: np). The CRTC also argued that regulating new media would not further the Broadcasting Act’s objectives because of a preexisting Canadian presence on the Internet and perceived market incentives for the production and distribution of Canadian new media content (CRTC 1999). The hearing generated several hundred comments from industry, against regulation for fear of stifling market-led competition; while public interest groups favored regulation for social ends, such as industry self-regulation of content to protect children, or regulation providing funding for new media content. By the end of the 1990s and into the early years of the new millennium, with the dot.com “crash” muting the mantra of market forces, and post-9/11 sensitizing of North Americans to a heightened security sensibility, the federal political will in the US and Canada for continued investment in digital programs waned. However, earlier energies of activists for universal access and other public interest provisions increased, coalescing most notably around the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) and the Communication Rights in the Information Society campaign.6

Delineating Media Reform The media reform movement is characterized by four often overlapping elements: media criticism, education and literacy; creating, producing, and distributing independent media; media policy activism; and media justice. Often compared to the environmental movement: it is raising questions about the role of media in social life, questioning the organization of the media, and working to reestablish the power and potential of local people communicating with one another without the intervention of a multinational global media corporation. (Opal 2004: 3)

In the US, it has been referred to as the new civil rights movement, essential for building a broader non-partisan community concerned with renewed government accountability and democratic enhancement for all citizens.

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Table 9.1 Media reform movement activities Issue framing/action plans for remaking media

Policy priorities

Strategic activities and tactics

Free press/freedom of expression (public responsibility of media; government and corporate censorship; in the US, related to First Amendment issues)

Focus on structural issues related to the political economy of the media industries or contesting content issues (e.g., gender and minority and ethnic representation)

Engagement and advocacy with diverse stakeholders: established regulatory structures and forums (CRTC, FCC, Congressional hearings, other governmental hearings at the community, state/ provincial levels); the public; the press

Media democratization (participatory and egalitarian communication for democratic communication for all citizens)

Focus on reforming mainstream media and in developing new independent forms of media

Creation of alternative forums (National Conferences on Media Reform, academic-activist conferences, etc.), and mobilization of the public and other groups (to organize, petition, create action plans and other strategies)

Right to communicate (the right to receive and impart communication); right of access to communication infrastructures in an egalitarian public domain. Adapts legalistic human rights framework, especially Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UN])

Concern with localism – maintaining public access channels and links

Internet-based activism (to inform offline activism; use of blogs, wikis, lists, web sites, YouTube, webcasting, mobile updates)

Cultural environment (building and reforming “healthy” media content, free of rampant commercialization and violence)

Concern with diversity of content, ownership, and employment

Research/monitoring (monitoring policy, media content and industry development; generating reports and position papers)

Media justice (envisioned as a wider social justice issue concerned with systemic issues of race, class and gender, encompassing a wider distribution of wealth and power)

Focus on engaging in the policy process whether through established governance structures like the FCC and CRTC or other, newer, forums

Education/media literacy (informing and educating youth and the public to assess media content and policies)

Source: Author, adapted from Hackett and Carroll (2006: 78–81) and see United Nations (1948).

A substantial scholarly corpus on media reform exists; Philip Napoli writes that the movement “is hardly monolithic,” but instead “comprised of a diverse and dynamic array of sub-sectors that overlap significantly in their motivations and guiding principles, but that also maintain distinct identities” (Napoli 2007: 12). Issue framing, policy priorities, and strategic activities are cogent entry points to describe the activities of media reform organizations (see Table 9.1). In 2005, the Center for International Media Action (CIMA) categorized the issues undertaken by US media reform groups as democracy/civic engage-


ment, consumer interests and rights, independent media, children/education, morality/decency, media workers and social justice/civil rights; strategies also overlap: research/monitoring, advocacy, organizing, education/media literacy and mobilization (CIMA 2005). William Dutton (2005) described an ecology of media reform stakeholders: academics (policy specialists, critical communication scholars, public interest lawyers); activists (established nongovernmental organization (NGO) groups with paid salaries, grassroots groups run by volunteers); foundations (donors, program managers, staff ); mediators or bridgers of activities (conference/workshop

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Table 9.2 Media reform policy issues Media infrastructure

Media content

Privacy/surveillance

Intellectual property/copyright

Ownership, diversity and concentration/ conglomeration

Censorship, bias, propaganda

Transborder data flows

Digital rights management

Broadband access

Freedom of speech

Military-industrialsecurity complex

Piracy

Public and community broadcasting; public, educational, and governmental/public access

Commercialization and advertising

Collection of personal information

Access to public knowledge

Low power FM radio; campus-community radio

Representation and diversity

Data retention

Fair dealing/fair use

Net neutrality

Children’s media

Deep packet inspection

Creative commons

Spectrum and wireless

Quality journalism

Obligations of social media companies; Web 2.0

Free and open-source software

Source: Author.

conveners); and specialists (for instance, experts on intellectual property or trade regulations). Laura Stein (2009: 3) notes that “communication policy activism spans the gamut from representational concerns with the end products of communication to the deep-seated political, economic, regulatory, and infrastructural issues that shape the larger cultural environment.” As Table 9.2 illustrates, media reform policies are concerned principally with infrastructure, content, privacy, and intellectual property.

Media justice Because traditional media reform and policy strategies do not adequately address structural issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality, activists have adopted media justice as a framework that encompasses a more inclusive terrain (Cyril and Schmeider 2009: 6). As articulated by the Center for Media Justice (CMJ), any form of media change must recognize and remedy structural racism. In order to grow a movement, people from marginalized communities need training to become effective strategic communicators; effective media policy advocacy necessitates linkages to wider social justice issues including racial justice, gender/youth rights, and economic equity; and strategic communication campaigns need to be networked locally and regionally for national impact.7


The tenets of media justice in the US can be traced back to the pivotal broadcasting reform case Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ vs. Federal Communications Commission (1969). Also known as the “WLBT” case (referring to a local television station in Jackson, Mississippi), it resulted in an expansion of the legal doctrine of “standing,” enabling citizens – and particularly minorities – the right to bring an action and be heard before courts and regulatory agencies such as the FCC. The case was monumentous because it linked energies within the civil rights movement, emboldened the emerging environmental and consumer movements, and set the stage for equal employment regulations in the media industry. The case, precipitated in 1964 by the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and its champion, director Everett Parker, stemmed from the actions of Medgar Evers and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) who, in the mid-1950s, petitioned WLBT for the inclusion of integrationist perspectives in its programming. Parker used content analysis from WLBT on racial diversity issues (conducted by anonymous white citizens to avoid accusations of bias). He challenged WLBT’s broadcast license renewals alleging that the white station owners and managers engaged in racial discrimination by not hiring local African-Americans, who represented 40 percent of the city’s population. They ignored minority issues and did not give them

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Media Reform in the United States and Canada equal access to the airwaves; and they deliberately provoked discord by editorializing against the rights of black people. While ultimately triumphing in its bid to reform FCC policies, the WLBT case was a long-winded fight, and as Robert Horwitz comments: when thinking about making the regulatory system work for regular people, it is sobering to remember that it took nineteen litigious years to strip a public frequency from a duplicitous and racist owner and finally award WLBT to black owners. (Horwitz 1997: 344)

After the success of the UCC case, in the 1970s new media reform groups, themselves influenced by interrelated social concerns in the civil rights and anti-war movements, challenged broadcasting license renewals (through petition-to-deny claims) in efforts to create inclusive ethnic, racial, and gender representations and hiring practices in the media industry (Montgomery 1989; Perlman 2007). Changes in broadcasting policy were “imbricated within larger social concerns, visions, and movements” (Classen 2004: 178) such that policy-makers could not then separate media use from media institutional practices.

The US: How Many Angels Can Dance for the Public Interest? In their analysis of the role of civil society groups in communication and information policy, Mueller et al. (2004) demonstrate that the 1990s was characterized by an increase in new rights-oriented organizations, propelled by concerns about Internet commercialization and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Some were umbrella organizations for pre-existing organizations, such as the Telecommunications Policy Roundtable, whose open membership included the Alliance for Community Media, the American Library Association, the Consumer Federation of America, People for the American Way, the United Cerebral Palsy Association, and the Writers Guild of America. Responding to the Clinton Administration’s National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action, the Roundtable issued public interest principles calling for universal access, freedom to communi-


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cate, the maintenance of a vital public sector, a diverse and competitive marketplace, equitable workplaces, privacy protection and democratic policy-making.8 George Gerbner, Emeritus Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, established the Cultural Environment Movement (CEM), a coalition of over 150 groups concerned with creating a more balanced, diverse, and healthy media environment for children (Duncan 1999). The Media and Democracy Congresses (San Francisco 1996; New York City 1997) sponsored by the Institute for Alternative Journalism mobilized the nascent media reform movement, resulting in a “Pledge of Journalistic Integrity” (Hazen and Winokur 1997). In the early 2000s, two issues instigated by the FCC – debates over media ownership (Blevins and Brown 2006) and low-power FM (LPFM) radio policy – catalyzed the public interest community. Sparked by an FCC decision allowing cable companies to offer high-speed Internet service without opening up their networks to new or competitive providers (thus consolidating the dominance of large media companies), and a federal court ruling that eliminated restrictions on broadcast ownership, in March 2002, the Angels of the Public Interest descended upon FCC headquarters in Washington DC (Kidd 2005). Inja Coates, one of the co-founders of Media Tank and a participant in the demonstration, challenged FCC chair Michael Powell: “The FCC was created to protect the public from monopoly interests, not the other way around. It’s Powell’s job to stand up for diversity and access, and ensure the public’s resources actually benefit the public – not just a few elite corporations.”9 An array of activists garbed in angel gear – white flowing robes, translucent wings, tinsel halos and harps – and many of them armed with digital video recorders for re-broadcast on the Internet, braved the chilly weather, singing of freedom from corporatedominated media. They called for a vibrant public media sector and a roll-back of media concentration: “The airwaves are the property of the American public and they do not belong to Michael Powell, they do not belong to Rupert Murdoch … they are a public commons like the oceans or space …”10 Despite the patience of the Angels of the Public Interest, no FCC officials addressed their concerns. Instead, Powell led the FCC through a series of controversial decisions on media ownership caps, in particular, rules on Broadcast–Newspaper Cross-Ownership and Local Radio Ownership. In

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June 2003, the FCC approved new media ownership rules allowing broadcasters to own more local affiliates and for companies to own newspapers and television stations in the same market. Widely supported by large media firms, the issue also assembled a surprising array of advocacy groups ideologically polarized (e.g., the National Rifle Association and the National Organization for Women) but united in their opposition to the FCC proposals. These groups were concerned with preserving and expanding community control of broadcasting content, ensuring diversity in content and voices and curbing commercial content. Public actions countering the FCC palpably demonstrated a widespread interest in shaping media policy; over 750,000 individual petitions were sent to the FCC (Scott 2004) leading to the reversal, one month later, of the FCC decision by the House of Representatives. Three months later, an emergency stay by a federal appeals court barring the FCC from implementing its new rules was introduced. The suit, Prometheus Radio Project vs. FCC (2004), was filed by the lead plaintiff, a small community radio activist group, and led by Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, a Washington DC non-profit, public interest law firm. In 2004, the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals sent the proposals back to the FCC, stating that the evidence and reasoning did not justify change nor did it serve the public interest. The following January, the FCC announced that the US Solicitor General would not appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. For many, this event was a watershed moment for the media reform movement. Significantly, it mobilized a non-partisan public (an estimated 2.3 million Americans protested the proposed rules); it merged DC lawyers and grassroots groups in a collective cause; and it popularized media policy, linking it to democratic discourse. Said Pete Tridish of Prometheus: The lesson here is that solidarity works. … It’s that working on your particular interest is very, very important. But it’s also important to see the larger issues around you. Working together, we can move these seemingly small, technocratic issues to the point where we can really win on them. (Tridish in Carlson 2005: 16)

Prometheus Radio Project was also victorious in promoting LPFM radio for local community pro-


gramming (Dunbar-Hester 2009). Through a series of “radio barn raisings” in rural and urban areas, Prometheus trained volunteers to set up radio stations, provided ongoing technical and organizational support, and advocated for LPFM policy.11 In January 1999, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to examine LPFM creation, reversing previous policies that deemed LPFM illegal. Activists developed guidelines and ownership provisions for LPFM. One year later, the FCC created guidelines aligned to those proposals, but against the stated desires of the leading industry group, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), who cited concerns that LPFM would interfere with commercial stations. To date, more than 3,200 groups have applied for licenses, with 800 granted in early 2010. The FCC periodically revisits LPFM policies with progressive commissioners in support of it. Commenting on radio consolidation since the 1996 Act, commissioner Michael Copps called LPFM: a breath of fresh air … These are truly local stations run by local organizations … they cover issues of importance to local and very often under-served communities. Low power is truly radio of the people, by the people, and for the people. We cannot let it perish from the earth. (Copps 2007: np)

In December 2010, new legislation to open up the airwaves to even more LPFM stations was passed in the Senate. The bill mandates the FCC to license thousands of new community stations across the US (Local Community Radio Act 2010). A perusal of media reform organizational directories provides a texture of their diversity. The Media Justice Fund’s searchable directory lists over 250 groups, including those with a regional base (e.g., school-based media literacy, public interest research groups (PIRGs), IndyMedia Centres, community radio stations, and women’s groups), to more established media production entities like Deep Dish TV and the Paper Tiger Collective, and national organizations like Common Cause.12 Free Press’s database lists approximately 235 regional and national organizations working on media reform.13 The Social Science Research Council’s (SSRC) Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere (NKDPS) program sponsors the Media Research Hub incorporating a Resource Database (a community-editable tool to map the

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Media Reform in the United States and Canada field) and the Data Consortium for Media and Communications Policy (a resource for expanding access to datasets about the media and communications environment).14 A brief description of several groups illustrates their scope. Youth Media Council (YMC), Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net), and Women in Media & News (WIMN) embody grassroots media justice groups that work more locally, whereas Free Press and the Media Democracy Coalition represent media reform groups that operate more within the political culture of Washington, DC. The Youth Media Council (now the Center for Media Justice, CMJ) was launched in 2001 in San Francisco with three objectives: media capacity building, strategic coordination, and media accountability (Zimmerman 2006). In 2002, concerned about the sensationalistic media coverage of youth, YMC produced a content analysis on local television broadcaster KTVU, the Bay Area’s leading broadcaster, which revealed that coverage of youth disproportionately depicted them in relation to crime and violence. The report resulted in youth meeting with KTVU for an accountability session on racially biased coverage, a youth–journalist roundtable, and the creation of the Community Coalition for Media Accountability. CMJ now operates at a national and intergenerational level with other media justice organizations.15 The Media Action Grassroots Network is a coalition of 13 regional grassroots groups with a media justice and cultural production focus. Groups include Appalshop in Appalachia, Kentucky; Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and Texas Media Empowerment Project, both in San Antonio; the Manhattan Neighborhood Network in New York; Media Alliance in San Francisco; the New Mexico Media Literacy Project in Albuquerque; Reclaim the Media in Seattle; and CMJ. MAG-Net has produced a ten-point platform for media justice.16 WIMN was founded in 2001 by Jennifer Pozner as a media analysis, education, and advocacy group to increase women’s presence in the media and within policy. She has written about positive steps to build a strategic and progressive feminist media movement (Pozner 2005). Five specific strands comprise WIMN’s media reform activities: advocating for institutional change; the creation of a Resource Guide for Media Activists; a WIMN’s


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Voices Blog, consolidating feminist policy critique; Conference Planning Support, to integrate feminist content into events; and the Afghan Women’s Media Organizing Project, a collaboration with Women for Afghan Women (WAW).17 Free Press, co-founded in 2003 by journalist John Nichols, academic Robert McChesney, and former campaign manager of Clean Elections Arizona, Josh Silver, now has a staff of forty and a membership of over 500,000.18 As McChesney chronicles, the FCC ownership “battle” proved that media policy issues were a passionate concern for citizens regardless of political affiliation: “It is not an issue that contrasts liberals and conservatives, left and right, as much as it is a case of moneyed interests versus everyone else” (McChesney 2007: 167). Free Press’s arena for policy advocacy is the Washington, DC, Beltway: in legislative hallways, Congressional offices, with the FCC, and in coalition building inside and outside the Beltway; this tactic (using political advocacy) was effective to counter actions that would have abolished “net neutrality,” for example. The Save the Internet Coalition was a non-partisan “inside–outside strategy”: the insiders (lobbyists, policy experts, and researchers) and outsiders (citizens, activists, and grassroots mobilizers) worked together to dissuade a 2006 Congressional vote on net neutrality and force AT&T to respect net neutrality as a condition of its acquisition of BellSouth. Since then, the Obama Administration has made inroads to codify net neutrality legislation through the proposed Congressional Bill, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (HR 3458), amending the 1934 Communications Act (US Communications Act of 1934) and FCC proposed rules on net neutrality (FCC 2009, 2010). For many, Free Press has captured the broader public “face” of media reform and this is due in no small part to its series of National Conferences on Media Reform (NCMR). The first NCMR in 2003 brought together over 2,000 politicians, policymakers, academics, civil society groups, journalists, and citizens, and at the third NCMR in 2007, there were 3,200 people, with 2,000 blogging the event, and live webcasts capturing all the major sessions. Free Press campaigns have also touched on public broadcasting, community broadband, Pentagon propaganda, spectrum reform, and local radio. The Free Press web site contains a beginner’s guide to media policy issues, resources on media issues,

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campaign information, policy updates, a daily newsroom, and a listserv aggregating news on national and global policy issues. In addition, Free Press uses innovative, clever videos as an effective mobilizing and education tool.19 Media and Democracy Coalition was formed in 2005 by leading public interest media and telecommunications reform organizations with a commitment to promote open and equal access to a democratic media system that services the public interest. Its priorities include advocating for an open media system, Internet freedom, and universal broadband access. It has produced a Bill of Media Rights signed by almost two hundred organizations, and a Public Interest Internet Agenda in response to the Obama Administration’s National Broadband Plan under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.20 Infrastructure support for media reform includes dedicated grants and program assessment. Reliance on philanthropic foundations generated positive momentum for the movement. Under the leadership of program officer Becky Lentz, the Ford Foundation’s Electronic Media and Technology Policy Portfolio, of the Knowledge, Creativity & Freedom Program, funded more than $20 million for communications policy research, coalition building, advocacy, and activism in media reform and justice in the period 2001–07 (Lentz and McCourt 2007). The MacArthur and Rockefeller Foundations, as well as the smaller Markle Foundation, the Center for the Public Domain, and the William Penn Foundation, also support media reform. “Collectively, these funders made possible a major reinvention of media and technology advocacy in the middle years of the decade,” states Joe Karaganis (2011: 305) of the SSRC. He headed the Ford-funded Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere program, whose Collaborative Grants Program funded 44 research partnerships between academics and activists in the two-year period 2006 to 2008, developing research capacity to engage in policy-making at the federal, regional, and local levels.21 Ford Foundation funding enabled the Center for International Media Action (CIMA) to partner with NKDPS on assessments on capacity-building, program evaluation, and reflections on the field (Dichter and Nauen 2009).


Canada: “The Information Highway is Headed for a Dead End” Communication technologies are central to Canadian identity. The role of the Aird Commission in developing public radio in Canada is illustrative of this. In the late 1920s, Sir John Aird headed the Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting; fearing commercial encroachment from the US, the Commission traveled across Canada asking Canadians what they wanted in a national public broadcaster. The final report (Canada 1929) affirmed that it was in the “the national interest” to ensure that Canada’s cultural identity be reflected in publicly available Canadian radio programming. The report, and the lobbying of Graham Spry and Alan Plaunt of the Canadian Radio League – one of the most successful public interest lobby pressure groups in Canadian history – led to the creation of the CBC, the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Raboy 1990). Like other national institutions (e.g., public healthcare and the public university system), the CBC is emblematic, for many, of Canadian identity. But what was significant about the Aird Commission was the lengthy and considered process it spawned. Spry traveled repeatedly from coast to coast, seeking out politicians at all levels, talking to church leaders and their congregations, trade unionists, the Daughters of the Empire, and the general “listening public.”22 Spry’s vision of a national public broadcaster presaged recent theorizations on the public sphere and cultural citizenship — structures of participation in Canadian policymaking that have traditionally encouraged public input; the use of participative, collaborative media to fuse and reinforce culture and identity; and ensuring a diversity of voices (e.g., see Raboy 2006; Raboy and Shtern 2010). With the advent of the Internet, Canadian media policy generated a renewed and significant debate among activists and academics. At the start of the 1995 CRTC hearings on convergence, Shawn Yerxa, co-founder of the grassroots group P-IHAC (Public Information Highway Advisory Council, a counter to IHAC), was quoted on the front page of the business section of the then Southam-owned newspaper chain papers disparaging the “information

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Media Reform in the United States and Canada highway.” Departing from its usual tradition, the CRTC embarked upon its week-long hearings with public interest group interventions – many spontaneously created with volunteer pluck – rather than industry heavy-weights. Over 1,000 written comments from diverse parties were received in the first phase of the hearing, with 78 participating in the public hearing. Public interest groups argued for the maintenance and support of uniquely Canadian public spaces on the Internet. Affirm the Canadian culture of universality and inclusion in policy, groups advocated, especially amid the mantra for global market competitiveness. Those were heady days for public interest groups in Canada. The P-IHAC, led by Marita Moll and Yerxa, handed out “communiqués” outside the closed hearings of IHAC, and activists and academics converged to create alternative public interest strategies through various fleeting organizations and events. After IHAC, the grassroots groups effectively disbanded, although some policy activists continued to intervene in policy initiatives. Assessing the efficacy of this activism, it was noted that tactics – participating in advisory bodies, developing public documents, appearing at official CRTC hearings, convening public events, and meeting face to face with government officials – had produced some noticeable results: in particular, the creation of a cohesive community of individuals and groups with a common ethos for pushing the public interest. Regrettably, a major impact on policies and programs was not detected (Clement et al. 2001). Under former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s “just society” vision in the 1970s, the federal government played a major role in funding advocacy groups. In the 1990s, significant declines in government funding for bilingual pan-Canadian organizations created a competitive environment for the limited resources that were available. Illustrative of this trend were shifts away from funding of Status of Women Canada (SWC), the federal government organization whose mandate is to promote women’s economic, social, and democratic participation. SWC traditionally provided core funding for women’s groups working in, among other areas, healthcare, education, anti-poverty, and anti-racism.23 For example, it devoted resources to Internet gender equity, funded a report on Internet access for women’s groups (Shade 1996), and supported WomenSpace, an advocacy organization for


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women’s Internet equality rights (WomenSpace 2003). In 2006, the federal Conservative government announced that SWC could no longer fund groups engaged in advocacy, lobbying, or research, reflecting a general shift from government-funded lobbying to supporting only “results-oriented” projects. SWC closed regional offices, canceled the Policy Research Fund that supported independent policy research, and dropped the word “equality” from its mandate. And changes to eligibility criteria stipulated that for-profit organizations could be eligible for funding alongside non-profit groups (House of Commons Canada 2007). The taxation system favors business groups over advocacy groups. Although non-profits do not pay taxes, there are no other benefits to be derived from the income tax system, and groups that engage in advocacy are not considered charitable for the purpose of issuing tax credit receipts to their contributors. This is problematic for membership-driven organizations. Unlike the US, there is scant philanthropic or foundation support for Canadian advocacy groups, who have nonetheless proved “able to act as dynamic and effective players in the policy process” (Young and Everitt 2004: 152). In assessing the state of communication rights in Canada, Marc Raboy and Jeremy Shtern (2010: 224) argue that to strengthen an activist agenda there needs to be: “a serious process of reflection on the role of civil society groups within the Canadian communication policy framework, and consideration of how the important work they do and could be doing can be better supported and accounted for by public authorities.” In addition to impacting on-theground activism, they recommend: “greater coordination among existing NGOs and civil society actors … to ensure that the needs and interests of citizens are heard in vibrant democratic debate concerning communication rights issues in the political sphere” (Raboy and Shtern 2010: 227). There are few Canadian groups focussing solely on media reform and, to date, infrastructural support for capacity building has been negligible. Mapping the sector and making connections among other social movement groups concerned with media policy was the focus of a project funded by an SSRC NKDPS grant, Revitalizing a Media Reform Movement in Canada. A collaboration between the Campaign for Democratic Media (CDM) (now re-branded as OpenMedia.ca), the

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World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), and Simon Fraser University communications scholar Robert Hackett, the project consisted of three phases: surveying over 200 current and potentially allied social movement organizations in media and those working in environment, peace, labor, and human rights, among other areas; semistructured interviews with twenty key activists; and small focus group sessions on strategies, frames, obstacles, and political opportunities for media reform in Canada.24 In their final report in which they analyze their data, Hackett and Anderson write that “values such as openness, accessibility, participation, choice, diversity and innovation may resonate well with NGOs in Canada” (Hackett and Anderson 2010: 37). An earlier media reform initiative was conducted by the Council for Canadians (created to contest the FTA) in their mid-1990s analysis of the dominance of Conrad Black’s Hollinger Inc.; and the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, a coalition of academics, activists, and labor/community groups, who raised awareness about Canadian media ownership.25 The consumer advocacy organization PIAC (the Public Information Advocacy Centre) focusses on telecommunications, privacy and copyright issues.26 Labor organizations have focussed on media reform campaigns: the 6,000 member-led Canadian Media Guild is drawing attention to the impact of strategic cuts in the media industry27 and the Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union concentrates on the impact of increased foreign ownership in the telecom sector.28 Continuing Spry’s vision, the subscriberbased Friends of Canadian Broadcasting defends public, private, and community broadcasting. Nonpartisan in nature, it was formed in 1985 and is supported by 66,000 individual volunteer donations; contributions from the CRTC or organizations affiliated with licensees are not accepted. It monitors the media, commissions independent research, and prepares briefs and CRTC policy submissions.29 Perhaps the most visible and active organization is OpenMedia.ca, a national, non-profit, and nonpartisan media reform organization. Consisting of a network of civil society, consumer, labor and media advocacy organizations, grassroots activists, and academics, OpenMedia.ca’s goals are to “to increase public awareness and informed participation in Canadian media, cultural, information, and telecommunication policy formation” through


“programs, tools, and campaigns [that] serve as an incubator for a robust community of advocates for open and innovative media.”30 Its earlier activities included mobilizing more than 2,000 Canadians, as part of its “Stop Big Media” campaign, to send in comments to the 2007 CRTC Diversity of Voices hearing on media concentration in Canada; advising the CRTC on their proposed 2008 New Media consultation; initiating a SaveOurNet.ca campaign on net neutrality; and, more recently, successfully petitioning the CRTC for the licensing of the English-language service of the Al Jazeera international television news network. OpenMedia.ca uses diverse mobilizing tactics. Its web site includes news items, briefs, blogs, videos, action items, featured campaigns and membership information, an e-list, and a Facebook group. It has organized demonstrations for net neutrality on Parliament Hill, pan-Canadian Open Internet town halls, Media Democracy Days in Toronto and Vancouver, citizen tool kits on the open Internet, and appeared before various CRTC and parliamentary hearings.31 National coordinator Steve Anderson observes that “once media and communication issues are explained outside of the policy rhetoric, average people are almost immediately upset and engaged in these battles.”32 But sustainability is problematic for OpenMedia.ca. Its small grants are not adequate to run the organization, convincing potential donors of the importance of media reform issues is challenging, and reliance on member donations is precarious. Media Action Média (MAM) is the newest incarnation of Media Watch, a national feminist non-profit founded in 1981 to improve media representations and equity of women in the media industries through research and policy. Initially set up under the auspices of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, two years later it became an independent organization with membership comprising industry professionals, academics, students, and citizens. For twenty years, Media Watch conducted research on media representation, developed educational materials for teachers and parents, provided media literacy workshops, and trained women on strategic communication and lobbying techniques. Among its major accomplishments are the development of CRTC guidelines on sex-role stereotyping guidelines as a condition of license; undertaking media content analyses on sexism in newspapers, television, magazines, and radio;

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Media Reform in the United States and Canada working with the Canadian Advertising Foundation on the revision of sex-role stereotyping guidelines; and serving as the Canadian representative for the Global Media Monitoring Campaigns (run by the WACC). In 2005, Media Watch, faced with organizational changes and the end of program funding from Status of Women Canada, initiated a national consultation on its future. It then regrouped with a new volunteer and virtual board, renamed itself MAM, and initiated broad goals promoting gender equity through media analysis and action. Recent projects include an examination of photo-retouching practices in advertising and partnering with Ekos Research Associates to conduct focus groups with young Canadian women on their attitudes towards media sexualization and perceptions of privacy on Facebook.33 Progressive research on media reform and media policy issues is conducted by scholars through research grants obtained from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), created in 1977 by an act of Parliament to serve as the major federal funding body for university-based research in the humanities and social sciences. SSHRC has an explicit focus on policy impact and dissemination of research to government, as well as internationally, in particular asking “what is the value to Canadians of public investments in research? How is research knowledge benefiting our society?”34 For instance, SSHRC grants funded the project Remaking Media: The Struggle to Democratize Public Communication by Robert Hackett and William Carroll (Hackett and Carroll 2006); a public forum on public interest telecommunications policy reform (Moll and Shade 2008); and a partnership with the (now defunct) Law Commission of Canada (LCC) for research on communication rights and the right to communicate (see Appendix 1 in Raboy and Shtern 2010).35

Conclusion: Challenges and Opportunities for Media Reform While the global economic recession of 2009 created precariousness in the global media industry and impacted government and foundation support for non-profit organizations, media policy activism


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is lively. In the US, academic-activists articulated a public interest communication policy agenda (Schejter 2009) to influence Obama Administration efforts on a national broadband plan, net neutrality legislation, and LPFM growth. The appointment of Julius Genachowski as FCC chairman was greeted by many in media reform as a positive sign and in the public interest. Canadians were animated about digital policy, illustrated by the CRTC’s hearing on net neutrality, where the public avidly blogged and tweeted live (although the resultant lackluster decision allowing Internet service providers to continue their throttling practices disappointed many Canadians; see CRTC 2009). A governmentsponsored public consultation on proposed controversial copyright legislation led to a fair amount of media coverage and public interest interventions (e.g., see Professor Michael Geist’s blog, Speak Out on Copyright).36 And the government’s announcement of creating (yet again!) a Digital Access Strategy prompted CIPPIC (the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic) to create DigitalAgenda.ca, a web site promoting grassroots advocacy on digital issues.37 This chapter concludes with four challenges (and opportunities) for the media reform movement: mobilizing a constituency; building organizational infrastructure; reinforcing a media justice agenda; and reflecting critically on research and policy impacts. Mobilizing a constituency: A major challenge is effectively to link media reform and media policy issues to other social movements at local, national, and global levels and to engage a broader public through multiple means. For instance, Timothy Gibson (2007) entreats health communication scholars and policy-makers to become engaged in media reform to counter a commercial media system pervaded with images and advertising that promote unhealthy behaviors. He suggests using LPFM for public health messages specifically targeted at the needs and concerns of local communities. The caveat is not to dilute the importance of media reform as its own movement, because its issues are palpable for democratic vitality. Engaging the public and securing broad-based popular support is essential for movement-building. Media policy issues – whether focussed on a decline in local television or the traffic-shaping practices of Internet service providers – resonate with the public as citizens and as consumers.

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Building organizational infrastructure: Funding for non-profits is perennially fraught as grants are short-term, foundation support withers, government support declines, and membership-driven structures are erratic. Maintaining personnel and staff, creating good leadership and champions, recruiting volunteers, and sustaining their energy are important. Building capacity – the resources, skills, and knowledge to produce, use, and disseminate research – is key. Research needs to be timely, reactive, creative, and oriented for specific audiences: whether data-driven for evidence-based policy in formal submissions or hearings, or performance-based for passionate communication at protests and other public events. Reinforcing a media justice agenda: Media justice is a more nuanced political critique of mainstream media power that situates the locus of change within the expertise of the local community and considers the imbrication of media policy, media literacy, and media production (Berger 2009). Integrating its tenets more seamlessly into the media reform movement is crucial. Differences around “reform” or “justice” are often situated around the politics of the policy space, whether it be the legislative and Congressional Beltway-insider or Ottawa-centric arena, or a contextually specific community where local knowledge is valued and becomes an integral component of justice agendas. Coalition building has created more dialogue and fruitful collaboration for policy impact but the structures of participation around policy-making – who can speak for whom, where, and when – are still inequitable between established policy players versus grassroots groups and individuals. In Canada, media reform as a movement differs from the US, and a public conversation on media justice has not yet been articulated. Perhaps the tensions are not as polarized as in the US because of tacit acknowledgement of minority rights through the state: official-language policies of minority communities, the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (Canada 1988), the CRTC Ethnic Broadcasting Policy (CRTC 1999a, July), and First Nations media creation through the Inuit Broadcasting Television and APTN (Aboriginal People’s Television Network). Cultural diversity and cultural policies are also validated and intrinsically aligned with Canada’s social policy framework, a facet that was evident when the Canadian government played a central role in designing and adopting the United Nations


Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2005) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (see Grant, ch. 21). Reflecting critically on research and policy impacts: Evaluating the successes and failures of the media reform movement as an institution for social change is an iterative process. Examining the political and economic contexts where activism develops and considering alternative strategies of engagement is a task of movement building. Tailoring tactics for different audiences for preferential impacts is indispensable. Whose knowledge comes to dominate does matter, as Seeta Peña Gangadharan argues, and instrumental motivations and moral considerations will circumscribe knowledge practices in both mundane and profound ways, whether organizations are driven by a reform agenda or radical one, whether interested in political change or cultural transformation. (Gangadharan 2009: 170)

There is a need for more movement history from scholars and activists alike that can elucidate the structural and organizational challenges of media reform. Aliza Dichter’s (2005) initial foray into US activism is useful in its exploration of knowledgebuilding and collective action formations (and the equivalent needs to be done for Canada). The often peripatetic nature of these groups and their reactive couplings to policy moments that are shortlived present a challenge for documentation; the ephemerality of print manifestos, policy documents, and defunct web sites demands archiving. There is a blindspot in studying grassroots communication policy activism, Stein (2009) argues, which needs to be remedied through chronicling events, strategies, and impacts through existing theories that can be further refined. A feminist perspective, while latent in much of the media justice activist literature, is, with a few exceptions (Dougherty 2008), not sufficiently documented historically or presently in academic scholarship. Bridging a research culture of collaboration between scholars and activists is essential. While Canadian funding through SSHRC encourages such partnerships, US funding for these endeavors is slight. An excellent model was provided through the collaborative grants program administered by the SSRC NKDPS where academic–activist

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Media Reform in the United States and Canada partnerships were envisioned to broaden participation through engagement in processes of structural media policy change (Napoli and Aslama 2011). And, finally, community, regional, and national media reform struggles and successes need to be linked to transnational civil society activism and campaigns to augment broader collective actions in support of democratic communication.

Notes 1

2 3 4

Literature on the media reform movement is increasingly prolific with contributions from scholars and activists. An excellent place to start is an annotated bibliography of public interest media advocacy prepared by Philip M. Napoli and Anne Halligan (2007) of the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center and Napoli’s (2008) accompanying literature review. Robert McChesney’s Communication Revolution (2007) provides a good overview of media reform in the US and the role of critical communication scholars in forging political economic and activist agendas within the academic complex. The two-volume edited collection by Laura Stein, Clemencia Rodriguez and Dorothy Kidd (Rodriguez et al. 2009; Stein et al. 2009) focusses on grassroots communication activism (vol. 1) and national and global activism (vol. 2) by scholars and activists alike. Robert Hackett and William Carroll’s Remaking Media (2006) theorizes media reform within the larger social movements literature and provides case studies of grassroots activities in the UK, San Francisco and Vancouver. Darin Barney’s Communication Technology (2005) elucidates the central role played by broadcasting and telecommunication in forging Canadian policy. See http://freepress.net/conference/video. The chapter does not look at events and groups in Quebec. Space limitations prevent a narrative of earlier media reform events (e.g., the 1930s US and Canadian radio reform movements; see Raboy 1990; McChesney 1993), which impacted current conceptualizations of public media. There is also no discussion of key moments in transnational policy deliberations, from rancorous debates over the establishment of a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), convened by UNESCO to develop solutions for ameliorating global media divides, to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003 and 2005, concerned with communication rights, Internet governance, and ICTs for development (Mansell and Nordenstreng 2006).


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5 See http://cpsr.org/prevsite/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ web/telecom.html/. 6 Transnational activities coalescing around WSIS and the Communication Rights in the Information Society campaign were influential, for many organizations and coalitions focussed on more local media reform issues. For the second phase of WSIS, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO convened a conference in Winnipeg bringing together over 200 participants to develop a Canadian civil society perspective for input into the Geneva Plan of Action. The Civil Society Communiqué “affirmed Canadian values of human rights, freedom of expression, diversity, gender equality, sustainable development, multiculturalism, cultural and linguistic diversity, privacy, and inclusion regardless of age, ability, socioeconomic status and geographical location” (Canadian Civil Society Communiqué 2005). 7 See CMJ Framework at http://cmj.centerformediajustice.org/sections/view/framework. 8 See Roundtable list archives at http://www.cni.org/ Hforums/roundtable/1994-01/thread.html. 9 Press release, March 19, 2002; see http://lists.essential. org/pipermail/random-bits/2002-March/000790. html. 10 Warcry, IndyMedia Center in New York City; see Democracy Now, March 25, 2002, www.democracy now.org. 11 See http://prometheusradio.org. 12 See http://fexmjf.mayfirst.org. 13 See http://www.freepress.net/resources/org_directory. 14 See http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org. 15 See http://centerformediajustice.org. 16 See http://www.mediagrassroots.org/ten_point_ platform.html. 17 See www.wimnonline.org. 18 See www.freepress.net. 19 See http://www.youtube.com/user/videofreepress. 20 See www.media-democracy.net. 21 See http://www.ssrc.org/programs/necessaryknowledge-for-a-democratic-public-sphere/. 22 CBC Digital Archives, The Canadian Radio League (interview with Graham Spry, October 25, 1961), http://archives.cbc.ca/programs/1125-11232/ page/1/. 23 See www.swc-cfc.gc.ca. 24 Minutes: Revitalizing a Media Reform Movement in Canada Workshop, May 26, 2009, prepared by Philip Lee, Deputy Director of Programs, WACC, WACC Global Headquarters, Toronto. 25 See www.canadians.org. 26 See www.piac.ca. 27 The Canadian Media Guild is a democratic trade union representing workers in the CBC, Canadian Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, TVOntario, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, VisionTV,

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CW Television, and CJRC Radio Gatineau; see www. cmg.ca. See www.cep.ca. See www.friends.ca. See www.openmedia.ca (About Us). See http://democraticmedia.ca. Anderson, personal email with author, September 29, 2008. See www.media-action-media.com. See http://www.sshrc.ca/site/about-crsh/policypolitiques/index-eng.aspx. Unfortunately, the LCC, which operated as an arm’slength government agency that could make policy suggestions to the Minister of Justice, was abolished by the Conservative Government of Stephen Harper shortly after the communication rights grants were announced – thus striking a blow at efforts for effectuating a progressive agenda around communication rights in the federal terrain. See www.speakoutoncopyright.ca. See www.digitalagenda.ca.

References Aufderheide, P. (2002) “Competition and commons: The public interest in and after the AOL–time Warner Merger,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (December): 515–531. Barney, D. (2005) Communication Technology. Vancouver: UBC Press. Berger, D. (2009) “Defining democracy: Coalition politics and the struggle for media reform,” International Journal of Communication, 3(1): 3–22. Blevins, J. L., and Brown, D. H. (2006) “Political issue or policy matter?: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission Review of Broadcast Ownership Rules,” Journal of Communication Inquiry, 30(1): 21–41. Canada (1929) Report of the Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting. Ottawa: F. A. Acland. Canada (1988) Canadian Multiculturalism Act. Ottawa: Department of Justice Canada, http://laws. justice.gc.ca/en/C-18.7/FullText.html (accessed 15/02/2010). Canada (1991) The Broadcasting Act of 1991. Ottawa: CRTC, http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/LEGAL/ BROAD.htm (accessed 14/02/2010). Canada (1993) Telecommunications Act. Ottawa: CRTC, h t t p : // w w w. c r t c . g c . c a / E N G / L E G A L / TELECOM.HTM (accessed 14/02/2010). Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (1987) Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreementsaccords-commerciaux/agr-acc/us-eu.aspx?lang=en (accessed 12/02/2010).


Canadian Civil Society Communiqué (2005) “Paving the road to Tunis,” Consensus Statement Adopted by Canadian Civil Society Representatives, organized by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (May 13–15), Winnipeg, http://www.unesco.ca/en/ activity/culture/wsis.aspx (accessed 14/02/2010). Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) (1995) Competition and Culture on Canada’s Information Highway: Managing the Realities of Transition (May 19). Ottawa: CRTC, http://www.cr tc .gc .ca/ENG/HIGHWAY/ HWY9505.HTM (accessed 14/02/2010). Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) (1999a) Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 1999–84 (May 17). Ottawa: CRTC, http:// www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/1999/PB99-84.HTM (accessed 14/02/2010). Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) (1999) Ethnic Broadcasting Policy. Public Notice CRTC 1999-117 (July 16). Ottawa: CRTC, http://liveweb.crtc.gc.ca/eng/ archive/1999/pb99-117.htm (accessed 15/02/2010). Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) (2009) “Review of the Internet traffic management practices of Internet service provider” (October 21). Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-657. Ottawa: CRTC, http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/ archive/2009/2009-657.htm (accessed 14/02/2010). Carlson, N. F. (2005) The Role of Grassroots Organizers in Challenging Media Consolidation in the U.S. (August), a summary report from Democracy at Stake: Current Issues in Electronic Media Policy and the Future of the Public Sphere. Organized by Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media’s Working Group on Electronic Media Policy, Baltimore, MD: GFEM, http://www. gfem.org/mediapolicy/issues/grassroots_activism (accessed 14/02/2010). Center for International Media Action (CIMA) (2005) Remaking the Media: A Map of Public Interest Agendas and Strategies. Brooklyn, NY: CIMA, http:// mediaactioncenter.org/map (accessed 14/02/2010). Chakravarrty, P., and Sarikakis, K. (2006) Media Policy and Globalization. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Classen, S. D. (2004) Watching Jim Crow: The Struggles Over Mississippi TV, 1955–1969. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Clement, A., Moll, M., and Shade, L. R. (2001) “Debating universal access in the Canadian context: The role of public interest organizations,” in M. Moll and L. R. Shade (eds) E-Commerce vs. E-Commons: Communication in the Public Interest. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, pp. 23–48. Cooper, M. N. (2002) U.S. Capitalism and the Public Interest: Restoring the Balance in Electricity and Telecommunications (August). Washington, DC: Consumer Federation of America.

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Media Reform in the United States and Canada Copps, M. (2007) Statement of Commissioner Michael J, Copps, Re: In the Matter of Creation of a Low Power Radio Service. Third Report and Order and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (December 11), MM Docket 99-25, FCC 07-204. Washington DC: FCC, http://www.fcc.gov/lpfm (accessed 14/02/2010). Cyril, M. A., and Schmeider, K. (2009) “Out of the margins: Media policy & the fight for social justice,” Extra!: 6 (May), http://www.fair.org/index.php? page=3773 (accessed 14/02/2010). Dichter, A. (2005) Together, We Know More: Networks and Coalitions to Advance Media Democracy, Communication Rights and the Public Sphere 1990–2005 ( June). New York: CIMA, http://programs.ssrc. org/media/publications/Dichter.10.final.doc (accessed 14/02/2010). Dichter, A., and Nauen, E. (2009) Process is Powerful: Planning and Evaluation for Media Activists. New York: CIMA, www.mediaactioncenter.org (accessed 14/02/2010). Dougherty, A. (2008) “The intersections of women centered media: Funding and the struggle for our human rights,” Global Media Journal (American Edition), 7(13), http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/ cca/gmj/fa08/gmj-fa08-dougherty.htm (accessed 14/02/2010). Drake, W. K., (ed). (1995) The New Information Infrastructure: Strategies for U.S. Policy. New York: The Twentieth Century Fund Press. Dunbar-Hester, C. (2009) “ ‘Free the spectrum!’: Activist encounters with old and new media technology,” New Media & Society, 11(1–2): 221–240. Duncan, K. (1999) Liberating Alternatives: The Founding Convention of the Cultural Environment Movement. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Dutton, W. (2005) “Hired gun or partner in media reform: High noon for the social scientist,” SSRC Program Background Paper, NKDPS. New York: SSRC, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? abstract_id=1142486 (accessed 14/02/2010). Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (1996) Telecommunications Act of 1996. Washington, DC: FCC, http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html (accessed 14/02/2010). Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (2009) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking FCC 09-93 (October 22), In the Matter of Preserving the Open Internet, Broadband Industry Practices. Washington, DC: FCC, http://fcc.gov (accessed 14/02/2010). Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (2010) FCC Acts to Preserve Internet Freedom and Openness (press release, December 21). Washington, DC: FCC, http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/ Daily_Business/2010/db1221/DOC-303745A1.pdf (accessed 03/01/2011).


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Gangadharan, S. P. (2009) “Building the case for change: Knowledge practices of the media reform and media justice movements,” in L. Harter and M. Dutta (eds) Communicating for Social Impact: Engaging Communication Theory, Research, and Pedagogy. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 161–174. Gibson, T. A. (2007) “WARNING: The existing media system may be toxic to your health: Health communication and the politics of media reform,” Journal of Applied Communication Research, 35(2): 125–132. Gore, A. (1996) “Basic principles for building an information society,” Global Issues, Electronic Journal of the U.S. Information Agency, 1 (September): np. Hackett, B., and Anderson, S. (2010) Revitalizing a Media Reform Movement in Canada. Vancouver: Openmedia.ca, http://openmedia.ca/revitalize (accessed 03/01/2011). Hackett, R. A., and Carroll, W. K. (2006) Remaking Media: The Struggle to Democratize Public Communication. New York: Routledge. Hazen, D., and Winokur, J. (1997) We the Media: A Citizen’s Guide to Fighting for Media Democracy. New York: The New Press. Horwitz, R. B. (1997) “Broadcast reform revisited: Reverend Everett C. Parker and the ‘Standing’ case (Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ v. Federal Communications Commission),” The Communication Review, 2(3): 311–348. House of Commons Canada (2007) The Impacts of Funding and Program Changes at Status of Women Canada: Report on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women Canada (May), Yasmin Ratansi, Chair. 39th Parliament, 1st Session, Ottawa: Communication Canada, http://www.cep.ca/human_rights/07fewo_ reporton_swc_e.pdf (accessed 15/02/2010). Huntemann, N. (1999) “Corporate interference: The commercialization and concentration of radio post the 1996 Telecommunications Act,” Journal of Communication Inquiry 23(4): 390–407. Industry Canada (1995) Connection Community Content: The Challenge of the Information Highway: Final Report of the Information Highway Advisory Council. Ottawa: Government of Canada. Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (HR 3458) (2009, July 31), http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111h3458/show (accessed 15/02/2010). Karaganis, J. (2011) “Cultures of collaboration in media research,” in P. M. Napoli, and M. Aslama (eds) Communication Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 278–312. Kidd, D. (2005) “Angels of the public interest: US media reform,” in D. Skinner, J. Compton, and M. Gasher (eds) Converging Media, Diverging Politics: A Political Economy of News Media in the United States and Canada. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, pp. 201–222.

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Koerner, B. I. (2001) “Losing signal,” Mother Jones: 41–44 (September/October): 90–92. Lentz, B., and McCourt, J. (eds) (2007) Conversations on Media, Technology, Society & Culture: Convening Report: Media and Communications at a Crossroads – The Role of Scholarship for Media Reform and Justice. New York: Ford Foundation, Media, Arts and Culture Electronic Media Policy Portfolio, http://mediaresearchhub. ssrc.org/conversations-on-media-technology-societyculture-convening-report-media-and- communi cations-at-a-crossroads-the-role-of-scholarship-formedia-reform-and-justice/resource_view (accessed 15/02/2010). Lloyd, M. (1996) Off Course, on a Long, Dark Road: Successes and Failures of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Washington, DC: Leadership Council on Civil Rights, http://www.civilrights.org/publications/ 1996_telecommunications/off-course.html (accessed 15/02/2010). Lloyd, M. (2006) Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Local Community Radio Act of 2010 (H. R, 6533) (2010), http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill= h111-6533 (accessed 03/01/2011). Mansell, R., and Nordenstreng, K. (2006) “Great media and communication debates: WSIS and the MacBride Report,” Information Technologies and International Development, 3(4): 15–36. McChesney, R. W. (1993) Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928–1935. New York: Oxford University Press. McChesney, R. W. (2007) Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media. New York: The New Press. Moll, M., and Shade, L. R. (2008) For Sale to the Highest Bidder: Telecommunications Policy in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Montgomery, K. C. (1989) Target: Prime-Time: Advocacy Groups and the Struggle over Entertainment Television. New York: Oxford University Press. Mueller, M., Pagé, C., and Kuerbis, B. (2004) “Civil society and the shaping of communication-information policy: Four decades of activism,” The Information Society, 20(3): 169–185. Napoli, P. (2007) “Public interest media advocacy and activism as a social movement: a review of the literature.” Working Paper (April), New York: Donald McGannon Communication Research Center, Fordham University, http://fordham. bepress.com/mcgannon_work ing_paper/21 (accessed 03/01/11). Napoli, P. M., and Halligan, A. (2007) Public Interest Media Activism and Advocacy: An Annotated Bibliography.


Donald McGannon Communication Research Center, Fordham University, http://www.fordham. edu/academics/office_of_research/research_ centers__in/donald_mcgannon_comm/mcgannon_ research_16094.asp (accessed 20/04/2010). Napoli, P. (2008) “Public interest media advocacy and activism as a social movement,” in C. Beck (ed.) Communication Yearbook, 33. New York: Routledge, pp. 385–430. Napoli, P. M., and Aslama, M. (eds) (2011) Communication Research in Action: Scholar–Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere. New York: Fordham University Press. National Telecommunications and Information Administration, NTIA (2000) Falling Through the Net: Toward Digital Inclusion (October). Washington, DC: National Telecommunications and Information Administration. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1994) Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreementsaccords-commerciaux/agr-acc/nafta-alena/index. aspx?lang=en (accessed 13/02/2010). Office of Communications of the United Church of Christ vs. F.C.C. (425 F.2d 543) (1969). DC Circuit 1969. Opal, A. (2004) Micro Radio and the FCC: Media Activism and the Struggle over Broadcast Policy. New York: Praeger. Perlman, A. (2007) “Feminists in the wasteland: The National Organization for Women and television reform,” Feminist Media Studies, 7(4): 413–431. Pozner, J. L. (2005) “Reclaiming the media for a progressive feminist future,” Media Development, http:// www.waccglobal.com/en/20053-women-reclaimmedia/537-Reclaiming-the-media-for-a-progressivefeminist-future.html (accessed 15/02/2010). Prometheus Radio Project vs. The Federal Communication Commission of the United States of America ( June 24, 2004) United States Court of Appeal for the Third Circuit, http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/ documents/opinions/2004/03-3388-062404.pdf (accessed 09/20/2009). Raboy, M. (1990) Missed Opportunities: The Story of Canada’s Broadcasting Policy. Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press. Raboy, M. (2006) “Making media: Creating the conditions for communication in the public good” (The 2005 Graham Spry Memorial Lecture), Canadian Journal of Communication, 31(2): 289–306. Raboy, M., and Shtern, J. (2010) Media Divides: Communication Rights and the Right to Communicate in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press. Rodriguez, C., Kidd, D., and Stein, L. (eds) (2009) Making Our Media: Global Initiatives Towards a Democratic Public Sphere, Vol. 1 (Creating New Communication Spaces). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

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Media Reform in the United States and Canada Schejter, A. M. (ed.) (2009) … And Communications for All: A Policy Agenda for the New Administration. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Scott, B. (2004) “The politics and policy of media ownership,” American University Law Review, 53(3): 645–677. Servon, L. J. (2002) Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology, Community and Public Policy. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Shade, L. R. (1996) Report on the Use of the Internet in Canadian Women’s Organizations. Ottawa: Status of Women Canada. Skinner, D., Compton, J., and Gasher, M. (eds) (2005) Converging Media Diverging Politics: A Political Economy of News in the United States and Canada. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Stein, L. (2009) “Introduction,” in L. Stein, D. Kidd, and C. Rodriguez (eds) Making Our Media: Global Initiatives Towards a Democratic Public Sphere, V. 2. (National and Global Movements for Democratic Communication). Cresskill NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 1–22. Stein, L., Kidd, D., and Rodriguez, C. (eds) (2009) Making Our Media: Global Initiatives Towards a Democratic Public Sphere, V. 2.( National and Global Movements for Democratic Communication). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.


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10

Community Media in a Globalized World: The Relevance and Resilience of Local Radio Kate Coyer

Introduction: The Need for an Enabling Environment Miners in Bolivia, rock musicians opposed to Milosevic in Belgrade, rebels in El Salvador, aboriginals in Australia, Muslims in Nottingham, hip hop youth in Tanzania, rural farmers in India, women in Jordan, artists in Ireland, environmentalists in Maryland, residents of neighborhoods, and students at universities in communities across the globe: these are among the thousands of people who have organized community-run radio stations and who have fought for their own access to the airwaves. One might ask why – in an era of potentially limitless Internet stations and digital futures – is there even a need for access to traditional analog broadcasting spaces? Activists argue that broadcasting policy must reflect the values of community access and public interest, regardless of the means of delivery; that is, we cannot expect our digital future to include a space for independent voices in broadcasting if we cannot actually make room for these voices in the present. And while Internet and satellite radio listening are clearly on the rise, they still represent a fraction of regular radio listening.

Moreover, analog radio remains the primary means of news and information for the majority of the world. Its low cost, ease of use, minimal equipment requirements, and near-ubiquity as a medium around the globe, make radio the most globally accessible and relevant broadcast medium, even in our increasingly digitized world. There remains an intangible quality to radio’s intimacy and immediacy. As an Australian study put it: We suggest that “empowerment” is the single, recurring theme throughout our encounter with the Australian community broadcasting sector, expressed in a number of ways … in audiences’ positive responses to the ways in which local stations enable a sense of belonging and identity … for many marginalised communities, it is the only place their voices can be heard … (Meadows et al., quoted in Lewis, 2008: 24)

However, the lack of proper enabling legislation is the single principal barrier to community media’s social impact.1 Although community media are, themselves, decidedly not new, what is new is the renewed activism by grassroots groups, the increased recognition by policy-makers, and the support from development agencies that has led to the growth of enabling policies and legislation



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Community Media in a Globalized World in many parts of the world where such policies were previously absent. The success of community media as a sector depends, however, on more than supportive policies. There must also be the political will to support and sustain local, communityrun projects, as well as active engagement with grassroots media-makers themselves. Advocacy around community media is itself a response to key challenges, such as media pluralism, local information needs, active citizenship, and connections with broader media reform movements. Community media are one of many responses to concerns regarding increased concentration of media ownership, economic and political control over vital communication resources and infrastructures, and the need for content diversity and diversity of opinions represented in the media.2 Commercialization and lingering state influence and control have also placed pressures on public service broadcasting. Complementing public and commercial media systems, community media have sought to create spaces to broaden public debate, inject a local and neighborhood voice that is often neglected in an increasingly nationalized and globalized media landscape, and offer an alternative to what is often criticized as homogenized, commercial culture. Community media remind us that pluralism is not just about plurality of content; it is also about the plurality of media-makers and communication spaces. In terms of access to the traditional realm of the broadcast spectrum, recognition of community media as a formal “third sector,” alongside public service and commercial broadcasting, is one way that advocates seek to legitimate community media as necessary in a pluralistic media environment. Advocates argue that in supporting community media, policy-makers can respond to pressures to increase local content, decentralize national media systems, ensure universal access to and broadcast services for remote areas, offer an antidote to media monopolies and excessive commercialism, empower community development, and support “citizen” access to the airwaves (Coyer and Hintz 2010). To ensure sustainability, advocates further argue that community broadcasting should be recognized in law as a distinct type of broadcasting, and should be supported and encouraged through specific licensing arrangements that guarantee fair and equitable access to radio spectrum and economic resources (Buckley 2007; Buckley et al. 2008).


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This chapter is broadly about community media and the current policy debates, initiatives, and frameworks that surround them in a global context. However, the focus of this chapter is on local, community radio. There is a tendency to intermingle these discussions and to interchange “community media” and “community radio” or broadcasting. Traditional broadcast radio and television require engagement with policy questions specific to spectrum allocation and licensing. These are distinctive from other enabling policies that might encourage community-based participation and projects, but that do not require interaction with frequency distribution and telecommunication authorities, even if such interaction is to reject or act in their absence – as in the case of “pirate” broadcasters, whether by necessity or choice. Although community television is strong in some countries (e.g., Denmark and parts of the United States (US), via public access television), and on the rise in others (e.g., the United Kingdom (UK) ), in most parts of the world, radio continues to be the dominant means through which community media activity is typically realized, be it online or offline. Thus, there are particular considerations when exploring the policy, practice, and resilience of community radio in a digital era, upon which this chapter will focus. At the same time, the chapter necessarily draws on the broader concept of community media as an organizational philosophy and as a policy framework, as it is supported and promoted by global, regional, and national actors. Specifically, this chapter concentrates on the role that enabling policies for community media can play towards ensuring the sustainability of community radio. Underlying this discussion is the view that community media practitioners, funders, advocates, and activists should concern themselves with policy debates because the legal and regulatory frameworks within which stations operate play a major role in the long-term development – or disenfranchisement – of the sector. One conclusion of the research in this area is that community media policies can only be as strong as the broader environment within which they operate. An environment that supports a free and open media has safeguards for the rights of journalists and freedom of expression; the rights of racial, ethnic, religious, and other minorities, as well as women; recognition for non-profit organizations; a legal system with the capacity to enforce these rights; and a

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functioning, independent regulatory agency through which transparency and fairness guide licensing practices (Buckley et al. 2008).

Why Community Radio in a Global Media Era? Community media take on many forms and modes, cutting across the various media we would expect, as well as the obvious convergences: including print, film, video, television, radio, online, and offline projects. Community media involve some kind of collaboration or networking, be it face-toface or virtual, and it is the ethos of collective engagement that these projects have in common, regardless of their medium of choice(s). However, with regard to community radio, there is something particular in its resilience as a medium to persist in this era of online, networked communication, globalization, and digitalization. The future broadcasting landscape will look very different from that which emerged out of the advent of wireless communication in the late 1800s. Yet the need for greater citizen access to the airwaves has remained a constant struggle, from the earliest days of AM radio, through to the multi-platform media present. Online broadcasting affords new networks and circuits of communication, flows of information and culture – irrespective of geographic boundaries – and subverts the limits of the analog bandwidth. However, while the Internet and, to a lesser extent, other digital means of delivery address the problem of scarcity, there has been an increasing amount of grassroots pressure and regulatory progress made towards the development of lowpower community radio sectors around the globe. Analog radio remains the primary means of news, public information, and broadcast entertainment for large parts of the world and radio itself remains largely a local experience. But terrestrial radio exists within the regulatory parameters of national broadcast policy. Thus, the contested site of audio broadcasting lies both beyond the national framework via new technologies and, at the same time, is rooted in state-level policy. Community radio is, of course, more than just radio. It is a means of social organizing and representation coalesced around “communities of


interest” and/or small-scale geographic locales. While key media policy debates center around ownership, spectrum allocation, and the lack of localism in programming and management, community broadcasting offers one important response to an increasingly globalized world that is not a contradiction but is, instead, an alternative. This process has produced two simultaneous and not necessarily contradictory trends. As Martín-Barbero asserts: “the contradictory movement of globalization and the fragmentation of culture simultaneously involves the revitalization and worldwide extension of the local” (2002: 236). How we conceptualize community radio is about how we conceptualize both radio and the social environments within which broadcasting occurs. In many ways, then, community radio says more about the spaces of social engagement and collectivity than it does about broadcasting. While transnational broadcasting challenges geographic barriers of access, analog terrestrial radio exists within national regulatory contexts. It is in this space where policy meets practice and where community media as a whole reside. Communication rights, including access to information and freedom of expression, are at the heart of democratic societies. An essential component of this is the right to freely report on one’s environment and to share one’s interests in print, on air or online, independent from government or commercial pressures. In 2004, the ninth United Nations (UN) Round Table on Communications for Development referred to community media in the following terms: National governments should implement a legal and supportive framework favouring the right to free expression and the emergence of free and pluralistic information systems, including the recognition of the specific and crucial role of community media in providing access to communication for isolated and marginalised groups. (UN Round Table on Communications for Development 2004: 6)

Community media fulfill an important role in creating this opportunity, and the development of community media itself is linked, in broad terms, with measures to decentralize media systems. Community media have a long history of engaging citizens and facilitating participation. The motivation for such projects is to encourage the direct involvement of local communities and marginalized

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Community Media in a Globalized World groups, especially ethnic and linguistic minorities. Community media advocacy also connects local media needs with large-scale movements for media reform and is engaged with policy debates to develop more democratic media spaces. Networks of cooperation to facilitate cross-border linkages between community media projects continue to grow, and more activists and civil society organizers are partnering with academics and sympathetic policy-makers with the aim of intervening in policy processes (Coyer and Hintz 2010). While digital technology offers ways in which traditional analog broadcasting might be abandoned, the resilience of sound as a medium and the impact of international movements for community radio demonstrate the need to continue efforts to expand “citizen” access to the airwaves, and, in so doing, also transform the possibilities and practices of media making. Analog radio remains important, despite the fast-evolving digital media landscape. And for radio in a transnational environment, it is the intersection of policy and technology where “old” and “new” media come together. Radio broadcasting is cheap, relatively easy to learn, and a predominantly live medium requiring minimal production facilities as compared with television. And at the risk of essentializing the medium, radio is an aural medium that transcends issues of literacy and has a seemingly timeless quality of immediacy and intimacy that resonates with audiences. Community broadcasting itself is a means for people to connect and communicate with each other on a local neighborhood-based level in an increasingly global media environment.

So What are Community Media? There is no single definition of community media. The basic premise centers on media that are notfor-profit, participatory, and made for and by a local audience. Community media are both a participatory form of media in practice and, with regard to broadcasting, in many countries, a statutory sector of broadcast policy. A study commissioned by the European Parliament defines community media as: “media that are non profit and owned by or accountable to the community that they seek to serve. They are open to participation in program


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making and management by members of the community” (European Parliament 2007: 1). The African Charter on Broadcasting, adopted by media practitioners at a 2001 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conference in Namibia, more simply and directly defines community media as media “for, by and about the community.” The importance of this role is only amplified as the increasing commercialization of airspace, even in public broadcasting, is strengthening the dominance of market-driven programming and decreasing space for public interest content and accountability to public interest needs. Moreover, as the European Parliament affirmed, community media constitute a “significant component of participatory democracy” (European Parliament 2007: 5). The report concludes that community media fulfill local informational needs; enable citizens to play an active role in community life; act as a catalyst of cultural and artistic initiatives, local public interest activities, and civil society advocacy; and encourage the direct involvement of typically underrepresented groups such as ethnic minorities and young people (European Parliament 2007). The shape and texture of community radio, however, will necessarily vary given the particular context out of which each station emerges: by its nature, community radio is as diverse as the communities it serves. Radio serving nomadic herders in the Mongolian Gobi desert will be very different than one serving a densely populated peri-urban township in Africa. Roma radio in Macedonia that affirms a marginalized ethnic group is very different from Soweto Community Radio that encourages listeners to use one of several mother languages when they call the station on-air. (Developing Radio Partners 2006: np)

Zane Ibrahim of Bush Radio asserts: “Community radio is 90 percent community and 10 percent radio” (Ibrahim 2006). Oskar Negt calls community radio a form of “emancipatory communication” (see Bruck and Raboy 1989). Peter Lewis reaffirms this notion when he points out that community radio is more than a place to learn about the technical skills of radio production: Those whose opinions are rarely given a hearing may have forgotten, or never learned, how to express them. If technical training is combined

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with research, production and presentation skills, which community radio routinely offers, the experience can also equip people with a selfconfidence that is motivating. It can lead to employment – not necessarily in the media – and a fuller participation in today’s information society. (Lewis and Jones 2006: 5)

The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), in its attempt to define community radio, offers a diversity of responses from member stations rather then a broad typology. The following is a selection from the AMARC web site where this organization seeks to define community radio by conveying a sense of this spirit: When radio fosters the participation of citizens and defends their interests; when it reflects the tastes of the majority and makes good humour and hope its main purpose; when it truly informs; when it helps resolve the thousand and one problems of daily life; when all ideas are debated in its programs and all opinions are respected; when cultural diversity is stimulated over commercial homogeneity; when women are main players in communication and not simply a pretty voice or a publicity gimmick; when no type of dictatorship is tolerated, not even the musical dictatorship of the big recording studios; when everyone’s words fly without discrimination or censorship, that is community radio … The purpose – whence the name – is to build community life. ( Jose Ignacio Lopez Vigil 1997, quoted on the AMARC web site)3 It should be made clear that community radio is not about doing something for the community but about the community doing something for itself i.e. owning and controlling its own means of communication. (AMARC Africa and Panos Southern Africa 1998, quoted on the AMARC web site)4 Community and civic radio incorporates new languages, new formats, other sounds, types of music, voices. It brings other ways of talking, new relationships with listeners, ways of asking and answering questions, ways of making demands and pressuring the authorities. (Claudia Villamayor and Ernesto Lamas 1998, quoted on the AMARC web site)5

There also exists a growing body of academic scholarship that engages with community media which is anchored by the work of Lewis and Booth (1989), Girard (1992), Jankowski et al. (1992), Downing (2001), Gumucio-Dagron (2001),


Price-Davies and Tacchi (2001), Rodriguez (2001), Jankowski (2002); and, more recently, Lewis and Jones (2006), Lewis (2008), Rennie (2006), Howley (2005, 2009), and Rodriguez et al. (2009). A summary of the many definitions and descriptions concludes that community radio programming offers crucial spaces for empowerment of gender, youth, and elders; it is about the creative arts, radio drama, and local music; it is the site of local news and information on a daily basis and in disaster prevention and relief; it helps bridge ethnic and linguistic divides; it provides a site for healing in post-conflict zones; it is a space for life-saving health, agricultural, and educational activities; it reflects the affirmation and celebration of local culture; it is a means to help bridge technologies through multimedia centers; it is a means for communities to reach beyond their own neighborhood or village through content sharing and the Internet; it is a space for conflict resolution among local groups; it is a site for skills-building and training; and it is a positive space for community and personal empowerment.

Community media: a “Normative Good”? At the same time, it is important not to take a normative view of community media. Raymond Williams (1985) notes that use of the word “community” is always afforded positive status. Community media are typically seen as a good thing, a framing that is easily revealed in the narratives and discourse around community media. The strategic positioning of community media as a third tier of broadcasting by policy advocates is itself a way of normalizing the sector as a fundamental form of media practice. Of course, the notion that community media are “good” can depend on how “community” itself is defined: a community of extreme nationalists might be “good” to those who agree with their views, but certainly not “good” to those who do not. In Britain, community radio licenses have been granted to stations, including a local British Army base located in Northern Ireland, an Afro-Caribbean community center in Birmingham, a Punjabi station in West London, a neighborhood station connecting the remote Forest of Dean, a sound art and experimental music station in central London, a Christian station in Stoke-on-Trent, a youth radio

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Community Media in a Globalized World station with a focus on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues in Chorley, and a nostalgia station for pensioners on the Isle of Wight specializing in songs recorded before 1960 (Ofcom 2004). Some of these are defined by their geographic community; others by their “community of interest.” Thus, community media projects emerge from organizations with wide-ranging missions which may or may not be shared. What does this mean for how community media’s mission is articulated or how enabling policies should be pursued? On the one hand, questions of hate speech or the promotion of violence are bigger than community media and must be addressed amidst the larger set of issues that impact on all media. However, though “community” can be evoked to identify who is “in” and who is “out;” who belongs and who does not; in the context of community media, it tends to aspire to some form of inclusiveness. Still, these questions suggest that the concept of “community” may need to be further unpacked.

Overview of the Legal Status of Community Radio Internationally An examination of community radio legislation around the world finds a sector dominated by a lack of cohesive policy (Coyer 2005). There are countries with well-established community radio sectors (e.g., Australia and South Africa) and those where community radio is still not recognized (e.g., Japan and Chile). In recent history, countries as diverse as Argentina, Bolivia, Uganda, India, Bangladesh, and the UK have adopted reforms that assist community media (AMARC 2010). Where there is no licensed community radio, there often exists a thriving landscape of unlicensed community micro-radio stations. “Pirate radio” may operate, even if there is legal community broadcasting, for reasons that may include the limits of many national policies, the lack of spectrum availability, the fact that there will always be needs and interests that are not met by a regulatory system, and because there are those who wish to operate outside the state infrastructure for ideological or practical reasons. This reality should not serve as a deterrent to the development of


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enabling legislation. Rather, it is a reminder of the need for greater public access to the radio dial. For example, there are estimated to be between 4,000 and 7,000 pirate radio stations across Thailand, a country in which there is no means for local groups to apply for licenses, although efforts are underway to redress this (Magpanthong 2005). Further, pirate and micro-radio operators have been crucial (either directly or indirectly) to the development of community radio sectors around the world, sometimes simply by demonstrating the will and the available space on the dial for new entrants to the radio market. Some community radio stations operate under the threat of harassment in highly volatile settings and under sometimes dangerous conditions. Some continue to broadcast while at risk of harassment and closure. In 2005, the government of Nepal imposed a ban on all news and public affairs programming for both commercial and community stations that lasted until it was overturned by the courts (Pringle and Subba 2007). In 2008, two indigenous women, who were journalists with community radio’s La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (the Voice that Breaks the Silence), were targeted for murder en route to a public demonstration in the Mexican state of Oaxaca (AMARC 2008). In 2010, an unlicensed community radio station in Honduras, serving a remote Afro-Caribbean Garifuna area, was “ransacked and torched,” allegedly in retaliation for station organizers’ opposition to the coup (Reporters Without Borders 2010). In other countries, policies on paper remain unsupported by government or carry built-in limitations. In Indonesia, for example, the development of community media remains stagnant and underdeveloped, despite the legal establishment of the sector under the Broadcasting Act of 2002 and the success of stations such as Radio Wanuata and others in the Manado area (Hollander et al. 2008). In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there exist licensing opportunities for community radio but a lack of interest from groups because the policy, as written, provides no viable means for stations to support themselves financially. The very few communityoriented stations on air operate with commercial licenses (Coyer and van Beek 2010). The long-term implications of this are that the stations are not secured in their not-for-profit, public-minded community missions if the owners elect to change format or style of the stations, or if they see the value

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of the licenses as more lucrative than the benefits of running non-profit media (as was the case in Britain before 2004 legislation created a sector explicitly for community radio). In the rural village of Imbaseni, Tanzania, a new community radio station (United African Alliance Community Radio) was built in 2005 (O’Neal 2007). Because there is no specific provision for community broadcasting in Tanzania, organizers were advised by their regulatory agency to build the station first in order to demonstrate they had the means, and to then apply for a broadcast license. To date, the station is still awaiting final acceptance of its application while the transmitter remains silent. Deregulation of media industries has brought about mixed results for community radio. In India, the weakening of the state monopoly has resulted in the creation of a new sector for community radio, despite a regulatory system that places other restrictions on community stations (Kumar 2005). However, unless specific safeguards to ensure community ownership or frequency set-asides have been made, deregulation results largely in increased privatization owing to excessive market pressures (Coyer 2005). Regulatory changes encouraging private ownership and consolidation have weakened the status of community radio in some countries. And in other countries, regulation remains unclear or underdeveloped. Community radio is slowly making its way into more and more broadcast policies and is, at times, a microcosm for larger national tensions. The first licensed community station went on the air in 2005 in Kenya (Radio Mangelete), and in Jordan, Internet radio AmmanNet began experimental FM transmission that same summer. In Spain, community radio policy has been one means by which the regional Catalan government has sought to assert its independence from national rule by claiming authority to issue community radio licenses (see Communitymedia.eu 2009). In Timor Leste, formerly East Timor, community radio has been an important tool used by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (UNDP 2004). A study of the evolution of community broadcasting policies concludes that developing supportive legislation is crucial. Unfriendly or non-existent legal frameworks remain a constant challenge to community media practice. Civil society involvement – from grassroots groups, community media organizers, and nongovern-


mental organizations (NGOs) of all sizes – plays an important role in the development and sustainability of good policies and regulations through lobbying, participation in policy-making processes and practice (Internews 2009).

Key Issues for the Development of Community Radio Frameworks The phenomenon of community radio is not new in itself, but recognition of community radio as a statutory sector of broadcasting law has been growing. As a result of both grassroots and international pressure, regulatory progress has been made toward the development of community radio sectors in many parts of the world. For example, AMARC, the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) and others have called on governments to ensure nondiscriminatory legal frameworks for community media, equitable and sufficient allocation of frequencies by transparent accountable mechanisms, and targets for opening up spectrum and licensing procedures (AMARC 2004). These groups have also had success garnering support for community media from international bodies like UNESCO, for example. Other regional advocacy groups such as the Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE) fight for the inclusion of community media in policy statements emerging from the European Union (EU), and elsewhere. Further, very practical questions of financial sustainability are related to questions of policy with regard to a sector such as community radio which is intended to be complementary, but not competitive, with commercial broadcasting. At the same time, without proper funding models, advocates have argued that community radio cannot survive (Internews 2009). For example, do policies for community radio include provisions for distribution of a percentage of license fees, or redistribution of licensing revenue from commercial stations to community operators? Do national policies incentivize community stations to draw from multiple funding sources? Are there limits to the amount of advertising revenue community stations can take in, and, if so, are they consistent with caps on other broadcasters? And, more

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Community Media in a Globalized World broadly: is the regulatory agency operating in an open, fair, and transparent environment? Are there protections for journalists and support for freedom of expression and assembly? These are some of the policy questions that have a direct impact on the life and livelihood of local, community-based broadcasters as well as on other established media. While these are decidedly very practical policy questions, asking them helps us better understand the enabling policy environment within which community media operate, as well as the intersection between this field of non-profit media and the larger media policy environment. Buckley et al. (2008) argue that certain basic conditions and safeguards in the overall media and regulatory environment must exist in order for there to be an enabling environment for community media. The following section, then, draws on findings from a review of community media policy reports and briefs, and on a study of the statutory language of different national policies, much of which emphasizes the areas advocates and practitioners seek to address (research initially undertaken for the Internews Community Media Sustainability Guide (2009)). Although there is a risk of providing too much policy nuance, the intention of what follows is to offer a mechanism for comparative examination of community media policy practice internationally and to see how the issues connect across to larger media policy questions. A lot has been written that reveals the impact of community media in the lived experience of people and places, but it is difficult to capture the breadth and scope of how community media fits into a regulatory context without examining in detail the range of possible policy interventions, despite the risk of shifting too far away from a consideration of the qualitative impact of community media. 1 Community media should be recognized as a distinct sector of broadcasting Community broadcasting should be recognized as a distinct sector of broadcasting, with its own rules and procedures, and with sufficient access to the radio spectrum. Decentralization has resulted in increased privatization and the development of commercial radio, but unless specific provisions to ensure community ownership or frequency setasides are made for community radio, long-term sustainability remains in doubt. Regulatory changes


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encouraging private ownership and consolidation of media owners have weakened the status of community radio in some places. For example, radio station AmmanNet in Jordan operates as a community-oriented station but has a commercial radio license. In the UK, early experiments with community radio in the 1970s – stations licensed as independent commercial radios – ended with almost every one of these stations eventually giving in to market pressures as the economic value of these licenses was too great to sustain a not-forprofit sector. Britain now boasts a successful “third” sector of community radio that is flourishing thanks to socially minded legislation and sustainable means for funding and organization which are built into the law. In the US, community radio has a long and rich history, but the growth of new lowpower FM (LPFM) stations has, to date, been limited drastically by Congressional legislation passed at the behest of incumbent broadcasters (including commercial broadcasters and National Public Radio) and access to public funds is more often limited to the largest public stations, rather than the smaller community-run stations that have greater needs.6 In Ghana, there have been problems with commercial radio stations applying for licenses under the pretext of doing so for community radio operations (AMARC 2010). Similar concerns were documented in a UNESCO report on Nepal that found large inconsistencies with the application of community media principles (UNESCO 2008). The report showed that the poorly defined policy framework has resulted in many stations being “captured” by local elites, despite the presence of many excellent practices and a growing network among actual community broadcasters. 2 Definitions vary, but certain policy principles should be adhered to There is no single regulatory definition of community radio. Policies, of course, focus on definitions emphasizing radio that is not-for-profit, participatory, and made for and by a local audience. It makes sense that there is no “one size fits all” approach to community radio policy. The specific shape and feel of each national or regional policy should necessarily differ somewhat, thus reflecting the conditions within which each emerges, although this lack of standardization can be a challenge for international advocates. For example, Hungary

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defines a community broadcaster as: “a broadcaster who agrees to serve national, ethnic or other minority goals, cultural aims or a disadvantaged group, or intends to serve as the public life forum of a community … provided it is not-for-profit” (Gosztonyi 2007: 297). British legislation states that community radio is: “primarily for the good of members of the public or of a particular community and in order to deliver social gain, rather than for commercial reasons … (serving either geographic, or neighborhood communities or communities of interest)” (Ofcom 2004: np). Though different in language and focus, each definition tries to create a framework for similar kinds of media production. Characteristics which should be part of any legal definition of community broadcasting include: independence from government and commercial entities, service to either geographic communities or communities of interest, ownership and management by people of that community, and operation for “purposes of social gain rather than private financial profit” (Buckley et al. 2008: 141). Further, it is also important for policies to have some mechanism to counter possible corruption or co-option by local elites. When community media operations become a mouthpiece for local government, they of course lose their credibility. If any political body seeks truly to support community media, it would be better to do so through contributions to an independent body, effectively removing itself from the job of distributing funds. There are also very specific issues regarding the shape and form of the application procedure and licensing process. India, for example, passed longawaited legislation in 2006 to create a sector for community radio. However, implementation of the policy has taken longer than expected because of disagreements over how the licensing should be managed. In India, there is an issue regarding the requirement that applicants for community radio licenses be legal not-for-profit entities that are registered for a minimum of three years prior to submitting an application. It could be argued that this helps ensure that groups applying for the license have roots in the communities they are hoping to serve, but in rural villages or areas where there may not be a history or context for formal non-profit registration, this could place serious limitations on who can apply. Alternative means of ensuring community support could, therefore, be considered.


3

Sustainability and social gain criteria

If a key aim of community radio is to empower neighborhoods and villages, legislation should reflect this value. The argument is that clear criteria for the kinds of media that are seeking to be encouraged and developed will play a key role in the sustainability of community-oriented stations and will help protect stations from pressures such as commercialism, authoritarian control, or co-option by a non-representative body. For example, if one of the aims of the sector is to encourage multilingual or minority programming, policies should be written to encourage this kind of content. If community participation in management and development is important, policies could have criteria with respect to the composition of station-governing boards. At the same time, it is important that these specific criteria not be written in an overly prescriptive manner that is difficult to implement. Rather, broad legislative frameworks allow for greater flexibility while, at the same time, providing some overarching requirements. In South Africa, for example, legislation encourages community participation in both the production of programs and the organization and planning of the station itself. In Bangladesh, the regulator (Bangladesh NGO Network for Radio and Communication – BNNRC) has set up community radio for its developing sector that will provide training courses, technical support, and research and development support year round (ICT Regulation Toolkit 2009). In the UK, the application for a license focusses on questions related to how would-be stations plan to serve their communities. Criteria include several required elements for consideration of long-term community radio licensing: social gain and access; programming, evaluation and measurement; and finance and ownership. Specifically, applicants have to provide evidence of social gain and/or public service broadcasting, not-for-profit status, accessibility for people living within the area, training and community participation, and engagement with disadvantaged and underserved people and communities. 4 Policies that encourage and support civil society advocacy are necessary for sustainability and growth The development of community broadcasting has been most successful where there has been pressure

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Community Media in a Globalized World from grassroots activists and civil society advocates pushing for access to the airwaves. The role of pirates has also been instrumental in breaking apart national monopolies, especially across Europe and Latin America. National associations that advocate on behalf of and represent the interests of community radio are crucial to long-term sustainability for the sector. National associations can be very helpful in connecting stations to each other, providing useful services (e.g., the Community Media Association in the UK offers webcasting services to its members), international networking, and assistance in developing applications for international funding and training grants and resources. In South Africa, the South African Community Radio Information Network (SACRIN) provides a program exchange network via satellite that allows National Community Radio Forum-affiliated community stations to share content. In the Netherlands, community stations are represented by the Organisatie van Lokale Omroepen in Nederland (OLON), which is itself partially financed by the state’s national media budget. OLON is very active in efforts to increase the amount of funding and to ensure that debates around digital transition include opportunities for and strengthening of the already strong sector. Finally, OLON is recognized in Dutch media law as the representative body for the sector.

5 Financial sustainability can be addressed at the policy level Community broadcasting services should have fair and equitable access to a diversity of funding sources according to local circumstances. There should be no restrictions on funding sources other than what is necessary to maintain the character of the service and to avoid unfair competition. (Buckley et al. 2008: 220)

Stations should also be encouraged to draw support from their own communities and to have the ability to apply for public grants and other sources. The question of whether or not states should directly or indirectly finance community radio can be a controversial one. In some contexts, direct state support would dramatically reduce the independence of the stations or create the


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perception that the station is the voice of government. However, most policies that encourage long-term sustainability are those that also include some form of indirect state support such as a community media fund. South Africa has a very strong network of community radio stations, but stations complain that the lack of national support is a problem. Legislation there places no limit on the amount of commercial revenue a station may take in, but many rural parts of the country complain that they do not have the market to support a station through advertising. When there is government support in order to ensure independence, it should be administered through an independent public body – separate from the regulatory agency or government ministry which should include civil society representation. For example, the Venezuelan, Bolivian, and Colombian governments make funds available to support training, equipment purchases, and/or to provide indirect funding such as fee and tax waivers. A review of practices around the world indicates that the most sustainable community radio sectors are those that encourage mixed models of financing so that no one entity (be it a government or a private company) can claim “ownership” of the station. In addition to providing some access to funding and setting criteria for commercial revenue, states can also provide other incentives for community media and relieve some of the economic burden. These incentives include reduced rates for public utilities like electricity and water, free or reduced Internet connectivity rates, access to solar or wind power, tax-exempt status as nonprofit organizations, exemptions from sales tax and import duties such as equipment purchased abroad, access to low-cost satellite and mobile services, access to training programs, employee benefits, and more. 6 There should be no restrictions on content beyond basic standards that apply to all media (e.g., decency, libel) Bodies of law vary widely in this area, but the most sustainable sectors are those with minimal interference from government with regard to content. That said, it is also not unusual to find requirements that a percentage of programming must be locally produced or originated (e.g., India

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requires 50 percent local content in a local language to be achieved as much as possible, though this is not specifically stipulated). However, India also has a very restrictive content policy, with bans on news programming. Similar bans are in place for commercial radio, but this limitation nevertheless is problematic. Indian programming policy favors development content, though entertainment programming is not explicitly forbidden. This raises policy questions about the value of cultural programming (including music) that most practitioners and listeners would be hard pressed to argue is not valuable programming for community media. 7 Regional entities can be useful sites for policy intervention In 2001, the African Charter on Broadcasting was adopted by media practitioners at a UNESCO conference in Windhoek, Namibia. In it, there is support for the recognition of community media. There are efforts underway to encourage the EU to require Member States to develop community media sectors. While community broadcasting is flourishing in parts (but not all) of Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe have few (if any) licensed community radio or television stations (Hungary is an exception). A report commissioned by the EU calls for legal recognition of community media, access to licenses in both analog and digital environments, and financial support for the sector, calling community stations a “significant component of participatory democracy” and “a dynamic and highly diverse part of the European Union’s media landscape” (European Parliament 2007: 5). 8 The transition from analog to digital broadcasting poses new challenges that need to be addressed The growth of digital broadcasting provides both new opportunities and new challenges for community communication. Debates about the digital transition should include consideration for the needs and interests of local communities and small-scale, not-for-profit media that can influence the development of a truly pluralistic media environment. More research is needed to examine the different technologies that are shaping our digital futures. At present, too much of the


debate is being led by industry interests rather than consumer needs. This might seem far removed from the immediate needs of community radio in large parts of the world, but AMARC Africa has begun to tackle this issue at the regional level as well as in Europe and Latin America. With more efficient use of the spectrum, more space is opened up on the radio dial. Changing technologies also open up room for new regulatory regimes which could, by extension, open the door for community radio to benefit from the so-called “digital dividend” through set-asides of spectrum for non-profit media. At the same time, challenges include new gatekeepers, market imperatives driving the debate, and a lack of emphasis and research on public interest objectives and consequences. For community broadcasting to have a strong future, active policy intervention in support of the sector is needed. The knowledge gap around issues and the impact of digitalization must also be addressed. One difficulty is the lack of research methodologies for assessing the impact of digitalization itself, beyond the issue of penetration and the number of users and devices. Perhaps this is an area where community media researchers can borrow from public and private media research in adopting methods, or by partnering with industry researchers to include issues related to community media in their existing studies.

Conclusion Community media are a field of study within which there is significant crossover between academic inquiry and research seeking to address advocacy needs. It is a field within which many researchers identify themselves as both advocates and scholars. My work in this area is no exception. Much of the policy analysis in this chapter draws on applied research produced for NGOs, development agencies, and policy-makers. Advocacy groups have immediate knowledge needs. They require nonstatic resources and can play a role in helping to identify knowledge gaps. At the same time, this can also impose unintentional limits on the scope of community media research with similar narratives tending to recur, a lack of critique, and a normative framework that can surround the sector.

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Community Media in a Globalized World However, the growth of research in this field and the recent focus on policy and the enabling environment do more to reveal the rich potentiality of community media research rather than its limitations. The main theme running throughout this chapter is that an enabling policy and legal environment within which community media operate is required for the sector to survive. This environment is not specific to policies and funding mechanisms for community media, but also encompasses the extent to which media can operate in an open and free environment. And with regard to broadcasting, it concerns the regulatory and licensing regimes required to operate in a fair and functional way. While the development of community radio predates legislative frameworks, the long-term sustainability for community radio is predicated on the existence of a safe and legal environment within which to operate. Supportive legislation is crucial to the development of sustainable media sectors, just as restrictive or non-existent legal frameworks work against their development. Legislation is not a panacea for solving all the issues related to sustainability for community media, and nor is it implied here that excessive and complex legislation should be the aim. Unfriendly legal frameworks remain a constant challenge to community media practice and even friendly and supportive policies may require further development, improvements, or attention to ensure their continuation.

Notes 1

2

3 4 5 6

This is one of the key findings of a 2008 global survey conducted by the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC); see AMARC (2007). See Coyer (2007) and Hintz (2010) for further discussion on the intersection between community media advocacy and other media policy issues. See AMARC (various years). See AMARC (various years). See AMARC (various years). The US does not license “community radio,” but rather licenses non-commercial radio. Today, there exist licensing opportunities for “full power” and “low-power” FM (LPFM) stations, although opportunities are very limited for both due to technical and legislative barriers. As a result, community radio stations compete for funds with many of the largest public radio stations in the country; see Prometheus


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Radio Project and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) for more details, at www.prometheusradio.org and http://www.nfcb. org/index.jsp (accessed 11/02/2011).

References African Charter on Broadcasting (2001) African Charter on Broadcasting. Windhoek: UNESCO, http://www. chr.up.ac.za/hr_docs/african/docs/other/other4. doc (accessed 28/10/2005). AMARC (2004) Closing Declaration of the Round Table on Community Media and Sustainable Development, Marrakech, 21 November 2004, AMARC, http://www.amarc.org/roundtable/index-EN.html (accessed 02/14/2010). AMARC (2007) Community Radio Social Impact Assessment: Removing Barriers, Increasing Effectiveness. Montreal: AMARC, http://www.amarc.org/index.php?p= AMARCPublications&l=EN (accessed 14/02/2010). AMARC (2008) AMARC Link (May), 12(2). Montreal: AMARC, http://www.amarc.org/index.php?p=AM ARCLink_Vol_12_No_2-en (accessed 28/10/2009). AMARC (2010) AMARC Homepage. Montreal: AMARC. www.amarc.org (accessed 26/11/2009). AMARC (various years) What is Community Radio?, http://www.amarc.org/index.php?p=What_is_ Community_radio?&l=EN (accessed 09/05/2010). Bruck, P., and Raboy, M. (1989) “The challenge of democratic communication,” in M. Raboy and P. Bruck (eds) Communication For and Against Democracy. Montreal: Black Rose Books, pp. 3–19. Buckley, S. (2007) “Community broadcasting in an all-digital environment: A preliminary assessment of options and challenges”, paper presented at Broadcasting Communities? A Workshop on European Community Broadcasting Policies, Central European University, Budapest, May. Buckley, S., Duer, K., Mendel, T., with Price, M., and Raboy, M. (2008) Broadcasting, Voice and Accountability: A Public Interest Approach to Policy, Law, and Regulation. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press and Washington, DC: World Bank. Communitymedia.eu (2009) “Spanish region of Catalonia plans to introduce third media sector,” http://www.communitymedia.eu/index.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=49& Itemid=1 (accessed 14/02/2010). Coyer, K. (2005) “Community radio licensing and policy: An overview,” Journal of Global Media and Communication, 2(1): 129–134. Coyer, K. (2007) “Access to broadcasting: Radio,” in K. Coyer, T. Dowmunt and A. Fountain (eds) Alternative Media Handbook. London: Routledge, pp. 112–122.

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Coyer, K., and Hintz, A. (2010) “Developing the ‘third sector’: Community media policies in Europe,” in B. Klimkiewicz (ed.) Media Freedom and Pluralism: Media Policy Challenges in the Enlarged Europe. Budapest: CEU Press. Coyer, K., and van Beek, J. (2010) “Community radio in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Opportunities and challenges for small scale local media,” in T. Jusic´ (ed.) Communication and Community: Citizens, Media and Local Governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sarajevo: Mediacentar Sarajevo pp. 131–187. Developing Radio Partners (2006) developin gradiopartners.org. Washington, DC: Developing Radio Partners, www.developingradiopartners. org (accessed 19/10/2009). Downing, J. (2001) Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. European Parliament (2007) The State of Community Media in the European Union: A Report by Kern European Affairs for the Directorate General Internal Policies of the Union. Strasbourg: European Parliament. Girard, B. (1992) A Passion for Radio: Radio Waves and Community. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Gosztonyi, G. (2007) “Community radio in Hungary: It has a past. It has a present. Does it have a future?” Paper presented at Broadcasting Communities? A Workshop on European Community Broadcasting Policies. Central European University, Budapest, May. Gumucio-Dagron, A. (2001) Making Waves: History of Participatory Communication for Social Change. New York: Rockefeller Foundation. Hollander, E., Hidayat, D. N., and d’Haenens, L. (2008) “Community radio in Indonesia: A re-invention of democratic communication,” Javnost – The Public, 15(3): 59–74. Howley, K. (2005) Community Media: People, Places, and Communication Technologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Howley, K. (ed.) (2009) Understanding Community Media. London: Sage Publications. Ibrahim, Z. (2006) Perspectives on Media, Culture and Faith, blog entry, June 18 at http://homepage.mac.com/ larryhol/iblog/C2050680009/E20060618024917/ index.html (accessed 02/12/2010). ICT Regulation Toolkit (2009) ICT Regulation Toolkit. Washington, DC: infoDev and the International Telecommunication Union, http://www.ictregula tiontoolkit.org/en/index.html (accessed 14/02/2010). Internews (2009) The Business of Changing Lives: Making Community Media Sustainable. Washington, DC: Internews Network, http://www.internews.org/ prs/2009/20090225_mediaguide.shtm (accessed 14/02/2010).


Jankowski, N. (ed.) (2002) Community Media in the Information Age: Perspectives and Prospects. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Jankowski, N., Prehn, O., and Strappers, J. (1992) The People’s Voice: Local Radio and Television in Europe. London: John Libbey. Kumar, K. (2005) “Community radio in India: A study,” The Communication Initiative, http://www.comminit. com/en/node/70160/306 (accessed 19/10/2008). Lewis, P. (2008) Promoting Social Cohesion: The Role of Community Media. Report prepared for the Council of Europe’s Group of Specialists on Media Diversity (MC-S-MD). Strasbourg: Council of Europe, http:// www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media/Doc/ H-Inf(2008)013_en.pdf (accessed 19/10/2009). Lewis, P., and Booth, J. (1989) The Invisible Medium. London: Macmillan Education Ltd. Lewis, P., and Jones, S. (2006) From the Margins to the Cutting Edge: Community Media and Empowerment. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Magpanthong, C. (2005) “A comparative study of Chiang Mai, Nan, and Pattani community radio stations, Thailand.” Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Antonio, TX, August. Martín-Barbero, J. (2002) “Identities: Traditions and new communities,” Media, Culture & Society, 24(5): 621–641. Ofcom (2004) Licensing Community Radio. London. Ofcom, http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/ broadcast/radio-ops/CommRadstrateg y.pdf (accessed 02/12/2010). O’Neal, C. (2007) “Community radio: Milango for lives,” in K. Coyer, A. Fountain and T. Dowmunt (eds) Alternative Media Handbook. London: Routledge, pp. 123–124. Price-Davies, E., and Tacchi, J. (2001) Community Radio in a Global Context: A Comparative Analysis. Report for the Community Media Association (CMA). Sheffield: CMA. Pringle, I., and Subba, B. (2007) Ten Years On: The State of Community Radio in Nepal. Paris: UNESCO. Reporters Without Borders (2010) “Arson attack on community radio previously targeted by coup supporters,” Reporters Without Borders, http:// en.rsf.org/honduras-arson-attack-on-communityradio-07-01-2010,35968 (accessed 01/05/2010). Rennie, E. (2006) Community Media: A Global Introduction. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Rodriguez, C. (2001) Fissures in the Mediascape. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Rodriguez, C., Kidd, D., and Stein, L. (eds) (2009) Making Our Media: Global Initiatives toward a Democratic Public Sphere. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (2004) The Community Reconciliation Process of the

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Community Media in a Globalized World Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation. New York: UNDP, http://www.cavr-timorleste. org/Analysis/Laporan%20Piers%20tentang%20 CRP.pdf (accessed 01/05/2009). United Nations Educational (UNESCO) (2008) UNESCO’s IPDC Supports Pioneering Community Radio in Nepal, November, 4, http://portal.unesco. o rg / c i / e n / ev. p h p - U R L _ I D = 2 6 4 1 8 & U R L _


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DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (accessed 02/12/2010). United Nations Round Table on Communications for Development (Ninth) (2004) Declaration (September 6–9), Rome, http://www.fao.org/sd/dim_kn1/docs/ kn1_040701a11a_en.pdf (accessed 28/10/2005). Williams, R. (1985) Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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11

Global Media Policy and Crisis States Monroe E. Price

Introduction In the last 15 years, as the media development field has matured, the debate on media policy in crisis contexts has taken on a heightened importance. International norms – with the principles of Article 19 as the most important repository – are both more sharply articulated and advanced and more persistently compromised. In times and sites of territorial, ideological, and religious conflict – when faced with post-election violence in Kenya, with conflict-oriented color revolutions or their possibility, with the haunting potential for genocide – scholars and decision-makers increasingly seek to locate appropriate ways of thinking about media policy. Major disturbances come freighted with questions of when and how conflicts should be resolved, how rehabilitation can occur, what role there is for outside entities (including the usual international actors) to intervene, and what role the media (and media policy) can play in all of this. The hope of policy usually incorporates ideas of positive change: the glimmering dream of an uncensored world, with rights to receive and impart information freely available to all, and a

public sphere that is atomized and relatively independent of powerful and corrupting forces of politics and commerce. But the interim world may be all that matters. Especially in zones of recent, ongoing, or potential conflict, the oxygen of expression is commanded increasingly by totalizing forces, and large-scale strategies for persuasion are overwhelming and frequently effective. Designing policy for this reality can be frustrating. In this chapter, I suggest a reformulation of the approach to media policy in crisis states through an analysis of “strategic communications.” This term is used by many, from the military to private marketers and practitioners of public relations. My emphasis here is to try to understand how patterns of dramatic and global change in the flow of information affect politics and populations and alter the regulatory architecture of free expression and, in particular, how these patterns undercut assumptions underlying the United States (US) First Amendment and Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (United Nations 1966). In my definition, strategic communications are speech practices undertaken to subvert, undermine, overwhelm, reinforce, or replace a preexisting discourse on a subject significant both to the audience



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Global Media Policy and Crisis States (i.e., the “target society”) and the speaker. The strategic communications campaigns that are most relevant for global policy constitute substantial and effective campaigns that are initiated, commonly, from outside a target society, and they are designed to alter an existing consensus on an issue important to the collective self-determination or future shape of the target society. Examples of such communications proliferate: they include efforts, in particular contexts, to increase the influence of moderate Islam and decrease the influence of “extremist Islam,” or, on the other hand, they can include efforts to strengthen extremist thought, efforts to “spread the Word” in Africa, or efforts to “promote democracy” in the Middle East. A widely accepted example of strategic communications is the effort to reduce the risk of HIV transmission and AIDS by encouraging the use of condoms. In conflict contexts, these communications strategies are sometimes designed to encourage conflict and instability by spreading ideas of “hate” or ethnic conflict and, at other times, they are designed to reduce conflict by establishing “peace broadcasting” or related modes designed for conflict resolution. The canvas is quite a large one: it includes the now familiar approach in conflict contexts, to seek control of the media and deny media power to the articulated or unarticulated “enemy” and to repress the speech of those who seek to perpetuate the crisis. While I posit a more or less fixed definition for this cluster of communications efforts – directed campaigns, usually external, aimed at shifting or reinforcing a consensus on an issue significant to a society’s identity – each element of this definition is subject to healthy challenge. Campaigns that count as strategic may still be ineffective and inept, though designed to be otherwise. And while most of the communications campaigns are initiated outside the target society, there is an ever-more artificial distinction. Even where such a campaign begins in the West and is aimed at the developing world, the dynamic often shifts; indeed, that may be part of the strategy (AIDSrelated efforts often have this quality). A campaign may not be directed only at changing a consensus. In many instances, for example, where there is a fragile democracy, there are excellent reasons why a current status quo set of attitudes should be reinforced.


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I begin by examining how strategic communications campaigns work in crisis environments, drawing on the “market for loyalties” framework I have developed in earlier writings. In such contexts, the media can play a number of roles in conflict resolution, including by encouraging and supporting power sharing, supporting the idea of the nation, enabling governance, and avoiding violence. I then seek to trace how these factors played out in the development of media policy in postwar Iraq, where media policy was not attentive to power-sharing opportunities or able to frame effectively the state, and where polarized media ownership affected the ability of the state to govern and at times raised tensions among Iraq’s communities. I conclude by considering the implications this has for global media and communications policy.

The Media and the Market for Loyalties How these aggressive communications work in crisis societies is related to arguments I have made earlier. In a 2002 book, Media and Sovereignty, I sought to define a “market for loyalties,” in which large-scale competitors for power use the regulation of communications to organize a cartel of imagery and identity among themselves (Price 1994, 1995, 2002): The “sellers” in this market are all those for whom myths and dreams and history can somehow be converted into power and wealth – classically states, governments, interest groups, businesses, and others. The “buyers” are the citizens, subjects, nationals, consumers – recipients of the packages of information, propaganda, advertisements, drama, and news propounded by the media. The consumer “pays” for one set of identities or another in several ways that, together, we call “loyalty” or “citizenship.” Payment, however, is not expressed in the ordinary coin of the realm: It includes not only compliance with tax obligations, but also obedience to laws, readiness to fight in the armed services, or even continued residence within the country. The buyer also pays with his or her own sense of identity. (Price 1994: 669–670)

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Initially, I suggested that this market existed within national boundaries, with government usually the entity that allows the cartel to operate and in which it is often part of the cartel itself. Indeed, the product of a stable market for loyalties could be a pragmatic definition of self, or a version of “national identity.” When the state and those in power are efficiently managing this market, the result may be what I have called a “bubble of identity,” in which careful thought is given to what is tolerated, what is encouraged, and what is discouraged. One could go so far as to say that management of the market yields the collection of ideas and narratives employed by a dominant group or coalition to maintain power. But markets for loyalties increasingly operate in a transnational form. Markets for loyalties have specific manifestations in crisis zones. They are markets that are raw and idiosyncratic. In “failing states” there may be no effective state that serves as regulator of the cartel; the market may be chaotic, and small intense interventions can shift loyalties widely. An inability to manage the flow of information within its boundaries is indeed one way of defining a “failing state.” Another possibility is that a harsh and vindictive power may control the market for loyalties wholly by the exercise of force and intimidation. These are contexts where, often, there are large-scale hopes for change, subduing persisting hate, increasing democratic practices. These are often states where some global players are seeking to destroy, some severely modify, some stabilize, and some define a new polity that is supposed to rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of the old. Media policy thus becomes shaped not just within the state but by the array of interests, states, and non-state, territorial and external, that have a deep stake in political outcomes. In any crisis context, several aspects must be taken into consideration: intelligence about how information is developed and diffused in significant areas or subgroups, an understanding of the infrastructure of information, and the modes of producing and distributing material that will help shape opinion (the ability to participate actively in the market). In crisis or failing states, finding the way in which information is diffused or might be diffused (i.e., conducting a “diagnostic”) is an essential first step for fathoming how interested entities will reach desired targets. A diagnostic provides an important indication of the relationship between speech


formations and the making or weakening of political power, and is a prerequisite for developing a media policy. Too often those engaged in strategic communications assume a set of answers about the structure that should exist and that would render communication to achieve strategic purposes likely. Particularly because of the subtlety and virtual invisibility of the bonds of communication, the execution of a sensitive diagnostic analysis is difficult and is even more so in crisis contexts. The standard approach to thinking about media policy, focussing on traditional forms of media, such as radio or television, may not be appropriate in places where such structured media systems may not exist or may only ever have existed in basic forms. Poetry and sermon, or interpersonal communication in mosques or coffee houses, not newspaper or radio, might be key drivers of public opinion. Other societies – Somaliland is an example – are highly dependent on international radio (the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Somali Service in this case). Only by having a sense of the structure of production and distribution of certain perspectives can there be an effective counter-strategy. In some failing or crisis states, force is the main currency; there, discerning information flows take on a particular heuristic. Similarly, for those concerned with utilizing strategic communications to minimize post-election violence, it is necessary to understand how information is obtained and transmitted. Only by considering how processes of violence occur and what role media and other communications institutions play can there be a chance of preventing or lessening the chances of repetition. Recent elections, for example, in Kenya, provide lessons for the circumstances in which close elections sparked disorder. In contexts of “occupation,” such as postwar Germany or Japan, management or supervision by the occupying force is complete: media are fully controlled, a monopoly is maintained in which the occupier is the sole strategic communicator or the active regulator of entry. There are other contexts, such as Iraq, where the initial approach to communications and media policy of the sort described above phased into a model in which the modes and practices of affecting media and speech became more diffuse. Occupation is not an available policy in many conflicts. Indeed, such full control is usually a sign that conflict has ended, at least temporarily.

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Global Media Policy and Crisis States A second step in developing a media policy involves observation of competing entrants to see how they gain some control over modes of communication. The types of channels of communication available govern the limits on how strategies can be realized. For example, when a firm of consultants, Albany Associates, was retained to work with a United Nations (UN) agency to explain the contents of the short-lived Darfur Peace Agreement in Darfurian refugee camps, there was the realization that there was no vehicle of communication that would easily allow the project to take place. The communications strategy, to develop support for the peace process, lacked an essential element for fulfilment. Only by creating apparatuses for explanation – theater, great equestrian events, comic strip publications for those with limited literacy – could there even be the beginning of a communications strategy. In this very way, an element of strategic communications is the ability to participate actively in the market, or even, as was the case in Darfur, to actively create such a market and to produce and distribute material that will help shape opinion. How communicators gain control over channels that enable entry and what kinds of content can be developed and diffused are points both related to media structure. But how should one rethink this content? In a study for the World Bank, I, together with Nicole Stremlau and Ibrahim Al Marashi, explored approaches to structuring communication in a variety of crisis contexts and how these approaches shape media content. Here again, the “market for loyalties” approach casts some light. In these situations, it is usually the case that the international community, including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), as well as individual governments, is seeking to shape a market in which its perspectives (perspectives which it thinks will lead to stability and conflict resolution) will gain most currency, while destabilizing perspectives will be minimized. We laid out areas of concern for establishing a media structure that allows for content that supports conflict resolution: (1) that the media structure facilitates a process of dialogue with reasonable power sharing outcomes, (2) that the media structure helps define the question “What is the nation?”, (3) that the media structure and functioning help contribute to the goal that there is a viable state capable of governing; and (reflected in the


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above three); and (4) that, at a minimum, the media structure be restrained from encouraging violent outcomes (Price et al. 2009). Power sharing seems a key to conflict resolution in many contexts, and content as well as structure contribute to the likely success of such arrangements. One could put the question in this manner: what media arrangements make power sharing more likely and then maintain the power sharing agreement that was in place (by agreement or by imposition)? L. Kendall Palmer, in an essay on Bosnia-Herzegovina, asks how media should be restructured to “not only prevent the re-escalation of ethnic conflict, but [to] also promote democracy?” (Palmer 2001: 2). In societies deeply divided by ethnicity, majoritarian democracy suffers because of practices of exclusion and because, often, “politicians have incentives to participate in radical outbidding on potentially divisive ethnic issues (Sisk 1996)” (Palmer 2001: 3). Palmer questions whether Western-style, objective, independent media are similarly problematic in such societies. Under the typical, majoritarian broadcasting model, minority groups might well be fully excluded, or media outlets would polarize themselves or be polarized and channeled to interact with specific groups. In such contexts, the media architecture (as well as the governance structure) should “create an incentive structure for ethnic groups to mediate their differences through the legitimate institutions of a common democratic state” and “reward and reinforce political leaders who moderate on divisive ethnic themes and to persuade citizens to support moderation, bargaining, and reciprocity among ethnic groups” (Palmer 2001: 4; citing Sisk 1996: 33). Power sharing presents an alternative approach that can ensure adequate ethnic representation and minimize conflict between ethnic groups. Drawing on Arend Lijphart’s consociational model and Donald Horowitz’s integrative model, Palmer develops a power sharing approach to broadcasting1 (Palmer 2001; Jusic´ and Palmer 2008). A consociational broadcasting system would have separate stations for each major ethnic group to ensure group autonomy (Palmer 2001; Jusic´ and Palmer 2008). An integrative broadcasting system would have a multiplicity of stations, none defined as ethnically oriented, and perhaps operate under a public service umbrella. In an integrative approach,

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stations would not appeal to ethnic identity, so as to ensure multi-ethnic audiences for each station, and would potentially create bases of identity other than ethnicity. Consistent with the diagnostic approach to strategic communication, Palmer would base any approach to a media design on: (1) pre-existing institutional legacies, (2) the international protectorate, (3) the existing power structures, and (4) the structure or demography of the public (Palmer 2001: 7).2 A second element in thinking through media structure and content involves supporting the idea of the nation. In many of these contexts, what makes the state crisis-ridden or, in the extreme case, failing, is the absence of an agreed-upon government, an entity that is capable of carrying out basic governmental functions. The narrative of future capacity is significant, as is the nurturing of legitimacy. Nancy Fraser discusses some of these issues in an essay on “Shifting landscapes of political claims-making” (Fraser 2008). She considers that it is important to shift from thinking about justice primarily in terms of redistribution towards focussing on representation. She revises her schema to consider what she calls the “who” factor, namely, the frame in which issues of redistribution and representation are contained. In thinking about the structure of the media in conflict zones, this frame – the nature of the entity which is to emerge or about which an architecture should be decided – is obviously both the understood objective and the overriding complexity. In many, though not all, conflict zones, the very definition of the frame is key to examining and structuring the media and approaching their content. The frame influences what would be considered pluralist and what remedy there is for intense and potentially destructive partisanship. There are often interests for whom maintaining a weak state is desirable and, indeed, some “weaknesses” can be preferable to various regressive forms of “strength.” Strategies to be communicated may include secessionism, genocide, or racism. In most of the contemporary contexts, the international community is seeking to build viability and sustainability, and its communications strategy, if one exists, is or ought to be in harmony with these goals. In the Middle East, for example, the emphasis on a twostate solution virtually mandates a narrative of Palestine; that there is the texture and tissue of a state. In the Oslo Peace Accords, Israel and the


Palestinian Authority jointly committed (hardly fully executed) to support proclaiming and underpinning the central ideas of the concept and limiting the vitriol that might undermine them. The media are about the negotiation of the frame itself. While the media can have a role in providing this space and negotiating and articulating divergent perspectives, for example, reflecting reconciliation and building consensus on past historical events, the involvement of the state in negotiation and dialogue is key. A public broadcasting service is often defended and implemented as part of an approach to media governance that seeks to define the national whole. Whether it can perform this function in all cases is open to doubt. These factors underscore another element of media policy in crisis states: enabling or supporting efforts at recuperating governing functions, which includes providing leeway for criticisms of the government and efforts that will help make it accountable. In 2005, a somewhat controversial report by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) Crisis States Research Centre, Why Templates for Media Development Do Not Work in Crisis States, questioned the standard approach to the functioning of press and broadcasters which is largely framed in free expression terms (Putzel and van der Zwan 2005). As I have mentioned, in a fragile state, almost by definition, the situation of “governance” itself is in the balance; a principal goal may be to secure a context where there is an entity that can and does govern. In this effort to consolidate power and build a nation, it is instructive to consider how those in charge, be they a provisional government, the struggling status quo, the international community, or others, use the media to these ends. James Putzel, one of the authors of the LSE report, argued that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Standard templates of “good governance” involving the devolution of power and the promotion of private and non-governmental agents of development may be not only inadequate to the challenge of state-building, but positively counter-productive if not accompanied by singular efforts to support elite coalition formation and significantly increase capacity at the level of the central state. (Putzel et al. 2008: iii)

Here, the focus is on the role of the media in preserving stability and in contributing to a

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Global Media Policy and Crisis States well-functioning government. Since lack of transparency, corruption, and institutional incapacities are often the primary reasons for lack of capacity in the central state, a critical role for the media would continue to be significant. Often, entities designing or supporting governance assume that establishing structures that mimic, more or less, idealized systems of independent media is the necessary approach, or that in all instances a commitment to free expression trumps considerations relating to capacity to govern. Because of the hazards of repression, following this assumption is usually necessary. At the same time, in a more revisionist view, too much pluralism, too much abrasive dissent, might make governance in many of these circumstances impossible. The tension between these two approaches needs to be addressed. An additional policy consideration is relatively obvious: avoiding persistent destabilizing violence. For some, the use of strategic communications to foster violence may be key. The spreading of rumor (or fact) may be a purposive element of a group seeking to alter public attitudes. Violence becomes an element of mobilization, an effective lynch-pin for moving towards passion and anger. Strategic communications and the encouragement of violence are hardly distinct, especially in fragile and crisis states. Ibrahim Al Marashi (2007) has developed an approach to conceptualizing when reactive intervention is desirable. How does one distinguish among communicators whose strategies are within the acceptable traditions of free expression and when, particularly in crisis states, a strategy is so dangerous as to be subject to limitation? Drawing on an International Media Support (IMS) report, with Rwanda as a touchstone, Al Marashi identified four stages to watch out for if one is seeking to avoid violence and certainly the danger of genocide. Al Marashi looked primarily at those who were seeking to shape opinions and move audiences within a conflict or crisis state, but much of his approach applies to external communicators as well. The first stage is identification of a strong ideology that allows the strategic communicator to be effective. The second stage is gaining control over a mass medium or mode of consistent distribution of the ideology. A third stage is most difficult to identify – when there is, embedded in the strategic communications, the psychological preparation to


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hate. Finally, there is the actual call to violence (Al Marashi 2007: 73). Calls to violence are typical modes of function in a market for loyalties in a crisis or conflict zone. Strategic communicators recognize and seek to take advantage of the vulnerability of audiences in these unstable or destabilizing moments. The call to violence may create its own pathway of access to significant audiences, and the capability of binding them to the communicator’s cause. The response, strong censorship based on limiting appeals to violence, can be read as a way (often but not always appropriate) to limit access to the marketplace. The complexities and nuances of post-conflict situations impede the simple importation of external models. How and when media should be shaped to aid in power sharing, how media are structured to assist in nation-building, how they relate to improving governance, and how to understand the relationship of media to destabilizing violence, all of this is the stuff of contextual analysis. The prescription for Afghanistan is different from that for Somalia; that of state of emergency Georgia is different from that of post-Dayton Accords Bosnia–Herzegovina. One could play this analysis through many crisis or post-conflict environments. Occupations are clearly different from failing states. Occupations have the characteristic of great control and the illusion, at least, that one can affect events and structures. Failing states present the opposite problem, one where there seems to be no effective governance; here, international constraints and self-policing are required to curb the potential excesses of vital players. Media outcomes are different where there have been “pacted” conclusions to civil wars (as in Lebanon) from where there are not.

Iraq as an Example In the remainder of this chapter, I turn to Iraq to examine how considerations for the media’s role in conflict avoidance or resolution played itself out in a particular instance of media policy development. Iraq presents a context where there was significant contestation to influence the population of the country after the invasion and occupation and some attempt to channel, deflect, or favor

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certain contenders. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Iraq could be characterized as a place of occupation where there was strong external control and the apparent capacity to structure the next state of institutions as the state was transformed. In terms of media, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the United States (US)-funded and -led governing entity, developed two key Orders, namely Order 65 and Order 66 (Coalition Provisional Authority 2004, 2004a; Price et al. 2009: 231). These Orders articulated the generally accepted objectives for an idealized post-conflict media. Order 66 established the equivalent of a public service broadcaster from the shell of state television; this entity sought, and may have actually provided, integrative fiber at critical moments, though there is no thorough study to determine whether this is the case. Order 65 created a National Communications and Media Commission (NCMC) designed, in part, to “encourage pluralism and diverse political debate,” though the Commission was relatively passive (Price et al. 2009: 231). In 2004, the NCMC issued an Interim Broadcasting Programme Code of Practice which provided standards to avoid violence. For example, the Code provided that “programmes shall meet with generally accepted standards of civility and respect for ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of Iraq” (Stanhope Centre nd: np).3 But the Orders masked the policy issues that festered as various political entities, including the US government, Iran, and others, sought to influence the particular market for loyalties that was post-invasion Iraq. The factors that I have outlined above, especially power sharing, framing of the state, achieving governability, and avoiding violence, were all present as the first five years after 2003 unfurled.

Power sharing Should media policy have taken power sharing more into account or, put differently, did power sharing become a reflected element of emerged policy? A recurring theme in debates on the future of Iraq, starting after the invasion, was that the state faced civil war and partition. The existence of ethnic Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs with a history of ethnic cleansing and geographic pluralism presented one form of division, while the sharp


animosities within and between Sunni and Shi’a Muslim sects were another. After 2003, the postwar chaos in Iraq led to fractured identities based on ethnic, sectarian, and tribal divisions, taken advantage of by political elites, opposition leaders, and non-state actors. These ethno-sectarian communities were mobilized through patronage-based politics. The postwar process of democratization enshrined this insecurity and warlordism (Price et al. 2009: 232). Whether the state of Iraq will survive intact or be divided and what place federalism will play are yet to be determined, but the question here is how media structure related to all of this. As in other contexts relatively new to independent media and in the wake of conflict, ideal media pluralism was hardly present (Karlowicz 2003). When the national communications regulator was established and when its licensing mandate was implemented, there was little attention to the relationship between license applicants and power distribution within the society. No conscious effort to reflect partisan interests occurred in assigning licenses, nor was there a policy of avoiding what would become heavily partisan broadcasters. If there were to be “pacted” power sharing, it would not be formally represented in the distribution of licenses. The model for issuing licenses was basically firstcome, first-served, as long as applicants met prescribed standards. Except, and it was a big exception, for Kurdistan, little was done actively to ensure that political groups each received media allocations (e.g., terrestrial licenses), or that each was equitably represented in an emerging Iraq Media Network (IMN) (Price et al. 2009: 235). Rather, through various mechanisms – self-help, operating in an unlicensed manner, satellite broadcasting without a license – groups arrayed in the bid for power obtained media outlets to assist their cause. In post war Iraq, private Iraqi media, with ownership in the hands of competing political Islamist and ethnic factions, reflect the country’s conflicting ethno-sectarian agendas. In the early post war period, Iraqi Islamist parties used their media to stress unity among Iraq’s communities. But following the February 2006 bombing of the Shi’a Al-’Askariyya shrine in the city of Samarra, when Iraq experienced a spiral of inter-sectarian violence, the country’s ethno-sectarian media demonstrated the potential to further the gap between Iraq’s communities (Price et al. 2009: 237).

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Global Media Policy and Crisis States Media policy seemed non-attentive to these power-sharing opportunities. Of course, groups within and outside Iraq immediately saw the importance of media and general communications strategies as a part of political strengthening of subgroups within the society. Iran established terrestrial transmitters near the Iraqi border and beamed in Al Alam, in Arabic, shortly after the end of the Coalition invasion. The US military immediately substituted its own program supply on the frequency previously used by Saddam Hussein’s state broadcast network. In Kurdistan, where there had been a great deal of autonomy since the 1991 Gulf War, there was already an intensely independent Kurdish media. However, power sharing was neither a feature of the licensing of stations nor of the staffing and structure of the IMN, later to be known as Al Iraqiya. Because there was no power-sharing agreement within the country generally, there was no policy that could be enforced within the media sector. Again, the Kurdish exception proves the rule. Kurdistan ignored the CPA Orders in terms of its media system and relied on rigorous political structuring to ensure that media messaging in the autonomous area would reflect political power sharing there. Except for Kurdistan, then, rather than a media sphere, Iraq developed what Al Marashi (2007) calls sectarian media “spherecules” that had the potential to further the gap between Iraq’s communities, developing identities along sectarian lines and weakening any kind of national belonging. Additionally, these media spherecules owned by Islamist groups had the potential to increase sectarian nationalism in the guise of political Islam in Iraq (Price et al. 2009: 236).

Framing the state From the beginning of the post-invasion period, different constituencies had different visions and were willing to invest in media to help reinforce their idea of the future of Iraq. A central preoccupation of the strategic communicators competing in Iraq was developing and promoting what a future Iraq would look like. Consider Iranian communicators seeking to reinforce southern Iraq as related to Iran and the post-conflict period being a moment for Shi’a ascension. Consider the Kurdish


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strategists seeking to establish a framework and audience receptivity to a divided Iraq. The CPA-constructed IMN had the aim of reinforcing a national identity. However, in the fragile postwar political environment dominated by exile or opposition organizations formed, for the most part, along ethno-sectarian lines, the IMN’s tendency to align with the ruling party weakened its capacity to broker among candidates and parties. In addition, its ability to accomplish that goal was mired in banal contracting and confused goals during a critical period. Mediocrity and possible corruption in US contracting procedures meant that hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on establishing the IMN with no demonstrable impact in terms of national cohesion. US programmers initiated Iraqi versions of Good Morning America without any sophisticated effort to understand what would have an effect and in what direction. Indeed, because the US approach was so rhetorically and ideologically mired in concepts of “objectivity” and absence of propaganda, little formal attention could be given to the idea of using media to frame the state (Price et al. 2009: 235).

Governance The role of media policy in ensuring or enabling effective governance in crisis zones is never far from the minds of those in power, to the extent that they control the instruments of diffusion. On the one hand, media can be used as a tool to secure support for the government or silence criticism. For example, in various crisis contexts, the government in charge often seeks to close down media that are hypercritical (with the test of “hyper” often being quite relaxed), or prohibit entry of critical or potentially threatening voices. While this can be a contest over defining the nation, it can also reflect the government’s view that its capacity to govern is threatened. In Iraq, during the CPA period, another media-related Order, Order 14, was deployed (though not often) to close down newspapers that the Administrator considered to be promoting a policy or encouraging group activity deemed hostile to the CPA mission (Price 2007). To use the taxonomy of Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini, one could ask whether Iraq was emerging

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as a polarized pluralist society, a democratic corporatist society, or a liberal society, along British and American lines (Hallin and Mancini 2004). In a post-conflict environment, groups with different interests may seek to push the emerging structure in one direction or another. But it is not enough to argue that one of the media’s objectives in a crisis context should be to facilitate the capacity of the state to govern. Different players have different definitions of what the prerequisites for governing might be and their own role in it. In Iraq, one argument for an IMN, public in nature, was that it would allow for a channel that permitted a national view to emerge and, perhaps, direct appeals from government to population. Polarization can reinforce government or pull it apart. Paul Cochrane refers to a “Lebanonization” of the Iraqi media (Cochrane 2006). Both media systems essentially emerged out of a conflict, with a major difference being that Lebanese media formed over a conflict that spanned more than a decade, whereas Iraq’s media erupted within a year after the Iraq War. Lebanon’s media’s structure was “pacted” (with set-asides for ownership by particular religious groups), while Iraq’s was not. Nabil Dajani defines the Lebanese media as constituting a “refeudalization of the public sphere,” with the defining characteristic as follows: “The Lebanese media, and particularly television, reflect and reinforce the characteristics and contradictions of Lebanon’s political and tribal confessional society” (Dajani 2006: np). While most of the stations in Lebanon and Iraq are ostensibly independent, they operate as extensions of political institutions. In Lebanon, the political factions that have media outlets at their disposal include the Lebanese forces (Lebanese Broadcasting Company International), Hezbollah (Al Manar), Harakat Amal (NBN), and Tayyar Al-Mustaqbal (Future TV). These actors have deemed it necessary to have a television channel to convey political propaganda and to inspire their constituents. During times of political stability among the factions, such polarized plural media ownership is not problematic, and the content of the media outlets reflects the stability in governance. During times of discord and disintegration, however, media polarization further undermines a weak state’s capacity to govern. Whereas in Lebanon there are strong, largely secular, channels


(as those channels have evolved), including Future and LBCI, to counter Islamist media outlets, in Iraq the dominant media had been owned by Islamist parties (Dajani 2006), though this situation may be changing.

Media and the avoidance of violence In Iraq, a number of players sought to use violence as a trope for the swaying of public opinion. Violence (or the representation of violence) offered a way of breaking through and asserting the relevance, and possible dominance, of certain groups. Determining ways of showing violence (for instance, the beheading of prisoners) was a strategic choice that could create terror and instability. Before the US military drawdown, during the period of active and intense Sunni opposition from some quarters and the guerilla use of explosive devices and suicide bombs, satellite broadcasting was used to bring images to Iraqis that would affect their attitudes toward government. It was the suspicion, merited or not, of the CPA Administrator and high officials in Iraq that Al Jazeera was an instrument used to emphasize (and thus foster) violence and undermine the capacity of the government to govern that led the Iraqi government to order the offices of Al Jazeera closed in Iraq, and formally restricted access by its reporters to Iraqi officials. The decisive moment in conflict media begins when the participants make direct exhortations to violence. The media emerge with the omnipresence of violent frames, such as “enemy,” “accomplice,” “traitor,” “massacre,” and “murder.” Lists of killed victims are presented as “victories,” while the perpetrators of massacres would be deemed as “heroes,” which would encourage even more killings. In the Iraqi context, Al Marashi finds that both Sunni and Shi’a media, while not yet directly calling viewers to violence, engage in articulations of violence that can be located at various places along the continuum as set forth above (Al Marashi 2007; Price et al. 2009). The potential existed in Shi’a discourse as it stressed: “notions of a past marred by ‘victimization,’ and as a community ‘oppressed’ since the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Iraqi state. Such suffering culminated under Saddam Hussein’s rule” (Price et al. 2009: 237).

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Global Media Policy and Crisis States Those who foster this discourse may not be targeting Iraq’s Sunni population per se, but the content serves as the basis for attacking foreign Arab fighters who came to Iraq and who subscribe to the Wahhabi or Salafist ideologies, and those Iraqis who cooperate with them. Furthermore, the Shi’a media express a sense that they are generally abandoned by the primarily Sunni Arab world. Victimization is also expressed after suicide attacks on the Shi’a Ashura processions, and particularly when Shi’a shrines are targeted. “Self-defense” is articulated by calling upon the Shi’a to have faith in the security forces to restore stability, most of whom happen to be manned by Shi’a Muslims. On the other side, the Arab Sunni discourse focusses on a notion of “disempowerment” following the 2003 Iraq War, which brought an end to the Sunni minority rule over Iraq. Their discourse also expresses a sense of “victimization” at the hands of US “occupying forces” and the “militias,” a euphemism for Shi’a death squads that operate privately or within the Iraqi security forces (Price et al. 2009: 237–238). Studies conducted by the United States Institute of Peace on media in conflict states also warn of the capability of media becoming tools of warlords as a result of rushed and hastily conceived media plans (Frohardt and Temin 2003; Bajraktari and Hsu 2007). As Iraq pursued democratization after 2003, its institutions were weak and Islamist parties in the government, as well as Islamist opposition parties, played the nationalism card to augment their own power. In Izabella Karlowicz’s work on media development in post-conflict Balkans she warns that “unregulated media may be dangerous and can encourage, rather than calm, nationalistic tendencies” (Karlowicz 2003: 127). In the case of the Balkans, Karlowicz highlights “the dangers of poorly planned assistance to the development of the Fourth Estate in post-conflict areas, which may cause an outburst of ethnic conflict rather than fostering peaceful cohabitation” (Karlowicz 2003: 127). An “outburst of ethnic conflict,” or in the Iraqi case, “ethno-sectarian conflict,” has become a reality. The case of the Al-Zawraa satellite channel, examined by Al Marashi (2007), illustrates how unregulated, free media pose a danger to a post-conflict state. Al Marashi has argued that Iraq’s Islamist media briefly entered a more advanced phase, closer to violence, during the height of the tensions after


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the bombing of the Shi’a Al-’Askariyya shrine in the city of Samarra in February 2006. The various sectarian and ethnic media outlets eventually called for restraint among Iraq’s communities, and tensions further de-escalated by 2007 with the closure of Al Zawraa and when Iraqi Sunni Islamist factions and tribes began to oppose the strict religious para-state created by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, eventually realigning themselves against the terrorists. The tribes coalesced into the Reawakening Councils, otherwise known as Al-Sahwa, and managed to bring relative stability to their areas and forcing Al Qaeda elements to disperse and seek refuge in other parts of Iraq (Price et al. 2009: 237–238).

Conclusion Crisis states are laboratories in pathology. They often have the characteristics of failing states where there is not the capacity to serve as umpire or impartial regulator among competing parties intensely seeking to shape the range and intensity of persuasive opinions with a public sphere. Force is a characteristic response where there is no suitable mechanism for sorting out the relationship between competing voices and the persistence of conflict (and often chaos). In this chapter, I have sought to indicate a model, in the market for loyalties, that might help to explain how intense partisans, within and outside a state’s boundaries, may approach media and communications systems in a crisis context. I have suggested a number of approaches – power sharing, framing the state, facilitating governance, and avoiding violence – that emerge as aspects of conflict resolution in these contexts. And I have traced some versions of how these factors played out in the first five years after the establishment of the occupation and subsequent governments in Iraq. Just as there is no typical “crisis state,” there is no wholly predictable way of describing the interaction between government, the parties to conflict, and international players as they approach the media. But the factors set forth here can serve as a guide. That, of course, has implications for what might be called global media and communication policy and governance, for the articulation and effort to enforce international norms. To the extent that

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crises are resolved through the imposition of an external order, amounting in some instances to an occupation, there are rules that govern occupying powers, but they are not necessarily rules that dictate media policy. Occupations by democratic states seem, to some extent, to impose systems that push toward democratizing outcomes. That was true of the post war occupations in Japan and Germany and can be seen again both in Bosnia– Herzegovina and in Iraq. In Japan and Germany, the occupations were thorough, pervasive, and systematic. In Iraq, that was far less the case. In each instance, a “market for loyalties” analysis would fix the occupying power as the institution that established the nature of a working cartel; who was permitted to enter the cauldron of persuasion, and who would be kept out. One could look at the Dayton Accords and the period of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and UN authority in Bosnia–Herzegovina as illustrating how a “market for loyalties” analysis encompasses the principles noted in this chapter for approaching media in a crisis state. “Power sharing,” and all its media aspects, is quintessential cartelization. Not all power-sharing agreements have media components, but some, as in Lebanon, most certainly do. The way in which parties to a conflict ultimately agree on a mode for framing the state and working for its effectiveness can also reflect this approach. Finally, the allowance of a media of violence or its exclusion can be the decision of an effective cartel, otherwise expressed as a regulatory outcome. In a well-functioing government, regulation does not so often appear as cartel behavior. But in a crisis context, where government and its absence are part of a rawer and more contested environment, the reality of local bargaining and the remoteness of global policy are much more evident. And the implications of this “cartel”-like behavior for the positioning of global governance regimes tend to pronounce how things “should be.”

Notes 1

2

Palmer revisits this question in a 2008 essay co-authored with Tarik Jusic´ (see Jusic´ and Palmer 2008). Ellis and Williams provide detailed studies of how ethnic divisions in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia


3

were mobilized through the use of media to activate ethnic identities for the gains of political elites (Williams 2003: 151; Ellis 2006: 66–67). Also, see the original Coalition Provisional Authority documents at http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulations/ 20040320_CPAORD65.pdf and http://www.cpa-iraq. org/regulations/20040320_CPAORD66.pdf (accessed 19/11/2009).

References Al Marashi, I. (2007) “The dynamics of Iraq’s media,” in Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems in Iraq. Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) Occasional Paper Series, Philadelphia PA: CGCS, pp. 67–101, http:// www.global.asc.upenn.edu/docs/CGCS_OcPa_1. pdf (accessed 19/11/2009). Bajraktari, Y., and Hsu, E. (2007) Developing Media in Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. Coalition Provisional Authority (2004) Order 65: Iraqi Communications and Media Commission (March 20), http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulations/#Orders (accessed 22/02/2010). Coalition Provisional Authority (2004a) Order 66: Public Service Broadcasting (March 20), http://www.cpa-iraq. org/regulations/#Orders (accessed 22/02/2010). Cochrane, P. (2006) “The ‘Lebanonization’ of the Iraqi media: An overview of Iraq’s television landscape,” Transnational Broadcast Studies, 16: np, http://www.tbs journal.com/Cochrane.html (accessed 01/04/2008). Dajani, N. (2006) “The refeudalization of the public sphere: Lebanese television news coverage and the Lebanese political process,” Transnational Broadcast Studies 16: np, http://www.tbsjournal.com/Dajani. html (accessed 01/04/2008). Ellis, D. G. (2006) Transforming Conflict: Communication and Ethnopolitical Conflict. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Fraser, N. (2008) “1989 and beyond: Shifting landscapes of political claims-making,” Transregional Center for Democratic Studies and Research Network 1989. New York: New School for Social Research. Frohardt, M., and Temin, J. (2003) Use and Abuse of Media in Vulnerable Societies. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. Hallin, D. C., and Mancini, P. (2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jusic´, T., and Palmer, L. K. (2008) “The media and powersharing: Towards an analytical framework for understanding media policies in post-conflict societies,” Global Media Journal (Polish Edition), 1(4): 110–139.

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Global Media Policy and Crisis States Karlowicz, I. (2003) “The difficult birth of the Fourth Estate: Media development and democracy assistance in post-conflict Balkans,” in M. Sükösd and P. Bajomi-Lázár (eds) Reinventing Media: Media Policy Reform in East-Central Europe. Budapest: Central European University Center for Policy Studies, pp. 115–136. Palmer, L. K. (2001) “The power-sharing process: Media reforms in Bosnia–Herzegovina,” Kokkalis Graduate Student Workshop. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/kokkalis/ GSW3/Ken_Palmer.pdf (accessed 20/06/2007). Price, M. E. (1994) “The market for loyalties: Electronic media and the global competition for allegiances,” Yale Law Journal, 104: 667–705. Price, M. E. (1995) Television: The Public Sphere and National Identity. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Price, M. E. (2002) Media and Sovereignty: The Global Information Revolution and Its Challenge to State Power. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Price, M. E. (2007) “Forward: Iraq and the making of state media policy,” in Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems in Iraq. Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) Occasional Paper Series, Philadelphia, PA: CGCS, pp. 3–14, http://www.global.asc.upenn.edu/docs/CGCS_ OcPa_1.pdf (accessed 19/11/2009).


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Price, M. E., Al Marashi, I., and Stremlau, N. A. (2009) “Media in the peace-building process: Ethiopia and Iraq,” in P. Norris (ed.) Public Sentinel: News, Media, Governance, and Reform. Washington, DC: World Bank, pp. 221–241. Putzel, J., Lindemann, S., and Schouten, C. (2008) “Drivers of change in the Democratic Republic of Congo: The rise and decline of the state and challenges for reconstruction: A literature review,” Crisis States Research Centre Working Papers Series No. 2. London: Crisis States Research Centre, LSE. Putzel, J., and van der Zwan, J. (2005) Why Templates for Media Development Do Not Work in Crisis States, Crisis States Research Centre. London: Crisis States Research Centre, LSE. Sisk, T. (1996) Power-Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts. New York: Carnegie Corporation. Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research (nd) Iraq Media Developments Newsletter: Issue 26, London: Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research, LSE, http://www.stanhopecentre. org/research/26.shtml (accessed 18/11/2009). United Nations (1966) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. New York: United Nations. Williams Jr., R. M. (2003) The Wars Within: Peoples and States in Conflict. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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12

The Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy Landscape: The Case of Russia Andrei Richter

Introduction1 Twenty years ago, the first mass media statute was introduced in Russia, raising hopes that censorship would cease to be a common practice and granting basic freedoms and independence to journalists in Russia. This statute heightened expectations that further expansion of media liberties would serve democracy and the public well, and would make the “fourth estate” a powerful engine of reforms and a watchdog of democratic government.2 As I discuss in this chapter, today these hopes have largely failed to be fulfilled. In the opinion of all the international organizations that monitor media freedoms, Russia still trails most of the countries in the world.3 The humble state of the free press in Russia originated in the mid-1990s when the brakes were put on to slow down measures to develop a free press. For example, the original version of the mass media statute of December 27, 1991 outlined a future statute on broadcasting, wherein television and radio would be overseen by an independent commission (Russia 1991). Several earlier attempts by the Russian Parliament to introduce such a statute were blocked by the President. At the time of writing this chapter, the most impor-

tant media outlets are governed by the decrees of the executive: broadcast licenses are issued by an appointed body at the Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications; state-run stations enjoy a relatively free ride while independent broadcasters are under the constant threat of losing their business licenses if they are found to have crossed the boundaries of political correctness and loyalty; and public television remains a wishful dream and ratings and political expediency are pushing educational and children’s programming off the airwaves. Criminal liability for defamation, a legacy of the Soviet past, is not simply a piece of legislation. Quite often it is enforced by the local courts of justice to put bold (and arrogant) journalists behind bars and to frighten others who would dare to think of disseminating malicious statements about public figures. If the media attack the official ideology, rather than public officials, the federal statute “On Counteraction of Extremist Activities” (Federal Law 2002) can be used. This statute allows any public prosecutor to issue an official warning to news outlets suspected of disseminating political “extremist views” and to seek a court decision that will suspend or stop a newspaper or broadcaster, as well as confiscate published newspaper copies.



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Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy The federal statue was used, for example, to punish press outlets that conducted interviews with Chechen separatists who blamed Russian authorities for human rights violations in the region. As a result, and as discussed below, no one dares to interview these separatists, following this incident. Even when the media strive to be cautious and balanced, they face additional challenges: a substantial majority of the press is not sustainable due to the low levels of advertising revenues (especially aggravated by the current global financial crisis). In 2004, the Parliament withdrew a uniform widescale system of economic subsidies directed at the mass media. This coincided with a drive toward price hikes by the Russian postal service, which has a near monopoly over the distribution of the printed press. As a result, editors and journalists became dependent upon the benefits offered by government and big business, to a greater extent than at any other time in the recent history of the country. The picture, however, is not all gloomy. Access by journalists to public information (as provided for by the Mass Media Statute of 1991) is more often than not barred by government officials due to a lack of clear responsibility for ensuring that this right of the press is not abused by the authorities. However, a corresponding bill to make the authorities’ decisions about rights to access public information more transparent was brought into force on January 1, 2010.4 In addition, at the end of 2009, mechanisms were introduced to guarantee that all political parties elected to the State Duma (the national parliament) were granted equal access to broadcast time. The Russian Federation is a full member of the Council of Europe and other international organizations that are bound by certain standards of freedom of expression. And these standards are not unattainable. Many neighboring post-Soviet countries that started from the same reference point when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed in 1991 have made enviable headway. Most of them have enacted broadcasting statutes: the Baltic and TransCaucasian states, Moldova, and Kyrgyzstan have introduced a system of public broadcasting; and national laws have barred these governments from entering the market to compete with the commercial publications. Quite a few countries have abolished crimi-


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nal defamation and ended the system of special state registration of media outlets, originally established by Soviet legislation in 1990. Some countries, such as Georgia and Latvia, have restricted public figures from seeking protection of their reputation in the courts. The majority of these countries have provided for simple access to government information in their laws. Current Russian leaders may ignore the dismal state of the nation’s mass media and press freedoms and they may suggest original pathways of development for the country. But these are paths that lead nowhere as new laws that have been introduced often further curtail the freedoms enshrined in the 1991 statute. Globalization of the media and the diffusion of new technologies may – sooner or later – make excessive state control, that attempts to infringe on these freedoms, obsolete. Rather than face an inevitable future, being cornered and having a bad name among modern politicians (in the case of adhering to current policies), it is preferable to earn honor and recognition as political reformers and libertarians, as the country’s leaders did twenty years ago. The question is whether there are sufficient internal and external pressures for changes in the Russian media environment in directions that would provide the political will and the economic means to build an open media and information access culture consistent with the legal principles that have been enshrined in the 1991 statute. While some may argue that the technical characteristics of the Internet mean that it is inevitably aligned with those in favor of declining censorship, others turn to an assessment of the political climate within countries and regions, as well as at the global level, to ascertain how today’s technology, legal, and political developments interact to yield a climate of journalism freedom or repression (Tumber 2001). This chapter is devoted to an analysis of the changes in the understanding of what is freedom of the media in Russia. It discusses the media law and policy measures that affect and hamper this freedom, with a special focus on the Internet as a new platform for free mass information that is still largely unregulated in Russia. I conclude by setting out an agenda for Russian law and policy in the near future and locate current developments in the wider context of changing arrangements for the governance of the media at the global level.

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Opening of the Media Until 1990, all print and broadcast journalism was regulated not by special legislative enactments but by the rulings of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU) and the corresponding resolutions of the USSR Council of Ministers. Between 1917 and 1987, the CC CPSU is known to have adopted 185 resolutions, letters, and circulars concerning the periodical press (not counting Party congress resolutions). Some of these documents were of a general nature (e.g., “On measures to improve municipal and district newspapers,” 1984) while others were more specific (e.g., “On the editor of the newspaper Sever, Comrade Zadov,” 1939).5 These bodies passed resolutions on every issue arising in journalism, starting with who could be the editor of a central newspaper or magazine and ending with calls to build new print works, organize new publications, or close down, break up or, conversely, merge existing media. The local Party and Soviet bodies are subordinate to the central authorities who make decisions on issues related to the local media. The main document for regulating what became, in essence, a new type of post-Soviet journalism was the CPSU 19th All-Union Conference resolution “On openness” in 1988. The emphasis on openness, or “glasnost,” presupposed a press with social, legal, and moral responsibilities in line with the expectations created through journalism practice in other regions of the world. In this regard, the resolution basically represented a ready-made blueprint for a law on glasnost that was anticipated but which had yet to be passed. Thus, the resolution foresaw extensive opportunities for the media (as well as for the citizens) to seek out information: statistical bulletins and the drafts of decisions that would affect people’s lives were to be made public; leaders at all levels would be held to account periodically; library resources would be made accessible; and archives would be easier to use. The resolution proposed enshrining in the Constitution the right of Soviet citizens to information. It prohibited the use of glasnost “to the detriment of the interests of the Soviet state,” “for advocating war and violence” and brutality, and spreading pornography (CPSU 1988: np). Glasnost, the resolution said, should not be a


vehicle to publish state, military, or official secrets; infringe citizens’ lawful rights; disrupt public order, safety, health, or morality; or circulate non-objective and defamatory information. It envisaged that anyone unfairly criticized would have a right of reply in the offending publication. As abuses of glasnost, the resolution listed ethical sins such as a lack of objectivity, demagogy, pursuit of national, regional, corporate, or group self-interest, and lack of diversity of opinion within a media outlet.6 I return below to a consideration of these requirements in my discussion on the state’s more recent assessments of “secrets” and whether press freedom can be achieved in the absence of transparency and access, by citizens and journalists, to government information. By 1990 glasnost had permeated the entire country but the production and dissemination of mass information existed in a legal vacuum. The media were hugely influential but, in legal terms, they were absolutely impotent. Media outlets tended to be part of publishing organizations that, in most cases, belonged to the Communist Party, which, after the repeal of clause 6 of the Constitution (on its leading role in society), was demoralized and organizationally and legally enfeebled. Editorial offices lacked their own assets and bank accounts and were unable to make their own decisions about the development of their businesses. The profits from millions of print runs and the new phenomenon of advertising generated revenues that went to the publishers or the public or state organizations of which a given newspaper or magazine was an “organ.” Yet the opportunity to set up a private sector newspaper remained inconceivable. The situation was more or less the same in broadcasting: the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting (Gosteleradio) of the USSR Council of Ministers had exclusive control over all broadcasters in the republics and regions. These companies had no legal independence. Meanwhile, journalists were enjoying greater creative freedom and acquiring enormous prestige. They were enthusiastically elected to all types of municipal, regional, and national councils (or Soviets), yet in professional and organizational terms, they had no legally enshrined rights or duties. This suited neither journalists nor editors. Most importantly, it did not suit the country’s leaders, so a top-level decision was taken to draft legislation for the print and broadcast media.

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Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy The USSR law “On the press and other mass media” (hereafter referred to as the Press Statute) was enacted on June 12, 1990, and entered into force on August 1 of the same year. It changed the legal landscape for editorial offices and journalists. Enactment of the Press Statute resulted in the legal confirmation of a process already in progress, that of uncoupling the mass media from the CPSU and the Soviet state. This was the main condition necessary at the time for achieving freedom of mass information. And in turn, this de facto separation required journalism to perform a new “independent” function, albeit on the basis of the rules for the profession. The Press Statute set out these rules and established particular rights for both journalists and editorial officers, who, as a result, acquired an impersonal and collective existence independent of external pressures from the state and owners (founders). At this time, journalists could be said to have become almost completely free of external pressures, but this new-found freedom was not to last. The Press Statute paved the way for the mass media to transform itself into a fourth branch of government or the “fourth estate,” in line with the way this concept has developed in the analysis of the media and the press in the United States and elsewhere (i.e., alongside the legislature, executive, and judiciary) (Schultz 1998). The media became the hub around which those opposed to the communist leadership coalesced (Luknitskiy 1998). By now, the CPSU was no longer capable of regulating and imposing its rulings on journalism, but that was not the only outstanding feature of Russian society at the time. The three other branches were relatively independent of each other, but the single and all-pervading structure by which the Party controlled them had collapsed. They re-emerged in a new capacity, and the appearance, alongside these branches, of a new, fourth, branch was regarded as a natural part of the process of the country’s renewal and democratization, especially given the credit afforded to the press for its role in transforming society. Again, this was in line with discussions of the relationship between media and democracy which had been theorized and studied in other regions of the world (Curran 1996; Fishkin 1997; McNair 2000; Scammell and Semetko 2000). How these new levers were to be used depended largely upon journalists and editorial offices themselves; they enthusiastically embraced their new powers (Poltoranin 1992).


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Thus, the specific form, prevailing at that time, of regulation of journalism as the fourth power or estate presupposed the following principal and distinguishing factors: (1) repeal of state censorship and a pronounced rejection of state interference in the media’s affairs, (2) particular protection of the rights of journalists as persons performing a public duty, and (3) particular privileges for journalists to access state and public sources of information. In the new democratic Russia, the concept of freedom of mass information was defined in Article 1 of the law “On the mass media” (hereafter referred to as the Mass Media Statute),7 as a lack of restrictions, apart from those contained in Russian Federation legal acts related to the mass media, with regard to: (a) Seeking, obtaining, producing, and disseminating mass information; (b) Establishing media outlets, and owning, operating, and disposing of them; and (c) Making, acquiring, keeping, and using technical facilities and raw and other materials intended for production and dissemination of media content (Russia 1991: Article 1). Here we see a “negative” definition of freedom of mass information. This means that instead of proclaiming the right of all to freedom of speech and the press, as well as to seek, obtain, produce, and disseminate mass information, this statute only says that there should be no restriction on seeking, obtaining, producing, and disseminating mass information, except when stated in legislation on the media. So, in its very definition of freedom, it refers to various restrictions. The Russian Mass Media Statute’s definition of freedom of mass information marked a departure from the ideas on press freedom in the USSR Press Statute, in that it mostly dealt with the media’s right to function freely. In other words, the citizen’s right to freedom of speech and the press (in the USSR Press Statute) was turned into a general freedom of mass information as an institution of democracy under the principle that “if it is not prohibited, then it is allowed.” As media scholar Aleksei Voinov (1997) has pointed out, the adverse consequences of this approach are, first, that the real boundaries of freedom of mass information were made dependent upon the entire body of existing legislation and, second, it devalued the very enshrining in law of freedom of mass information and reduced the possibility of invoking this freedom when seeking to protect it against legislative encroachment (Voinov 1997; Lysova 2004).

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The first element of the three-tiered formulation – freedom to seek, obtain, produce, and disseminate mass information, as established in the Russian Mass Media Statute – should be understood primarily as an established procedure for the media to request information; and its opposite, that is, that the supply of information and requests for it can be delayed or refused. The media are entitled to request information about the activities of state bodies, organizations, public associations, and their officers. There are, however, time limits for supplying information and requests to delay or refusal to supply this information. In addition, there are grounds for refusing to supply information, and a format for both requests and their corresponding responses. Importantly, the request for information is defined not as an end in itself for journalists but as an essential condition for citizens to exercise their right to receive, via the mass media, prompt, timely, and truthful information on what state bodies and public associations are doing, on political, economic, and international matters, on the condition of the environment, and so forth. For these reasons, the Mass Media Statute sets out a procedure for accrediting journalists which essentially means that state bodies and public organizations have additional obligations to supply information to journalists that are accredited by particular state bodies on demand from the media outlets. All others have general rights to inquire about information and to receive replies. This statute also defines the journalist’s principal rights, that is, to visit the following: state bodies and organizations, secure zones at sites of natural disasters and other accidents, areas where there is public disorder and public gatherings, locations where a state of emergency has been imposed, rallies and demonstrations (to take notes), and so on. Until enforcement of the statute on public access to government information in 2010, privileged access to information for journalists and the media was likely to remain highly controversial. This was because not all citizens had such a clear-cut right, and the constitutional right of all to obtain information from official sources was reduced to merely receiving such information via the media. There was an inequality between the rights and freedoms of the media as an institution and journalists as professionals in the service of that institution, on the one hand, and of citizens to access the media and to receive objective information via the media on the


other. This was fostered by the Mass Media Statute and, in fact, undoubtedly encouraged journalistic pretensions to serve as the fourth branch of government. The first element also includes a ban on censorship, meaning, in the words of the Mass Media Statute, demands by state (governmental) bodies, organizations, institutions, public associations, and their officers that media outlets seek advance clearance of reports and content or remove them from print or the air or cease issuing reports or content or part thereof. The second element in the definition of freedom of mass information is the freedom to establish a media outlet and to own, operate, and dispose of it. Unless there are exceptions explicitly indicated in the Mass Media Statute, this means that the state may not obstruct the following: citizens and organizations from establishing (founding) media, media from exercising professional independence, and freelance contributors and writers from exercising journalistic rights. Exceptions, however, do exist (e.g., foreigners and minors cannot establish media outlets, and freelancers without contracts with media entities do not have journalists’ rights). As for editorial independence, it is restricted, by obligation, to publish a press outlet’s founder’s declarations. Similar to the second element is the third in the concept of freedom of mass information, the freedom to make, acquire, keep, and use technical facilities and raw and other materials intended for the production and dissemination of media content. This means that the media are able to have their own production resources, to be licensed, and to broadcast, and that media monopolies are prohibited. There may also be material incentives for media, in the form of economic support from the state. In addition to these three elements explicitly set forth in the Russian Mass Media Statute, a fourth element is de facto guaranteed – the freedom to express an opinion in the media. This right is contained within the aforementioned ban on censorship, in the ban on editorial interference by the outlet’s founders (owners), in a journalist’s right to include personal judgments and assessments in content intended for dissemination, and in the requirement that confidentiality be maintained for journalists’ sources. What is more, it applies in the right of citizens to rebut and reply (as commentary or article) in a media outlet should the outlet carry reports that are inaccurate or that infringe upon a

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Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy citizen’s rights or legitimate interests, in the ban on prosecution for criticism, etc. The statute also defined the freedom to engage in journalism and a journalist’s right to decline to put his or her name to anything that runs counter to his or her convictions and conscience. Yekaterina Lysova (2004), a Russian-American scholar on the legal framework for journalism, regards the aim of legal regulation of the media, as creating an environment conducive such that the media can effectively perform its socially important roles. She highlights the following roles: (1) objective and impartial reporting of events; (2) representation of various viewpoints, including those that run counter to the media’s own; (3) overseeing the authorities and publicizing wrongdoing; (4) enabling ordinary citizens to express their views and, in so doing, to influence the institutions of power; and (5) ensuring full access to current information, thereby putting into effect the right of citizens to obtain information (Lysova 2004). While Lysova’s observations were made in relation to the Russian Mass Media Statute, many of the duties and roles that she highlights are probably more relevant and applicable to the successive media laws found in other post-Soviet countries, as Russian statutes do not meet these conditions (Voinov 1997). It is Tajik law that enshrines the right of citizens “to freely express their convictions and opinions and disseminate them in any form in the press and other mass media” (Tajikistan 1990: Article 2). A similar provision is contained in Article 1 of Latvia’s media statute (Latvia 1990: Article 1). The Lithuanian statute (Lithuania 1996: Article 8) requires journalists to circulate “objective information,” and Ukraine’s law “On information” (which is echoed by the law “On television and radio broadcasting,” Ukraine 1994, Article 59) lists objectivity, reliability, completeness, and accuracy among the main principles for information (Ukraine 1992: Article 5). Thus, in these and similar provisions, the statutes refer to upholding the constitutional right of citizens to freedom of expression and state support for the media, while placing on journalists a duty to supply full and objective information. And these are not mere declarations. In the Ukraine, for example, when a court is hearing a defamation case, a journalist’s failure to include “full” information in a report that was known to him or her is treated as a breach of the law and taken into account when the judgment is considered.


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To sum up, this analysis of the principle of freedom of mass information in the Russian Mass Media Statute has undergone a brief transformation. It has moved from the somewhat abstract understanding of freedom of mass information in the 1990s, as freedom of journalism (e.g., collection, processing, and dissemination of information for society via the periodical press, radio, and television), becoming more specific. It has also incorporated the following interconnecting elements: first, the right of citizens to seek, obtain, use, and disseminate information with the mass media’s assistance and also the right to freedom of expression and speech through the mass media; second, the right of the media to request and obtain information from state and other sources; and, third, the freedom to produce and disseminate mass information, including freedom to establish (found) one’s own media outlet and own, use, and dispose of it. Guarantees of the right to freedom of expression and speech, and of freedom of information via the media, came, in turn, to mean the absence of the state institution of censorship, a diversity of opinion, confidentiality of sources, and, inter alia, the individual citizen’s right of reply and rebuttal. Freedom of expression in the mass media engenders political and social engagement in society and the opportunity to oversee the activities of public institutions. All in all, the assumption is that it stimulates the development of democracy (McQuail 2003; Richter 2008; UNESCO 2009). The right to gather or obtain information from government and other sources was made real by the creation of a mechanism for the media to request and obtain information, and for state and other organizations and officers to be held to account for failing to supply it, unless it was classified. Openness of information is expected to lead to public confidence in the authorities which, in turn, is also said to promote democracy (Beumers et al. 2009). The freedom to establish media outlets and to produce and disseminate mass information signified non-discriminatory access to the “mass information market” and the “marketplace of ideas”8 (Melody 1977; Ingber 1984; McCombs and Shaw 1993), an opportunity for, above all, new and non-establishment forces to express their position on societal issues and to disseminate information, without economic or political barriers placed in their way. The freedom to

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establish media is expected to lead to civil engagement by the broadest possible social strata and national and other minorities in societal processes. And it also has the potential to expand the opportunities for democracy. All of these processes, as contained in Russian media legislation, are interlinked. Without the availability of information and without the ability to access the media market, the right to freedom of speech and opinion cannot be exercised in full measure. Without freedom of access to information and freedom of speech, the freedom to produce and disseminate mass information serves no rational purpose and becomes a sham insofar as there is no practical sense in which these principles can be upheld. Without the freedom to produce and disseminate mass information or freedom of speech and opinion, there would be no need for freedom of access to state sources of information.

Restrictions on Journalists to Counterterrorism and Extremism In the wake of 9/11, the numerous local wars in the post-Soviet countries began to be seen as a new front in the fight against international terrorism and political extremism. This was certainly true of the official approach to the events in the Dniester region (Moldova), South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Ajara (Georgia), Andijan (Uzbekistan), Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere which had implications for political speech and journalism practice. Russia’s “war on terror” relates primarily to Chechnya and the surrounding region. The first campaign, from 1994 to 1996, did not acquire the “counterterrorist” label. The current and ongoing conflict, which began in the second half of 1999, was immediately called a “counterterrorism operation” by the Kremlin, with all the ensuing legal and political consequences including those for freedom of mass information (see Braman, ch. 30 for a review of legal responses elsewhere). From the outset, the authorities expected journalists and the media to back and understand the counterterrorism line. They regarded the fight against terrorism as an ideological, social, and moral imperative rather than a military one.


Consequently, we must do battle as appropriateapplying force but also, to a significant extent, ideology and information … We must deny to the terrorists any opportunity to sow fear among the public through the media. Reporting of acts of terrorism must be highly professional, without the unnecessary display of violent scenes.9

By design or accident, the state had begun in advance to lay the political and legal framework for any counterterrorism operation. The federal statute “On the fight against terrorism” was passed as early as July 25, 1998. References to this statute when restricting freedom of mass information began to appear in the spring of 2000. Then first deputy Press, Broadcasting and Mass Communications Minister, Mikhail Seslavinsky, told the Presidential Commission for Countering Political Extremism that “apart from the media statute we also have the terrorism statute, which will be applied henceforth when evaluating journalists’ reports on Chechnya” (Gulko 2000: np). The Terrorism Statute, Article 15, which the government thought applied also to the media, stated that the public should be informed of acts of terrorism in a form and to an extent to be decided by the head of the counterterrorism operation’s command headquarters. This provision banned the circulation of material “serving to promote or justify terrorism and extremism” (Federal Law 1998: Article 15). The newspapers, Kommersant and Novaya gazeta, were subsequently accused by the Press Ministry of breaking the law, for which they received official warnings that could have led to their closure, although they continued to publish. There were weaknesses in the drive to apply the federal Terrorism Statute to the Chechen conflict. These were highlighted by the Media Law and Policy Institute in March 2001, and cast doubt on whether this law would apply to reports about Chechnya (Richter 2001). As for warning the newspapers, the sole legally indisputable ground for this and for closing a media outlet was breach of the Mass Media Statute’s Article 4, which at the time did not include “distribution of material containing public calls to commit acts of terrorism or public justification of terrorism” (Russia 1991: Article 4). Later events (and especially the Beslan tragedy of 2004)10 showed that media legislation did not always ensure proper conduct by journalists in and around a counterterrorism operation and that there was

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Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy a risk of jeopardizing the safety of hostages and security personnel. The Russian government began hastily drafting new laws and self-regulatory standards that significantly tightened the rules for covering such incidents. In particular, work started on a new version of the Terrorism Statute. In 2005, between its first and second readings in Parliament and after a concerted campaign by journalist organizations, the President amended clauses that would have restricted the media’s rights. These, he said, contravened Article 1 of the Mass Media Statute, which stated that the right to seek, obtain, produce, and disseminate mass information could not be limited, except by federal media legislation. As a result of these protests, the clauses in question were absent when the current Counterterrorism Statute was enacted in 2006. But the State Duma interpreted the President’s objections in its own way, as a hint of what it really needed to change. Within months, it passed a statute “On amendments to individual legislative instruments of the Russian Federation in connection with the enactment of the Federal Statute ‘On ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism’,” (adopted on July 5, 2006, Federal Law 2006). Doing so made some crucial amendments to the ways in which journalists could report acts of terrorism and counterterrorism operations. The outcome was that the Mass Media Statute acquired the following passage: “The procedure for information-gathering by journalists within the boundaries of a counterterrorism operation shall be determined by the operation’s commander” (Russia 1991: Article 4). Article 4, on “prevention of abuse of freedom of mass information,” was also changed to include dissemination of material containing public calls to commit acts of terrorism or publicly justifying terrorism as an abuse. Terrorism, in turn, was defined as an ideology and practice of violence entailing intimidation and/or other forms of unlawful and violent action (Federal Law 2006a: Article 3, “Principal concepts”). It is quite possible that the legal blind alley of applying anti-terrorism law to the mass media in which the authorities temporarily found themselves in 2000–01 led to the drafting and enactment in 2002, on the President’s initiative, of a new statute, “On countering extremist activity.” Its central purpose in regard to the media was to ban media from engaging in both fostering extremism


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and being used to spread extremist material (Richter 2002). The penalties for defying the ban were an official warning and closure. Henceforth, the key issue for journalists would be to consider in what circumstances their actions could be deemed extremist. The statute defined extremism by listing acts already classified as offences under the Russian Criminal Code. But it also added new attributes, mostly by linking them to violence or calls to violence. As extremism, the Statute included “planning, organising, preparing and committing acts directed at the violent … violation of the Russian Federation’s territorial integrity; seizure or usurpation of power; creation of illegal armed formations; perpetration of terrorist activities” and so on (Federal Law 2002: Article 1). The list was significantly expanded by amendments passed in July 2006. According to analysts, the main idea behind the changes was to shield the authorities from discontent (Nagornyh 2006). Extremism now included spreading material that explained or justified it, disseminating public calls to engage in it, and also promoting or facilitating it through the media. Publicly defaming state officials by maliciously accusing them of committing acts of an extremist nature also became an act of extremism. Of particular interest is that most of the references to violence of various types of extremist activity were dropped. As regards to the penalties for the media, extremist acts or dissemination of extremist content (just as disseminating calls to commit acts of terrorism or justifying them) result, under this statute, with either a warning or an application by Russia’s state regulator for the media, Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technologies and Mass Media) or one of its regional bodies, in a court ruling on closure. In fact, the warning is one of the steps in the procedure for closure.11 The same procedure can now be invoked by prosecutors for breaking the Press Statute, Article 4: “prevention of abuse of freedom of mass information,” which after the AntiExtremism statute was enacted and covered using the media for extremist purposes (Lysova 2003). I consider that the statute’s most dangerous consequence for freedom of mass information is not just that writers and editors can be penalized for spreading extremist material (including defamation of state officials). Editorial offices can also face action

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up to and including closure. The threat is a form of “soft” political censorship, and such sanctions seem to be an unwarranted restriction on freedom of mass information in Russia. Judging from its legislative and law enforcement activity, the type of media content that is of most concern to the government now is that which can be labelled extremist. In relation to the practice of law enforcement, the proportion of warnings to the media relating to extremist issues is of particular interest. In 2008, all abuses of media freedom invoked 57 written warnings; of these, 37 were issued for dissemination of extremist materials. Two newspapers were shut down for these activities in the same year. Consider that this type of extremism is said to include interviews with Chechen separatist leaders. As the second Chechen conflict began in autumn 1999, the State Duma passed a resolution “On the situation in the Republic of Dagestan, and priority measures to ensure the national security of the Russian Federation and the fight against terrorism.” In it, members of Parliament (MPs) called for “the taking of all necessary steps to prevent appearances in the media by representatives of illegal armed formations,” and for “failure to heed this demand to be treated as a serious offence, leading to the imposition of sanctions as contained in Russian Federation legislation up to and including withdrawal of broadcast licence” (Russia Resolution 1999: point 2). The tacit ban on Chechen rebels in the Russian media appeared at the same time as the second conflict. In August 1999, the Press Ministry sent a telegram to all the nationwide television channels, gently advising them not to carry interviews with the rebels. In February 2000, the First Deputy Press Minister, Mikhail Seslavinsky, cautioned Radio Liberty and Ekho Moskvy radio: “if any Chechen terrorist leader is allowed into the Russian media to air views that justify acts of terrorism of hostage-taking, there would be grounds for the ministry to investigate” (Arutyunova 2000: np). The ministry progressed from threats to action when it issued official warnings to the newspapers, usually prompted by various interviews with Aslan Maskhadov. In the 1990s, the press ministry would spend days conferring with experts and request expert opinion from the prosecutor-general’s office and state academic institutions before it issued a warning for abuse of freedom of mass informa-


tion. But, more recently, it bypassed that process and acted on the day of publication or the following day. It is doubtful, therefore, that the offending articles received any kind of informed expert analysis. An illustrative case is provided by the interview carried by the nationalist newspaper Zavtra in February 2003. The interview, conducted by its editor-in-chief Aleksandr Prokhanov with “Maskhadov envoy” Akhmed Zakayev, was split across two issues of the newspaper (Zakayev 2003, 2003a). By doing this, Zavtra, according to the government, was in breach of Article 4 of the Mass Media Statute and Articles 1 and 8 of the Federal Extremism Statute. The paper’s editor-in-chief and founder filed a lawsuit to have the press ministry’s warning overturned. This reached the Tverskoy intermunicipal court in Moscow on May 5, 2003. It was rejected after the judges heard an analysis of the interview, carried out for the ministry at the Russian Academy of Sciences Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, by a chief researcher who incidentally happened to also be the chairman of the coordinating council of Chechen cultural and public organizations in Moscow.12 Shortly afterwards, on May 21, 2003, then Deputy Press Minister Valeriy Sirozhenko told a conference at the State Duma that Zavtra was about to be stripped of its registration permit without reference to the courts.13 The threat was not carried out, but it should be noted that the Extremism Statute contains no such extra-judicial procedure. Let us take a closer look at the Zavtra case. Unlike what used to happen in the 1990s, the warning merely claimed that Article 4 of the Press Statute had been breached, with no specific quotes to back this up. Had the ministry highlighted the offending content even once, it would have helped editors to avoid repeats. Furthermore, no one in the media (with the possible exceptions of Radio Liberty14 and Kommersant) and no civil liberties group tried to examine the substance behind the charges or defend the accused journalists. Below, I examine the Zavtra interviews to consider whether the authorities had any grounds for their position and whether they had a right to intervene. First of all, we note that Prokhanov himself says nothing out of order, although he was of course helping to give Zakayev publicity. There is no sign in the text of the newspaper suggesting the

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Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy pursuit of an extremist or separatist agenda, or even backing terrorism. In the interview, Prokhanov politely distances himself from his interviewee: “We … are on opposite ends of the spectrum as politicians and soldiers, and we both have our own vision of the truth” (Zakayev 2003: np). Elsewhere, in a passage about whether Chechnya should secede from Russia, Prokhanov says: “For Chechens, the only terms for peace are absolute sovereignty, Chechnya’s absolute independence from Russia. But for modern-day Russia to accept these terms would amount to capitulation” (Zakayev 2003: np). Later on, he explains that the purpose of the interview is to look at individual aspects of the Chechen conflict by interviewing a man who holds separatist views but is very different from “the poverty-stricken slow-witted men of the mountains or the Moscow kebab peddlers” (Zakayev 2003: np). He apparently wants to hold up to public scrutiny, examine, and explain the conduct of Chechens who advocate the separatist cause: It is important for me to understand your point of view … For it seems that there are three Chechnyas. The one that you represent is grenade-launchers, landmines and terrorism. There is a second Chechnya, constructed by Moscow, which is Kadyrov and his administration, police, money and universities. And there is a third, which is the diaspora that has embedded itself within Russia, in Russia’s world of business and its politics and culture. (Zakayev 2003: np)

Prokhanov counters Zakayev’s separatism with this: Do you not think that after they return from their exile in Kazakhstan, the Chechens embarked upon a new era of prosperity? Cities, industries, universities sprang up. A splendid intelligentsia of scholarship and the arts emerged. And all this was given to them by the empire. (Zakayev 2003: np)

And again, further on: “Chechnya chose for itself the path of war, of suffering, of total resistance. But is war really better than development?” (Zakayev 2003: np). Both Prokhanov and Zakayev condemn terrorism and speak of the amorality, danger, and illegality of propagating ethnic hatred or notions of supremacy. Zakayev for example, says this:


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If someone were to say that there must be acts of terrorism in Russia, I would not understand him. They might be effective if Russia had a civic society that could through fear influence its rulers and force them to stop the war. But it has no such thing. As a result terrorism can only increase the number of casualties in the war; it cannot force any political outcome. (Zakayev 2003: np)

This appears to have been a serious, and not a sensational, piece of journalism intended for an informed readership. On the basis of the above, it would seem reasonable to conclude that the closure of publications because of this or similar articles (as Deputy Minister Sirozhenko had threatened) could have been challenged in the European Court of Human Rights, whose rulings interpreting the Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms15 must be heeded by courts in Russia. In a dispute that is arguably comparable to the one between the Russian authorities and Zavtra, the European Court ruled that restrictions of this nature, even if permitted by law, are “not necessary in a democratic society” (ECoHR 1994). The Russian presidency’s Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes (which existed from 1994 to 2000) arrived at a similar conclusion when it examined a complaint from MPs against the VGRTK state broadcaster. The MPs argued that individual features in a program called Newspaper Histories (Fascism in Russia. Who?) were provocative, inflammatory, and capable of inciting ethnic strife. But the Chamber ruled that there was no breach of the law and that the program’s name and script showed that it was an attempt to profile fascism in Russia, the form it takes, and the specific individuals behind its ideology and practice. For that reason, the program was timely and justified; it raised public concerns and prompted official action – a result of investigative journalism.16

Domination of the Governmental Media A strong state presence in the mass media market is another facet of the problems facing free media in Russia. To begin with, it leads to less diversity. Journalistic diversity arises in discussion of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’s popular concept

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of the “public sphere” (Habermas 1962/1989). According to Yassen Zassoursky, for this concept to function successfully in post-Soviet conditions, there needs to be a Western-type public service broadcasting in addition to the private sector. Democracy and state-owned media “are, at least in theory, incompatible” (Zassoursky 2005: 14). The reason that democracy and state media are incompatible in the post-Soviet states is that such media are always under the political control of the ruling elite (see also Price and Raboy 2001). There is a link between subsidy and loyalty to national and local authorities. Observers also note an administrative dependency: the appointment (and dismissal) of editors-in-chief is motivated virtually everywhere by their political reliability (IREX 2005). Historically, the current system of state-private media started with the breaking up of the state monopoly. The 1990 USSR Press Statute stripped state-sector companies and institutes (but not the state authorities) of the right to establish media outlets. It also banned monopolies of media – press, radio, television, and so forth. This was directed against the monopoly status held by the CPSU’s publishing houses and Gosteleradio, the USSR state broadcasting authority. It finally collapsed the following year, when the CPSU ceased to function and the USSR fell apart. But despite this, state media, that is, media that are founded by central or local authorities and/or are owned by them, continue to dominate in most of the postSoviet countries. State media are in an advantageous position compared to private media: they enjoy direct financial support and greater access to information from official sources. Alongside this effort to preserve state-owned media in Russia, there is evidence that, in recent years, other post-Soviet countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Estonia have successfully legislated to prohibit and restrict the state’s opportunities to operate mass media. In these countries, the authorities do not and may not have their own media, with the possible exception of an official bulletin to publish legislation, government resolutions, and other instruments and commentaries. If the state were to depart from the media market, it would allow all outlets to operate on a level economic playing field, or at least the audience share of the state broadcaster would decline rapidly, to a level well below the current 75 percent it pres-


ently commands in Russia. It would also allow outlets to have equal opportunities to access information and to make use of the infrastructure, while denying (as a result of the declining viewership to officialdom) the dangerous ability to impose state opinions on the public. Finally, it would pave the way for diversity of information and journalism. In the next section, I turn to a consideration of the changes in mass information that are underway as the Internet becomes increasingly accessible in Russia.

Trends in Regulation of the Internet In the past few years the number of active Internet users in Russia has grown rapidly. According to a poll by the Obshchestvennoye Mneniye (Public Opinion) foundation, over 37.5 million people above 18 years of age, or one-third of all Russians in this age group, have regular access to the Internet.17 The Internet is already impacting freedom of mass information by being a conduit for the globalization of information (Coleman 1999; Gibson and Ward 2000; Blumler and Coleman 2001). Any web user can access reputable foreign media and other resources to contrast and verify reports in one’s own country’s media and view a situation from a variety of standpoints. And he or she no longer even needs to know foreign languages, for many foreign publications are available in Russian. The second important benefit of the Internet is that it enables Russian media outlets and journalists to set up a presence in cyberspace where there is generally less state supervision and pressure than that experienced by traditional print and broadcast media. The decentralization that lies at the very core of the Internet limits the state’s ability to control what is on the World Wide Web. To assess whether the Internet can be controlled or curbed by the law, it is necessary to establish whether national mass media law applies. This is the crucial question, because if the answer is affirmative, any such means of control would become so much easier for the government to apply. Key safeguards in media law against abuses of freedom of mass information would be extended to the Internet, but the rules for the media laid down in electoral and

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Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy advertising legislation would also apply to the web in equal measure. On the other hand, if the rights and duties of journalists were extended to the staff of Internet publications and if these publications were to acquire the rights of editorial offices, they would enjoy enhanced opportunities to obtain information in the Russian context. The Internet is an aggregate of publicly accessible telecommunication networks (electronic communication networks), brought together by a single technical protocol for producing and disseminating information. If we apply this definition and analogy to, for example, television, we can liken it to the television transmitter, relay station, and TV set taken together – but not the actual television program content, as a mass medium. Meanwhile, the Internet is relevant to the mass media in that it is increasingly used to circulate content that journalists obtain and that their editorial offices generate. Does this mean that the Internet and traditional media are equal in the eyes of the law? The Internet and computer technologies are advancing rapidly, but they are not yet accessible to the bulk of the population in Russia. However, we should accept that the time will come, and soon, when declining computer prices and network tariffs, plus the removal of remaining political and legal curbs, will turn the Internet into a source of information for the masses – that is, an unlimited and incalculably vast number of people. The “mass” in mass information is not a numerical sum total of readers and viewers or a breakthrough beyond a threshold of a thousand or a million people, but instead refers to the absence of a medium’s elite status. Almost anywhere in the post-Soviet region, the ability to go online, at home or even at work, says something about one’s social standing in a way that being able to watch television, listen to the radio, or read the newspapers does not. A powerful argument against accepting the Internet as a mass medium is that it lacks (at least in general) the periodicity that is inherent in the traditional media – newspapers, magazines, television, and radio programs. For example, if on September 20, 2009, you access online information intended for public consumption, you cannot always be sure that it will have a “continuation” or be consumed the next day (as in a newspaper) or the following month (as with a magazine) or even one year later (as with an


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annual publication). Moreover, all media outlets renew their content in full and on a regular basis, retaining only their identifying features (e.g., name, page layout, regular contributors, principal cover and design elements, signature tunes, screen logos). Exceptions to this are the online versions of traditional media outlets and publications and agencies that are conceived as Internet-only outlets and registered as such. Yet the former are essentially just “old” media in another form rather than new media, even if the online version differs in part from the paper copy, and the latter accounts for a tiny proportion of the web. So the Internet’s lack of mass accessibility and periodicity (renewal) of content suggests that applying the same legal treatment to it as to traditional mass media would be premature. Does the Russian Mass Media Statute extend to the Internet? It is vague about acknowledgement of the Internet as a mass medium. It describes the mass media as “a form of periodical distribution of mass information” (Russia 1991: Article 2). So we need to elucidate whether the law also includes the dissemination of mass information through telecommunication networks. And we find that the criteria for the concept of “dissemination” in many countries’ statutes (i.e., sale, subscription, delivery, distribution, broadcast, and so on) do not explicitly include the issue of mass information by this means. Some clauses in Russia’s Mass Media Statute do allow “rules established for radio and television” to be applied “to periodical dissemination of mass information via teletext and videotext systems and other telecommunications networks” (Russia 1991: Article 24). There are those who believe that this allows the Internet to be classified as media (see Volchinskaya et al. 1999; Morgunova et al. 2005), although in my view this actually refers to so-called supplementary information (other varieties of teletext and videotext such as information that complements a television or radio program). Nonetheless, Roskomnadzor, Russia’s state media regulator, broadly applies the practice of registration for media sources that are exclusively online (at the time of writing, there are several hundred sources). Such registration is voluntary and there is no compulsion, although there was at least one instance in which the courts attempted to penalize an online publication (Novyy Fokus, or New Focus,

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based in Khakassia province) for “dissemination of content from an unregistered medium of mass information” (Grani.ru News Agency 2006). Application to the Internet of other rules that the Russian Mass Media Statute lays down for radio and television raises a number of intractable questions. For instance, if a radio or a television station carries something defamatory, the person whose personal or professional name has been impugned can demand the right of reply and this has to be broadcast at the same time of day as the offending allegations were made. Clearly, the same should apply in the case of online media, but it is impossible to post and then immediately retract a denial on the web, so the exercise becomes pointless. The question is: how long should it remain on the site, and where? Can a story and denial coexist on the same web page? If defamatory allegations have to be removed from a site, can they remain in an online archive in a way equivalent to a library’s bound folders of newspaper editions? And if they can, then is an online publication entitled to link to the archive? There are no answers to these questions in post-Soviet law and, without them, any denial in an online publication can quickly descend into farce. If the spread of the Internet ushers in a new era in development of the media, as is generally accepted to be the case, then this has serious ramifications for legal regulation of mass information. In countries where computer networks are heavily used, they have de facto become a form of mass media. The very existence of open telecommunication networks creates a new information reality, including a new mass information reality. These new technologies, if widely spread, make it increasingly clear in Russia that if it is not feasible to censor information or pressure journalists or allocate frequencies or other resources only among the loyal on the Internet, then such actions in relation to the traditional media also become pointless.

Press Freedom Agenda, If Any Many politicians interpreted the start of the new presidency in 2008 as a possible new approach to the mass media law and to other issues of freedom of the press. The ruling party United


Russia formed a high-ranking parliamentary commission to revamp the Mass Media Statute. Some amendments to it were suggested from the parliamentary floor. Although there is no general concept underpinning these steps – at least no concept made public – available remarks and drafts from the deputies demonstrate that they want to tighten the screws. The need for a change is substantiated – as always – by the seemingly noble wishes to care about public morals, to prevent bribery in journalism, and to promote social responsibility. Will Dmitry Medvedev, President since 2008, stop this sudden activity as he did in 2006? He had reprimanded the Ministry of Culture in 2006 for its attempts to draft a new mass media law by saying: “let us not touch the basic statutes on the mass media, even with the understanding that some of their norms are naive and romantic today” (Vlasova 2006). Or will he push for a change, and if so, what kind of change? Until his inauguration in 2008, Dmitry Medvedev had been just a vice-premier. For a couple of years, he chaired a governmental Commission on the Development of Broadcasting. However, not only was he the chair, but he actively participated in its discussions, mainly on the future of digital broadcasting in Russia. The main outcome of the Commission’s work was that all Russians would have a free set of just eight TV channels and three radio channels from which to choose their viewing and listening fare. Six of the eight TV channels to be provided to the audience (free of charge in 2011) will be state-run channels (Pervyi, Rossija 1, Rossija 24, Kultura, Rossija 2, and Detskyi). Two more, 5 kanal and NTV, belong to companies close to, and partly owned by, the state. The channels were selected by the government without public discussion or a transparent procedure. The Russian government misnamed this set a “social package,” meaning that the federal and regional public budget will cover all expenses for the transfer of channels to a digital platform for this particular set of programs on all platforms – Digital Terrestrial Television, cable, and satellite. The final composition was confirmed by a decree of the President. No explanation has been provided as to why, for example, a sports channel was prioritized over an educational channel, or why NTV was picked from an array of other private networks. No room was reserved for

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Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy regional broadcasters, with the exception of St. Petersburg’s 5 kanal, to discuss part of this “package.” All other broadcasters will pay the market price for the transfer to a digital platform. The government has put the whole burden of financing the switchover solely on the remaining broadcasters, making the switchover to digital television for them a purely “market-oriented adventure.” This effectively means that there is no guarantee that existing over-the-air private channels will be kept on digital multiplexes after the switch-off of analog television, planned for 2015. In the event that anyone who cares for more variety should be ready to pay for the delivery of a channel, “market forces” will dictate the price. The second outcome of the Commission’s work was to suggest that Russia can get along without a broadcasting statute with all the complex licensing principles and procedures. All that is needed is the right of the executive to rule by decree (Rostova 2007). The Concept of Development of Broadcasting in the Russian Federation in 2008–15, adopted by the government on November 29, 2007, does not envisage the introduction of public broadcasting on the digital multiplexes together with, or in parallel to, the switchover to digital television and radio. Little wonder that in the new line-up of the government, the mass media are now regulated by the Ministry of Communications, and not by the Culture Ministry as before. It is a very telling sign: mass media and journalism are now viewed by the Kremlin as part of the technical infrastructure and not as an element of culture. Another similar sign was that the licensing and control body in the mass media was taken away from the realm of the Prime Minister and brought under the Minister of Communications in 2008, thus diminishing its status. If we take these signs together, a possible interpretation is as follows: the government appears to believe that the press is no longer an opponent worthy of any particular attention as it is unable to stir discontent among the public because of the effect of legislation that has been passed. Existing political and economic mechanisms make no room for critical political journalism, of any serious magnitude, to thrive. Legal changes over the past decade, in particular, the anti-extremism law, have put steel nails into its coffin. Thus, there is no need to


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devote efforts to kicking, once again, the fallen press watchdog by means of additional and petty limitations on its potential freedom. On the other hand, in an interview about media affairs, conducted in March 2008 by the UK Financial Times, Dmitry Medvedev repeated his famous phrase: “freedom is better than non-freedom” (Barber et al. 2008). In making reference to “freedom of the press” did he have in mind the same idea as many British readers might be expected to assume? Is he aware that in this Western democracy today, in contrast to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, freedom of the press does not only imply the abolishment of censorship or restraint from brutal repression of journalists? Freedom of the press is impossible without a mature civil society, without practically exercised freedom of assembly, of petition, of political parties, of religion, freedom of speech and thought. Freedom of the press demands the establishment of public broadcasting, the removal of state-run media from the marketplace of ideas, the provision of access to the information held by state administrations, and access to government meetings at all levels. President Medvedev, in this regard, said several times that as a lawyer he understands that the presence of a good law is not enough for democracy. Indeed, with respect to the mass media law, abolishing censorship and proclaiming freedom of the press is not sufficient for journalism to serve as an instrument of democracy. It is a positive obligation of the government to enable the public to use its political freedoms and to help it be politically active and interested in social affairs. And it is rather unlikely that the President’s liberal ideas will go that far at present.

Conclusion There is considerable discussion in the literature on the transformations underway in the media in the transitional economies of the post-Soviet era (Mickiewicz 2008: 26–39). This chapter brings to the fore the fact that the legal apparatus that provides the governance for the media in an era of globalization is complex and closely tied to government in most cases in these countries. State operation or influence over press freedoms that are

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upheld by international conventions and agreements, and even by domestic legislation as is the case in Russia, is a continuing factor in the conduct of journalism practice. In this chapter, I suggest that the spread of the Internet offers the potential for renewed opportunities to achieve greater civic participation in political discussion as a result of access to mass information. However, I also condition this possibility with the observation that the digital technologies do not offer a solution to issues of media control. As in the case of the digital switchover, at least in Russia, there has been no discussion of which television channels should be supported in their move to the new digital platforms. There are also uncertainties about the extent to which the legal provisions in place – with respect to the traditional mass media – can or should be applied with or without modification to the online environment. I have also pointed to the uncertainty that prevails in Russia and other transitional economies. Changes in the political domain create new opportunities to implement and enforce the laws governing free speech and access to government information. These changes also occur in a wider context of legislative moves aimed at protecting citizens from terrorism, countering moves toward greater openness with new measures aimed at controlling information available to the public. It is clear that while Russia and other Central and Eastern European states are subject to international law regarding media freedoms and that the relationships between media freedom, democracy, and civic participation are being acknowledged by the state and the academic analysts (Leeson 2008), the public must be able to exercise political freedoms and journalists and editors must believe that there are protections in law and in practice. Where the state engages in discussion and assessment of the content of the press, reporting can be found to be conforming to the principles established by the national governing statutes. The question then is whether the political will exists to implement the institutional practices that enable analysis and debate – this, I suggest, is where the greatest uncertainty lies at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. In Russia and elsewhere in the transitional economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the Habermasian ideal of a public sphere for rational, open debate offers a standard against which local


and national developments can be judged. The ideas of the “free marketplace of ideas” and the “fourth estate” which assume both a level playing field in the commercial marketplace for the production and consumption of the media, and a “balance” of powers among the legislative, executive, administrative, and media, similarly offer models for fostering a strong relationship between media and democracy. But these are models arising out of contexts that differ substantially from the recent historical experience of these countries. Insofar as they become translated into domestic practice in Russia and elsewhere, the analytical issue is one of understanding how departures from the theoretical ideals that are inevitably present in the contexts in which journalism practice occurs are being experienced in any particular national context such as Russia. In the country case study presented here, free media and journalism seemed to collapse initially despite media statutes in the early 1990s that created considerable optimism for change. Nevertheless, a combination of new technologies and political changes offers new possibilities, albeit highly uncertain ones, for the future of media and democracy in Russia and elsewhere in the region.

Notes 1 2

3

4

5

6 7

8

All translations from the original texts are by the author of this chapter. For a discussion of the “fourth estate” in the American context, see Powe Jr. (1992); for the Australian context, see Schultz (1998). See, for example, Reporters without Borders (2009); Kosheleva (2009); Committee to Protect Journalists (2009). See Federal Law 2009 and text (in Russian) at: http:// medialaw.r u/laws/r ussian_laws/txt/55.htm (accessed 19/02/2010). Politizdat (1987). Unlike legislation, Party resolutions were almost never repealed or amended – they were adopted, so they seemed to last, then, forever. Politizdat (1988). This was passed by the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) Supreme Soviet on December 27, 1991, signed on the same day by President Boris Yeltsin, and entered into force on the day of its publication (i.e., on February 14, 1992). This notion was discussed in a philosophical work, On Liberty (first published in 1859), by the nineteenthcentury English philosopher John Stuart Mill.

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Post-Soviet Media and Communication Policy 9 From the statement by Rashid Nurgaliev, then acting interior minister of Russia, at a meeting with Russian journalists, on January 13, 2004. 10 This was the takeover, by terrorists, of a school in North Ossetia during an opening ceremony for a new school year. It resulted in some 350 deaths, including pupils, parents, and teachers. 11 See Richter (2009) for details on the procedure for closure of media outlets. 12 See http://www.gazeta.ru/kz/more_business.shtml. 13 See http://www.i-news.org/viewnews/sng/4722. 14 See Radio Liberty (Russian Service), March 3, 2003, http://www.svoboda.org/programs/PR/2003/ pr.030303.asp. 15 The main legal act of the Council of Europe (1950). 16 See Rossiyskaya gazeta (daily), March 29, 1995, p. 13. 17 In March 2009, see http://bd.fom.ru/report/cat/ smi/smi_int/pressr_int0309.

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Volchinskaya, Y., Tereshchenko, L., and Yakushev, M. (1999) Internet i glasnost (Internet and glasnost) Moscow: Galeriya. Zakayev, A. (2003) “Chto vporu Londonu, to rano dlya Moskvy” (What is good for London is too early for Moscow) Interview by Alexandr Prohanov (February 4), Zavtra (Moscow’s weekly), no. 6 (481), http://zavtra.ru/ cgi//veil//data/zavtra/03/481/21.html (accessed 19/02/2010). Zakayev, A. (2003a) “Chto vporu Londonu, to rano dlya Moskvy” (What is good for London is too early for Moscow) Interview by Alexandr Prohanov (February 11), Zavtra (Moscow’s weekly), no. 7 (482), http://zavtra.ru/cgi//veil//data/zavtra/03/482/31. html (accessed 19/02/2010). Zassoursky, Y. N. (2005) “Sredstva massovoy informatsii v sovremennoy structure rossiyskogo obshchestva” (Media in modern structure of the Russian society), in Y. N. Zassoursky (ed.) Sredstva massovoy informatsii Rossii (Mass Media of Russia) Moscow: AspektPress, pp. 7–58.

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13

Public Service Broadcasting: Product (and Victim?) of Public Policy Karol Jakubowicz

Introduction According to one definition, “public broadcasting is seen as a particular model of media governance, a set of political interventions into the media market with the purpose of ensuring that broadcasters produce programs that are valuable to society” (Syvertsen 2003: 156; emphasis added). And indeed, it would be hard to find another media segment that is as much a product of – and hostage to – public policy as public service broadcasting (PSB). As a result, it could be said that while PSB organizations share some basic constitutive features, there are as many PSB systems as there are countries in which they operate, as each has been shaped to respond to the specific needs and characteristics of the particular country. In turn, public policy on PSB is a reflection of a much broader policy approach. As indicated by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: A debate about public service broadcasting (PSB) is in reality a debate about the philosophical, ideological and cultural underpinnings of society and about the role of the State and the public sector in meeting the needs of individuals and society as a whole. (Parliamentary Assembly 2004: 10)

This is well illustrated by the evolution of media policy paradigms (from the phase of emerging communication industry policy, to that of public service media policy, and, finally, to a new communication policy approach), prompted by shifts in the balance of component political, social, and economic values that shape the definition of the public interest that the media are normatively expected to serve (van Cuilenburg and McQuail 2003). According to the Council of Europe, “public service broadcasting, both radio and television, support the values underlying the political, legal and social structures of democratic societies, and in particular respect for human rights, culture and political pluralism” (Directorate General of Human Rights 2000: 35). In Western Europe, this view of PSB was fully supported by the public service media policy approach that predominated between 1945 and the 1980s. Since then, support for PSB and the axiomatic recognition of the need for its existence have weakened. With deregulation, marketization, and privatization (Murdock and Golding 1999), there has been a growing tendency to treat PSB as an anomaly in the media market. For over 80 years now, every twist and turn in the development and change of PSB has been the object of intense policy-making in particular countries,



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Public Service Broadcasting and Public Policy intended to mold and re-mold PSB in such a way as to adjust it to changing circumstances and achieve whatever public policy objectives it was expected to pursue at any given time. In recent decades, regional and global policy developments have been gaining in importance in relation to PSB, and have been instrumental in what might be called a “PSB tsunami” after 1989, when many post-Communist countries sought to end the old model of state-controlled, propaganda-oriented broadcasting and embraced PSB as the desired alternative. As noted by Richter and Golovanov, in some Commonwealth of Independent States countries (the CIS includes Russia and most of the other countries that used to be Soviet republics), the introduction of PSB was due to the “insistence” of the Council of Europe and “additional pressure” applied by the office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) (Richter and Golovanov 2006: 1). Regional and global policies also have assisted the emergence of some forms of PSB in developing countries. In the European Union (EU), community policy is an important factor in shaping the legal and financial framework for PSB operation. However, supranational media and communication policy also may help decide whether or not PSB has a future to look forward to. According to Debrett, PSB “has survived the market liberal reforms of the late 20th century” and continues to “register considerable public support” around the world (Debrett 2009: 807). Yet, Syvertsen is right when she says that: the question of whether public broadcasting should be sustained and protected is at the heart of current media policy debates in Europe [i.e., in the EU]. The main issue is whether traditional forms of regulation, including regulation protecting public communication and the media’s social and cultural functions, are still relevant in the emerging digital media system. (Syvertsen 2003: 155)

In the present chapter, I examine the interplay between PSB and democracy, and the role of supranational media policy in shaping PSB and its future. The situation is paradoxical. On the one hand, the number of countries where PSB has been introduced has shot up dramatically over the last twenty years. On the other hand, the future of


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this media form is uncertain. It seems clear that while, objectively speaking, the fundamental rationale of PSB continues to remain the same (even if that is contested in some quarters for ideological or business reasons), and according to some commentators it is now even more necessary than in the past, just about everything in the way it performs its remit should change ( Jakubowicz 2010). However, it is not clear whether policy will allow this change to happen. This may hamper efforts to bring PSB into the twenty-first century. There is no question that these efforts should be undertaken, as otherwise the public may be deprived of access to media offering the kind of content and services that go to the heart of, and help define, their individual and collective identities, as well as their relationships with social reality.

Changing Concepts of Public Service Provision PSB is usually associated with national, publicly funded broadcasting institutions (Mendel 2001). In Europe, for reasons of the institutional history of such broadcasters, this institution-centered thinking is certainly very much alive, also because of the difficulty of protecting the independence of PSB organizations in many countries, including post-Communist ones. For example, Council of Europe recommendations go into considerable detail on how PSB organizations, their governing bodies, and governance systems should be designed, and how their editorial independence and institutional autonomy should be safeguarded (see, e.g., Committee of Ministers 1996). A different approach is represented by proponents who advocate moving away from thinking of PSB solely in terms of particular institutions and dissociating “public interest content” (Foster 2007) from institutional frameworks (such as PSB organizations) specifically created to provide it. They argue, first, that commercial broadcasters, too, may be required by their licenses to provide such content, or be encouraged to do so (Mendel (2001) calls this the “carrot” approach), in part by “contestable funding” systems (Giles 2006). An example of such a system is provided by New Zealand (Lealand 2002; Norris 2004; Dunleavy 2008). Introduction of such a scheme has also

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been proposed in the United Kingdom (UK) (Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 2009: 143). Second, it is argued that with appropriate programs of support, independent producers, and community or other alternative broadcasters can also produce and deliver public service content to the audience. This departure from identifying PSB with a particular institution is further encouraged by the development of new digital media and distribution platforms. Thus, if social communication is thoroughly transformed by information and communication technologies, and traditional mass media are replaced by them, then: the very nature of public interest intervention may need to change to reflect the new, more democratic opportunities presented by the internet … we might wish to place more emphasis on creating opportunities for individuals or communities to create and share their own content, or to air and discuss their views or common interests. This would be a world in which many have the chance of actively participating in the new media, rather than just passively absorbing content provided by a remote broadcaster. (Foster 2007: 49)

A deliberately institution-neutral definition of PSB has been proposed in response to such tendencies. Thus, PSB is seen as distinguished by three defining characteristics: a set of privileges to insulate it to some degree from market forces, a list of obligations that broadcasters (or other content providers) must fulfill to provide socially and culturally valuable content, and a control structure in which the performance of PSB content providers is monitored and assessed by appointed or elected representatives of society (Syvertsen 2003: 156). Such a definition, says Syvertsen, can apply to different institutions to varying degrees. This type of thinking can also be popular in the developing world (see, for instance, Eashwar 2001). In addition to licensing commercial stations, a desire to go beyond traditional state-run broadcasting may, in those countries, lead to the development of “contestable funding” schemes, or support for community and other third-sector media, rather than the outright creation of a PSB organization (see, e.g., Sánchez 2003; Banerjee and Seneviratne 2005;


AMARC Afrique 2008). In developed countries, this tendency to soften and reinterpret the concept of PSB may be emblematic of a gradual movement away from a full and proper concept of PSB. On the other hand, in the developing world it is sometimes part of a gradual process potentially leading towards the emergence of some form of PSB. The moot question is whether these various half-way schemes do indeed create genuine PSB. That depends on how its role is understood. There is more to it than just dissemination of “socially and culturally valuable content” (much of which can, in any case, be broadcast also by commercial and state-run stations). The “service” to the public that PSB is expected to perform has been defined by Nissen as: (i) furthering social, political, and cultural cohesion; (ii) sustaining and defending national European cultures and the cultural diversity of Europe; and (iii) providing individuals and minority groups with specific, targeted content and services (Nissen 2006). An internationally accepted definition has been formulated by the Council of Europe which understands the public service remit as, among other things, providing: a) a reference point for all members of the public, offering universal access; b) a factor for social cohesion and integration of all individuals, groups and communities; c) a source of impartial and independent information and comment, and of innovatory and varied content which complies with high ethical and quality standards; d) a forum for pluralistic public discussion and a means of promoting broader democratic participation of individuals; e) an active contributor to audiovisual creation and production and greater appreciation and dissemination of the diversity of national and European cultural heritage. (Committee of Ministers 2007: 3–4)

Performance of such a service requires more than occasional “public interest” content scattered in the program schedule; rather, all elements of programming should be oriented to delivering it. Yet another dimension of this “public service” is indicated by the fact that fully fledged PSB is expected to serve as an institution of democracy: it is “explicitly related to the idea of the public

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Public Service Broadcasting and Public Policy Table 13.1

Three varieties of “public service” broadcasting

Social placement

“Socially and culturally valuable content”

Public service

Element of the public sphere

Watchdog on behalf of civil society

Public broadcasting (lack of institutional autonomy)

Extension of government or political establishment

Yes

Possible

Limited

No

Public service broadcasting (institutional autonomy)

Extension of political/social elite

Yes

Yes

Potentially limited

Limited

Public service broadcasting (independence)

Extension of civil society

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Source: Author.

sphere as described by Jürgen Habermas” (Syvertsen 2003: 157). This ability to perform the type of service described above and to serve as a watchdog of the powerful and an institution of democracy is what sets PSB apart from “public” or “publicly owned/funded” stations. What this requires is independence, a strong public service ethos, and support from a strong civil society, as well as forms of accountability to it. Otherwise, PSB may still deliver valuable content, but will typically operate more as an extension of the (power) elite, with a limited ability to perform the public service, as defined above, and especially to play its role as an institution of democracy on behalf of civil society. We may therefore distinguish three types of what, in various countries and social circumstances, is regarded as “public service” broadcasting, shown in Table 13.1. Of these, only the latter two (i.e., PSB with institutional autonomy and with independence) can be classified as PSB, though, one has to admit that probably no existing PSB organization fully represents the last ideal-typical category of PSB serving exclusively as an extension of civil society. This is actually more likely in the case of community media than in that of public service media, with all the baggage of public supervision and political involvement that they have to carry. Therefore, throughout the rest of this chapter, I refer primarily to the second model as a realistic prospect for most countries and media systems.


Democracy and the Birth and Spread of PSB PSB and democracy reinforce each other, but a democratic societal context is still a prerequisite for genuine PSB to emerge in the first place. Otherwise, its crucial feature – the ability to operate at arm’s length from the government and the power elite, and serve the general public as a democratic institution – would not be possible. As the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly put it, “PSB could … be treated as a benchmark of the nature of the political system: its genuine independence, impartiality and pluralism are unthinkable without the existence of a healthy democracy and a strong civil society” (Parliamentary Assembly 2004: 7). The quality of democracy in a particular country is an important factor in shaping its PSB system, if any, and especially in determining how independent and impartial it can be and what meaning it gives to its avowed goal of “serving the public interest.” Where the prerequisites for genuine PSB are lacking, efforts to introduce it will be less than fully successful. We can identify three main models of the creation of PSB or of the transformation of state broadcasting into PSB: 1. Paternalistic – as in the UK, where PSB was originally born in 1926 in the form of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), an

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independent public corporation with a public service remit, understood in part as promoting public enlightenment; playing a clearly normative role in the country’s cultural, moral, and political life; and as promoting “the development of the majority in ways thought desirable by the minority” (Williams 1968: 117). A form of this model can also appear in the developing world context. 2. Democratic and emancipatory – as in some other Western European countries (e.g., Austria, Italy, France), where erstwhile state broadcasting organizations began to be transformed into public service broadcasters in the 1960s and 1970s, a time when state (government) control of the then monopoly broadcasters could no longer be justified or claim legitimacy. A way was sought to end direct government control over these monopoly broadcasters, to associate them more closely with civil society, and to turn them into autonomous PSB organizations. This model also encompasses non-European countries where, with democratic development, the same process may, or indeed, has unfolded. 3. Systemic – as in West Germany after World War II, Spain, Portugal, and Greece in the 1970s; as well as in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, when change of the broadcasting system was part and parcel of broader political change, typically characterized by a transition to democracy after an authoritarian or totalitarian system ( Jakubowicz 2008). This would also apply to countries like South Africa. The three main models of PSB introduction obviously emerged in different sociopolitical circumstances, arising out of the history of political development of particular countries. There is clear interdependence between this process and the level of democratic consolidation in a particular society. In the analysis below, I therefore refer to Huntington’s (1995) three “waves of democratization” as offering a rough indication of whether or not the prevailing social and political circumstances will provide an appropriate environment for PSB to emerge and survive. Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) typology of media systems (polarized pluralist, democratic corporatist, and liberal), as shaped by the political system of a particular country, is also useful in this analysis.


Western Europe PSB began in Huntington’s first-wave countries (i.e., those that first democratized in the years 1828–1926, including Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, UK, The Netherlands, and Norway). The other two “waves of democratization” unfolded first in 1943–1964 (and swept the following countries, among others: Germany, Japan, Italy, Austria, South Korea, Greece, Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia), and then again after 1974, when the fall of the Soviet Union and the final phase of decolonization were the prime movers of the process in Central and Eastern Europe and in the developing world, respectively. The original introduction of PSB usually took place in line with the paternalistic model. In some of these countries (e.g., the UK, Canada, Ireland) it is part of Hallin and Mancini’s liberal media system. It is accorded a considerable degree of autonomy and independence and can – in line with the Council of Europe definition of its remit – serve as a forum for pluralistic public discussion and as a means of promoting broader democratic participation of individuals. It is a somewhat different story with the countries where PSB was introduced by means of the systemic, or democratic-emancipatory model, and which usually have the democratic-corporatist media system (as in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, and so on). The reason for this is that their sociopolitical systems, traditions, and cultural and religious divisions require the accommodation of various group interests. This means that PSB operates in a situation of organized, democratic corporatism, often involving a consociational system of government and a strong role of the state. Consociationalism is essentially a strategy for conflict management. Where there is a high level of actual or potential conflict, PSB organizations may themselves be consociational in their political and institutional make-up, involving politicized and pluralistic governing bodies (“politics-in-broadcasting”), serving as an arena for the negotiation and resolution of such conflicts within the PSB organization itself. This situation may affect the nature of PSB organizations. They may potentially be more oriented to serving the political elite (both in and out of government, as different political forces will be

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Public Service Broadcasting and Public Policy represented in their governing bodies) than civil society at large. Third-wave countries introduced PSB by means of the democratic-emancipatory (for instance, Italy) or the systemic model (e.g., Germany, Greece, Spain and Portugal, post-Communist countries). Again, the quality of democracy has been a major factor in determining the shape of PSB. Depending on the strength of democratic tradition in a particular country, or on the pace of democratic consolidation, while this process typically produced a polarized pluralist model, it did also, in some cases (e.g., Germany), lead to the democratic-corporatist model. In Hallin and Mancini’s analysis, the polarized pluralist system is represented by Greece, Spain, and Portugal but, in addition, also Italy and, to some extent, France. There, real emancipation of public service broadcasters from direct, hands-on political control has been largely prevented by “political clientelism,” “state paternalism,” and “partitocrazia” (see Bustamante 1989; Sousa 1996; Statham 1996; Mancini 2000; Hibberd 2001; Hallin and Papathanassopoulos 2002; Papatheodorou and Machin 2003). An “umbilical cord” joining the political elite and the media remained in place (as in Portugal, Spain, and Greece) even after the overthrow of dictatorship and subsequent political change. Therefore, the ability of PSB to serve the general public as an institution of democracy is even more in doubt. Let us also note in passing that when it came time to determine the shape of their public broadcasting Australia and Canada, both long independent by the time broadcasting policy needed to be developed, opted for some form of the “BBC model” (Lent 1978; Howell 1986). Of course, they had been covered by the first wave of democratization and so their democratic systems were robust enough to support PSB. For its part, New Zealand long had government-run broadcasting until the time came in 1962 for the democratic-emancipatory process of creating an independent New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (Comrie and Fountaine 2005).

Central and Eastern Europe Introduction of PSB in post-Communist countries has been part of what may be called “mimetic” or “imitative” transformation (see Splichal 2001;


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Jakubowicz 2007, 2008). Given that three types of political regimes (democratic, semi-democratic, and autocratic) have evolved in the region (Ekiert et al. 2007), it is clear that prospects for the successful assimilation of PSB in the region are quite varied. Nevertheless, most of the 27 post-Communist countries have introduced the legal and institutional arrangements of PSB. Only the most conflict-ridden (i.e., Ukraine, Georgia) and the most autocratic countries (i.e., Russia, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Turkmenistan) have so far failed to do so. However, as in other third-wave European democracies with a polarized pluralist media system, it is clear that political elites in post-Communist countries seek to retain as much discretionary power as possible, in general (Grzymala-Busse 2004), and over the media, in particular. In all areas, they pursue this goal in part by designing “winner-take-all” or “winner-take-most” institutions (e.g., by leaving the power of appointment to these institutions in the hands of the president or prime minister, or by introducing parity with the distribution of seats in Parliament, giving the ruling party/coalition an automatic majority in a collective body). Or, they create “Potemkin institutions” (often to satisfy the requirements of external actors, such as international donors or organizations), organizations which exist on paper, but are unable to fulfill their ostensible goals (see Richter, ch. 12). The same methods are applied in the case of PSB governance systems (supervisory and management boards). As a result, instead of serving – as they should – as a way of cushioning PSB organizations against political pressure, they constitute a “transmission belt” for this pressure to be applied directly to the management and staff. Moreover, in most post-Communist countries, PSB is seriously underfinanced. This turns public service broadcasters in some post-Communist countries into empty shells, designed to operate in line with the PSB remit, but largely incapable of doing so ( Jakubowicz 1995; 2003; 2004). Lack of independence reduces their democratic role, and lack of financing renders them incapable of providing much new domestically produced socially and culturally valuable content. An Open Society Institute report, Television Across Europe, sums up the situation in Central and Eastern Europe as “more channels, less

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independence,” noting “a worrying determination on the part of political elites to reaffirm their influence over broadcasting” (Dragomir and Thompson 2008: 20). Mark Thompson of the Open Society Foundation Media Programme describes this as “a sort of ‘counter-reformation’: Why refrain from exercising political control over these very important institutions when there are no penalties?” (as quoted in Phillips 2009: np).

Developing Countries Efforts to introduce PSB in developing countries began with one case of what Katz and Wedell (1977) called “transfer of broadcasting,” an early form of “global media policy” in all but name. Several models of this process can be distinguished: the United States (US) model, prevalent for example in Latin America; the French model in the former French colonies based on the notion of state control of a unitary broadcasting structure; other models, as in former Belgian, Spanish, and Dutch colonies; and hybrid models in countries that had never been colonized (e.g., Thailand and Iran). Of these, the British model is particularly interesting: in the former British colonies and protectorates “the concept of a public-service corporation, modeled on the BBC usually supplanted the colonial-service model in the course of the approach to independence” (Katz and Wedell 1997: 79). This was a deliberate effort to transplant the BBC concept of an autonomous public service corporation with an independent board of governors. Yet given that political instability and military takeovers soon shook the former British colonies, and the notion of multi-party democracy on which the PSB model was based faded rapidly, the autonomy of the broadcasting corporation crumbled everywhere. Whatever the model of the “transfer of broadcasting” and whatever institutional frameworks were introduced originally in different developing countries, by the mid-1970s the media were in the direct or indirect service of the government of the day, and there was “not much room for dissent, however constructive, in the broadcasting services of developing countries” (Katz and Wedell 1977: vii).


If “waves of democratization” do offer a rough guide to the development and spread of PSB, then a “fourth wave,” if it happens (Diamond 1997), should bring about the emergence of social and political circumstances in some developing countries that favor the introduction of PSB. This should set the stage for a democratic-emancipatory process of PSB introduction, very likely including, in the former British colonies, a return to institutional solutions first launched during what was clearly a premature process of creating BBC clones after independence. And, indeed, in August 2009, the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) called for legislation that would define the PSB mandate of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) in a comprehensive manner and presented a paper on the “Transformation of GBC into a True Public Service Broadcaster” to the Minister of Information. Arab countries are reported to be resistant to the idea of PSB, even as some of them liberalize their media systems and allow commercial stations to go on the air. In countries such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Malawi, Panama, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, steps toward the introduction of new or improvement of existing public service organizations have been assisted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (see Stiles and Weeks 2006). However, as the civil society organization ARTICLE 19 has pointed out in relation to a new public channel established in Brazil, this may constitute only “a first step to a true public broadcasting system” (ARTICLE 19 2007: np). A similar situation is developing in Hong Kong, where plans were announced in September 2009 to turn Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) into a public service broadcaster, but also to ensure further oversight of the governmentowned broadcaster by a new advisory board that would be named by the Beijing-appointed chief executive of Hong Kong. Pro-Beijing politicians contend RTHK has many (probably too many from their point of view) pro-democracy holdovers from British rule, which ended in 1997. Proposals for bigger changes were shelved. These included the creation of an independent entity like the BBC, favored by advocates of an independent news media. For its part, the Parliament of Sierra Leone decided in August 2009 to turn the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service, until then completely in the hands of the government, into a public service broadcaster, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC).

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Public Service Broadcasting and Public Policy The board of directors is to be made up of representatives of civic and professional bodies, but the director-general of SLBC and his/her deputy is to be appointed unilaterally by the president of the country. Because the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) found that this would give the president undue powers, the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund was reported to be considering withholding some US$850,000, originally set aside to support the proposed Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation. While this could be treated as an example of the democratic-emancipatory model of PSB introduction, it remains to be seen whether institutions created or transformed in this way can perform a full public service as an independent institution of democracy, or be truly accountable to the public (see Price, ch. 11). One case in point is India, where the state broadcaster was, hesitantly and inconsistently, given (at least on paper) its separate and independent status (Gupta 2002). However, national television (Doodarshan) is: half-way between a public corporation and a government department … In principle, [it] is answerable to Parliament [but in reality] Doodarshan is an arm of the government, a department of the ministry of information and broadcasting, and subject to the same political and bureaucratic controls that any other department of government is subject to. (Sinha 2006: 220)

South Africa, in contrast, can be said to represent the systemic model, with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) transformed into a public service broadcaster in 1994, after the end of apartheid and as part of democratic change in the country. Yet the domination of political life by the African National Congress has affected the SABC and its news and current affairs programming to such an extent (Kupe 2005) that, “South Africa’s public broadcaster has been guilty of gagging outspoken commentators and practicing self-censorship … SABC had been silencing commentators for reasons that could not be justified” (Sennitt 2006: np) (see Teer-Tomaselli, ch. 26). The establishment of PSB organizations has been announced in Brazil and Thailand. In both cases, ARTICLE 19 (2007; 2007a) welcomed these developments but pointed out that the institutional frameworks created for this purpose impose excessive control of the executive branch, which may undermine its independence and impartiality.


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This is even more so in the case of Singapore, where – in order to provide “public service broadcasting services” – commercial broadcasters are under a statutory obligation, as defined in Article 17 of the Broadcasting Act, to broadcast: programmes provided by the [Media Development] Authority or the Government through the Authority … including (a) programmes for schools or other educational programmes; (b) news and information programmes produced in Singapore or elsewhere; (c) arts and cultural programmes; and (d) drama and sports programmes produced in Singapore. (emphasis added)

Again, we do have here socially and culturally valuable programming (the extensive range of programming this covers is detailed in the standing call to producers for proposals for “public service programmes”) (see MDA nd: np). But given that it is produced for the Media Development Authority or, indeed, for the government, it is hard to imagine that it could provide an open forum for democratic debate or for exercising public scrutiny over the authorities. In a comment on Malaysia that has more general relevance, Khattab states: I argue that PSB [in Malaysia] has not been conceived in the traditional Western European sense and its current state is in effect a far cry from what is theorized … As a state privilege, television in postcolonial Malaysia has hardly ever been delegated to the citizenry. For example, those who control operation and content creation tend to assume that the people must be guided, and television, especially in the context of a rapidly decolonizing and modernizing society, must protect the nation’s “public culture” and for this the state knows best. (Khattab 2006: 348)

Taken together, we see the confluence in the cases described above of the following circumstances: an unconsolidated democracy; pervasive power of the state and political elite; adherence to development media theory (McQuail 1987: 119– 121), subordinating the media to government policy in pursuit of economic and development goals; finally the paternalism of the state and of the media. This clearly fails to provide an environment conducive to independent public service media.

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Global Media Policy and PSB The postcolonial “transfer of broadcasting” to the former British colonies was one of many efforts to promote the spread of this media form. Also, the systemic model of PSB introduction often has had a strong element of international involvement and, indeed, pressure. Thus, in post-World War II Western Germany, the former state broadcasting system was transformed into a decentralized, federal PSB system by the Western occupying powers, especially the UK and the US. Efforts to promote a certain media order have been especially prominent in the last 30 years, with the US government and private American agencies said to have spent more than US$600 million on media development around the world: USAID [the US Agency for International Development] began to promote media development as a democracy building tool in Latin America in the 1980s, moving to the former Communist bloc in the 1990s where it was joined by Soros’ institute and hundreds of smaller nonprofits. Now they are looking toward Afghanistan, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. (Hume 2004: 9)

The goal of these “media missionaries” has been to “spread the gospel of democracy,” to “midwife a newly independent press” (Hume 2004: 9), and to promote “robust, independent media in developing and transitional societies in the belief that free media contribute to the building of democracy and economic development” (Mosher 2009: 6). This effort is not relevant to this consideration of the prospects for PSB, however, as official American agencies have concentrated on promoting the development of what they consider independent (i.e., commercial) media and have, at best, been indifferent and, in some cases, openly hostile, to public service media. I therefore concentrate here on elements of global media policy promoting the spread of PSB around the world. Starting with the global level, the United Nations (UN) agency most actively involved in this effort is the UNESCO. In 1993, the UNESCO General Conference adopted Resolution 4.6 on the “Role and Functions of Public Service Broadcasting,” inviting the Director-General to “support and pro-


mote comprehensive action focussing on the role and functions of public service” (UNESCO 1993: np). Two years later, the General Conference in 1995 adopted Resolution 4.5: “Support to Cultural and Educational Activities Undertaken by Public Service Broadcasting, Media Professionals and Journalists to Reduce Violence in the Media.” This resolution invited Member States “to support public service radio and television broadcasting so that it can fulfill its cultural and educational mandate” (UNESCO 1995, Resolution 4.5, np). The Declaration of Sana’a, adopted in 1996 by participants in the UN/UNESCO Seminar on Promoting Independent and Pluralistic Arab Media, and then adopted in the form of a resolution by the UNESCO General Conference at its 29th session in November 1997, includes the following passage: “State-owned broadcasting and news agencies should be granted statutes of journalistic and editorial independence as open public service institutions. Creation of independent news agencies and private and/or community ownership of broadcasting media including in rural areas should also be encouraged” (UNESCO 1997: np). The 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions recognizes the role of PSB in promoting cultural diversity. The Convention states that each party may adopt “measures aimed at protecting and promoting the diversity of cultural expressions within its territory.” Such measures may include, among others, “measures aimed at enhancing diversity of the media, including through public service broadcasting” (UNESCO 2005: np). UNESCO has made PSB an important plank of its standard-setting functions in relation to the media systems of Member States and, generally, of its program. As part of its Medium-Term Strategy for 2008–2013, UNESCO formulated the following goal: “Plurality of information is one of the essential preconditions for inclusive knowledge societies … Emphasis will be placed on public service broadcasting, including the transformation of state broadcasters into editorially independent entities accountable to the public” (UNESCO 2008: passim). Specific activities undertaken by UNESCO to promote PSB in the three-year period 2002–2005 are examined by Stiles and Weeks (2006). These

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Public Service Broadcasting and Public Policy include sponsoring international meetings, workshops, conferences, seminars, and other awarenessraising events devoted to PSB; publishing, and distributing policy documents and books (see, e.g., Rumphorst 1999; Mendel 1999; Banerjee and Seneviratne 2005), compact discs, pamphlets, and related materials concerning PSB; disseminating information about PSB on UNESCO’s web site; working with broadcasting associations, unions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote PSB; and funding the production and arranging the distribution of some radio and television programming that exemplifies PSB. One example of UNESCO’s work in this area is reflected in the African Charter on Broadcasting developed under its auspices in 2001. It has a special section on PSB, stating that: All State and government controlled broadcasters should be transformed into public service broadcasters, that are accountable to all strata of the people as represented by an independent board, and that serve the overall public interest, avoiding one-sided reporting and programming in regard to religion, political belief, culture, race and gender. (UNESCO 2001: np)

According to the charter, PSB organizations should be “governed by bodies which are protected against interference,” enjoy editorial independence, have a clearly defined remit, and should be funded adequately “in a manner that protects them from arbitrary interference with their budgets” (UNESCO 2001: np). Similar documents have emerged from other regional conferences organized by UNESCO. An interesting instance of global policy-making and standard-setting is the cooperation of the “International Mechanisms for Promoting Freedom of Expression” (i.e., the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression; the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media; the Organization of American States (OAS) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression; and the Special Rapporteur of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information). Over the years, they have issued a number of joint declarations on topical issues. In 2007, their Joint Declaration on Diversity in Broadcasting recognized:


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the varied contributions that different types of broadcasters – commercial, public service and community – as well as broadcasters of different reach – local, national, regional, and international – make to diversity,

and specifically stressed that: independent public service broadcasters will continue to play an important role in promoting diversity in the new digital broadcasting environment, including through their unique role in providing reliable, high-quality and informative programming. (International Mechanisms for Promoting Freedom of Expression 2007: np)

The Rapporteurs expressed their concern about the growth of a number of threats to the viability of PSB in different countries which undermine its ability to fulfill its potential to contribute to media diversity and, throughout the document, stress the importance of PSB in ensuring the diversity of outlet, source, and content which, together, contribute to diversity in broadcasting. In their 2009 Joint Statement on the Media and Elections, the Rapporteurs highlighted the obligation of “all publicly-owned media, including public service broadcasters” to provide impartial and balanced electoral coverage and grant all parties and candidates equitable access to the media, etc. (International Mechanisms for Promoting Freedom of Expression 2009: np). Another global player in this field is ARTICLE 19, a human rights organization with a specific mandate and focus on the defense and promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of information world wide. Among its activities described on its web site is “standard-setting,” that is, producing legal standards which strengthen media, public broadcasting, free expression, and access to information, and promoting these standards with regional and international intergovernmental organizations. This has included the publication of a “Model Public Service Broadcasting Law” (Mendel 2005) as well as a document entitled Access to the Airwaves: Principles on Freedom of Expression and Broadcast Regulation (ARTICLE 19 2002), which has a special section on public service broadcasters. The document recommends that “where State or government broadcasters exist, they should be transformed into public service broadcasters” and should enjoy independence (the institutional and

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other safeguards of PSB independence are spelled out in the document) and adequate funding. The document also describes the public service remit, but it concentrates on “socially and culturally valuable content” and pays insufficient attention to the democratic functions of PSB (see ARTICLE 19 2002: np). ARTICLE 19 has produced dozens of legal analyses and reviews of national laws, including media laws, drafted or adopted around the world, focussing, in part, on the appropriate regulation of PSB. This issue is also prominent in other areas of its activity, such as monitoring and research, advocacy and campaigning (where PSB is under threat from government or legislative action) and capacitybuilding. At the regional level, Europe understandably stands out as the continent where international media policy, as formulated, respectively, by the Council of Europe, the EU and the OSCE, devotes a lot of attention to PSB. Pride of place in terms of standard-setting goes to the Council of Europe, which continues to embrace the public service media policy approach and, over the years, has developed a considerable range of documents dealing with PSB in its various aspects, viewing it as a crucial element of the media scene and its pluralism (see Nikoltchev 2007 for an overview of three decades of Council of Europe policy development in relation to PSB). The Council has returned to the issue again and again, seeking to formulate policy advice and standards on preserving and reconfiguring PSB as the environment around it changes, so that it continues to “occupy a visible place in the new media landscape,” as the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers put it in Recommendation (2007) 2 on Media Pluralism and Diversity of Media Content. Recommendation No. R (96) 10 on the Guarantee of the Independence of Public Service Broadcasting (Committee of Ministers 1996) has already been mentioned. In 2003, Recommendation (2003) 9 on Measures to Promote the Democratic and Social Contribution of Digital Broadcasting called on Member States to “reaffirm the remit of public service broadcasting, adapting if necessary its means to the new digital environment … while establishing the financial, technical and other conditions that will enable it to fulfill that remit as well as possible” (Committee of Ministers 2003: np). In the already mentioned 2004 report on PSB, the


Parliamentary Assembly warned that “if PSB could be prevented from modernizing, it would become a relic of the past” (Parliamentary Assembly 2004: np). The Committee of Ministers responded to this in 2007 by adopting Recommendation CM/ Rec(2007)3 on the Remit of Public Service Media in the Information Society, making it clear that, in the Council’s view, “the public service remit is all the more relevant in the information society and … can be discharged by public service organisations via diverse platforms and an offer of various services” (Committee of Ministers 2007a: np). The Recommendation deals extensively with how the public service remit should be adapted to new circumstances as well as with the legal, technical, financial, and organizational conditions required to fulfill the public service remit in the information society. The Council of Europe also actively and, as already noted, quite insistently, encourages Member States from the post-Communist region to transform state into PSB. As an example, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, in its 2004 monitoring report on how Azerbaijan honors its obligations and commitments as a Member State, “deplore[d] that … the commitment undertaken by Azerbaijan to transform the two existing state channels into truly independent public service broadcasting organisations was not fulfilled” (Parliamentary Assembly 2004a: np). As the Azerbaijani authorities did embark on creating a public television channel, the Assembly’s 2005 monitoring report contained quite specific instructions in this area, namely, that Azerbaijan should: speed up the starting of operation of the Public Television, endow it with appropriate resources and means of operation and abstain from any direct and indirect interference with its functioning and content … [and] give it a public service remit ensuring balanced unbiased news coverage and guaranteeing media access of the opposition. (Parliamentary Assembly 2004a: np)

Since the new public TV channel turned out to be a “Potemkin institution,” operating alongside a state broadcaster, the Assembly’s 2008 monitoring report called on the Azerbaijani authorities to “amend the relevant legislation so as to clarify the role of the state broadcaster as compared to that of the public broadcaster” (Parliamentary Assembly 2008: np). Council of Europe services provide

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Public Service Broadcasting and Public Policy extensive assistance to Member States in developing PSB in the form of legal expertise, analysis of draft laws, and knowledge-sharing. The EU represents the new communication policy approach, as defined by van Cuilenburg and McQuail (2003), oriented primarily to the pursuit of economic goals. Its policy vis-à-vis PSB is, therefore, very different from that of the Council of Europe’s. Paradoxically, however, the EU makes its own contribution to the “PSB tsunami” in Central and Eastern Europe by insisting that applicant countries introduce PSB. Thus, for example, the 2006 Council Decision on the Principles, Priorities and Conditions Contained in the European Partnership with Montenegro, required that country to “continue the transformation of Radio and Television of Montenegro into a public service broadcaster and provide appropriate means for it” (Council of the European Union 2006: 8). It also assists the process of drafting media legislation in applicant countries and offers a variety of forms of expertise sharing. When an applicant country already has PSB, the European Commission will still take the opportunity to do a progress report in order to point to any deficiencies. And so, the 2008 report on Macedonia notes that “despite legal provisions regulating the independence of the Broadcasting Council and the public service broadcaster, both remain vulnerable to political interference, largely because their financial stability has not been ensured” (European Commission 2008: 40). Yet, when it comes to the Member States themselves, the organization’s perspective changes completely. Given the EU’s overriding concern with the competitiveness of its audiovisual industry on global markets and with economic benefits to be derived from the media system, PSB has no real place in its general approach and could well be described as “a square peg in a round hole” of EU media policy ( Jakubowicz 2004a). Under the EU Treaty, PSB is regarded as a service in the general economic interest. The EU approaches PSB primarily from the point of view of competition policy and state aid regulations, determined to prevent public funding from being used to distort competition with the private sector. This has led the organization to develop a view about the nature of the public mission conferred on PSB and ways of ensuring that public funding is used only to finance the performance of that


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mission. The 1997 Amsterdam Protocol On the System of Public Broadcasting in the Member States (annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community) states clearly that it is up to each Member State to confer, define, and organize the delivery of the public service remit. Nevertheless, as the guardian of the treaty, including its provisions on the protection of competition and state aid, the European Commission has still been able to claim an important role in defining the role, remit, and place of PSB in the media systems of Member States and also in determining its future prospects (see Ridinger 2009). National PSB policy is thus complemented and, in important respects, replaced by supranational policy which may or may not actually be favorable to PSB. After the failure, due to resistance from Member States, of its efforts in the late 1990s to confine analog PSB to the role of a niche broadcaster, concentrating on content unattractive to commercial broadcasters (see Jakubowicz 2004a), the European Commission has sought to take advantage of digitization to try to achieve a similar effect. First, it avoided for as long as possible unequivocal recognition of the fact that PSB must, in order to remain relevant to the audience, move beyond traditional broadcasting and embrace new technologies and new platforms. Finally, in 2006, Commissioner Reding stated: it has been clear for us that public service broadcasters should be able to benefit from the possibilities offered by technological developments … to comply with their public service remit and to satisfy their audiences. In this respect, online services such as video streaming or programming information appear as a continuation – in the digital environment – of the services traditionally offered by public service broadcasters in the linear (broadcasting) world. … Accordingly, public service broadcasters are, in principle, free to develop other activities than traditional broadcasting and make available sociably valuable content on other platforms. (Reding 2006: np; emphasis added)

Then, when it came to updating the 2001 Communication on the Application of State Aid Rules to Public Service Broadcasting, the European Commission (2009: 7) seemed determined, above all, to protect the interests of commercial media

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outlets against publicly funded competition from PSB, on the grounds that: commercial broadcasters, of whom a number are subject to public service requirements, also play a significant role in achieving the objectives of the Amsterdam Protocol … Moreover, newspaper publishers and other print media are also important guarantors of an objectively informed public and of democracy … all these commercial media providers are concerned by the potential negative effects that State aid to public service broadcasters could have on the development of new business models. (European Commission 2009: 7)

That is why the European Commission now expects EU Member States to perform a “public value test” when a PSB broadcaster wants to launch significant new audiovisual services, in order to check whether it “meet[s] the requirements of the Amsterdam Protocol, i.e. whether they serve the democratic, social and cultural needs of the society, while duly taking into account its potential effects on trading conditions and competition” (European Commission 2009: 20). This is to be accompanied by a market impact assessment “to ensure that the public funding of significant new audiovisual services does not distort trade and competition to an extent contrary to the common interest” (European Commission 2009: 21). Both of these procedures are to be conducted on the basis of open consultation, giving all interested stakeholders an opportunity to express their views on envisaged new digital PSB services. In other words, commercial competitors will be able to influence the process by which PSB organizations seek permission to launch new services. These “public value tests” can be interpreted in one of two ways. A kind view would see them – or more particularly the concept of “public value” itself – as a means of protecting PSB against criticism from neoliberals and the private sector, helping to argue that PSB does provide inimitable value that is not replicated elsewhere in the media system. After all, it was the BBC (2004) that had said that it exists to create public value, to serve its audiences not just as consumers but as members of a wider society. The BBC said further: “Public value is a measure of the BBC’s contribution to the quality of life in the UK,” and it is created in five main ways: democratic value, cultural and creative value, educational value, social and community


value, and global value; the BBC “must apply the test of public value to everything it does” (BBC 2004: 8). A more jaundiced interpretation would be to see legally and administratively imposed “public value tests” as an element of the more general evolution of PSB from a model of autonomy to one of controlled service (Svendsen 2002), with more and more regulation of what a PSB organization may or may not do, and more accountability systems, forcing it to justify its every move ( Jakubowicz 2003a). Whatever the interpretation, PSB organizations in EU Member States may find it much harder to launch new services and, certainly, to respond quickly and efficiently to changing market and technological circumstances. What long-term effect this will have on their future development remains to be seen. The OSCE has not expressly formulated a policy on PSB or, indeed, a comprehensive policy on the media in general. Instead, it relies on a selection of media-related provisions contained in documents adopted by various OSCE bodies and conferences (Representative on Freedom of the Media 2007). These do not actually mention PSB, but the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media still follows developments in the policy of OSCE Member States vis-à-vis PSB and intervenes with governments and the international community when he finds failures of policy to ensure proper operation of PSB. The Representative’s office also assists postCommunist countries with the development of broadcasting legislation, in part, dealing with the regulation of PSB. It is hard to imagine a more active global or international effort in favor of the spread of PSB. The international bodies and organizations that are involved in that effort seem to be fighting a last-ditch battle against the onslaught of neoliberal tendencies with their threat to the continued existence of PSB. The future world media order is more likely to be fashioned within the World Trade Organization and under the rules of the General Agreement on Trade in Services than under the ideals advanced by UNESCO, for example. And in any case, given the close dependence of PSB on social, cultural, and political circumstances prevailing in particular countries, any thought of developing a “universal, global (or, indeed, continental) model” of PSB that would be applicable in many countries is doomed to failure.

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Public Service Broadcasting and Public Policy Hence, for example, there is deep resentment by EU Member States against the European Commission’s efforts – contrary to the principle of subsidiarity – to advance (some believe it is more of an imposition) a model of PSB that is consistent with the EU’s competition policy. The best that can be done in terms of global policy is to promote public policy objectives that should be reflected in the remit of PSB, and an understanding of the prerequisites of editorial independence and institutional and financial autonomy that must be met for that remit to be implemented properly. Specific legal and organizational solutions to be applied in particular countries must be left to them to develop (see Pauwels and Donders, ch. 32).

What Future for PSB? Thomass notes that it is probable (sic!) that PSB will survive long enough to celebrate its hundredth birthday in the 2020s, but only if it can renew itself by that time (Thomass 2007). Nissen provides an extensive review of how the changing context of PSB requires changes within PSB itself, and adds: “Few impartial and independent observers doubt the invaluable and indispensable role that [properly functioning] public media play in the cultural and political life of European societies” (Nissen 2006: 48). Yet he fully recognizes the need for reform of PSB. Bardoel and d’Haenens call for the “reinvention” of PSB and PSB policies, noting that societal and technological change have serious consequences for every aspect of PSB operations (mission, programming, organization, and funding), so that the old rationale for its existence is no longer convincing and so “explicit legitimization in terms of PSB’s role in society has become imperative,” serving as a battleground for different interests and insights (Bardoel and d’Haenens 2008: 343). An effort to provide new legitimization for PSB must begin with an answer to the question as to whether there is still a real need for it. It is often argued that since commercial media and the new technologies offer “limitless choice” of content, there is no longer any need for the delivery of public service programming. A closer look will show that in the multichannel digital environment, commercial broadcasters are, in reality, even less


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able to provide “socially and culturally valuable content,” at least in the free-to-air mass audience generalist channels. Though market failure was not the reason for introducing PSB (Nissen 2006), it has become an element of the rationale for its existence and continuation (Bardoel and d’Haenens 2008), all the more so in that market failure to provide public service content is growing, rather than decreasing. The British regulatory authority Ofcom notes that after the completion of the digital switchover, there will be a period of “declining PSB obligations” for what are known in the UK as “commercial public service broadcasters,” as they will no longer be able to afford financing “challenging PSB programming” (Ofcom 2004: 33). It notes that commercial broadcasters would not withdraw completely from PSB. The programming under threat would be that which is either expensive to produce, such as regional programming, or relatively unattractive to large audiences, such as more challenging programming. And indeed, Ofcom, faced with a realistic prospect that commercial public service television broadcasters might return their PSB licenses and apply for straight commercial ones, has been “freeing up” these broadcasters, reducing their PSB program obligations, especially by reducing the range of PSB content they must broadcast and reducing the amount of regional content (including news) in their programming (Ofcom 2009; 2009a). This confirms Ward’s answer to the question as to whether the market can provide public service media: they can, but only to some degree and only to a very limited area of programming that is becoming even more marginalised with the increase in competition between channels and broadcasters … in a competitive environment with multiple players there is strong evidence that “excessive sameness” is particularly pronounced in the broadcasting sector, where advertising is the central source of revenues. In this context, a purely commercially driven radio and television market suffers from both concentration (some form of which appears crucial for companies) and lack of supply in merit goods in matching social equilibrium. In a digital world things change, but there are limits and there is much continuity that characterise these changes brought about by digitalisation. (Ward 2006: 60)

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What is true at the level of “socially and culturally valuable content” is even more the case at the level of the more broadly understood “public service” that PSB organizations are expected to perform. As Ward (2006) puts it, this is not to suggest that the market will not provide some forms of this service (i.e., some kinds of merit goods) but the difference between market and social equilibrium usually will lead to the market undersupplying in this area. Merit goods are commodities that are provided to an individual or society based upon some concept of need, rather than upon an ability and willingness to pay. In many cases, merit goods are services which, it is argued, should apply universally to everyone in a particular situation. PSB, capable of performing the broadly understood public service and of creating public value (which can be defined differently in different societies), is a perfect example of such a merit good. Public policy, acting through PSB organizations and other forms of intervention, should be involved in the promotion and distribution of merit goods, as the wider benefits of having access to such services or goods are perceived also to be beneficial to the wider society. Having access to these programs generally is seen as having benefits that exist outside the actual act of consumption itself (the impact of the digital age on the principles of public broadcasting, requiring the continuation of PSB, is also summed up by Norris and Pauling 2005). Properly functioning PSB is also indispensable as a mass medium serving as an institution of democracy on behalf of civil society. However important the Internet and other new forms of media and journalism can be in this sphere (see Jakubowicz 2005), the following assessment of the role of commercial media in European democracies, formulated by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (2007), clearly shows that they cannot replace PSB in this role: The increasing role of the media, which in many cases tend functionally to replace political parties by setting the political agenda, monopolising political debate and creating and choosing political leaders, is a matter of concern. Media are too often primarily business-driven institutions and, by prioritising their business interests over the service to the citizens and democracy, inevitably contribute to the


distortion of democracy. The role of the media in setting political agendas, transmitting political debates and forming opinions about political leaders underlines the importance of independent, pluralist and responsible media for a democratic society. (Parliamentary Assembly 2007: paragraph 53)

Nevertheless, Bardoel and d’Haenens (2008) are correct about the need for a new “legitimization” of PSB. Fundamental social and technological change that has unfolded in recent decades (and in any case in the time since the original introduction of PSB) has created an entirely different context for PSB and redefined the needs of the public (Nissen 2006; Ofcom 2004a). This requires thorough change in the way PSB organizations operate and serve the public (Digital Strategy Group 2002). With reference to the Canadian situation, it has been said that “refocussing the CBC is the only way to prevent its demise” (Hoskins et al. 2001: 29). In an effort to identify the scope of change that PSB should undergo, I have noted ( Jakubowicz 2008a) that this change should be driven by a redefinition of policy and regulatory frameworks relating to PSB, remodelling both the PSB organizations themselves (internal change) and their relations with other players on the media scene, the audience, and civil society (external change). Policy change should encompass, among other things, the following elements: acceptance of a technology-neutral definition of the remit; acceptance and, indeed, an obligation for PSB organizations to operate on any platform suitable for their purposes; extension and modernization of the program requirements addressed to public service media; redefinition of some basic features of PSB (such as the requirement that PSB organizations broadcast universal content and must achieve universal reception, both impracticable at a time of thematic channels and Internet content, and, by definition, followed only by a part of the audience). Internal change should produce fundamental reform of PSB organizations to take advantage of opportunities provided by new technology. External change should involve partnership with other players on the media scene; finding ways to engage the young audience; and partnership with civil society and new modes of social communication.

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Conclusion

References

PSB/public service media are – or should be – a growth industry. After decades of development in the countries in which they were originally born in the 1920s and 1930s and in the 1960s and 1970s, they spread to many new countries in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1990s, and are now expanding gradually in the developing world. It is also a growth industry in the sense that their full potential as a public service and as an institution of democracy is not yet realized in many countries, so there is also room for improvement and growth within long-established PSB/public service media systems. However, this growth may be stunted or cut short if public policy falls short – as has been the case so far – of what is required to ensure the modernization of PSB and its transformation into a twenty-first-century public service, capable of keeping abreast of social, cultural, and technological change, and of remaining relevant to the audience and serving it in the way it needs to be served in a much-changed digital environment. Policy – at both the national and international levels – has not yet really caught up with this situation and the seriousness of the challenge to PSB and to policy itself is great, if the declared goal of preserving PSB is to be attained. Perhaps with the exception of Denmark (Poulsen 2000) and the UK (BBC 2004; 2006), few PSB organizations have understood the need for all-round change in their operations and technology and few have set such change in motion. The UK is perhaps the only country to have promoted such change as part of government policy (DCMS 2005; Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 2009). The Council of Europe is certainly the only intergovernmental organization to have come up with a blueprint for PSB in the digital age (incidentally, suggesting a change of name from PSB to public service media – PSM – to highlight the need to wean PSB away from traditional broadcast technology and to signal the need to use all available platforms). If this assessment of the situation is accurate, then there certainly is not enough energy behind the effort to bring PSB into the twenty-first century, fundamentally transforming it in the process.

AMARC Afrique (2008) L’empouvoirement citoyen pour la bonne gouvernance à travers la radio communautaire en Afrique de l’Ouest. Cadres législatifs et réglementaires, http://amarcwiki.amarc.org/upload/ documents/livre_AMARC_OSIWA_FR_.pdf (accessed 13/09/2009). ARTICLE 19 (2002) Access to the Airwaves: Principles on Freedom of Expression and Broadcast Regulation. London: ARTICLE19, http://www.article19.org/ pdfs/standards/accessairwaves.pdf (accessed 30/09/2009). ARTICLE19 (2007) Brazil: New Public Channel Only a First Step to a True Public Broadcasting System. London: ARTICLE19, http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/ brazil-new-public-channel.pdf (accessed 12/08/2009). ARTICLE 19 (2007a) Memorandum on the Draft Thai Public Service Broadcasting Agency Act. London: ARTICLE19, http://www.article19.org/pdfs/analysis/ thailand-psb.pdf (accessed 11/08/2009). Banerjee, I., and Seneviratne, K. (2005) Public Service Broadcasting: A Best Practices Sourcebook. Paris: UNESCO. Bardoel J., and d’Haenens, L. (2008) “Reinventing public service broadcasting in Europe: Prospects, promises and problems,” Media, Culture and Society, 30(3): 337–355. BBC (2004) Building Public Value: Renewing the BBC for a Digital World. London: British Broadcasting Corporation. BBC (2006) Creative Future: BBC Addresses Creative Challenges of On-Demand. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/ pressreleases/ stories/2006/ 04_april/25/creative. shtm (accessed 25/05/2006). Bustamante, E. (1989) “TV and public service in Spain: A difficult encounter,” Media, Culture and Society, 11(1): 67–88. Committee of Ministers (1996) Recommendation No. R (96) 10 to Member States on the Guarantee of the Independence of Public Service Broadcasting, Strasbourg: Council of Europe, http://www. coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media/Doc/ CM/Rec(1996)010&ExpMem_en.asp-TopOfPage (accessed 12/09/2009). Committee of Ministers (2003) Recommendation Rec (2003) 9 on Measures to Promote the Democratic and Social Contribution of Digital Broadcasting, Strasbourg: Council of Europe, http://www.ebu. ch/CMSimages/en/leg_ref_coe_r2003_9_digital_ broadcasting_280503_tcm6-5032.pdf (accessed 12/09/2009). Committee of Ministers (2007) Recommendation CM/Rec (2007) 2 on Media Pluralism and Diversity of Media


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Lumpur: Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development. Ekiert, G., Kubik, J., and Vachudova, M. A. (2007) “Democracy in the post-communist world: An unending quest?,” East European Politics and Societies, 21(1): 7–30. European Commission (2008) The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia: 2008 Progress Report. Commission Staff Working Document. COM(2008) 674. Brussels: European Commission. European Commission (2009) Communication on the Application of State Aid Rules to Public Service Broadcasting. Brussels: European Commission. Foster, R. (2007) Future Broadcasting Regulation. London: Department for Culture, Media and Sport, http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/ publications/FutureBroadcastingRegulation.pdf (accessed 22/12/2007). Giles, C. (2006) “The public interest challenges for the communications sector over the next 10 years: Contestable public service funding,” in E. Richards, R. Foster, and T. Kiedrowski (eds) Communications: the Next Decade. A Collection of Essays Prepared for the UK Office of Communications. London: Ofcom, pp. 101–111. Government of Singapore (2002) “The broadcasting act,” [34/2002], Singapore. Grzymala-Busse, A. (2004) Post-Communist Competition and State Development. Working Paper Series No. 59. Ann Arbor, MI: Program on Central & Eastern Europe, Department of Political Science, University of Michigan. Gupta, N. (2002) “The disenfranchised voter: Silences and exclusions in Indian media,” in M. E. Price, B. Rozumilowicz, and S. Verhulst (eds) Media Reform: Democratizing the Media, Democratizing the State. London: Routledge, pp. 180–202. Hallin D. C., and Mancini, P. (2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hallin, D. C., and Papathanassopoulos, S. (2002) “Political clientelism and the media: Southern Europe and Latin America in comparative perspective,” Media, Culture and Society, 24(2): 175–196. Hibberd, M. (2001) “The reform of public service broadcasting in Italy,” Media, Culture & Society, 23(2): 233–252. Hoskins, C., McFadyen, S., and Finn, A. (2001) “Refocusing the CBC,” Canadian Journal of Communication, 26(1): 17–30. Howell, W. J. (1986) World Broadcasting in the Age of the Satellite. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Hume, E. (2004) Media Missionaries: American Support for Journalism Excellence and Press Freedom Around the Globe. Miami, FL: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, http://www.knightfdn.org/ publications (accessed 22/07/2009).

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Public Service Broadcasting and Public Policy Huntington, S. P. (1995) Trzecia fala demokratyzacji. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. International Mechanisms for Promoting Freedom of Expression (2007) Joint Declaration on Diversity In Broadcasting, Amsterdam, http://www.article19. org/pdfs/igo-documents/mandates-broadcasting. pdf (accessed 20/12/2009). International Mechanisms for Promoting Freedom of Expression (2009) Joint Statement on the Media and Elections, London, http://www.article19.org/ pdfs/ press/joint-statement-on-the-media-and-elections. pdf (accessed 20/12/2009). Jakubowicz, K. (1995) “Lovebirds? The media, the state and politics in Central and Eastern Europe,” Javnost/ The Public, 2(1): 75–91. Jakubowicz, K. (2003) “PSB in New Member countries: Problems and prospects,” The SIS Briefings, March (56): 12–20. Jakubowicz, K. (2003a) “Bringing public service broadcasting to account,” in T. Hujanen and G. Lowe (eds) Broadcasting and Convergence: New Articulations of the Public Service Remit. Göteborg: NORDICOM, pp. 147–166. Jakubowicz, K. (2004) “Ideas in our heads: Introduction of PSB as part of media system change in Central and Eastern Europe,” European Journal of Communication, 19(1): 53–75. Jakubowicz, K. (2004a) “A square peg in a round hole: The EU’s policy on public service broadcasting,” in I. Bondebjerg and P. Golding (eds) European Culture and the Media. Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 277–302. Jakubowicz, K. (2005) “Let the people speak? The (unfinished) evolution of communicative democracy,” in B. Ociepka (ed.) Populism and Media Democracy. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocław skiego, pp. 143–180. Jakubowicz, K. (2007) Rude Awakening: Social and Media Change in Central and Eastern Europe. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Jakubowicz, K. (2008) “Public service broadcasting in post-communist countries: Finding the right place on the map,” in K. Jakubowicz and M. Sükösd (eds) Finding the Right Place on the Map: Central and Eastern European Media Change in a Global Perspective. Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 101–124. Jakubowicz, K. (2008a) “Participation and Partnership: A Copernican Revolution to Re-Engineer Public Service Media for the 21st Century”. Paper presented during the RIPE@2008 Conference, Mainz, http://www. uta.fi/jour/ripe/2008/papers/Jakubowicz.pdf (accessed 20/12/2009). Jakubowicz, K. (2010) “PSB 3.0: Reinventing European PSB,” in P. Iosifidis (ed.) Reinventing Public Service


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Reding, V. (2006) “The Role of Public Service Broadcasters in a Vibrant and Pluralist Digital Media Landscape.” Speech delivered at the EBU–MTV conference “From secret service to public service,” Budapest, http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/reding/ docs/speeches/ebu_mtv_20061103.pdf (accessed 12/12/2006). Representative on Freedom of the Media (2007) Freedom of Expression, Free Flow of Information, Freedom of Media. CSCE/OSCE Main Provisions 1975–2007. Vienna: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Richter, A., and Golovanov D. (2006) Public Service Broadcasting Regulation in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Special Report on the Legal Framework for Public Service Broadcasting in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory. Ridinger, M. (2009) “The Public Service Remit and the New Media.” The New Public Service Remit, IRIS Plus: 7–24, Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory. Rumphorst, W. (1999) Model Public Service Broadcasting Law and Aspects of Regulating Commercial Broadcasting. Geneva: ITU, UNESCO. Sánchez, G. (2003) Legislation on Community Radio Broadcasting: Comparative Study of the Legislation of 13 Countries. Paris: UNESCO. Sennitt, A (2006) “South African Public Broadcaster Gagged Commentators: Inquiry,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide, October 13, at http://blogs.rnw.nl/ medianetwork/south-african-public-broadcastergagged-commentators-inquiry (accessed 19/11/2010). Sinha, N. (2006) “India: Television and national politics,” in M. Raboy (ed) Public Broadcasting for the 21st Century. Luton: University of Luton Press, pp. 212–229. Sousa, H. (1996) Communications Policy in Portugal and Its Links with the European Union. An Analysis of the Telecommunications and Television Broadcasting Sectors from the Mid-1980’s Until the Mid-1990’s. London, http://bocc.ubi.pt/pag/sousa-helena-chap-7broadcasting.html (accessed 22/05/2006). Splichal, S. (2001) “Imitative revolutions: Changes in the media and journalism in East-Central Europe,” Javnost/The Public, 8(4): 31–58. Statham, P. (1996) “Television news and the public sphere in Italy: Conflicts at the media/politics interface,” European Journal of the Media, 11(4): 511–556. Stiles, J. M., and Weeks, C. (2006) Towards an Improved Strategy of Support to Public Service Broadcasting. Evaluation of UNESCO’s Support to Public Service Broadcasting 2002–2005. Final Report. Paris: UNESCO. Svendsen, E. N. (2002) “The regulation of public service broadcasting: An EPRA inquiry,” presented during the 16th meeting of the European Platform of

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14

User Rights for the Internet Age: Communications Policy According to “Netizens” Arne Hintz and Stefania Milan

Introduction “Governments of the Industrial World, … leave us alone!” John Perry Barlow famously proclaimed in his Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace: “You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather” (Barlow 1996: 1). It was a strong rejection of the most established policymaker and policy level, the state, and thus, the cornerstone of the traditional policy process. If “the legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us” (Barlow 1996), then what does? In this chapter, we develop a critical perspective on established policy processes by looking at the policy frameworks, agendas, and interventions of Internet activists. We investigate the realm of individuals who create media infrastructures as well as content outside the private sector, the state, and public service institutions and, often, on a voluntary basis. They are typically organized as loose associations of peers or as grassroots collectives functioning according to principles such as horizontal decision-making and equality. This sector includes what we term “grassroots tech groups” which offer web site hosting, email and mailing list services, chats, and other technological tools to provide an alternative communication infrastructure

to civil society activists and citizens. These groups embrace Indymedia and other online news platforms that provide alternative accounts of current affairs and often open publishing mechanisms to self-produce information, and they comprise activists operating hacklabs and experimenting with technology. Beyond the typically informal and grassroots ways of organizing in this sector, we also consider more formalized networks of bloggers, such as the organization Global Voices, technology expert groups such as the Chaos Computer Club, and a large and influential global nongovernmental organization (NGO), the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). Overall, we examine organized collective action by “netizens” and Internet developers with respect to their contributions to the creation of an online infrastructure and related policy arrangements. This diverse group of actors can be seen as part of a broader spectrum of alternative, radical, community, civil society, or “third sector” (i.e., neither commercial nor public service) media actors. Groups within this sector share similar characteristics, namely, grassroots ownership and control, non-profit social objectives, democratic and participatory structures, and alternative content or assistance to others in providing it. Their policy concerns therefore overlap. However, the distinct technological background, ideological approach, and



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User Rights for the Internet Age informal organizational practices of Internet activists lead to a specific relation with the policy process that differs from that of other media actors. In this chapter, we therefore map the following: (a) the policy environment, (b) policy concerns, and (c) practices of policy intervention by these actors.

The Policy Environment: Spotlight on the State Cyber-libertarianism, as expressed by Barlow, rejects any top-down interventions by states and other powerful actors that would impact on the innovations and creativity of individual developers, civil society-based creators of information technology, and small businesses. It regards cyberspace as a new world in which different principles of social organization prevail. Netizens (i.e., the inhabitants of this “new world”) are naturally sympathetic to this view. Most online activists and developers of technology value the informal experimental practices, networks, and “bottom-up, grassroots processes” (Kahn 2004: 18) in their field. They point to the Internet as a resource which “for the most part … has evolved openly, freely, and without a great deal of governmental or other oversight” (Cerf 2004: 14), and thus, they question the need for state regulation. As “code is law” (Lessig 1999: 6), or as the design of technology pre-determines what information and communication technology (ICT) systems can and cannot do, designers and developers become “policy-makers” and designing/developing becomes a more fruitful policy exercise than lobbying governments or international institutions. In the rare cases in which regulation is considered, it should be based on the prerogative: “First, do no harm” (Cerf 2004: 13). Cyberspace has challenged the law’s traditional reliance on territorial borders and has thus questioned government’s ability to control citizens’ behavior, as well as the role of the state as a primary law-making authority. With virtual worlds moving at a faster pace than physical worlds – lacking territorial space and allowing netizens greater mobility across legal borders – calls have been made to recognize cyberspace as being distinct from physical space, with a separate set of rules and doctrines ( Johnson and Post 1996). However, the new millennium has seen a very different


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development: the state has tried to (re)gain influence over the new virtual landscapes to introduce territorial law to the network and has used the Internet as a means to expand its control (Goldsmith and Wu 2006). This may not be entirely surprising as state-led control has been a strong factor in the historical development of what is called the “information society.” Scholars such as Armand Mattelart (2003) highlight social management as a key factor in the emergence of information techniques, pointing, for example, to the increasing role of statistical methods to measure and analyze a variety of aspects of social life. Since the first large population count in Prussia in 1725, the construct of an “average citizen” has been a precondition for the control and administration of large populations in modern nation-states.1 Modern state bureaucracies require information about the life conditions, habits, and activities of their citizenry and have a strong interest in gathering the largest possible amount of data. The ubiquity of ICTs has created vast possibilities to put this perceived need into practice. For example, electronic communication can be monitored more easily than traditional sealed letters, and with a mobile phone in one’s pocket, most citizens today carry a tracking device that provides detailed information about their physical location and movement. Thus, “the capacity of the state to gather and process information about its citizens and about the resources and activities within its space is growing by orders of magnitude” (Braman 2006: 314). Security concerns have added a further incentive for “intelligence gathering” in all aspects of life of the citizenry. As Sandra Braman (2006a) notes, a new security paradigm has emerged in the 1990s according to which all those whose behavior is statistically unpredictable are classified as “enemies” (see also Braman, ch. 30). Accordingly, we are witnessing a development in which dedicated gathering of specific data is replaced by systematic and ongoing retention of all data.2 The European Union’s (EU) Data Retention Directive (EU 2006) provides an exemplary case. The Directive, which was adopted in 2006 and implemented by most European countries in 2009, requires telecommunication operators and Internet service providers (ISPs) to store their customers’ connection data for up to two years and to make it available to the authorities upon request. This concerns detailed information on who communicates

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with whom, at what times, for how long, and at which physical location. According to civil rights lawyer T. J. McIntyre, the Directive results in the creation of “a comprehensive digital dossier about every individual” (McIntyre 2008: 327). It implies the pre-emptive surveillance of the entire population – a fundamental change from traditional policing based on the presumption of innocence – and it means that the very act of communication becomes suspicious. Communication monitoring is often complemented by information control. Filtering, and thus censoring, web content has become a common practice not just of authoritarian regimes but also of Western governments. The majority of commercial filtering software is developed in the United States (US). Globally, “most filtering regimes are implemented as a result of vague laws which are open to arbitrary interpretation, ministerial decrees, or obscure ‘national security’ channels” (Villeneuve 2006: np), and they often include nontransparent agreements between governments and ISPs. The most widespread rationale given publicly for filtering web content is the restriction of child pornography distribution. However, filtering technologies often block access to content that is unrelated to banned topics because of the imperfections or technical configuration of the software. An attempt to block one site can lead effectively to the blocking of hundreds of unrelated sites.3 Furthermore, once a national filtering system is in place, governments may be tempted to use it as a tool for political censorship. The publication of the blacklists from countries such as Australia, Finland, and Sweden on Wikileaks4 has shown that such lists may include a variety of other sites, including content targeted for political reasons, such as critical and oppositional civil-society-based web sites and alternative media. This nourishes suspicions that the discourse around child pornography is merely a pretext to create a more extensive censorship architecture. The adoption of a child pornography filtering law in Germany in 2009, for example, was followed quickly by demands to extend the law to a broader range of content deemed illegitimate.5 State interventions may also move beyond content restrictions to control and restrict the behavior of the actual users (and activists). In an increasing number of countries, starting with France in 2009, so-called “three strikes” laws have been proposed


that would restrict people’s access to the Internet in cases where they have been found to violate, for example, intellectual property law by downloading copyrighted content.6 Even more drastically, Internet activists who provide communication infrastructure for social movements or publish oppositional content have been subject to police operations such as house raids or have been incriminated through the use of anti-terrorism legislation (e.g., this occurred before the G8 Summit in Germany in 2007; see Hintz and Milan 2009). Neither surveillance practices nor related policies are exclusively based in the state domain. The private sector uses a variety of surveillance techniques, for example, by tracking and recording the activities of employees through surveillance cameras, monitoring consumers through loyalty cards, and monitoring and analyzing netizens through social networking sites (Becker 2002; Fuchs 2009). An industry has emerged that gathers, processes, and sells personal data, and business associations are lobbying governments to expand possibilities for tracking consumers and to limit users’ anonymity (Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006). Internet activists repeatedly have been subject to libel cases, when information published on their blogs and web sites about businesses reveals aspects that a company would rather conceal. Intellectual property law, and particularly its continued expansion over the past decades, has meant that a lot of information remains in, or is moved into, the private domain. In what has been termed the “second enclosure” (Boyle 2003), knowledge and information are commodified and thus put under the control of the business sector, while cyberspace becomes valuable real estate. The state regulates and supports this process, for example, through draconian punishment of intellectual property violations and of related acts such as deactivating anticopying software (Klotz 2004). Finally, the development and management of Internet resources provide opportunities for service providers to discriminate against certain content, as shown by the debate surrounding network neutrality (Marsden 2010). Whereas commercial ISPs may have an interest in blocking, speeding up, or slowing down certain web content (e.g., based on how much the content producer pays), net neutrality principles would prevent discrimination and interference. The rationale for private sector providers to intervene in online

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User Rights for the Internet Age communication may be different from the state’s (e.g., commercial, rather than legal, reasons), but the effect may be similar in that grassroots civil society content is likely to be filtered out. A similar filter is generated by the increasing packaging of applications, particularly on the mobile Internet, which leads to the promotion of selective content and tools, and to the exclusion of others. While the various “app stores” generate revenue for platform providers, the future of traditionally open cyberspace may well be one of “sterile appliances tethered into a network of control” (Zittrain 2008: 3). In contrast to the “policies of liberation” envisioned by early cyberspace and cyberlaw thinkers, “policies of control” (Sarikakis 2006: 171) have become more prominent, encompassing control over infrastructure and its uses by both the private and state sectors, and constraining the free sharing of information and knowledge. Rather than accepting cyberspace as a separate “place” governed by different rules, or releasing it to self-governance by netizens, the state has asserted its role in cyberspace and has sought to regulate citizens’ behavior on the net.7

“Netizens” and Net Activism “Netizens” are a broad set of actors, ranging from software developers to Facebook activists and, theoretically, to everyone who is using web-based communication tools on a regular basis. In this chapter, we focus on organized collective action by these groups and individuals, particularly regarding the creation of online infrastructure, as there we can identify distinctive and elaborate policy agendas. A particular focus of our research has been on grassroots tech groups or groups that provide communication infrastructure to civil society activists and citizens on a voluntary basis, through collective organizing principles.8 Some of these groups were among the pioneers of Internet development in the early 1990s and many have since contributed to innovations on the web. Such groups typically have a loosely associated membership and most communication and work take place online. Daily tasks include managing web servers and mailing lists, while larger projects may include developing software tools, such as content man-


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agement systems or encryption programs. Some groups are active “offline,” operating a computer laboratory or an Internet café, or establishing media centers at social movement gatherings and protest events.9 The findings we present in this chapter are informed by a set of interviews that we conducted with grassroots tech groups in six different countries and which are discussed in more detail in an earlier publication (Hintz and Milan 2009). Activists were asked about threats and obstacles to their activities, values underlying their activism, their vision of Internet regulation, and their attitude toward policy forums. Most interviews were conducted by email as an asynchronous exchange of questions and answers, allowing us, as researchers, to relate to Internet activists in the environment “in which social practices are defined and experienced” (Hine 2005: 1). Some interviewees responded as individuals; others replied collectively following an internal group debate. Complementary research included participant observation of media activist gatherings and of policy forums, such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in the framework of a series of research projects focussing on communication governance and grassroots policy activism. Among the broad range of netizens, grassroots tech groups have a particularly developed political agenda, as their core aim is to counteract commercial as well as state pressure on information content, media access, and the privacy of media users. The defining characteristics of grassroots tech groups include autonomy from the commercial and state realm, emancipation of media users from predominant providers of information and communication channels, direct action, collective processes and rejection of formal leadership, and ideological as well as practical proximity to social movements. With a focus on collective principles, they foster a “community practice in the information society” (Day and Schuler 2004) rather than the networked individualism of online social networks activism. As such, these groups may represent only a particular type of citizens’ online activity. Yet many of their perspectives resonate strongly among a broader range of Internet activists. Self-organization and DIY (“do-it-yourself ”) cultures are constituent features of recent strands in social movements (e.g., large segments of the global justice movement) (Day 2005; Notes from

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Nowhere 2003), just as they are for online collaboration and web-based activism. Autonomy and independence are key motivators across the sector and, from decentralized social production (e.g., open-source methods), follow a tendency towards decentralized and distributed forms of regulation, as in self-regulation and multi-actor governance (Benkler and Nissenbaum 2006). Practices of open collaboration connect with earlier cyberlibertarian thought, even if most online activists and netizens today would not share the same assumptions. Much caution has emerged regarding the naive picture of a “more humane and fair” world of cyberspace in which everyone can “enter without privilege or prejudice” (Barlow 1996), and regarding cyberlibertarianism’s overlap with market principles, deregulation, and neoliberal thought. Net critic Geert Lovink (2002: 37) has portrayed early cyberlibertarianism as a childish dream of a frictionless neoliberal world; “a mixture of yuppies and hippies” for whom capitalism was a “funky business.” Nevertheless, ideas of selforganization, openness, and bottom-up processes continue to form the foundation of net activism. The right of the individual to explore all information in cyberspace – unimpeded and uncensored – and to contribute and share knowledge is a cornerstone of the culture of cyberpolitics (Jordan 1999). From this, it follows that the state mostly comes into the picture as a force that may obstruct free exchange and development. Often it does so in very direct ways. Many members of grassroots tech and similar groups have experienced repression and harassment from state authorities. Explicit state surveillance has become a concern that has spread beyond the confined niches of specialized experts and radical activism. Mobilized by Internet activists, privacy advocates, and civil liberties groups, in 2007 over 30,000 people signed a legal challenge against a new law on mandatory data retention (as discussed earlier) before the German Constitutional Court, making it the largest constitutional complaint in German history. Similar legal complaints have taken place across Europe. Demonstrations and protests against surveillance, and particularly data retention, have brought to the streets tens of thousands of people since 2007.10 So the actors that we look at in this chapter typically regard state intervention as an obstacle to their work. They share a strong skepticism towards state regulation, both on the nation-state level and


by international institutions. Their critique allows us to put the spotlight on the security state, complementing the focus of many progressive scholars and advocates who have identified the neoliberal paradigm as the primary factor influencing recent media and communication policy (Ó Siochrú and Girard 2002) and have emphasized concerns about rampant privatization, commercialization, and the forced retreat of public services (Calabrese 2004; Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006). A critical perspective on state policies, moreover, is grounded in the social and political practices of netizens. Online activists experiment with new forms of mobilization and interaction through loose association and temporary coalitions, creating multitudes that move beyond established formats such as trade unions or political parties. They point to the inadequacy of traditional institutional ways of organizing social and political life. According to Manuel Castells (1996: 302), the increasingly decentered and networked forms of organization and intervention have thus led to a “crisis of democracy in the information age.” The connection between a constituency of citizens and elected representatives has been eroded, weakening the nation-state as a site of politics and changing the conditions for policymaking. If social and political practices in the networked world are changing, and if the forms of affiliation and engagement have been transformed, political “formats derived from the politics of liberal democracies centered in nation-states do not fit” anymore (Sassen 2006: viii). Thus, concepts that were fundamental to traditional representative democracy, such as citizenship and elections, may equally be called into question.11 Authors analyzing democratic mechanisms in networked processes have pointed to the limits of representative democratic models (Cammaerts 2008) as well as to the need to develop “post-democratic” (Dean et al. 2006: xvi) forms of governance and a “nonrepresentative democracy” (Rossiter 2006: 22). These models and forms come to terms with the reality of loose and networked interaction and experiment with forms of legitimacy that do not involve the transfer of power to a sovereign. Traditional democratic suppositions of representation would be replaced by values that are more prominent in networked interactions, such as subsidiarity, expertise, reputation, and multi-stakeholderism (Dean et al. 2006).

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User Rights for the Internet Age The netizen policy perspective puts the spotlight on the state from two directions – the security state, on the one hand, and the inadequacy of state structures, on the other. The social and political practices of netizens differ from those of traditional representative democracy. Internet activists, such as those organized in grassroots tech groups, are radically democratic in that they provide people with the means to raise their voices, to be active and participate, and they, thereby, have a “generative” (Zittrain 2008) character. However, this democracy differs from established routines. Just how far this is the case, and what implications it has for policy, varies substantially across the sector, as we will see in the following section.

Policy Agendas: User Rights for the Internet Age The perceived threats to the activities of Internet activists have engendered what we describe as a policy agenda. Core demands include open technical standards and network neutrality, the right to anonymity, privacy, freedom of expression, and the free flow of knowledge and information. Antimonopoly regulation and privacy protection are seen as crucial to prevent excessive interventions by powerful private and state actors. In particular, Internet activists argue that state interference in the communication infrastructure needs to be curbed by limiting surveillance practices and ensuring citizens’ rights, including the right to political dissent. Among the less formally organized parts of the sector, such as grassroots tech and Indymedia groups, a policy catalog has gradually emerged at hack meetings, conferences (such as the annual Chaos Communication Congress), and media activist meetings (for instance, the alternative series of events WSIS?WeSeize!, which took place in parallel to the first WSIS Summit in Geneva in 2003). WSIS?WeSeize! promoted the development of autonomous and civil-society-based media infrastructures. Participants highlighted values of openness; rejected state- and business-led privatization and control policies, criticized state censorship and surveillance as well as the privatization of ideas through intellectual property law, and discussed the exploitation of intellectual and informationalized labor (Hintz 2009).


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Some of the more formalized parts of the sector, and its sympathizers, have developed elaborate policy documents, such as the APC’s Internet Rights Charter. In order to develop the Internet as “a global public space that must be open, affordable and accessible to all” (APC 2006), the charter highlights a broad set of rights concerning: access to infrastructure, access to knowledge (including public and publicly funded information such as research), the opportunity to share this information and knowledge, content creation, free expression and freedom from censorship, data protection and freedom from surveillance, open standards and an open architecture, and net neutrality. The key demands for privacy, access, open standards, and unrestricted exchange of knowledge emerge across different parts of the sector. These demands are similar to those of other self-organized and civil society-based media (such as community radio) in that they describe an enabling environment in which such projects can exist and operate and create a platform for people to raise their voice. Both Internet projects and community radio stations demand unhindered access to media infrastructure – be it the Internet or the airwaves. Differences between them exist, though, as their structural as well as ideological frameworks vary. Community radio operates in an environment in which infrastructure traditionally has been more regulated and in which operating a media organization requires more resources. Furthermore, with roots in older movement cycles and an “old-media” history, the ideological frame is less influenced by libertarian and anarchist strands. Community radio is typically more inclined to address governments and regulators with specific requests for legalization, funding support and reserving a fixed percentage of frequencies for community broadcasting. The role of public institutions is recognized, for example, through proposals such as those for a community media fund and requests for licenses, and a key problem is typically seen in the commercialization of infrastructure and its administration (Milan 2009a; Coyer and Hintz 2010). The concerns of netizens, by contrast, focus on freedom from interference and on technical standards and are, therefore, more broadly situated in an open environment that does not necessarily require specific interventions by states and institutions. The emphasis on free and unobstructed activities by individuals overshadows notions of a “public interest” that

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is at the core of traditional broadcasting. Internet activist agendas and practices question the existence of a singular public.12 Typically, the more an Internet activist group is oriented toward informal grassroots-based organizational structures of free association and linked to newer strands of social movements, the more radical its criticism of states and institutions is likely to be, and the more its policy agenda will focus on freedom from state intervention. Accordingly, many Internet activists remain skeptical of whether transnational policy discussion, in spaces such as the WSIS or the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), can achieve progress on the issues in which these activists are engaged. Expressing widespread concerns within the sector, a member of a grassroots tech group said: “I am not convinced at all that any major institution or international body would try to regulate, or create policy, in a way that it would not favour states and corporations” (Hintz and Milan 2009: 30). Global policy processes are regarded as government- and business-dominated, with civil society participation as a “decorative puppet theatre” (Hintz and Milan 2009: 31) whose main purpose is to legitimize the decisions taken by corporations, governments, and lobby groups. Furthermore, Internet activists doubt that state officials in international policy processes have the necessary knowledge to regulate complicated technical issues. Instead, they advocate self-regulation by information providers and, where possible, end-users, grounded in non-binding standards that gain popularity based on their quality and usefulness. Policy dialogue would best take place between “democratically chosen groups of technical experts that operate in a very open and transparent way” (Hintz and Milan 2009: 31). The preferred policy level is at the grassroots, involving those who are directly concerned, and with policy prescriptions flowing from the bottom up. The role of the state and of international institutions is, at best, to safeguard an open enabling environment and a variety of key civil and human rights. The more detailed decisions (for instance, on technological developments) would be left to the “experts.” This policy model demonstrates the increasing importance of technologists and standard-setters in global media policy. It questions the leading role of state agencies as well as those multi-stakeholder arrangements which offer participatory opportunities for


established players from state, business, and civil society, but fewer options for the less institutionalized and more grassroots-based practitioners.13 It is not “democratic” in a traditional sense of formal representation, but as a bottom-up approach with a focus on those who develop and understand the technology, it has liberating and “generative” potential. At the same time, an approach involving the retreat of established institutions of democratic accountability may imply unchecked technocratic decision-making by technological “experts.” Not the least, it uncovers a certain proximity to policy agendas put forward by the business sector and to new regulatory models applied in, for example, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), where the private sector is in the driver’s seat and governments have retreated from a lead role (see, e.g., Mueller 2002; Mathiason 2009).14 The more an Internet activist group or association is formally organized and connected to other strands of global civil society (including larger NGOs), the more it will recognize a regulatory role for governments and institutions, particularly with regard to overcoming infrastructure and other divides between North and South. For example, the blogger network Global Voices collaborates with national development institutions and United Nations (UN) programs to support initiatives of digital inclusion, where ICTs are applied to a broad range of development purposes, as well as to help foster a public sphere where unrestricted online speech can flourish.15 APC is heavily involved in global multi-stakeholder policy deliberations to advance similar causes. These differences in policy strategies within the broader sector of netizens require a closer look at the repertoires of action with respect to policy advocacy and a more systematic classification of practices of intervention.

Practices of Intervention: Bypassing the Law Institutional policy arenas provide “windows” (i.e., temporary opportunities for civil society activists and advocates to raise their policy concerns and influence the political environment) (Kingdon 1995). The way activists respond to such opportunities depends on their cultural backgrounds and

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User Rights for the Internet Age ideological values as well as on whether they perceive these as offering potential gains or as posing a threat (Milan 2009). Traditionally, social movement theorists have divided different types of responses according to the positioning of social actors vis-à-vis political institutions into “insider” and “outsider” strategies (see, e.g., Tarrow 2005). “Insiders” interact directly and cooperatively with power holders through advocacy, lobbying, and, in some cases, participation in multi-stakeholder forums; “outsiders” question the legitimacy of power holders and address them through protest and disruptive action. Both strategies can be observed among netizens and collective Internet-oriented action, but neither one satisfactorily describes the specific practices and policy approach of the sector. Larger organizations such as APC have been involved with policy arenas such as the WSIS and the IGF and have regarded these spaces as opportunities to influence policy debate constructively. However, some participants have argued that such participation has dampened critical perspectives (McLaughlin and Pickard 2005), and that the structures of participation, which allow only the attendance of formally established organizations, are not suitable for the more loosely organized and individual-/expertoriented approach of Internet activists.16 The latter face procedural challenges of admission and accreditation that may prevent access. Without the backing of a large organization and institutional or philanthropic funding, they may also lack the financial resources and the policy language expertise to ensure effective participation. At the WSIS, only well-resourced organizations were able to contribute consistently, whereas many who are building an information society in their everyday practices – such as grassroots tech groups, free software developers, or creators of community wireless networks – were unable or unwilling to attend (Hintz 2009). The street protests against data retention discussed earlier show that Internet activists and netizens also interact with institutions and policymakers from the outside. “Outsiders” typically adopt tactics of mass mobilization (e.g., campaigns, rallies, demonstrations, and cultural resistance), and disruption (for instance, blockades), expressing fundamental opposition to either a particular policy or to the policy process as such. However, whereas the global social justice movement has


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focussed successfully on disruption and mass protest, these tactics are rare within Internet (and more broadly, media) activism. Communication policy processes are generally difficult to frame for mobilization and often distant from the immediate concerns of non-expert publics. Furthermore, the preferred space of action for Internet activists is cyberspace. If both “inside” and “outside” tactics are problematic as spaces of action for Internet activists, and if the value of addressing power holders is fundamentally questioned, key interactions with the policy and legal environment must take place elsewhere – “beyond” institutional processes. One activist and interviewee explained: I don’t think we need to focus on “asking” or “having a voice.” I think we have “to do,” “keep doing” and keep building working structures and alternatives that are diametrically opposed to the ways capitalism forces us to function in our everyday lives. Our job, as activists, is to create selfmanaged infrastructures that work regardless of “their” regulation, laws or any other form of governance. (Hintz and Milan 2009: 31)

Another one added: “Our main tactic is just to avoid all the laws, just sneak a way around it” (Hintz and Milan 2009: 31). “Beyond” tactics consist of creating alternatives to existing communication infrastructure, and bypassing laws and policy processes. “Beyond-ers” react when their activities and values are threatened by laws, regulations, or repression. However, the tactical repertoire that they prefer includes circumvention, evading regulation, and “hacking” norms and conventions. For that, they use their technical skills, creating encryption, moving servers to other countries, and generally developing creative solutions that allow them to stay one step ahead of regulatory efforts. Like many “outsiders,” “beyond-ers” criticize institutional policy processes as being undemocratic, top-down interventions. Yet their approach is to redefine social structures from scratch. As the Indymedia slogan goes: “Don’t hate the media, be the media.” By creating an alternative to hegemonic structures and procedures, these activists seek to give rise to an autonomous space, independent from institutions. “Beyond” strategies focus on prefigurative action: by creating a different system, at both the “material” and “symbolic” levels, media

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activists who adhere to these strategies seek to transcend a mainstream system that they consider to be governed by distorted values and illegitimate actors (Milan 2009).

Conclusion: Toward an Enabling Policy Environment The activities of netizens are affected deeply by policy development and enforcement. Netizens observe how state and business activity can lead to enclosure of previously free spaces of communication. Organized groups of Internet activists perceive policy developments and processes largely in the framework of threats to their activities and values rather than as opportunities to foster the adoption of just policies. In their view, the major source of threats originates from those who dominate transnational policy processes – governments and large business. The most widespread repertoire of action in the sector is neither participation and advocacy “inside” policy processes, nor protest “outside” a policy arena. Rather, netizens operate “beyond” institutional policy-making by developing alternative infrastructure and bypassing regulations through technical means. There are certainly Internet activist organizations that regard policy arenas such as the WSIS as opportunities that allow them to influence policy agendas and to enhance the policy environment in which civic media actors find themselves. However, “beyond” approaches are a dominant strand, not just in Internet activism but also across the broader field of media and communication where people create alternative structures, such as community radio and newsletters, and generally prioritize such productive acts over advocacy or protest (Milan 2009). For global media policy this provides two challenges. First, key developers of communication infrastructure are underrepresented in policy deliberation forums. As we have seen, not only do these actors face institutional obstacles to participation but also many of them regard the process, as such, as illegitimate. This means that calls for more inclusive mechanisms, even if heard, do not necessarily solve the problem. An inclusive process, which remains led by the “old” powers of the


governmental and intergovernmental realm or the “new” powers of the business realm, will remain unacceptable to many. Rather, there is a need to create new governance mechanisms that reflect the aspirations, skills, roles, and organizational structures of all actors who make a relevant contribution. Such mechanisms would involve radical decentralization and recognition of emerging and non-traditional organizing modes in global governance, such as informal networks and constituencies.17 Second, if key actors are hardly visible in policy as well as in public spaces, the issues they stand for are underrepresented too. Internet activists propose a policy agenda that is based on civil rights, such as the rights to freedom of expression, privacy, anonymity, access to infrastructure and knowledge, freedom from censorship, as well as open technical standards and network neutrality. They advocate self-regulation and the involvement of technical experts and concerned stakeholders, including the users. Their agenda does not overlap significantly with the interests of most nationstates. However, strong policy voices have supported similar objectives. For example, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has provided a list of recommendations that are based on the understanding that the Internet “works best autonomously and without any intervention” and, therefore, requires “non-restrictive regulation” (OSCE 2004: 17, 15). These recommendations highlight the necessity of universal access to information, knowledge, and infrastructure; support for the right to privacy, including, explicitly, the right to use encryption techniques; and the condemnation of state-enforced filtering and blocking of content. They include a call for a “fundamental review of international regulatory instruments governing copyright, patents and trademarks” and support “rights to creative reuse and adaptation of information” (OSCE 2004: 27). Self-organized codes of conduct should be the foundation of Internet policy, with user self-regulation at the core, whereas industry self-regulation is criticized. Defending the values of free expression should be the “priority of global public policy” (OSCE 2004: 18). Even though many OSCE Member States have not taken these recommendations to heart, and so the statements remain largely rhetorical, they send a signal that the policy objectives of Internet activists are shared.

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User Rights for the Internet Age Other signals include the regular reports by the UN Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression;18 statements and declarations such as the 2008 “Budapest Declaration on the Right of Access to Information,”19 which address key concerns of Internet activists and are supported by freedom of expression representatives from various international organizations; and references to the need for “communication rights” which consistently emerge in international policy deliberations.20 User rights for the Internet age are under threat and, at the same time, they are advocated across different policy spaces, by different actors, and through different means. Internet user rights thus constitute a highly contested field in current global media policy.

Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Becker (2002) traces the use of information for social management to the development of writing techniques and pictograms in 4,000 BC. In what Braman calls the “informational state,” the traditional notion of panopticon-style surveillance has been replaced with the “panspectron” in which information is gathered about everything, all the time (Braman 2006: 315). Villeneuve (2006) recounts how an attempt to block 31 web sites in South Korea led to the blocking of 3,167 unrelated domain names hosted on the same servers, and how an attempt by an ISP in Canada to block one site caused more than 600 unrelated web sites to be blocked. Wikileaks is a web site that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental and corporate documents, see www.wikile aks.org. Within hours of the adoption, German politicians suggested including filtering of hate speech, violent online games, and other content deemed illegitimate; see www.golem.de/0908/68755.html, http://www. presseportal.de/pm/66749/1426111/koelner_stadt_ anzeiger. See www.laquadrature.net. Writing as recently as 2006, as part of a chapter entitled “How governments rule the net,” Goldsmith and Wu (2006: 79) noted: “There may soon come a time when abusing your privileges as a member of the Internet could lead to expulsion from the club.” While the establishment of ICANN in 1998 created forms of governance that were not state-led, initial attempts to have civil society groups and individual


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netizens participate in its structures, and to legitimize the latter democratically, were short-lived, and business as well as governments have increased their influence. 8 Examples include: the American riseup.net, the German nadir.org and so36.net, the Spanish sindominio.net, and the Italian autistici.org. 9 Indymedia United Kingdom, for example, has set up tents with computer equipment in the middle of actions and action camps to allow other activists to write and upload reports directly from the “street.” The group Nadir once transformed a countryside barn in a remote north German village into a hightech media hub that provided thousands of environmental activists with sophisticated communication infrastructure, enabling them to send out their reports on a protest against nuclear waste shipments to a global audience. The New York-based group May First/People’s Link has run the communication infrastructure of the Social Forum of the Americas. 10 See http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/index. php?lang=en. Privacy fears are certainly not shared by all netizens. Many users of social networking platforms have been more than happy to display their most personal information. However, campaigns (e.g., those who were against Facebook in response to the company’s change in privacy policy) have shown that awareness of the issue is rising; see, for example, http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooksnew-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly. 11 Rossiter (2006: 23) notes that it is a “phantasm” that the principles of representative democracy, such as citizenship, participation, equality, among others, can be transposed into the realm of networks. 12 Their approach is in line with critical theorists who contest the notion of “the public” (for an overview, see Calhoun 1995). 13 The multi-stakeholder arrangement at the WSIS, despite its many positive achievements, excluded many of those who are developing an “information society” on an everyday basis (see Hintz 2009). 14 For a discussion on participation in, and the democratic legitimacy of, ICANN, see Palfrey et al. (nd). 15 See http://globalvoicesonline.org. 16 As former ICANN Director Karl Auerbach notes: “We should allow people to speak for themselves in the forums in which decisions … are made and not require that they act through artificial proxies” (Auerbach 2005: np). As a consequence, the term “stakeholder” should be abandoned “because it forgets that at the bottom of things, all organizations and groupings are aggregations of individual people each with his/her own point of view” (Auerbach 2005: np). Accordingly, WSIS participants from the

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17

18 19 20


Internet governance and Internet activist communities suggested that a summit such as the WSIS should be held as a free assembly of individuals, not as a highly structured meeting of governments, corporations, and NGOs. This principle largely has been adopted by the IGF. Kleinwächter (2005) suggests the establishment of the “United Constituencies,” in addition to the UN, in order to acknowledge the increased role of informal non-state collectives and actors. See http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/opinion/ index.htm. See http://cmcs.ceu.hu/foi/declaration. For example, during the negotiations at, and mobilizations around, the WSIS; see Raboy and Landry (2005).

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Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Cerf, V. G. (2004) “First, do no harm,” in D. MacLean (ed.) Internet Governance: A Grand Collaboration. New York: United Nations ICT Task Force, pp. 13–15. Chakravartty, P., and Sarikakis, K. (2006) Media Policy and Globalization. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Coyer, K., and Hintz, A. (2010) “Developing the ‘Third Sector’: Community media policies in Europe,” in B. Klimkiewicz (ed.) Media Freedom and Pluralism: Media Policy Challenges in the Enlarged Europe. Budapest: CEU Press, pp. 275–297. Day, P., and Schuler, D. (2004) Community Practice in the Network Society: Local Action/Global Interaction. London: Routledge. Day, R. J. F. (2005) Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements. London: Pluto Press. Dean, J., Anderson, J. W., and Lovink, G. (2006) “Introduction,” in J. Dean, J. W. Anderson, and G. Lovink (eds) Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civil Society. New York: Routledge, pp. xv–xxix. European Union (EU) (2006) Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, http://eur-lex. europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:200 6:105:0054:0063:EN:PDF (accessed 08/05/2009). Fuchs, C. (2009) Social Networking Sites and the Surveillance Society: A Critical Case Study of the Usage of studiVZ, Facebook, and MySpace by Students in Salzburg in the Context of Electronic Surveillance. Research Report. Salzburg: Research Group Unified Theory of Information, ICT&S Center (University of Salzburg), http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at/SNS_Surveillance_ Fuchs.pdf (accessed 30/09/2009). Goldsmith, J., and Wu, T. (2006) Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hine, C. (ed.) (2005) Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet. Oxford: Berg. Hintz, A. (2009) Civil Society Media and Global Governance: Intervening into the World Summit on the Information Society. Münster: Lit. Hintz, A., and Milan, S. (2009) “At the margins of internet governance: Grassroots tech groups and communication policy,” International Journal of Media and Culture Policy, 5(1–2): 23–38. Johnson, D. R., and Post, D. (1996) “Law and borders: The rise of law in cyberspace,” Stanford Law Review, 48(5): 1367–1402. Jordan, T. (1999) Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace and the Internet. London: Routledge. Kahn, R. E. (2004) “Working code and rough consensus: The Internet as social evolution,” in D. MacLean

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User Rights for the Internet Age (ed.) Internet Governance: A Grand Collaboration. New York: United Nations ICT Task Force, pp. 16–21. Kingdon, J. W. (1995) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. New York: Longman. Kleinwächter, W. (2005) “Internet co-governance: Towards a multilayer multiplayer mechanism of consultation and cooperation (M3C3),” in P. Ahrweiler and B. Thomass (eds) Internationale partizipatorische Kommunikationspolitik: Strukturen und Visionen. Münster: Lit, pp. 75–98. Klotz, R. J. (2004) The Politics of Internet Communication. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Lessig, L. (1999) Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books. Lovink, G. (2002) Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Marsden, C. T. (2010) Net Neutrality: Towards a Co-Regulatory Solution. New York: Bloomsbury. Mathiason, J. (2009) Internet Governance: The New Frontier of Global Institutions. New York: Routledge. Mattelart, A. (2003) The Information Society: An Introduction. London: Sage Publications. McIntyre, T. J. (2008) “Data retention in Ireland: Privacy, policy and proportionality,” Computer Law & Security Report, 24(4): 326–334. McLaughlin, L., and Pickard, V. (2005) “What is bottom-up about global internet governance?” Global Media and Communication, 1(3): 357–373. Milan, S. (2009) Stealing The Fire. A Study of Emancipatory Practices in the Field of Communication. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, European University Institute. Milan, S. (2009a) “Community media activists in transnational policy arenas,” in K. Howley (ed.) Understanding Community Media. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 308–317. Mueller, M. (2002) Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Notes from Nowhere (ed.) (2003) We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism. London: Verso.


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OSCE (2004) “Recommendations of the OSCE representative on freedom of the media from the 2004 Amsterdam Internet Conference,” in C. Möller and A. Amouroux (eds) The Media Freedom Internet Cookbook. Vienna: OSCE, pp. 15–27. Ó Siochrú, S., and Girard, B. (2002) Global Media Governance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Palfrey, J., Clifford, C., Hwang, S., and Eisenkrakt, N. (nd) “Public Participation in ICANN: A Preliminary Study,” Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, http://cyber.law. harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation (accessed 30/09/2009). Raboy, M., and Landry, N. (2005) Civil Society, Communication and Global Governance: Issues from the World Summit on the Information Society. New York: Peter Lang. Rossiter, N. (2006) “Organized networks and nonrepresentative democracy,” in J. Dean, J. W. Anderson, and G. Lovink (eds) Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civil Society. New York: Routledge, pp. 19–34. Sarikakis, K. (2006) “Mapping the ideologies of Internet policy,” in K. Sarikakis and D. K. Thussu (eds) Ideologies of the Internet. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, pp. 163–178. Sassen, S. (2006) “Foreword,” in J. Dean, J. W. Anderson, and G. Lovink (eds) Reformatting Politics: Information Technology and Global Civil Society. New York: Routledge, pp. vii–x. Tarrow, S. (2005) The New Transnational Activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Villeneuve, N. (2006) “The filtering matrix: Integrated mechanisms of information control and the demarcation of borders in cyberspace,” First Monday, 11(1–2), http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/ bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1307/1227 (accessed 30/09/2009). Zittrain, J. (2008) The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

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Part III

Cultural Diversity: Contesting Power


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Media Research and Public Policy: Tiding Over the Rupture Biswajit Das and Vibodh Parthasarathi

Introduction This chapter engages with the conflicting relations between media research and public policy in India. It follows the trajectory of “policy-making in communications” as well as the “history of communication research” in universities in India. In doing so, we find a lack of fit between the two. We question the discursive formation by analyzing the forms of expertise and knowledge practices that were being constituted in the post-liberalization period along with the entry of new stakeholders in the field. The chapter emphasizes the need for conceiving of and operationalizing an intense dialogue between higher education and policy-making bodies, so as to highlight the lessons to be learned from experiences in India and elsewhere. Policy-making in the domain of media in India has always been a site where competing interest groups were at loggerheads. Several such encounters were observed in the century before 1947. While colonial governmentality sought to reconstitute the public sphere, native public opinion, itself highly layered, incessantly questioned the colonial covenant (Kalpagam 2002; Das 2005). Early newspapers, telegraphy, and cinema were the obvious playing fields of the colonial government. This was complemented by the streamlining of

traditional networks of communication, from the village upwards, to institutionalize the management of “information” (Bailey 1993). While both of these dynamics are readily visible in the organization of propaganda,1 the deeper intention of this complex strengthening of communication systems was the attainment of effective and efficient administrative means to support colonial modes of appropriation. On its part, the Congress Party’s concerted attempts throughout the 1920s and 1930s to develop a countrywide communication network forced the colonial administration to deploy sweeping policies of proscription.2 All in all, as much as the colonialists deployed a plethora of media and social technologies as a strategic aspect of their administration of Indian society, all shades of anti-British forces also used various kinds of media for mobilizing and protecting their interests. The anti-colonial struggle would have been a case in point for the votaries of freedom to create a synergy, harnessing multiple voices to make media policy in independent India. On the contrary, the struggles for freedom could not escape the colonial legacy of centralized structures of policy-making; but nor did they want to miss the benefits of laissez-faire. The independent government did not want to script any policy for the media in an integrated manner, as both press and cinema evolved



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Biswajit Das and Vibodh Parthasarathi

as independent units after sustained negotiations and struggle with the colonial administration. Hence, the government of the day was only left with radio and television to exercise its power in making policies from time to time. Precisely because policy frames shared a common origin in concepts, policies, and laws from the latter half of the nineteenth century, the colonial legacy shaped the possibilities for the reconstruction of independent India’s institutions (Farmer 2000). When the pretensions of integrating media policy did emerge, they were guided by the requirements of the planned economy. Spelled out in planning documents, these initiatives were obsessed with addressing the role of the media and media technology for development. As a result, communication research undertaken after Independence legitimized state-sponsored projects and justified technocratic solutions for social change. Although critiques did emerge, these voices could neither reach the forefront nor, importantly, develop an alternative perspective of communication in the Indian context. Communication research became concerned with the direct bearing or impact of the mass media on people’s minds. Various institutes, sponsored by the government, emerged during this period not only to develop professionals for these purposes but also to evaluate the growth and expansion of communication technologies. Among the most emphasized concerns in officially sponsored research were studies on the structure and content of the press, and those on public opinion and audiences of the mass media. From the early 1950s to the late 1960s, two methodological watersheds emerged. First, research began to operate within the orbit of power structures whereby the techniques of bibliographical compilation and the analysis of documents predominated. Opinion research picked up the other end of the communication process by confining itself to the study of reactions and preferences of audiences. By the 1970s, the term “extension” became a catchword for central planners and departments undertaking research on agriculture, family planning, and rural development. The idea of extension emerged because the first two Five-Year Plans, while emphasizing development, did not have a vision to reach the masses. Since they relied on people consuming messages on development programs through the mass


media, the decade of the 1950s did not see substantial gains. Consequently, the Third Five-Year Plan emphasized the need for an approach based on extension (i.e., involving interpersonal communication and change-agents). The aim was to reach the people, instead of waiting for people to avail themselves of the services and opportunities provided by the state. This new emphasis grew rapidly with the quantitative expansion of studies on the “diffusion of innovations.” Perhaps the sole benefit of all such research was that it directed attention to the dynamics of communication in rural India, which, until then, were little explored by social scientists. While this body of work revealed unknown facets of regional cultures and peasant worldviews, it had enormous inadequacies in terms of explaining and interpreting them, to say the least (Vilanilam 1993; Kumar 1998). In the aftermath of the Emergency (1975–77), and for the first time, the media became a politically driven domain of government policy. The aftermath of the Emergency witnessed alternative voices of intellectuals who interrogated the relationship between state and civil society. Simultaneously, media professionals who had encountered the draconian measures of the Emergency on the press, started focussing on measures to reorganize state radio and television into an autonomous public organization. A committee was set up, known as the Verghese Committee, to draft the bill for autonomy of All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan, respectively, the radio and television arms of the national public broadcaster. Although the Verghese Committee started with a high degree of legitimacy in drafting the bill for autonomy, internal strife within the political regime prevented any significant headway. Over time, these efforts, largely addressing the realm of free speech, became relatively marginal in policy debates. For subsequent political regimes, “autonomy” became a catchall phrase for a range of political battles surrounding free speech; but the issue of autonomy for AIR and Doordarshan, from the organizational and financial clutches of government, remains far from settled. Significantly, despite first-generation media policy research (like media research in general) being conducted within the framework of a centralized and statist developmental paradigm, no specialist research center informing development policy related to the media had ever been created. And by

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Media Research and Public Policy 1991, when the process of economic liberalization was initiated, development concerns did not feature at all on the agenda of state support. For one, there were changes in the institutional and substantive outlook toward development processes with the unleashing of deregulation in public infrastructure, and in media infrastructure in particular. On the part of universities, where most media research was undertaken, and which were equally affected by this new context, the emphasis shifted concertedly toward the production of the human resources to meet the needs of an expanding media industry.

University as Public Institution The rise of communication and media studies in post-Independence India can be attributed to the following factors: the professionalization of communication and media, the emergence of new institutional support3 for teaching and research (with the expansion of universities, colleges, and funding agencies), and the growth in the specialization of communication research in terms of the choices available regarding research themes and methods. Courses and colleges were set up in order to contribute to the expansion of the number of teachers and researchers. Lastly, American global influence in communication studies, including a variety of innovative methods in communication research, had become overwhelming. Even though its influence in India was selective or adaptive, several innovations by American communication studies scholars in the areas of policy research were found to be relevant for planning and development projects pursued by the Indian state. This was especially true in the spread of messages to promote education, healthcare, and innovative practices in various economic sectors, particularly agriculture and rural development. Not surprisingly, most research in communication and development by anthropologists and other social scientists during the period between 1950 and 1960 reflected this perspective. These studies were of two types: first, there were those where the substantive themes included systemic studies of social structure, culture, ecology, and the economy of a village, a tribal community, a city, or an


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urban settlement. In these studies, we witness an implicit or explicit focus on the networks of communication and their significance to the continuities and changes in structures, values, and aspirations of the people. The second type of study aimed to explore the structural and cultural networks of communication in order to make use of them to motivate people to accept innovations for development and change. These, apart from empirical observations, reflected theoretical concerns and made use of emergent and sophisticated theoretical and methodological paradigms for the study of communication systems and their application for nation-building and development. The contributions to communication research during this period came from several specialists (Lakshman Rao 1966; Roy 1969; Hartman 1989). They demonstrated, through their research, the linkages between communication and the Indian processes of development and modernization. Theoretically and methodologically, several studies made use of Rogers’ communication model, “diffusion of innovation.” Most such studies, however, used empirical designs of research premised upon the rational-utilitarian paradigm of social action and the shaping of choices in decision-making. This empirical tradition of communication research in India gradually began to establish the relevance of communication in policy formulation and development planning. It also sensitized researchers to the need for interdisciplinary perspectives to generate a fuller understanding of social structures and processes. The significance of communication in the analysis of political behaviors, institutions, and processes, such as through political parties, leadership, voting behavior, political mobilization, and modernization, among other related issues, is widely reflected in these studies. Support for conducting research on policy-related problems – notably, health and family planning, productivity and innovations in agriculture, and community development – was initiated by the Planning Commission of the Government of India. Most of these studies were prioritized on the basis of their relevance for planning and development. In many cases, they were based on the need to generate benchmark data required for development projects. It is intriguing that while communication research was conducted in agricultural universities and in social science faculties in various universities, courses on media were introduced in

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some universities without any research orientation. Much thinking had been invested in the professional growth of communication, in modernization, and in the standardization of its curricular structure. This was supported by the University Grants Commission (UGC) which set up subjectspecific national panels of professors to periodically review, upgrade, and modernize the syllabi in consultation with its teachers. These syllabi catered to the requirements of industry and maintained a close nexus between communication departments and professional requirements. More and more communication faculties distanced themselves from social science departments and surfaced as professional courses (teaching programs) to produce skilled personnel for the print, public relations, and audiovisual industries. Impetus for the growth of communication research gained new momentum when, toward the end of the 1960s, the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) was established. The ICSSR has made a great impact upon the professional and disciplinary growth of research in communication. So far, it has published three decennial surveys of research undertaken in India in the field of communication. These surveys reveal that most research catered to micro studies based on the evaluation of policy implementation, the cultural tensions that emerged due to the advent of satellite television, and the impact of media in society.4 But the impasse in teaching and its relationship with policy studies in communication continued. Except for one or two institutions, hardly any media courses were taught as optional courses or as a subfield in any social science faculty. Hence, there was a double impasse: while courses on media in social science departments were under-theorized, the curriculum in mass communication and journalism departments was untheorized, since it focussed exclusively on skill development. Furthermore, there was an uneven funding basis as well as a hierarchy. For instance, while central universities were totally funded by the UGC, state universities were only partially funded by this body. Moreover, while most state university departments were teaching departments, the central universities, despite far better facilities, lacked coherent research programs and additional funding for research. This was not due to the paucity of funds per se, as these very central university departments kept acquiring technological gadgets to meet changing market


demands to create professionals for the industry. While most central universities have moved from teaching print to audiovisual media, most state university departments are still confined to print journalism courses, albeit increasingly under the generic degree program of “mass communication.” Despite these discomforting developments, these public institutions did contribute immensely to the growth of the discipline, albeit in a truncated manner. Nevertheless, rarely has the discipline grown alongside the changing times. The 1990s witnessed a boom of private teaching institutions. Most of these institutions, initially affiliated with various state universities, now mushroomed as “deemed universities” and “private universities” approved under a special clause of the UGC and the All India Council of Technical Education. Universities experienced arbitrary increases in admission fees and lured students with job placements in the industry. No doubt, these institutions fared well in branding themselves by not associating with or following the guidelines of UGC. Instead, they chose to follow the rules of the All India Council of Technical Education, thus equating communication studies with management and engineering courses. Thus, the upcoming private universities concentrated on management, engineering, and mass communication as technical courses and demanded a higher fee for admission. In addition, most of these institutions did not follow the rules set out by the UGC to recruit trained faculty. They recruited professionals from the industry to run their hands-on training programs, including courses in media. Public universities did not lag too far behind and started introducing such “professional” courses as well. Thus, instead of engaging with innovations in a changed scenario, public universities replicated courses to compete with private institutions. Most of these professional courses were launched on a self-financing basis by university departments, thus affecting the foundational courses (i.e., in social science disciplines) that had been launched earlier by these institutions. Media courses now charge higher fees than social science programs do. The recent development is further worrisome as the industrial houses have started media programs for in-house production. What is missing in this entire endeavor is the polemical debate regarding the discipline and its grounding in Indian society.

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Media Research and Public Policy The very idea of the university having a public mission is now questioned. Instead of producing technologies, ideas, and innovations, it has become a mere form of paid labor for the industry. The institution neither provides the space for free and open debate for critical inquiry involving all stakeholders nor informs broad public discourse and specialized policy-making. Moreover, much has changed theoretically with respect to the perspectives that contribute to an understanding of the field of communication in India. But a cursory glance at the discipline, either in existing mass communication schools and centers or in some social science faculties where communication and media is offered as a subject, reflects the inability to address the questions that are encountered in the day-to-day life of civil society. While mass communication schools and centers try to assure their position through an alliance with the media industry, social science faculties touch upon the cultural dimensions of communication due to the lack of a vibrant tradition of policy science as a discipline. Thus, culture becomes a point of entry for these media scholars, at the cost of addressing the larger questions that advocates in civil society have to take on. Unfortunately, there are few such coherent engagements due to a lack of intensive civil society initiatives in the field of communication. It is surprising that while mass communication schools and social science faculties rarely touch upon the realm of policy, the realm is fast gaining prominence among management and engineering institutions in the country, largely because of their alleged and perceived technical nature. Further, due to the lack of any formal association of communication scholars in the country, their scattered voices go unheard. At best, both public and private bodies look at them with suspicion. In recent years, there is much talk about access and equity but rarely is one engaged with the “publicness” of public institutions. In addition, there is no serious realization that the university is not the only center for knowledge generation for the public good. Although in rare cases, academic research is engaged with the art of policy implementation through micro studies, these lack the ability to penetrate the citadel of policy planners. This has resulted in the growth of more and more freelance consultants, think tanks, and commissioned research awarded to small organizations because of their flexibility to receive such funds.


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Funding from donors that is granted to university centers and departments and that is inclined toward policy has barriers, on both the supply side and the demand side: institutional protocols are weak and/or non-existent; and advocacy and policy research requires partners, human expertise, activities, and even budget-heads that are different from the conventional university “project.” However, the research administration at most universities (where it exists in a systematic form) grew out of the need to receive and expend money from the arms of government rather than from private and philanthropic organizations. Despite wider liberalization in the economy, these barriers are even more acute when it comes to receiving support from international and multilateral donors, except when such support comes as a result of existing bilateral agreements. Often, support from nonuniversity and non-government sources (i.e., the principal supporters of the little policy research that does occur) is viewed by academic administrations as a threat or is considered to pave the way toward the administrative autonomy of a particular department or center. All of this then creates uncertainty on the part of donors when considering support to universities. These donors then tend to support civil society organizations (CSOs), where policy studies are even less prominent. The lack of academic research in media policy also occurs because sometimes academics in quasigovernment universities and research centers are apprehensive that their research might uncap controversy and adversely impact their prospects for advancement. Issues of public interest, advocacy, and policy-making are often considered exogenous to the scope of research in social science departments of universities that contend with historical, theoretical, and, at best, evaluation research. The latter is typically confined to measuring the impact of government programs and thus lacks the space or perspective for critical engagement with policy. Traditionally, policy research as an academic field in India has been weak and is limited largely to a focus on economic policy. But from the late 1980s, there has been a growth in policy studies in domains such as the environment, gender, and health. This growth was influenced by, if not being a result of, global trends and international advocacy including the need for research which unfolded alongside the Earth Summit held in 1992. Some economic policy centers, like the Indian Council for Research on

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International Economic Relations (ICRIER), irregularly produce studies on aspects of the media as part of their general body of work on international trade, competition policy, and foreign investment. Similarly, the more generic policy research centers, like the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), tangentially address the sphere of media as part of their wider work on accountability and transparency. In so doing, while this work rarely examines the specificity of the media industry and is thinly aware of global literature on the subject, it does provide benchmarks on policy responses. Thus, in established institutional frameworks of policy research, the emphasis on media policy has evolved neither as rapidly nor as strategically as would be desired. These think tanks did not seriously pursue policy research on the media, owing either to a lack of expertise or their inability to sense the potential of the field. Recall that first-generation media studies and media policy research were conducted in the framework of development, when the latter was struggling for academic legitimacy. Paradoxically, despite development studies and policy having gained an overarching prominence within academia more generally, media studies remains a black hole.

Constraints in Policy and Regulatory Process Shifts in media policy engulfing India since 1991 have been guided neither by the creation of the necessary knowledge nor by market-related institutions. Rather, they have been guided by a policy framework on the part of the state that can best be described as one of “strategic neglect.”5 Partly as a consequence, there is extensive fragmentation at all levels in the structure of policy-making in the media and communication industry. This has created a scenario where the industry is dealt with by the Departments/Ministries of Information Technology, Telecommunications, Information and Broadcasting, Industry, Commerce and Human Resource Development. This completely ignores the phenomenon that action in any one of these has substantial implications on – or worse, emerges at cross-purposes with – policies of the other. Media policy-making is being conducted without adequate input from independent quarters outside of government and industry. A cursory


look at the members of various government and public–private committees set up to formulate or review aspects of media policy in different sectors over the last decade shows this quite clearly. Such advisory and/or decision-making bodies usually are constituted by representatives from relevant ministries, heads of trade bodies, and senior management from media firms. It is rare to see civil society representation (unless the committee explicitly deals with the “social” sector), and academia is consistently conspicuous by its absence. Moreover, there is no concerted desire by government to measure or evaluate the rationale, relevance, and impact of projects from independent quarters. In cases where policy evaluation processes are undertaken, these, while rarely being transparent, are short of systematic and consistent mechanisms for obtaining informed inputs. The reasons for poor pre-policy and consultative processes are multiple. First and foremost, protocols for consulting outsiders are knee-jerk or ad hoc. And in the absence of streamlined protocols, outsiders who get heard are the dominant voices – those having powerful means for or other avenues of advocacy. This, in turn, reinforces the impression that these outsiders represent the vested interests. Second, when specialized professionals are involved in policy-making, they are usually solicited for single-issue inputs; rarely are they required to sustain their interaction to either confront tradeoffs or to respond to objections from divergent propositions. Last but not least, there is no systematic mapping of stakeholders associated with a policy measure, which tends to give the impression that every policy announcement has “only opponents” (Agarwal and Somanathan 2005: 14–15). As much as this is true, the graver consequence is that policy options are being weighed without the input of different viewpoints and possibilities, let alone among interest-neutral competencies. One key trait of media deregulation over the last 15 years is undoubtedly the periodic stalling, or gross reversal, of decisions and protocols without any fresh empirical reasoning. An apt instance of this was the government’s decision to introduce a Conditional Access System for cable television in the major cities from mid-July 2003. But sections of the cable industry continued to argue against aspects of the policy, giving bizarre reasons for its delayed implementation like a shortage of settop boxes. Days before the proposed date of

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Media Research and Public Policy implementation, July 15, it was postponed to September, and it was clarified that implementation would be initiated in a phased manner. As if this was not enough, a Parliamentary Committee recommended a further postponement, which was ultimately not accepted by the government. In September 2003, the system was implemented in Chennai but not in New Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. This was unsurprising, since the extended family of Tamilnadu’s Chief Minister owned a leading cable network. Yet residents of Chennai subsequently sought to reverse the decision through the courts. As in this illustrative case, what is significant in all policy processes is that substantive debate – with and among the public – occurred after the formulation and announcement of the policy, and not before; and much more so after matters entered the courts. This is not to deny that interference by interest groups and extra-constitutional factors do play a considerable role in delays, derailments, sudden changes, and/or postponements in many cases. It is here that well-structured policy-making processes backed by informed research can go a long way toward muting such factors. A sound and structured policy-making process requires due consideration of up-to-date and available subjectmatter knowledge and relevant data, and the use of available analytical tools (Agarwal and Somanathan 2005: 8). Interest groups and extra-constitutional factors are often a manifestation of concerns ignored in the policy-making process. Perhaps the recognition of some of these malaises led to the creation of a landmark instrument: the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act (TRAI), 1997. While the Act was a response to the geometric expansion of the mobile telecommunication sector and the related glut of private actors,6 in the institutional history of TRAI, two substantial changes unfolded. First, the Act was modified, following lessons learned from the bottlenecks in its implementation, as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Act, 2000. The Amendment created an arbitration body, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), to mediate and quickly resolve disputes between a licensor and licensee, between service providers and consumers. The TDSAT was also used to arbitrate appeals against decisions taken by TRAI.7 Second, since TRAI was the sole regulatory institution in the communication industry, over the years it became, by default, the


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de facto regulator for other sectors of the information and media industries.8 As a result, TRAI has been producing consultative papers and recommendations on matters ranging from community radio to the digitalization of cable distribution, from 3G, or third-generation, mobile services to transnational satellite television. The Planning Commission rightly emphasized that consistent and coherent regulatory frameworks can only be developed by allowing regulators sufficient scope to develop their sectors and to achieve clearly defined objectives.9 Unfortunately, none of the principal objectives that the regulator enumerated pertained to generating the necessary knowledge. In its nine functional heads, “research” is noticeably absent.10 A lack of resources cannot be the explanation here as the Institutional Capacity Building Project of TRAI, funded by the Planning Commission’s budget, enables TRAI to conduct and commission studies, and facilitate short training opportunities abroad, for more than a dozen staff members. None of the studies has been awarded to academic or semi-academic entities; three of the five studies completed during the 2005–06 period were awarded to foreign, private consulting organizations.11 While TRAI has stimulated market growth through competitive and oligopolistic means, there is much to be desired in its efforts to protect consumer rights, ensure Universal Service Obligation (USO) stipulations, and enforce service quality – the latter has been particularly recognized in its own reports (TRAI 2005). Organizationally, however, there is a lack of trained staff, especially economists, accountants, and lawyers skilled in regulatory policy analysis.12 Personnel at TRAI have limited capacity in the use of methods, such as regulatory impact assessment (RIA), to assist in the design and implementation of new measures. Consultation papers (CPs) prepared by TRAI may not pass even the most rudimentary peer review benchmarks of scholarly media journals. Considering its status and importance as the regulator of one of the fastest-growing media industries worldwide, TRAI has never shown interest in aggregating data and remains content to rely entirely on “industry sources.” Despite the mushrooming of the media industry in the post-1991 years, the media are almost invisible in the national statistical tables of India; and there is little indication of relative industry profiles, livelihoods, and

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wage figures.13 For their part, corporate stakeholders support or contest the regulator’s game plan by conducting research through trade bodies or consultancy firms, which masquerade as scientific studies. The lack of detailed empirical data on the media industry can be explained in terms of the wider deficiencies in enumerating the service sector as a whole – namely, the sector’s historically low profile and conceptual ambiguity over its classificatory protocols.14 For most of the twentieth century, economists regarded services as dependent upon manufacturing, and thus invested less in their measurement or conceptualization. Most segments of the mass media became a casualty of this approach. Arguably, the very notion of services as distinct from manufacturing reflects an artefact of industrial organization in recent years, rather than a substantial economic fact. The two are clearly interrelated and to a far greater extent than existing classifications may convey. This void in data on the media in India can also be explained by the rapid changes to which the various media sectors are continually exposed. Because of the close dependence on technological change, this dynamism often makes it difficult to keep abreast of new kinds and modes of services coming onto the market in a continuous stream. Even where enumerations on the media industry have gathered momentum, such as in cinema and the music industries, only physical goods have entered the scope of audits,15 with the exception being TRAI’s reports on telecommunication services. While innovative methods to capture media services have yet to be conceived by the regulator and the government – an area where academia could play a role – the need becomes urgent as the media move towards digitalization, convergence, and dematerialization.16 Amidst this landscape, it is often argued that the absence of official enumerations on the media industry can be explained by managerial and/or financial constraints on the Government of India. However, this explanation is partial and rather lopsided. First, there were regular collections of large sets of data relating to the agricultural sector (especially from the mid-1960s), as well as on the manufacturing sector (more extensively from the 1970s). Second, organizations like the Planning Commission, the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), and the National Council for Applied


Economic Research (NCAER) have conducted national surveys periodically on specific industries in the core and small-scale sectors. In fact, the CSO has been actively encouraging and supporting a variety of organizations to undertake “in-depth statistical analysis” with a view to “facilitate policy formulation and development planning” (Central Statistical Organisation 2010). Third, government invests in extensive/intensive data collection in the domain of information that it considers a priority, be this directed, for example, at increasing the efficacy of either its apparatus (as with the Unique Identification Scheme; see Maringanati 2009; Shukla 2010), or its legitimacy, as demonstrated by commissioning the assessment of the right to information (RTI).17 Moreover, large amounts of resources are being spent on measuring and evaluating information and communication technology projects by union and state governments. These projects are undertaken either by governments or are subcontracted through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Fourth, specific to the media industry, we should recall that in the three decades when the public broadcaster Doordarshan (DD) was the sole player in the televisual sphere, gathering documentation was an integral part of its organizational mission and pan-Indian activities.18 Today, however, it may be argued that since DD is a small player in the television industry (and thus it is neither directly involved nor able to determine techno-commercial choices), gathering relevant data is a low priority on its administrative agenda. While this may be partially true, it does not convey the full picture and, similarly, does not give due weight to the kinds of data DD collected. We find that because DD’s mandate was framed by welfare economics, the very nature of the data collected (and which it still sometimes continues to collect) was driven less by commercial criteria and more by its (public) service criteria. Its enumeration of the landscape of television therefore focussed on cognitive and programmatic metrics of television audiences. This practice was reinforced by the pointlessness of commercial enumerations in a milieu where DD was the only player in the television industry. In short, since the years when DD alone constituted the “Indian industry,” there has not been a tradition of collecting data on the commercial aspects of television. In the mid-1990s, it was believed that comprehensive data were difficult to obtain on this sunrise sector of the Indian economy since the nascent

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Media Research and Public Policy milieu of commercial television was in a state of flux. Thus, there was a rationale put forward which impeded the very idea of accurate measurement. With increasing emphasis on corporate governance during this decade (by the state and industry alike), and the spate of stock listings by firms in the media/entertainment industry – both of which entailed varying emphases on public disclosure – companies in the television industry were expected to generate and share a wider universe of information on their commercial, legal, and technological operations. While this has brought some information into the public domain, the present norms of corporate disclosure do not yield sufficient data sets, either for academic uses or to better serve the public interest. In the last decade, many private agencies sought to collect data and publish overviews and surveys on the media industry as a whole, a trend observed globally (UNCTAD 2002). In the case of television in India, the last decade has seen three kinds of organizations involved in enumeration: individual businesses, since most maintain firm-level and industry-level data for strategic purposes, and for the minimal financial and legal disclosures required of them by government; industry associations and segment-specific trade bodies that often collect data as an ongoing in-house activity; and consulting firms commissioned by the previous two organizations.19 These measures have limited purchase on the cause of social science research since they predominantly reflect the intentions of private stakeholders. While this has played a significant role in promoting the case for, and the significance of, the creative economy in the present milieu, it has done so in a manner that is inward looking, sometimes self-aggrandizing, and possibly, therefore, unscientific. Apart from raising issues of measurement – the kernel of which rests in the trio of validity, coverage, and accuracy20 – none of the data and analysis that are generated is in the public domain. Some of them are commercially available, albeit access requires considerations and resources beyond the means of professional researchers and small advocacy groups. This prevents a wider and more diverse set of interpretations of these data sets, however methodologically questionable and empirically limited they might be. The unwillingness and inability of the government to aggregate primary and statutory material on the media industry in India is detrimental, not


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just to policy research and evaluation but often, consequently, to the exercise of policy options. Lack of sufficient and reliable data means that policy-makers, scholars, and media advocates are sparsely informed about core issues such as equity structures, levels of finance, concentration ratios, and so on. They are thus highly under-equipped to formulate regulatory instruments and governance protocols or, for that matter, to question the logic and empirical assumptions of existing policy frameworks. In this context, it is noteworthy that the approach adopted in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, a document produced by the Planning Commission, found that while policy enunciation imposes an obligation to observe cross-media ownership rules for media companies, these rules have not yet been formalized. As a result, print and electronic media integration is taking place and could result in the emergence of media behemoths acquiring a market-share disproportionate to what is permissible in a competitive market environment (Planning Commission 2007). The absence of reliable measures and instruments of measurement has become a significant barrier to engaging in strongly contested sites of policy formulation. These sites are central to nurturing the values and objectives of the public interest and for the workings of our media, be they commercially or state-run.

Bridging the Rupture Straddling several disciplines, media policy studies or media regulation studies are undertaken by scholars advancing different theoretical perspectives, using various research methodologies, and who hold different assumptions about the relations between regulation and the wider politicoeconomic processes. Not surprisingly, the various definitions of regulation, summarized as the minimal, the prudent, and the over-ambitious, reflect specific disciplinary concerns; are oriented toward different research methods; and reflect, to a significant extent, the unique personal, national, and historical experiences of the formulator of the definition. The minimalist approach, followed hitherto in the media industry by the Indian government, seems to have some advantages. It reminds us not only that we employ the notion of

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regulation differently, both across and within different disciplines, but also that the importance of regulation and regulatory institutions in the governance of the media economy remains a contested issue. The downside of this minimalism is that it may be counter-productive to the consolidation of cross-disciplinary research in the study of regulation among a greater and diverse body of scholarship. Since the mid-2000s, many ministries and government agencies have launched consultations at every possible opportunity, engaging key trade organizations, civil society, think tanks, and other agencies. Moreover, government is increasingly making information, such as major laws, regulations, and policy data, available on the Internet. For instance, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), and other key trade-related organizations, have made their web sites more comprehensive in terms of data content (Chaturvedi and Mohanty 2008: 3). In our field, the online documentation by TRAI and TDSAT is becoming both rich and organized, especially when compared with that of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s. So the question beckons: Why don’t scholars engage with the regulator and, in particular, respond to TRAI calls for comments? A starting point for TRAI would be to commission extensive literature reviews of current policy and policy research trends, globally. This would be an opportunity for scholars to engage with the regulator in a field vital to its ongoing work. The sole existing opportunity for scholar–regulator engagement is through TRAI’s Open Sessions, following the release of its various CP on specific policy options. But it must be borne in mind that such an interface, conceived under the marketplace of ideas model of deliberative democracy, assumes that people will muster the enthusiasm and resources to articulate themselves, and those needing representation will become aware of the need and will find the wherewithal to become represented, as observed elsewhere (Abramson et al. 2008: 307). Second, scholars could be inspired to address an important lacuna in TRAI CPs (for instance, benchmarking relevant scenarios in other countries, which is currently and unfortunately illinformed). Delineating and addressing these weaknesses will be of direct academic relevance to scholars from both media and area studies. This


has the added traction of, in turn, sowing the seeds of comparative documentation and research among scholars and research students. Lastly, yet most importantly, is the need to create a repository of policy documents and parliamentary proceedings, another avenue to be catalyzed under the auspices of TRAI. While TRAI does provide notices on upcoming consultations and calls for comments, what is invariably lacking is contextual documentation generated by the many ministries dealing with the media and information sectors. A dynamic archive would enable research students and scholars to more easily and more fully weigh in on particular policy questions, while simultaneously motivating them to refine their research questions, curricula, and student projects around the needs of policy-makers.21 This urges us to reflect on avenues of engagement on the part of scholars themselves, since communication research matters to policy as much as policy matters to communication research. This, of course, leads us head-on to wider challenges to reconceptualize the field in India in the light of both the emergent media milieu, in general, and the policy-making environment, in particular. In this context, we underscore the fact that in the few instances where academics have shown sustained engagement with policy and policy-making structures, this has been done with or through industry and civil society organizations. Undoubtedly, such dovetailing has helped and has often sharpened the response of CSOs, who, invariably, carry greater legitimacy and sometimes even greater resources. But this carries a danger as such engagement is being conducted outside the institutional framework of teaching and research (the case of advocacy on community radio is a case in point in this regard) (Parthasarathi and Chotani 2010). Moreover, in this scenario, scholars understandably tend to don the hat of the activist. While this is not completely undesirable, such a vantage point inhibits scholars from playing a wider role to engage systematically with divergent propositions and policy options. Designing student projects around policy formulation and evaluation within the overall canvas of a teaching program is another hitherto unexplored avenue. This could contribute to creating a “real-world” environment within mainstream curricula and pedagogy and could go a long way in stimulating students to pursue what may be seen

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Media Research and Public Policy as an otherwise bland and often abstract classroom session in policy studies. Moreover, this provides an apt playing field to substantially involve media activists and activism as, respectively, the subject and object of student analyses. Such a well-oiled system over time offers the possibility for university departments to conduct pilot studies – on contiguous themes like forecasting, program analyses, and impact assessment – in different parts of the country. However, to be deployed outside pedagogical frameworks, the methodologies for such exercises need to be carefully vetted so as to enhance their validity, which may require building specific capacities among faculty members and mentors. However, such an approach could yield rich insights for TRAI across a large and diverse country like India and possibly at much lower cost than if commissioned from consulting firms, as is the norm for TRAI. An early effort to bridge the gap between scholarship and public policy was illustrated by the creation of the Centre for Telecom Policy Studies (CTPS) at the leading business school, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A). Set up in 1997 with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and through academic collaboration with the Centre for Regulatory Industries at McGill University, the CTPS sought to bring new knowledge to the attention of decision-makers and to catalyze scholars to produce better insights on policy issues.22 Although CIDA’s support ended in 2002, the business school, recognizing the contribution of CTPS, and in a similar manner to related initiatives already housed there, has been supporting it ever since.23 Focussed on the challenges confronting the structure and functioning of the telecommunication sector, the research team was built around IIM-A’s interdisciplinary faculty and employee associates. Besides conducting research24 and generating an array of publications over the last decade, CTPS staff have been prominent in peer group conferences, conducting training programs and networks with industry and government through policy dialogues. A noteworthy instance of the government–activist–academic interface surfaced during a longgestating phase of advocacy in the deregulation of radio. In media-centric initiatives by NGOs, since the mid-1990s there has been a growing realization of the importance of communication as both an instrumental and a substantive activity. In delving


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into this, it is useful to observe that, from the Eighth Plan (1992–1997) onwards, considerable emphasis and space was given to NGOs in the planning and policy formulation processes. Government recognized that their initiatives, variously relying on people’s active participation, had a greater chance of success. By the Tenth Plan, measures were taken to create an “enabling environment for the voluntary sector to collaborate with Government for development.”25 This incrementally created a scenario wherein NGOs, once located outside and even in opposition to the apparatus of the state, were cumulatively integrated with government’s planning protocols. Some time before deregulation in radio was considered and just after the initial deregulation in television, a group of media professionals and NGOs gathered in Bangalore to reflect on the relevance and possibilities of community radio in India. This meeting, held in September 1996, occurred close on the heels of the landmark 1995 Supreme Court judgment on “airwaves being public property” (AIR 1995: SC 1236). Subsequently, much as in Sri Lanka and Nepal, community radio campaigners in India, ably supported by some academics, synergized their interests to support an association, the Community Radio Forum (CRF).26 The CRF was created initially through “CR-India,” a discussion list started in 2000 to consolidate the campaign to licence community radio stations. As the nodal agency for advocacy, CRF facilitated an interface between the government, media activists, academics, and donors, on the one hand, and helped organizations to set up community radio stations, on the other.27 In February 2007, the CRF was registered and at its first annual conference brought together NGOs, academics, government officials, and funding organizations to discuss opportunities and hurdles likely to be faced by those setting up community radio stations. In February 2008, the CRF organized its second annual conference, followed by a two-day, hands-on workshop, “Technology for Radio,” which marked part of the gradual shift in such meetings and the move from deliberating values to building capacities. At its third annual conference held in February 2009, CRF transformed its structure from a loose network to a formalized organization, with a core team of representatives from many states.28 Going a step further, CRF planned a consortium of

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existing community radio stations to collectively negotiate advertising rates with agencies. This signified CRF’s preparation for a dialogue with “the market” in a manner strikingly similar to that conducted by trade bodies in the private sector to collectivize small FM broadcasters and to negotiate with advertising agencies. It also illustrates how representative bodies are able to devise mechanisms to sustain their relevance incrementally and, thereby, to legitimate themselves as key political actors. In an unusual and unique initiative, the Department of Telecommunication took the lead in creating the Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOEs). Set up in the trendy public–private partnership (PPP) mode, TCOEs were first visualized in the Eleventh Plan documents (Planning Commission 2009: 106) to champion the cause of government, academia, and industry working together. Between May 2006 and February 2008, six such TCOEs were created.29 The inauguration of most of the new centres was presided over by the Prime Minister – an indication of the significance of these ventures. While it is too early to evaluate their research output, three features of this initiative stand out. First, each TCOE was forged through a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Union Department of Telecommunication, a specialized academic institution, and a telecommunication operator.30 This led to the birth of the IITCOE in partnership with IDEA Cellular, VEICET with Vodafone Essar, AIIScCET with Aircel, AICET with Bharti Airtel, BITCOE with BSNL (a public sector entity), TICET with Tata Teleservices, and, last but not least, RITCOE with Reliance Communications. Second, the profile of host academic institutions chosen by the Ministry was not completely surprising as, predictably, all five of the Indian institutes of technology were involved. While it is a touch unusual for the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (known more for its basic science research expertise), the choice to engage the only business school, IIM-A, perhaps reflects an affirmation of, and the desire to strengthen, earlier initiatives there. Third, under the general objectives of capacity building for research and the desire to stimulate an environment of innovation for local needs, each TCOE has been assigned a principal focus area.31 While all of this reflects an extremely timely and creative venture, two concerns must be flagged. Since the seven


largest telecommunication operators contribute a major share of the funding for this initiative, it remains to be seen if this will affect the direction and scope of research. Additionally, each TCOE is registered with the state government as a separate entity under the Society’s Act – a measure that will greatly help in traversing bureaucratic hurdles so typical of India’s university system. Such an organizational structure requires judicious steering in order to prevent its activities from being de-linked from the teaching programs at respective institutions. As long as such knowledge generation is external to its teaching program, it will miss potent opportunities to inspire those who hopefully could be the next generation of policy students. A healthy move to widen the ambit of institutional deliberation and knowledge generation in communication policy, this equally illustrates a rather unhealthy continuation of the government’s view of research as being limited to techno-managerial paradigms. All partner institutions of the TCOE initiative cannot demonstrate an even track record of interdisciplinary orientation. While initiating such a complex and innovative exercise, what has gone amiss is the involvement of an interdisciplinary social science department from a “traditional” university. For the research agendas and capacities of social scientists from disciplines such as anthropology, politics, sociology, and geography urgently need to be recalibrated toward policyoriented issues in the telecommunication sector. Although there is a slow but perceptible increase in the demand for social scientists with various backgrounds and by transnational media firms operating in India, the social sciences as a whole are far from being even minimally prepared for this. This is what imparts credence to an initiative emerging from the social science domain at the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance (CCMG), Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, where this chapter’s authors are located. A first such interdisciplinary program in the traditional university system, the CCMG emerged from the erstwhile Communication and Culture Unit in the sociology department of the national university. Configured as a focal point for teaching, research, and policy advocacy in the domain of communication in South Asia, the CCMG recognized that such a vision cannot be realized within existing disciplinary confines that have come to trap the social sciences in Indian universities (Das 2009). Rather than devising its own

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Media Research and Public Policy rendition of the generic media studies courses, the CCMG’s two-year Master’s program in “Media Governance,” a first at an Asian university, was designed to provide a policy-oriented understanding of the emergent media environment. Concerned about the possibility of a growing divergence between its teaching and research programs, CCMG projects have emerged from and seek to cater to the requirements of its curriculum. While it has forged links with specialized civil society organizations in India and like-minded teaching programs in select foreign universities, it has also given due weight to advocating policy studies in the media in other Indian universities.

Conclusion Research in the fields of mass communication and media studies in India has been distant historically and almost completely apart from the concerns of media policy. On the one hand, academia often views the creation of and engagement with such knowledge as being exogenous to the scope of research in universities. And for their part, the institutional fulcrums of public policy have failed to stimulate engagement by media scholars and advocates. This has led to a yawning gap in public interest research in the inter-related fields of media advocacy and media policy. In order to patch over the rupture, we need to encourage the production and dissemination of a diverse literature base on media policy in India. Working toward this would entail a series of small steps. For one, both the government and corporate sectors must be made to realize the positive opportunity costs involved in broadening the universe of media policy scholarship. Government ministries, TRAI, sectoral trade bodies, and non-profit arms of media companies could come together to incubate media policy clusters, initially within, and, thereafter, outside, the university system. Second, rather than viewing the paucity of policy research as a consequence of a lack of will, attention must be directed at the organizational hurdles faced in undertaking this. This may lead to, inter alia, devising incentives for graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars to undertake policy research as part of the regular curriculum and research activities, and in collaboration with civil society


organizations. Third, the regulator and trade bodies would benefit by reaching out to and involving academic and advocacy groups in a bottom-up exercise of aggregating micro- and meso-level data on the media landscape. Lastly, all of this would help to prepare the necessary intellectual and organizational resources required to commence teaching programs in media policy. Besides yielding benefits for university students, these programs could also be designed to cater to the needs of advocacy groups and, thereby, systematically build on their experiences and enhance the quality of public discourse over the media. Global media governance can only gain from conceiving of and operationalizing an intense dialogue between the fulcrums of research and higher education and those of policy-making. But the institutional contours of higher education in India inherited the de-linkage between education and policy which was characteristic of the British colonial model. At the same time, the approach and emphasis in this chapter may be relevant to the general problem of media policy-making in large and diverse industrializing countries. It also reminds us of the earlier stages of challenges and transitions in policy-making in industrialized countries, where radical departures were often propelled by the emergence and role of associations of media scholars – something sorely lacking in India, as in most Asian countries.

Notes 1

2 3

4 5

6

Instead of presenting propaganda as merely being misleading information, there is greater purchase in it being interpreted as a combination of “facts, fiction, argument or suggestion” (Taylor 1981: 5). In our context, one illustration of this can be found in Woods (1995). See Barrier (1974: 108) as quoted in Bhattacharya (1997: 140). In order to provide funds and to regulate the standards of teaching and research in universities and colleges, the UGC was established. The ICSSR has also published three decennial surveys of research in India in the field of communication. For a contrasting view, albeit one limited to the information technology/software sector, see Balakrishnan (2006). Covering the transmission and reception of all kinds of data through wired or wireless media (except broadcasting services), its mandate ranged from

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recommending the need and timing for introducing new services and service providers, to granting licenses and levying fees, ensuring technical efficiency, protecting consumer interests, and settling disputes within the industry and with the government. 7 See www.tdsat.nic.in. 8 The reasoning for this expanded mandate was twofold: first, since, like telephony, other sectors also hinged on the transmission and reception of data, as well as disputes over and competition between technological formats, TRAI could play a similar role for sectors other than those in telecommunication. Second, a common regulatory parameter for these diverse sectors and services was the allocation of spectrum to specific segments and to firms within each segment. 9 See Planning Commission (2006: 24). 10 See TRAI (2006: 169). These divisions deal with fixed network; mobile network; converged network; broadcasting and cable services; economic, financial analysis; legal, administrative and personnel; and quality of service. 11 Consultancies include: in the United Kingdom, Analysys Consulting; Spectrum Strategy; and Ovum. The others were conducted by the Centre for Development and Advanced Computing (CDAC), or they were conducted in-house; see TRAI (2006: 161). 12 It must be mentioned that although lawyers play a central role in many aspects related to regulation, the nature of teaching and research in media policy has failed to engage with the rather skewed “legal” character of regulatory politics. 13 For instance, based on industry output and sales data, it seems that the computer games industry is now as important as the film industry, although if one looks for these data or information in national statistics, they do not appear. 14 Prevailing classifications reflect early-twentieth-century forms of industrial production and continue to emphasize primary resources and manufacturing. 15 With regard to audiovisual products, for example, the international market in consumer rights and services certainly exceeds the physical market in value terms, yet documentation on the volume and value of the consumer rights trade is difficult to obtain. 16 The increasing dematerialization of cultural products has made statistical tracking of international trade problematic, despite innovative approaches to trade data assembled as part of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report on the “creative economy”; see UNCTAD/UNDP (2008).


17

In 2008, the Union Department of Personnel and Training commissioned the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to study the efficacy of the RTI Act. In response, leading RTI activist groups MKSS and NCPRI formed RTI Accountability and Assessment Group to launch an alternative study, with a US$250,000 grant from the Google Foundation. See Chishti (2008); the first findings of the “alternative” study were released in July 2009. 18 With varying regularity, DD tracked the effects of programming and audience behavior through surveys, diaries, interviews, and so on. Much of this tracking involved external personnel, including universities. 19 Two publications have become media industry benchmarks: the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) commissioned by PricewaterhouseCoopers’ annual report, and CII commissioned by McKinsey and Company. Sectoral reviews include one-offs like “The Hindi film industry – Business trends and Structural perspectives” by Yes Bank (April 2007), or periodic reports by the Indian Music Industry Association. Among international market research agencies prominent in documenting India is Research and Markets; see Research and Markets (2001). 20 Validity refers to the relationship between theoretical concepts and collected information; coverage refers to the completeness of data sets; and accuracy refers to the correctness or avoidance of errors in data sets; see Herrera and Kapur (2007). 21 This has inspired CCMG to undertake an initiative to search and aggregate policy documents, government reports, and legal case histories on different sectors of the media industry in twentieth-century India. 22 See http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/faculty/centers_ telecom.htm. 23 For instance, the Centre for Electronic Governance (CEG) was set up at the IIM-A in October 1999 with support from Oracle India, Hewlett-Packard India, and CMC (Computer Maintenance Corporation). The objectives of CEG include identification of e-governance applications, developing prototypes to demonstrate the feasibility of e-governance, creating best practice cases and toolkits, and undertaking training and dissemination activities. Based on its performance during the initial period, IIM-A pursued the CEG with its own resources, for three more years; see http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/faculty/ centers_egov.htm. 24 Research studies cover areas such as defining and clarifying policy objectives, monitoring implementation, tracking experience of deregulation in other countries, and identifying the specifics surrounding competition, investment, and financing.

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Media Research and Public Policy 25

26 27

28

29 30

31

One crucial step was to declare the Planning Commission as the nodal agency for the government– NGO interface within the formal apparatus of the state; see Planning Commission (2002). See www.crforum.in. Focus on the CRF does not dismiss the germination of sub-national advocacy groups, such as the South India Community Media Network and a community radio network within Maharashtra. Irrespective of its current capabilities, the CRF represents the emergence of multiple formations, conceivably spurred by varying interests, within the community radio campaign in India. Evaluations of experiences in Nepal reflect similar trends in the emergence of the Community Radio Support Centre (CRSC), and the Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (ACORAB) which specialize, respectively, in capacity-building and advocacy; see Pringle and Subba (2007). See www.tcoe.in. The IIM-A IDEA Centre of Excellence (IITCOE) in Telecommunications at IIM Ahmedabad (October 2007); Vodafone Essar IIT-KGP Centre of Excellence in Telecommunications (VEICET) at IIT Kharagpur (October 2007); Aircel IISc Centre of Excellence in Telecommunications (AIIScCET) at IISc Bangalore (December 2007); Airtel IIT-D Centre of Excellence in Telecommunications (AICET) at IIT Delhi (December 2007) with Bharti Airtel; BSNL IITK Telecom Centre of Excellence (BITCOE) at IIT Kanpur (December 2007) with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited; Tata IITB Centre of Excellence in Telecommunications (TICET) at IIT Mumbai (December 2007) with Tata Teleservices; and Reliance IITM Centre of Excellence (RITCOE) at IIT Chennai (February 2008) with Reliance Communications. IITCOE on “Telecom Policy, Regulation and Customer Care”; VEICET on “Next Generation Networks and Technology”; AIIScCET on “Information Security and Disaster Management”; AICET on “Telecom Technology and Management”; BITCOE on “Multimedia and Telecom, Cognitive Radio and Computational Mathematics”; TICET on “Rural Applications”; and RITCOE on “Telecom Infrastructure and Energy.”

References Abramson, B., Shtern, J., and Taylor, G. (2008) “ ‘More and better’ research? Critical communication studies and the problem of policy relevance,” Canadian Journal of Communication, 33(2): 303–317. Agarwal, O. P., and Somanathan, T. V. (2005) “Public policy making in India: Issues and remedies,”


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(February), CPR Working Paper Series. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research. All India Reporter (AIR) (1995) Supreme Court of India decisions. Bailey, C. A. (1993) “Knowing the country: Empire and information in India,” Modern Asian Studies, 27(1): 3–43. Balakrishnan, B. (2006) “Benign neglect or strategic intent?: Contested lineage of Indian software industry,” Economic and Political Weekly, September: 3865–3872. Barrier, N. G. (1974) Banned: Controversial Literature and Political Control in British India 1907–1947. New York: Columbia University Press. Bhattacharya, S. (1997) “Wartime policies of state censorship and the civilian population: Eastern India, 1939–45,” South Asia Research, 17(2): 140–177. Central Statistical Organisation (2010) “Guidelines for financial assistance,” Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. New Delhi: Government of India, http://mospi.gov.in/mospi_research_ guide.htm (accessed 20/04/2010). Chaturvedi, S., and Mohanty, S. K. (2008) “Assessing the market openness effects of regulation in India: An overview of emerging trends and policy issues,” Macao Regional Knowledge Hub Working Papers, No. 7 (October). Bangkok: UNESCAP. Chishti, S. (2008) “Testing RTI: Govt vs Activists, Pricewaterhouse vs Google” (22 April), Indian Express. Das, B. (2005) “Mediating modernity: Colonial discourse and radio broadcasting, c.1924–47,” in B. Bel, J. Brouwer, B. Das, V. Parthasarathi, and G. Poitevin (eds) Media and Mediation. New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp. 229–255. Das, B. (2009) “Communication studies in India.” A keynote address delivered at the pre-conference India and Communication Studies, at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Chicago (May 20–21). Farmer, V. L. (2000) “Depicting the nation: Media politics in independent India,” in F. R. Frankel, Z. Hasan, R. Bhargava, and B. Arora (eds) Transforming India: Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 254–287. Hartman, P. (ed.) (1989) The Mass Media and Village Life. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Herrera, Y. M., and Kapur, D. (2007) “Improving data quality: Actors, incentives, and capabilities,” Political Analysis, 15(4): 365–386. Kalpagam, U. (2002) “Colonial governmentality and the public sphere in India,” Journal of Historical Sociology, 15(1): 35–58. Kumar, K. J. (1998) Mass Communication in India. Bombay: Sterling Publishers Ltd. Lakshman Rao, Y. V. (1966) Communication and Development: A Study of Indian Villages. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press.

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Maringanati, A. (2009) “Sovereign state and mobile subjects: Politics of the UIDAI”, Economic & Political Weekly, 14 November, Vol. XLIV, No. 46. Parthasarathi, V., and Chotani, S. (2010) “A tale of two radios: Tracing advocacy in a deregulating milieu.” Working Paper of the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center (January). New York: Fordham University. Planning Commission (2002) Report of the Steering Committee on Voluntary Sector in the 10th Plan (2002–07). New Delhi: Government of India. Planning Commission (2006) “Approach to regulation: Issues and options” (August 18), Consultation Paper, Planning Commission, Government of India. New Delhi: Government of India. Planning Commission (2007) “Communications and information technology,” Planning Commission 11th Plan 2007–12 (Volume 3). New Delhi: Government of India. Planning Commission (2009) Annual Report, 2008–09. New Delhi: Government of India. Pringle, I., and Subba, B. (2007) Ten Years On: The State of Community Radio in Nepal. A Report prepared for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Paris: UNESCO. Research and Markets (2001) Indian Media and Entertainment Industry. Dublin: Research and Markets, http://www.researchandmarkets.com/ reports/4022 (accessed 01/04/2010). Roy, P. (ed.) (1969) Impact of Communication on Rural Development: An Investigation in Costa Rica and India.


Hyderabad: National Institute of Community Development. Shukla, R. (2010) “Reimagining citizenship: Debating India’s unique identification scheme”, Economic & Political Weekly, January 9, Vol. XLV No. 2. Taylor, P. M. (1981) Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (2005) Consultation Paper on Review of Quality of Services Parameters and Cellular Mobile Telephone Services. New Delhi: TRAI, http://www.trai.gov.in/trai/ upload/ConsultationPapers/13/conpaper23feb05. pdf (accessed 01/04/2010). Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (2006) TRAI Annual Report 2005–06. New Delhi: TRAI. UNCTAD (2002) “Audio-visual services: Improving participation of developing countries.” Note by UNCTAD Secretariat towards Expert Meeting on “Audiovisual Services: Improving Participation of Developing Countries.” Geneva: UNCTAD. UNCTAD/UNDP (2008) “Concept and context of the creative economy,” Creative Economy Report 2008. Geneva: United Nations, pp. 9–28. Vilanilam, J. V. (1993) Science, Communication and Development. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Woods, P. (1995) “Film propaganda in India, 1914–1923,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 15(4): 543–553.

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16

Whose Democracy? Rights-based Discourse and Global Intellectual Property Rights Activism Boatema Boateng

Introduction Since the 1970s, advances in communications technology have multiplied the economic value of knowledge. As a result of these developments, intellectual property regulation has become a central feature of global economic relations, and an important means of exercising control over knowledge. In the case of digital technology, the means of communication and cultural production are now far cheaper and more widely accessible than ever before and, in response, the corporate keepers of culture (especially in the United States (US) ) have led an aggressive drive for expanded intellectual property rights both generally and in relation to digital media. Intellectual property law therefore has become an important means of expanding corporate control over communications and culture (Bettig 1996; McLeod 2001, 2007; Schiller 2006). Such regulation increasingly is being used to control decentralized networks of cultural production and the scope for development of digital technology itself. Rather than performing its ideal role of balancing the tension between control over and access to knowledge, therefore, intellectual property law has become a means of expanding control and shrinking access. This expansion of strong intellectual property protections into digital technology and the Internet

has triggered forceful protests from legal and cultural scholars and activists, who warn against the negative impacts on human creativity and access to information. In the US, a recurring concern among such scholars and activists is the threat that expanded intellectual property protection poses to freedom and democracy – and not just any democracy, but “our democracy” and “our freedoms.” Such references seem to assume that an unquestioned community exists among all who receive these messages of protest. Surely, any reasonable person hearing these messages feels that their freedoms are under assault. But what happens when those receiving such messages are located outside the implied democratic community? How well do references to “our democracy” travel, and what would it take to open up the boundaries of that democracy so that invoking these principles, in relation to intellectual property law, elicits universal rather than parochial concern? These are not just idle questions, since some of the most serious ramifications of expanded intellectual property control are global. In addressing them, it is important to establish the ground on which one can speak of “we” and “our” in the global context. In this chapter I explore some of the questions that arise from these simple pronouns, and consider the scope for expanding such arguments about democracy and freedom in relation to



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Boatema Boateng

knowledge production. I examine the normative bases of some of the arguments for resisting current trends in intellectual property regulation at the global level, and the extent to which these can have universal applicability. I first outline recent trends in intellectual property regulation in the US and briefly review some of the responses from scholars who argue against these trends, and who appeal to notions of “our freedoms” and “our democracy.” I then describe some of the main changes in the international regulatory arena and the ways that these are linked to trends in the US, drawing on the literature in this area as well as my own research on intellectual property law in Ghana. Next, I look at some of the normative bases on which scholars and activists have challenged developments in international intellectual property regulation. Based on this examination, I consider the values that might provoke at the global level, what “our democracy” has already evoked within the US, with respect to resisting the aggressive expansion of intellectual property rights. Although global intellectual property rights form the main focus of my discussion, it is impossible to examine them without reference to the national and the international. The agreements that govern global cultural flows are drawn up by international regulatory agencies whose members are nations (Morris and Waisbord 2001). The nation thus continues in importance as a mediator between the global and the local, and international relations continue in importance alongside more fluid and complex global networks that may bypass both national and international governing structures. At the same time, I take seriously the proposition that intellectual property rights are ultimately local (Thomas and Servaes 2006) and realize that the nation is often not the ideal representative of local interests in international regulatory frameworks, since national governments may invoke the local without actually serving it. In speaking of nations I am referring specifically to politically independent states or “nation-states.”1 The debates around intellectual property protection in the last three decades have highlighted the importance of another kind of nation. These nations are composed of people who share a common identity but are not organized politically into fully independent states, although they may have some autonomy. For the most part, these nations have been subject to settler colonization, and they include First Nations peoples in Canada and Native


Americans in the US. For the sake of clarity I refer to these groups as indigenous peoples and reserve the term “nation” for nation-states.

Expanded Intellectual Property Rights and US Democracy The past decade has yielded a rich body of scholarship on how best to assign intellectual property rights in the age of digital technology and the Internet (Lessig 2002; Ghosh 2005; Benkler 2006; Boyle 2008). This scholarship has been informed by two key concerns. The first has to do with the culture of “open source” collaboration that has been central to many of the advancements in digital technology itself. Within this culture, software developers make the code that they develop freely available to others, who further improve and adapt it. This is in strong contrast to previous major technological innovations. In those earlier cases, corporations often took ownership of new technologies and strictly controlled their development and the ways in which they could be applied. In his book The Future of Ideas (2002), Lawrence Lessig provides an excellent account of these cultures of technological development and their differing implications for the control of communications infrastructure, code, and content. While the corporate control model exists in software development, with Microsoft standing out as possibly the most aggressive player in this area, Lessig and other commentators strongly favor the collaborative open-source model. They view this model as holding the most promise for expanding both the possibilities of digital technology as well as its application to the widest possible range of socially beneficial uses. Another concern informing the scholarship on intellectual property rights in the digital age has to do with the circulation of ideas and culture, and the widened scope for producing and publishing new cultural products. Major corporate owners of culture, particularly in the film and music industries, have viewed these developments as a direct threat to their control over cultural products. In the US, led by groups like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), these industries have lobbied successfully to expand both the duration and scope

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Rights-based Discourse and Global IPR of existing intellectual property protection. Thus, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 increased the term of copyright protection in the US from the author’s life plus 50 years to the author’s life plus 70 years. This term has been adopted by several countries around the world (Thomas and Servaes 2006). Digital rights management (DRM) has also been introduced and embeds restrictions within digital equipment like digital video disc (DVD) players and computers. It is therefore increasingly difficult to use such equipment to copy or alter cultural content like films and music even where the originals are legally acquired, and the copies and alterations are intended solely for private use. It is also much harder to transport cultural products from one world region to another, and a DVD legally purchased in Britain cannot be played on a DVD player manufactured for use in the US, and vice versa (Lasica 2005; McLeod 2007). Therefore, at precisely the point when there seems to be almost unlimited scope for distributed collaboration in the development and application of digital technology, the trend in intellectual property law has been severely to restrict such development and application. One interesting theme in some of the scholarship on these developments is the appeal to democratic principles and freedoms as the basis for resisting expanded intellectual property rights over digital media. The link between the circulation of information and political activity has been a staple of media scholarship since the inception of the field in the early twentieth century. In one of the most influential examples of such scholarship, freedom of access to information is linked positively to political participation by ordinary people and, therefore, to the functioning of democratic societies, while the denial of access is routinely considered a hallmark of authoritarian regimes (Siebert et al. 1956). Tempering this stark contrast, and the tendency to rank societies on the basis of their mode of governance, is scholarship that points to the ways that governments and peoples in both democratic and authoritarian regimes cross the boundaries of their assigned categories (SrebernyMohammadi and Mohammadi 1994; Nerone 1995; Rafael 2003). Thus, as shown by Braman (see ch. 30), governments in democracies like the US and Britain have been known to suppress information in the name of “national security.” Even when scholars challenge the extreme distinctions made


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between democratic and authoritarian regimes, the premise remains: access to information is essential to political participation. Such access is one of the means by which the US claims exemplary status in the world. Freedom of information is bound up with the larger principle of democracy, which, in popular US discourse, constitutes a central feature of national identity. Democracy, in such discourse, not only is one system of governance among others, but represents the pre-eminent system and, more importantly, an American mode of being. Within this context, appeals to “our democracy” or “our freedoms” are appeals to an American identity. At that point, it is no longer abstract or universally held principles that are under attack but core elements of a specific national identity. While such appeals to national identity and community are commonplace in politics, it is interesting to find them in scholarly debates on expanding intellectual property rights. Here are a few examples, the first from Lawrence Lessig: how we decide these questions will determine much about the kind of society we will become. It will determine what the “free” means in our self-congratulatory claim that we are now, and will always be, a “free society” … It is best described as a constitutional question: it is about the fundamental values that define this society and whether we will allow those values to change. Are we, in the digital age, to be a free society? And what precisely would that idea mean? (Lessig 2002: 11, emphasis in original).

Elsewhere in the same text, Lessig states that “the democratic tradition is our strongest ground for resisting the system of control” (2002: 92). In a similar vein, Kembrew McLeod writes: By wielding intellectual-property laws like a weapon, overzealous owners erode our freedoms in the following ways: (1) we, or our employers, engage in self-censorship because we think we might get sued, even if there’s no imminent threat; (2) we censor ourselves after backing down from a lawsuit that is clearly frivolous; (3) worst of all, our freedoms are curtailed because the law has expanded to privatize an ever-growing number of things – from human genes and business methods to scents and gestures. (McLeod 2007: 3, emphasis in original).

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Finally, James Boyle states: Our markets, our democracy, our science, our traditions of free speech, and our art all depend more heavily on a public domain of freely available material than they do on the informational material that is covered by property rights. (Boyle 2008: 40)

These quotations are from the works of three of the leading scholars working on intellectual property rights today. The texts in which they appear are political mainly in the sense that each scholar takes a clear position against the trend toward expanded intellectual property rights. Each presents carefully researched and argued reasons for that position and can hardly be described as engaging in political polemics for its own sake. Yet while Lessig takes a somewhat critical stance toward the US’s claim to be a free society, the other references take the validity of those claims as given. To a readership of US citizens, these scholars’ possessive references to freedom and democracy might not even register as unusual. However, these texts beg several questions. For example, can one assume that all US citizens experience their country as a free society? Do they all have such a strong sense of belonging that they experience democracy and freedom as fundamental aspects of their lives? Other questions arise when one tries to apply these texts to the broader global context, including the question of whether and how one can expand the community implied in such references to “our” freedoms and “our” democracy. Indeed, while many of the cases these scholars discuss originate from within the US, and while US intellectual property law has changed dramatically in the last decade alone, those cases and changes are also linked to developments in the international regulatory framework governing intellectual property since the 1970s. This is especially evident in McLeod’s discussion of Western pharmaceutical companies’ use of intellectual property law in appropriating traditional knowledge held by local communities in the Third World,2 and by indigenous peoples. The case of traditional knowledge also points to the complexities that arise in expanding the issue of intellectual property law globally. Although parallels have been drawn between the collaborative creative processes in digital media and traditional knowledge


production (Ghosh 2005), strategies for their regulation under intellectual property law could not be more different. Calls for the protection of traditional knowledge have come from indigenous peoples and Third World nations seeking to challenge the view, within intellectual property law, that their cultural production is part of the public domain. This treatment leaves such production open to exploitation: often by groups and individuals from outside these communities. Thus, activism around traditional knowledge seeks greater protection, while the opposite is true for activism around digital media. Further, social and economic diversity within and between nations complicates arguments for open access to culture. At the international level, differences in economic power within and between nations emerge as important factors influencing changes in intellectual property regimes.

The Changing International Regulatory Context The changes in the international regulatory framework for intellectual property rights have been well documented in several excellent studies (Ryan 1996; Sell 1998; Halbert 1999; Sell and May 2001; Drahos and Braithwaite 2002). To summarize briefly: the push for expanded intellectual property rights in the international arena began in the 1970s as information increased in economic importance in the industrialized nations. Pharmaceutical and computing industries, first in the US and then in Japan and Western Europe, began pressing for stronger international intellectual property protections. Since the agreements administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) lacked strong enforcement mechanisms, this pressure influenced the move to include intellectual property protection within legally enforceable international trade agreements. The result was the shift from the institutional framework of WIPO (which became a United Nations (UN) organization in 1974) to that of the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The latter emerged from within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was replaced in 1995 by the World Trade

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Rights-based Discourse and Global IPR Organization (WTO). While the agreements administered by WIPO remain, they are reinforced and superseded by TRIPS. Further, Member States of the WTO are required to bring their intellectual property laws into compliance with TRIPS. This shift not only has resulted in stronger enforcement but also emphasizes the economic importance of intellectual property rights over their social and cultural significance. While it is widely accepted that producers of knowledge and culture must benefit economically from their work, there is also value in the public dissemination of that work. The ideal function of intellectual property rights is therefore to balance the tension between the control of knowledge by its creators with access to such knowledge by the wider society (Thomas and Servaes 2006; Boyle 2008). The expansion of intellectual property rights as a means of maximizing economic benefit upsets this balance, emphasizing control at the expense of access. This is as true internationally as it is within the space of the nation. Just as significantly, the shift from WIPO to TRIPS has been, in essence, a shift from a framework in which decision-making was guided largely by democratic principles, to one in which decisionmaking is tied to economic power. Within WIPO, and the larger UN framework, nations have equal voting power, giving Third World nations an advantage in this forum, based on their numbers. In the WTO/TRIPS regime, however, the decisionmaking system is one of “linkage-based bargaining” in which Member States negotiate over various measures with a view to achieving consensus, rather than by voting on them. Although in principle Members participate in this process as equals, their ability to press for various measures is based on their ability to extract concessions from other Members based on what they can offer in turn, which puts economically stronger nations at an advantage. Apart from the marginalization of poorer nations within the WTO, there is also less scope in this forum for intervention from non governmental organizations (NGOs) in its deliberations. In the UN system such organizations have become increasingly important for introducing the voices of non-state actors into international debates on a range of issues from women’s rights to sustainable development. These range from organizations working within communities to those working internationally (INGOs). In the area of intellectual


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property regulation, such organizations are important for ensuring attention to the interests of indigenous peoples and local communities, especially where these are at variance with the interests of their respective national governments. While the WIPO grants observer status to both nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations (e.g., the World Bank), observer status at the WTO is limited to intergovernmental organizations. Structurally, therefore, the WTO offers less scope for the participation of NGOs and INGOs in its deliberations. In crude terms, the shift from WIPO to the WTO as the primary agency for international intellectual property regulation means that Third World nations can no longer count on their numerical advantage in pressing for their interests. Indeed, overturning that advantage was part of the motivation for seeking an alternative regulatory framework (Ryan 1996). TRIPS has also adversely affected the scope of technology transfer through patent agreements. Further, the language of piracy has been used to characterize Third World nations and China3 as freeloaders on the intellectual property of the industrialized world. This obscures an earlier period in US history when the US reserved the right to flout the intellectual property laws of other nations, demonstrating the positive benefits of ease of access to knowledge (Halbert 1999). It is also a well-documented fact that indigenous peoples and local communities in Third World nations are, in fact, an important source of knowledge that is frequently exploited by pharmaceutical companies in industrialized nations (Posey and Dutfield 1996; McLeod 2001; Gervais 2003; Jaszi and Woodmansee 2003; McLeod 2007; Thomas and Servaes 2006). The legal classification of traditional knowledge as part of the “public domain” means that while such companies’ conversion of indigenous knowledge into drugs attracts strong protections, the original knowledge itself attracts none. The assumption that creative work is only subject to protection when it is undertaken by a “transformative individual” (or author) therefore operates, in a vivid illustration by James Boyle, as: a one-way valve for property claims. It favors the developed countries, not entirely, but disproportionately. Cultural forms, dances, patterns, traditional medical knowledge, genetic information

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from the plants of the rain forest, or from peasantcultivated seed varieties, all flow out of the developing world unprotected by property rights. In return the developed countries send their cultural forms – Mickey Mouse, the X-Men, Pearl Jam, Benetton, Marlboro and Levis. The developed world also sends its wonderful medicines – Prozac and Tagamet – its computer programs – WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 – its novels and its industrial designs. Almost all of these things, of course, are well protected by intellectual property rights. (Boyle 1996: 141–142, emphasis in original)

The appropriation of traditional knowledge finds its most explicit backing in Article 27 of TRIPS. This Article has elicited a lot of protest from Third World nations, as it permits the patenting of some plant and animal material, potentially exacerbating the unauthorized exploitation of knowledge originating from indigenous peoples and Third World communities. It also facilitates corporate control of food supplies, for example, in cases where seeds have been patented, subjecting their use to maximized profit rather than human need. Further, this directs seed development from local communities with centuries-old traditions of plant breeding, to corporate laboratories. Apart from the monopolies created over food supplies, this also diminishes genetic diversity (Shiva 1993; 1997). Despite over a decade of activism, Third World nations have yet to gain acceptance for the protection of traditional knowledge within TRIPS. The most recent set of meetings aimed at discussing the provisions of the WTO/TRIPS, known as the Doha Round of talks, was initiated in 2001, and was partly intended to promote the interests of Third World nations. Given the common view that the interests of those nations have primarily to do with development, the talks were dubbed the Development Round, but they have failed repeatedly in the face of resistance from industrialized nations toward some of the key demands of Third World nations. These include protection for traditional knowledge as well as improved technology transfer. Not surprisingly, officials in such nations have a rather jaded view of TRIPS, and this was so well before the inception of the Doha Round. Ghanaian officials interviewed in 1999 would only give their opinions about the agreement off the record and those opinions were invariably disparaging. Such opinions extend beyond Ghana, with a


common view being that TRIPS is an imposition (Gervais 2003; Drahos and Braithwaite 2002). That imposition includes the requirement that Member States bring their intellectual property laws into compliance with the provisions of TRIPS even when those provisions are against their interests. In Ghana, this requirement resulted in a massive law reform effort in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In contrast to the repeated failure of the Doha Round and its potential for strengthening traditional knowledge protection within the WTO, discussions on such protection have made considerable progress within WIPO, signaling the two organizations’ different degrees of receptiveness to the issue. In October 2009, WIPO’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore reached an agreement that could become the basis for an international legal instrument on the protection of traditional knowledge. The “African Group” of nations constituted “one of the leading voices in this debate” and was supported by “the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States and most of the Asian Group” (Mara 2009: np). It must be noted, however, that the adverse effects of changes in intellectual property regulation are not only a North–South phenomenon but also occur within nations – both in the global South and the global North. For example, in the same way that the discourse of piracy has served to impede technology transfer internationally, one commentator has argued that strengthened copyright law enforcement in Ghana in the mid-to late 1980s destroyed a nascent and vibrant local music production industry by casting the activities as piracy (Collins 2000). Further, Ghana’s use of copyright law to protect traditional knowledge or “folklore” in effect gives control over such knowledge to the state, rather than to individuals and communities. This is analogous to the increasing operation of intellectual property law as a guarantor of the rights of corporate owners over individual producers of knowledge.

Politics or trade? The successful US-led shift from democratic principles to economic power as a basis for decisionmaking in international intellectual property regimes stands in sharp contrast to official claims

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Rights-based Discourse and Global IPR about democracy as a core US value worth exporting to the rest of the world. If its practices in the international regulatory framework for intellectual property rights are anything to go by, it appears that the US prefers democratic governance when it is hermetically sealed within nations, rather than when it guides relations between those nations. In part, this is because international organizations like WIPO were established with a view to ensuring order in the policy areas they governed, and principles of equality and justice were regarded as external to those goals (Alleyne 1995). The tension between these sets of values highlights the fraught debate on global justice and the moral principles that should guide relations between nations and also between people across national boundaries. In a discussion on the claims over intellectual property by industrialized and Third World nations, Cees Hamelink notes that these pit “a development approach [against] a trade approach” (Hamelink 1994: 129). He further notes that the development approach views intellectual property as “a public good and as part of the common heritage of mankind” while the trade approach sees it “as private property which is owned and exploited primarily for economic benefit” (1994: 132). This distinction must be viewed in the context of the neoliberal economic distinction between governments and markets that became dominant internationally in the Reagan–Thatcher era of the 1980s, placing strong emphasis on free markets unrestrained by governments. Thus, when industrialized nations successfully converted intellectual property rights into a predominantly economic issue, free market principles became more important to the circulation of knowledge than did “political” principles of distributive justice. This was, in effect, a contest between efficiency and egalitarianism as the best principles for achieving such justice. Scholars of economic ethics distinguish four main principles of distributive justice: egalitarianism, efficiency, entitlement, and need (see, e.g., Barrera 2007; Bojer 2003; Scott et al. 2001). Egalitarianism is often viewed as an overarching principle that informs those of efficiency and need. While the trade approach to international intellectual property regulation may not have been expressed in such terms, it reflected an emphasis on efficiency and entitlement as the bases for distributing the benefits of knowledge production. The principle of efficiency emphasizes markets as the best


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way of achieving distributive justice, while entitlement apportions benefits based on the effort and resources expended. In the context of a global economy dominated by neoliberal principles, such arguments hold more appeal for industrialized nations than egalitarian or needs-based principles do as a means of regulating intellectual property. In parallel with the strategies deployed against calls for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) in the 1970s, Third World nations’ demands around intellectual property regulation, prior to TRIPS, were viewed not only as focussed on development, as Hamelink (1994) notes, but also as unduly introducing “politics” into the debate. The practical effect of this narrow conception of the political was (and continues to be) that possessing superior economic power and asserting that power against others was not viewed as central but as incidental in the international regulatory framework. It was also not considered political, but a technical and trade issue. In a recent study, Sara Bannerman (2006) explores the discourse of “the public interest” as a possible basis for achieving more equitable circulation of knowledge within intellectual property regimes (including intellectual property provisions in regional trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ). She finds that while the public interest is invoked in such regimes, it is often presented as synonymous with language that promotes protection rather than access. She also argues that the language of public interest is most effective at the national level while that of human rights is more effective internationally because of the international acceptance of human rights as a set of universal values. Although Bannerman does not explicitly state this, the examples she uses suggest, in keeping with Hamelink’s analysis, that development is also synonymous with the public interest and a means by which the latter has been introduced into international agreements.

Human Rights, Development, and Justice Following on from the work of scholars like Hamelink (1994) and Bannerman (2006), and also from the discursive strategies of industrialized and Third World nations, development and human rights

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appear to be two of the most effective rubrics for making normative demands in international intellectual property regulation debates. Human rights, as articulated in documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), constitute a long-standing set of “global welfare” goals. In addition to this, the mid-twentieth-century emergence of the Third World as a distinct group in the global community has rendered development an important international mobilizing concept, since the Third World is also regarded as “developing.” For example, and as noted previously, the Doha Round of talks is also known as the Doha Development Round and there seems to be at least nominal acceptance of development as a goal of global intellectual property regulation. However, development and human rights are not straightforward terms. As Bannerman shows, when the US cites economic development as a legitimate goal of intellectual property regulation the emphasis is on control of, rather than access to, intellectual property as the best means of achieving such development. Further, economic development is no guarantee of social development in which members of a society are assured basic social services such as healthcare and education regardless of their economic status. In addition, development that proceeds by the contested-though-powerful “modernization” paradigm cannot be equated to the more participatory models that place a premium on local priorities and initiatives. The work of Paolo Freire (1970) has been especially influential in such models (see, e.g., Richards et al. 2001). These terms are thus very malleable in their meanings, and the differences between their multiple meanings are not purely semantic but often reflect deeper ideological differences. Thus, the challenge of identifying principles that can serve as a common basis for activism around intellectual property regulation is ultimately a challenge to reconcile differing ideological positions. Even though human rights are widely accepted as universal goals, differences arise over whether such rights are civil or economic and social. Human rights therefore do not constitute a uniform set of principles, but are sometimes competing principles based on different conceptualizations of rights. From a liberal perspective that emphasizes the individual as the bearer of rights, civil rights are of primary importance. However, from perspectives


that locate individuals within social groups and insist on attention to social and economic relations as a necessary condition for individual welfare, rights are also social and economic. While there can be some overlap between these differences, they are strong enough to set limits on what can be achieved within a human rights framework. Thus, activists working in the area of women’s rights, for example, have cited the liberal emphasis on civil rights as an obstacle to achieving far-reaching changes in the status of women (Yuval-Davis 2006). A focus on individual civil rights has the advantage (for those who subscribe to this perspective) of leaving the status quo of power relations largely intact. Differences in social conditions, in this scheme, are the outcome of problems in ensuring equal rights and, in theory, once those problems are addressed, so are inequalities in social conditions. Clearly, from a perspective that identifies social inequalities not as the effect but rather as the cause of social problems a focus on equal rights alone is inadequate, and it is impossible to secure social change without changing social relations and structures of power. This is essentially the struggle between liberal and socialist analyses of society writ large, and it is also evident in different conceptions of development. The dominant development perspective that converts social conditions into scientific and technical problems has been traced to the late nineteenth century (Escobar 1995). However, it became an international phenomenon with the mid-twentieth-century modernization schemes targeted at “traditional societies” (see also Manyozo, ch. 20). Daniel Lerner’s work in Turkey, documented in his book The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (1958), was a prime and influential example of this approach. The mid-century wave of decolonization in South Asia and Africa created a huge laboratory (along with that already existing in Latin America) for applying Lerner’s ideas, and those of the equally influential Walt Rostow (1960) and communications scholars Wilbur Schramm (1964) and Everett Rogers (1976). The modernization paradigm places the advancement of societies in an evolutionary line from tradition to modernity, and from underdevelopment to development. Unsurprisingly, the models of development, in this framework, are the industrialized nations of North America and Western Europe. The modernization paradigm

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Rights-based Discourse and Global IPR completely ignores, and therefore fails to address, the structural inequalities between nations as a result of earlier histories of colonization. Indeed, postcolonial challenges to those structural relations have been resisted actively and are framed routinely as “blaming others for your problems.”4 This makes the problems of “underdevelopment” inherent rather than structural, with Third World nations cast as “latecomers” to modernization. By the 1970s it was becoming clear that the modernization paradigm had serious flaws (Rogers 1976), and alternative models began to emerge. These included participatory frameworks that emphasized local initiatives, along with empowerment frameworks that sought to change social structures. Nonetheless, the old evolutionary model of modernization continues as a powerful framework for achieving social advancement in Third World nations. These are precisely those nations that are least served by an exclusive civil rights emphasis in human rights frameworks; that is, by resistance to conceptualizations of human rights that include social and economic rights. Another problem with the development framework is that while it highlights social and economic problems in the global South, it obscures the links between these and similar problems in the North. One issue that has been the impetus for much global intellectual property activism in the past decade is the availability of HIV/AIDS medication in the Third World (Drahos and Braithwaite 2002; Benkler 2006). Patent laws posed a barrier to the production in South Africa of cheaper, generic versions of the expensive medications that have drastically reduced fatalities from HIV/AIDS. Drahos and Braithwaite (2002) report a successful struggle waged by activists and the South African government against these barriers. With the largest numbers of HIV/AIDS patients in Africa and Asia, this particular effect of intellectual property regulation is clearly a critical issue in these regions. However, there are inequalities in access to AIDS medications in industrialized nations as well. Yet since it is anathema to suggest the existence of Third World conditions in such nations5 the issue is fragmented and framed differently in the two contexts. In the area of traditional knowledge, which is strongly associated with indigenous peoples, a development focus can obscure the latter, since it privileges nations. It can also obscure the fact that, as in the Ghanaian case,


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national protections for traditional knowledge may in fact work in the same way as the lack of protection for such knowledge in the international regulatory framework. Against this background, it is clear that, despite their wide acceptance, both human rights and development have considerable shortcomings as the normative bases for challenging the international regulatory order for intellectual property regulation. Human rights discourses have strong appeal for nations like the US when they are construed mainly in terms of civil rights that do not upset existing power relations. Development, in the modernization mode, is also acceptable because it is largely unthreatening; that is, until Third World nations like India and Brazil begin to excel at the game of industrial and economic growth. In other words, development is acceptable as long as it does not reach its logical conclusion. These different conceptualizations of human rights and development speak, in varying degrees, to the different ways of conceiving of a global community. This is more obvious in the case of human rights since debates about such rights often have to do with their universal validity – whether those debates focus on civil or social and economic human rights. In contrast to this, development frameworks can obscure the interdependence between Third World and industrialized nations. Development thus becomes a question of what to do about the Third World, making the latter a place “over there” that is not quite mature enough to be a full and legitimate member of the global community. Since the very word is considered inapplicable to industrialized nations, it becomes difficult to conceive of “development” as pertaining to the entire world rather than certain regions within it. For example, it becomes difficult to conceptualize development as concerned with reforming the global order such that the factors that perpetuate adverse conditions in the Third World are systematically eliminated and the very existence of a Third World is no longer possible. Without such a conceptualization, development can only have limited results as a transformative concept. In sum, human rights and development are most valuable as normative bases for changing the existing order in international intellectual property regulation when they radically challenge the existing status quo and go beyond a narrow focus on civil rights and modernization. To return to my earlier

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outline of principles of distributive justice, the current order heavily reflects ideas of such justice as a function of efficiency, especially in markets. In the area of intellectual property regulation, the global order is also laden with principles of entitlement – those who produce knowledge are most entitled to benefit from its economic exploitation. Since dominant understandings of knowledge production are skewed in favor of industrialized nations, as noted earlier, principles of entitlement in relation to knowledge production can only intensify existing imbalances. If one takes the view that distributive justice means equitable distribution of social and economic goods, then entitlement becomes untenable as a major guiding principle in international intellectual property regulation. In addition to the question of what principles of distributive justice must guide human rights and development-based claims, there is also the question of who can be the subject of such claims. As noted in the introduction, nations continue to be important actors in the regulation of global circuits of culture and knowledge. However, problems in the balance of access to and control over knowledge occur as much in nations as between them. Within nations, citizens, such as folklore producers in Ghana and independent musicians in the US, may find themselves relatively marginalized in the space of national intellectual property laws. Further, nations may actively or tacitly marginalize indigenous peoples living within their borders. In both cases, the interests of the nation as a party to international regulatory arrangements cannot be assumed to be identical to the interests of both citizens and indigenous peoples. Given the claim that excessive control of knowledge is inimical to freedom, yet another consideration is how to conceive of the latter in global terms. In the quotations from Lessig, McLeod, and Boyle earlier in the chapter, the freedoms that these scholars consider threatened are mainly freedom of expression and freedom of information. They view these freedoms as fundamental to the proper functioning of a democratic society. In the international context, such freedoms are classic examples of human rights. For example, Article 19 of the UDHR states: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive


and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (United Nations, 2009/1948)

The Third World view of intellectual property as a public good to which all must have access can be viewed as an expansion of this principle beyond media content. In this case, freedom of information is invoked not in order to enhance citizens’ ability to participate in a democratic society but to improve Third World nations’ ability to achieve industrialization by acquiring knowledge originating from the industrialized world and protected by patents. Such freedom of access to information can be a matter of life and death, as in the case of access to HIV/AIDS drugs. With intellectual property regulations governing the circulation of knowledge on the basis of efficiency and entitlement rather than egalitarianism or need, seeking access to information on the basis of human rights is bound to be an uphill task. In a democratic nation, citizens may have some success in holding the state to the freedoms considered fundamental to a democracy, although the example of the US shows that such success cannot be assumed. At the international intellectual property regulatory level, where democratic principles have been replaced by market-based ones, it is uncertain how much purchase international human rights principles can have as the basis for demands for access to knowledge. At the same time, the relatively wide acceptance of the civil rights provisions in the UDHR (compared to the principles in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) means that they stand some chance of success in arguments for increased Third World access to industrial knowledge. A human rights framework can therefore provide a basis for invoking threats to freedom as a basis for more egalitarian intellectual property regulation. In addition, it can help to frame freedom as a global but varied and contingent concept. For example, if one interprets the right to food as the right to freedom from hunger, then corporate control of seed development and food supplies becomes a human rights violation. Similarly, conceiving of rights to knowledge in terms of the freedom to both access and produce knowledge, along with expanded conceptualizations of what constitutes knowledge-production, would make farmers’ centuries-old practices of developing new

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Rights-based Discourse and Global IPR seed varieties a human right, protected from the encroachments of biopiracy. While expanding the meanings of freedom of speech and of information in these ways might have some value globally, it is important to consider alternative principles that operate among some of the groups with an interest in intellectual property regulation. Freedom as a civil right emphasizes the individual autonomy that is central to the liberal conceptualization of rights and rights bearers. However, other ideas are based as much on interdependence and obligation as on individual autonomy. For example, the case of adinkra and kente cloth production in Ghana suggests that traditional knowledge sometimes derives its greatest value from the social networks in which its producers are embedded. While often operating as individuals, those producers also emphasize their location in social, political, and historical networks. Freedom in the liberal sense must therefore be seen as strategically useful but limited as the basis for conceiving of human and democratic rights. Against this background the challenge in using concepts like human rights and development to make normative demands in international intellectual property regulation becomes one of transcending the very features that make them so widely acceptable. In the case of human rights, this entails conceptualizing justice as more than a matter of individual rights distinct from social and economic conditions. It also involves both the expansion of freedom beyond individual rights within a democracy as well as an acknowledgment of the limits of liberal conceptions of freedom. In the case of development, it means globalizing the concept beyond a narrow focus on Third World modernization, and making development a concern not only of certain world regions but also of all instances of social inequality wherever they may occur. It further entails a global order in which individuals and groups have redress beyond the nation when the latter fails to safeguard their rights. Obviously, this is an immense challenge and such shifts in the conceptualization of human rights and development are bound to be resisted. Indeed, the fact that they do not currently constitute dominant understandings of these concepts is a function of such resistance. Nonetheless, they comprise a useful set of criteria for evaluating calls to change the status quo of global intellectual property regulation.


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Development or Democracy? I now turn to an examination of Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (2006) and Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite’s Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy? (2002), focussing on the norms that they propose as a basis for international intellectual property regulation in the digital age. Although not the only works intervening in the debates on the global dimensions of intellectual property regulation, these studies make important, though different, normative arguments for distributive justice in the global knowledge economy. They therefore form a useful basis for examining these principles in the global context. In his discussion on the emergence of a “networked economy” of digital technology in which collaboration and access drive innovation, Benkler (2006) explores the potential for using the features of the networked economy to achieve precisely those social goals that are impeded by the international regulatory framework for intellectual property. Development features strongly in his analysis as a framework for defining the public interest in the context of the Third World. Benkler proposes using the networked economy as a way of getting around the intractability of existing regulatory structures in order to achieve development goals. He therefore does not view engagement and reform of those structures as a viable strategy. In their work on the global impacts of increased intellectual property protection, Drahos and Braithwaite (2002) make the international regulatory framework and its successful engagement central to their analysis and propose a set of criteria for assessing that framework. These criteria return democracy to the debate, this time making it a globally applicable norm. One of Benkler’s key goals in discussing the networked economy is to consider the possibilities opened up “for pursuing the core political values of liberal societies – individual freedom, a more genuinely participatory political system, a critical culture, and social justice” (Benkler 2006: 7–8). This is, in effect, a more nuanced version of the appeals to “our democracy” described earlier on, with a strong emphasis on liberal democratic systems like that of the US. When he turns to the possibilities

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of the networked economy for helping to promote development, however, Benkler expands his discussion to include social democratic frameworks, which he also calls “development-oriented” frameworks. However, he minimizes the differences between the two kinds of democratic frameworks (i.e., their relative ability to ensure distributive justice). As a result, he argues that one can analyze the implications of the networked economy for justice from a liberal or social democratic framework but, ultimately, the effect of information availability in both frameworks crystallizes into one of access. Benkler’s commitment to the liberal democratic framework is also evident in his discussion of development. While describing the latter as socialdemocratic in its concerns with “universal provision of a substantial set of elements of human well-being” (Benkler 2006: 302), his discussion makes it clear that he conceives of development very much from the liberal perspective of evolutionary modernization. In his discussion on the role of information in development, he identifies part of that role as enabling “latecomers” to: improve their own condition most rapidly by adopting best practices and advanced technology developed elsewhere, and then adapting to local conditions and adding their own from the new technological platform achieved this way [through increased access to information]. (Benkler 2006: 310)

This could easily be an appendix to classic development communication texts of the mid-twentieth century. The issue is not that Benkler is wrong but rather that his approach to development avoids engagement with larger structures and histories and therefore constrains the potential outcomes of such development. In contrast to Benkler’s approach, Drahos and Braithwaite engage with regulatory systems in their discussion of global intellectual property issues in the digital economy. The normative basis for their discussion is efficiency. However, unlike the prevailing regime in which efficiency is harnessed to entitlement, they combine efficiency with democracy and identify the following three conditions that must be met in order that democratic bargaining can take place between sovereign states:


First, all relevant interests have to be represented in the negotiating process (the condition of representation). (This condition, however, does not entail the participation of all at every stage or of equality of outcome for all interests.) Second, all those involved must have full information about the consequences of various possible outcomes (the condition of full information). Third, one party must not coerce the others (the condition of nondomination). The use of coercion to overcome the will of another is the very antithesis of negotiation. If our money is taken by a gunman, most of us would say that we had been the victims of robbery, not negotiation. (Drahos and Braithwaite 2002: 14–15)

They further note that TRIPS has failed to meet all three conditions – a finding that is unsurprising given the deliberate rejection of democratic decision-making principles that led to TRIPS and which continues to govern attempts at its reform. What is remarkable about Drahos and Braithwaite’s argument is that they make democracy into a universal principle rather than a national or regional one. Democracy, understood in this way, makes the players in international intellectual property regulation moral equals, unlike modernization-style approaches in which Third World nations are decidedly unequal partners. In extending democratic principles from the governance of relations within states to relations between them, Drahos and Braithwaite operate on the premise that democratic rule is optimally suited to ensuring the widest participation and benefit of all members of the global community. By inference, a democratic global order linking democratic nations is likely to ensure international regulations that ensure the interests of both nations and peoples within them. In insisting on conditions of representation and non-dominance, Drahos and Braithwaite’s proposed international order also goes beyond concessions (which ultimately translate into charity) to structural changes that ensure equity in the balance between access and control in intellectual property regulation. An example of such charity occurs on the part of pharmaceutical companies when they concede the need for indigenous peoples and local communities to benefit from the exploitation of their knowledge, but stop short of “benefit-sharing” as a right of such peoples and communities (Hayden 2005). As a result payments are made on an ad hoc basis at the whim of corporations rather

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Rights-based Discourse and Global IPR than governed by established systems characterized by partnership. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, nations do not always represent the interests of local communities and indigenous peoples. With nations as the key participants in the international regulatory sphere, this can mean that local communities and indigenous peoples are excluded from that sphere. Therefore it is important that the authors of both these texts pay attention to the role of non-state actors. In the case of Benkler, those actors constitute an alternative to the national and international political structures that he views with such skepticism. In the case of Drahos and Braithwaite, the interventions of non-state actors can spearhead local initiatives that then garner state support. This may be a useful model for overcoming impasses like the stalled Doha Round of talks, and the real breakthroughs in overcoming problems with the regulation of intellectual property may come about first at the level of individual issues (such as HIV/AIDS medication), through the work of nonstate actors, and only later at the level of national and international reforms.

of Third World nations in terms of the freedoms invoked within the US. The work of Drahos and Braithwaite (2002) also suggests that it is possible to globalize the concept of democracy beyond a narrow liberal focus on the individual and to make this the basis for distributive justice in international intellectual property regulation. Drahos and Braithwaite’s discussion further suggests that the leading edge of change in such regulation may come not from nations or international organizations but from the activism of individuals and groups. In the area of traditional knowledge, indigenous peoples’ groups have been very influential in the debates sponsored by WIPO and, as in the case of activists and HIV/AIDS medication, they may have impacts on local and national practices around individual issues that gradually make their way into international policy provisions. In the end, the normative principles of democracy and freedom may have their greatest effect not because Third World nations successfully invoke them and not because the Doha Round succeeds or fails but because the influence of those principles on practices at local level make them impossible to ignore nationally and internationally.

Conclusion Scholars and activists in the US have decried the corporate encroachment on knowledge in the digital age as a threat to US democracy. One question that arises from this is whether the principles of democracy and freedom have any relevance in the global framework of intellectual property regulation. Such concerns also raise the issue of how to reconcile US democracy at home with the rejection of democratic principles in the dominant international intellectual property framework. A conception of democracy at the level of individual rights apart from structural conditions of inequality is part of the reason for this contradiction. Human rights and development frameworks appear to have the widest acceptance as the bases of demands for changes to the existing order of global intellectual property protection. Expanding such frameworks in ways that make them vehicles for distributive justice on egalitarian principles may offer a way of globalizing ideas of freedom and democracy. Even as it currently stands, the UDHR can provide some scope for presenting the concerns


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Notes 1

2

3

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the nation-state as “an independent political state formed from a people who share a common national identity (historically, culturally or ethnically); (more generally) any independent political state” (see http://dictionary.oed.com). The OED defines the Third World as “the countries of the world, especially those of Africa and Asia, which are aligned with neither the (former) Communist nor the non-Communist bloc; hence the underdeveloped or poorer countries of the world, usually those of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.” With the “end” of communism, the numerical ranking of the world based on political ideology has lost its relevance. Therefore, I follow the practice of postcolonial scholars who use the term “Third World” to denote nations whose economic and social conditions are partly due to histories of systematic economic and political subjugation to the West. I consider this history to be a better way of understanding conditions in such nations as compared to evolutionary descriptors like “underdeveloped” or “developing.” China is distinct from the Third World partly because it is a member of the former Communist bloc and it

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has long been in a position of greater economic strength than many Third World nations, especially in Africa. It sometimes strategically positions itself as a developing nation (e.g., in negotiations over setting emission standards in climate-change talks) and is viewed as such in the US. However, its current global economic dominance has narrowed the gap between China and the industrialized world (to a lesser extent, this is also true of Third World nations like India and Brazil). 4 A recent example of this occurred in US President Barack Obama’s speech to the Ghanaian Parliament in July 2009. 5 Witness the outcry over the use of the term “Third World” to describe conditions in New Orleans following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

References Alleyne, M. (1995) International Power and International Communication. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Bannerman, S. (2006) “Copyright and the global good? An examination of the ‘public interest’ in international copyright regimes,” in P. N. Thomas and J. Servaes (eds) Intellectual Property Rights and Communications in Asia: Conflicting Traditions. New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp. 58–78. Barrera, A. (2007) Globalization and Economic Ethics: Distributive Justice in the Knowledge Economy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Benkler, Y. (2006) The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Bettig, R. (1996) Copyrighting Culture: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Bojer, H. (2003) Distributional Justice: Theory and Measurement. London: Routledge. Boyle, J. (1996) Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Law and the Construction of the Information Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Boyle, J. (2008) The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Collins, J. (2000) “Transnational culture and Ghanaian music: Copyright conundrums in a developing nation.” Paper presented at the Center for African Studies Fall Colloquium on Transnational Culture Industries in Africa and Local Sites of Production, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Drahos, P., and Braithwaite, J. (2002) Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy? New York: The New Press. Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.


Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press. Gervais, D. (2003) “TRIPS, Doha and traditional knowledge,” The Journal of World Intellectual Property, 6(3): 403–419. Ghosh, R. A. (ed.) (2005) CODE: Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Halbert, D. J. (1999) Intellectual Property in the Information Age: The Politics of Expanding Ownership Rights. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Hamelink, C. (1994) The Politics of World Communication: A Human Rights Perspective. London: Sage Publications. Hayden, C. (2005) “Benefit-sharing: Experiments in governance,” in R. A. Ghosh (ed.) CODE: Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Economy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 113–125. Jaszi, P., and Woodmansee, M. (2003) “Beyond authorship: Refiguring rights in traditional culture and bioknowledge,” in M. Biagioli (ed.) Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science. New York: Routledge, pp. 195–223. Lasica, J. D. (2005) Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Generation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Lerner, D. (1958) The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Lessig, L. (2002) The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. New York: Vintage Books. Mara, K. (2009) “ ‘Turning Point’ at WIPO pulls traditional knowledge debate out at eleventh hour,” Intellectual Property Watch, http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/ 2009/10/03/“turning-point”-at-wipo-pulls-traditionalknowledge-debate-out-at-eleventh-hour/ (accessed 29/11/2009). McLeod, K. (2001) Owning Culture: Authorship, Ownership, and Intellectual Property Law. New York: Peter Lang. McLeod, K. (2007) Freedom of Expression: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Morris, N., and Waisbord, S. (eds) (2001) Media and Globalization: Why the State Matters. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Nerone, J. (ed.) (1995) Last Rights: Revisiting Four Theories of the Press. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Posey, D. A., and Dutfield, G. (1996) Beyond Intellectual Property: Toward Traditional Resource Rights for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Rafael, V. L. (2003) “The cell phone and the crowd: Messianic politics in the contemporary Philippines,” Public Culture, 15(3): 399–425. Richards, M., Thomas, P. N., and Nain, Z. (eds) (2001) Communication and Development: The Freirean Connection. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Rogers, E. (1976) “Communication and development: The passing of the dominant paradigm,” Communication Research, 3(2): 213–240.

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Rights-based Discourse and Global IPR Rostow, W. (1960) The Stages of Economic Growth: A NonCommunist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ryan, M. (1996) Knowledge Diplomacy: Global Competition and the Politics of Intellectual Property. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Schiller, D. (2006) “Digital capitalism: A status report on the corporate commonwealth of information,” in A. Valdivia (ed.) A Companion to Media Studies. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 137–156. Schramm, W. (1964) Mass Media and National Development: The Role of Information in the Developing Countries. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Scott, J. T., Matland, R. E., Michelbach, P. A., and Bornstein, B. H. (2001) “Just deserts: An experimental study of distributive justice norms,” American Journal of Political Science, 45(4): 749–767. Sell, S. (1998) Power and Ideas: North–South Politics of Intellectual Property and Antitrust. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Sell, S., and May, C. (2001) “Moments in law: Contestation and settlement in the history of intellectual property,” Review of International Political Economy, 8(3): 467–500.


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Shiva, V. (1993) Monocultures of the Mind: Biodiversity, Biotechnology and the Third World. Penang: Third World Network. Shiva, V. (1997). Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. Boston, MA: South End Press. Siebert, F. S., Peterson, T., and Schramm, W. (1956) Four Theories of the Press. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Sreberny-Mohammadi, A., and Mohammadi, A. (1994) Small Media, Big Revolution: Communication, Culture, and the Iranian Revolution. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Thomas, P. N., and Servaes, J. (eds) (2006) Intellectual Property Rights and Communications in Asia: Conflicting Traditions. New Delhi: Sage Publications. United Nations (2009/1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights, http://www.un.org/en/documents/ udhr (accessed 22/12/2009). Yuval-Davis, N. (2006) “Human/women’s rights and feminist transversal politics,” in M. M. Ferree and A. M. Tripp (eds) Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing and Human Rights. New York: New York University Press, pp. 275–295.

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Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism Karim H. Karim

Introduction Despite the widespread articulation of the values of a common humanity, discrimination and conflict stemming from ethnic and racial prejudice are present around the world. Media and communication policies have sought to address such prejudice by seeking to ensure society-wide participation in public spheres using a variety of approaches, promoted by international, national, media, and professional institutions. These approaches are characterized mainly by the recognition of human diversity and the development of strategies that ensure the broadest possible distribution of communication resources in society. Such initiatives benefit from the parallel discussions on ensuring the participation of women in the media. They also draw from the discourses on human rights and the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The tendency is to move from the recognition of cultural diversity through multiculturalism policies, which may actually isolate minorities, to developing initiatives that promote interaction between peoples through cultural pluralism. Policy-making on communication and cultural pluralism occurs largely at the national level. Many governments have responded to the needs of diverse populations for access to media production

and other communication resources. This issue has also received attention from international organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and international gatherings such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). In response to his own question “What does it mean for research on race and ethnicity to be ‘global’?” Marwan Kraidy (2005: 382) states that such research should be: “global in the geographic sense, meaning that it should reflect experiences of race and ethnicity that span the whole globe.” And he adds: “There is a second meaning to ‘global’ having to do with a sense of addressing the broader social and political context in which race and ethnicity can, and should be, studied” (Kraidy 2005: 382). On the first point, however, most academic enquiries on race and media have been focussed on national settings rather than examining the global scope and cross-border commonalities related to ethnic and racial discrimination in communication resource distribution. On the second, some researchers have used conceptual frameworks related to the public sphere (Cunningham and Sinclair 2000; Browne 2005; Downing and Husband 2005), communication rights (Husband 1998), cultural citizenship (Karim 2005), media representation (van Dijk 1991; Henry and Tator 2002), and political economy (Gandy 1998) to explore the issue.



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Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism A number of other key issues converge in considering global media and communication policy in the context of cultural pluralism. “Globalization from below” implicates a broad range of nongovernmental and non-corporate actors, including minorities, in transnational activities. The local, in this sense, participates in the global. It becomes very relevant, therefore, to raise policy-making concerning media and cultural pluralism to the international level. Cosmopolitanism in the sense of world citizenship (Appiah 2006) raises those who may have minority status at the national level to the level of participants in global public spheres. The growth of diasporic networks that span the planet underpins this worldwide phenomenon. All this appears to point to a largely unexplored potential for global communication policies on cultural pluralism.

Policy Responses to Ethnicity Diversity is integral to human society. Whereas multi-ethnicity is generally viewed as a contemporary phenomenon, it has actually been a longstanding facet of civilization. It arises from sociological factors such as the differences in gender, “race,” ethnicity, sexual orientation, and historical experience, and has produced the vast variety of languages and cultures. Varying degrees of diversity have existed in all societies, but political tendencies toward the homogenization of populations has repeatedly masked their heterogeneity. Nation-states historically have been particularly egregious in seeking to present their citizens as having one language, one ethnicity, one culture, one religion, and one ideology. For example, the Kurdish people, whose traditional territory was apportioned to separate countries following World War I, became Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian, and Syrian subjects; those living in eastern Anatolia were termed “mountain Turks” by the Turkish government. Even as Apartheid was abolished in South Africa, ethnic nationalism took a particularly nasty turn in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The bloody “ethnic cleansing” attempted in those countries was based on the perverted ideal of only one “pure” ethnicity occupying a territory. A wall in Jerusalem is meant to separate Jews and Arabs.


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Numerous other conflicts are fed by ethnic differences in Sri Lanka, Iraq, Tibet, Spain, China, Russia, Georgia, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere. The media are among the primary means in fomenting ethnic hatred against the Other. Max Weber (1978: 389) remarked in the 1920s that “the whole conception of ethnic groups is so complex and so vague that it might be good to abandon it altogether.” It is often used as a synonym for a series of terms that include tribe, race, and nation, all of which are similarly vague and the result of social constructions. Nevertheless, ethnicity remains a key concept in the social scientific study of human beings. It refers to the belief in a common ancestry of a particular group. Even though in many cases this belief has little standing in reality, it is significant because it forms the basis upon which individuals in the group organize their lives and the ways in which others deal with them. Classifications of ethnicity are also imposed frequently on sets of groups from outside, as in the case of European colonialists in various parts of the world. In many cases, people who consider themselves, or whom others consider, of a similar ethnicity have substantial linguistic, cultural, religious, and historical differences. However, they may share these characteristics with other collectivities with whom they are not seen as being related. The concept of ethnicity is so diffuse that people of mixed ancestry may come to see themselves as single ethnic groups (e.g., the emergence of “Canadian” and “American” ethnicities). Also, Muslims of different national origins living in Western countries are coming in certain contexts to be treated as a single ethnic grouping. Some peoples identify respective territories upon which they make a historical claim, and to which they attach their names. Such claims are often consonant with aspirations of nationhood. Ethnos, the ancient Greek word from which the term “ethnic” is derived, denotes “nation.” In fact, the concept of the nation-state, which emerged in seventeenthcentury Europe, was based on the general idea of a shared ethnicity of the population that lived within a particular territory (Smith 1989). Whereas in previous times there was a general reluctance to recognize minority groups as belonging within a nation, ideas of multiculturalism have promoted an acceptance of ethnic diversity. The ethnicity or race of dominant groups actually

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becomes invisible and is presented as the national norm, with smaller groups referred to as “ethnic groups” or “visible minorities.” The former’s language, culture, and religion are also privileged. In places like Canada and the United States (US), the term “ethnic” as opposed to “race” has been used to distinguish dominant European-origin groups from non-dominant ones. In Kenya, it is used to refer to differences among African “tribes.” Hierarchies are maintained in these manners within respective nations among various groups who are identified according to their perceived ethnicity or race. However, Stuart Hall (1997: 184) argues that “ethnicity is the necessary place or space” from which the minorities who are marginalized by hegemonic ethnic groups oppose dominant discourses. Indeed, their identity is often wrapped up in their ethnicity. Such sociological markers of difference become the primary ways in which the communal, national, and regional (e.g., Arab) selfimage is sustained. This is, of course, also a means for exclusion. If it creates the Self, it also produces Others and has from time to time led to xenophobia and racism. Prejudice and discrimination based on such tendencies have become institutionalized, leading to ethnically based policies governing the distribution of resources. Whereas Apartheid was the worst case, the immigration systems of Western countries that barred people with darker skins until the 1960s are also examples of how racial prejudice shaped the structures of governance. Ironically, Europe had begun to come to terms with difference at least three centuries earlier. The Peace of Westphalia (1648), to which the concept of territorial sovereignty can be traced, simultaneously recognized the religious rights of Catholic and Protestant minorities in respective signatory states. In the nineteenth century, Switzerland’s constitution listed four national languages. Canada embarked on a path of official bilingualism in 1867; Belgium and then Spain were to follow suit in the twentieth century. The Soviet Union (and later, the Russian Federation), China, India, and South Africa turned towards multilingualism. Whereas slavery was abolished in the nineteenth century, it was not until the 1960s that civil rights legislation in the US and the Race Relations Act in the United Kingdom (UK) were passed. Measures supporting positive discrimination have proved to be controversial, however: the American public has


frequently debated the operation of affirmative action. Multiculturalism policy, which emerged in the 1970s, is also contentious around the world. Nevertheless, these have been the ways in which the state has sought to respond to cultural diversity. Instead of homogenizing difference, these policies were designed to recognize the cultural needs of minorities and promote inter-communal interaction (with varying levels of success).

Diaspora Apart from the presence of indigenous peoples who are minorities within national borders, cultural diversity has also resulted from migration – which is a recurring feature of history. Anthropological evidence has shown that the human race emerged in eastern Africa and spread from there, across the whole planet. The movement of peoples has been continuous for millennia. It intensified during the period of colonialism, when massive resettlements took place. Following the lifting of restrictions on race-based immigration in the 1950s and 1960s, Asians and Africans began to emigrate in larger numbers to North America, Australasia, and Europe. Migrations have produced the coexistence of people of varying origins and cultures in almost all countries. The tendency in many societies has been to create separate areas within cities where different peoples resided. Ghettos at one side of the cultural and socioeconomic grid were placed in inverse geographic relationships with upscale neighborhoods where privileged residents made a home, with ethnicity also being a key marker. However, integration did occur at the margins. Interracial mixing has produced hybrid cultures in many national populations, such as those of some Caribbean countries. Hybridity is also becoming a feature of the cities where peoples of many origins have settled. Nevertheless, as Kraidy (2005a) notes, this has not necessarily led to equity. Contemporary changes in the idea of the nation are occurring at a time when transnational communications are increasingly enabling individuals and communities to remain in touch across the seas. The telephone, Internet, satellite television, and other media help construct a web of connections among ethnic diasporas living in various parts of the world, making them more resistant to assimilation

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Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism into national populations. These “transnations,” as Arjun Appadurai (1996: 172) terms them, extend around the planet with the help of modern-day communications. They reside in one country but also straddle many others. Ethnic groups and their media within national contexts cannot be fully understood without standing back to look at the larger picture of their diasporic connections. The word “diaspora” is derived from the ancient Greek diaspeirein, which refers to the scattering of seeds. Diaspora has come to denote the existence of a particular ethnic group in a number of countries outside its real or imagined homeland. Diasporas are frequently described as “imagined communities” (De Santis 2003). Borrowing from Benedict Anderson’s (1983) description of nation-states, this characterization emphasizes both the improbability of first-hand acquaintance of all members of the group with each other and their adherence to a common set of cultural references. Diasporic links are enhanced by the simultaneous consumption of the same media content by members of a global community. However, as with an ethnic group, membership within a particular diaspora is based on a belief about a common descent whose veracity is often obscured by the mists of time. Unlike a nation’s traditional placement within a defined location, transnations are deterritorialized communities. Migration removes the diasporic members from the homeland; but they transport with them its imaginary, which they frequently invoke in their lands of settlement (some even view themselves as exiles, dreaming of returning to the ancestral home at some point in the future). This contributes to their desire for media content and other cultural products that celebrate their emotional links to the old country. However, cultural goods and services do not only originate from the homeland but are exchanged in the worldwide networks of settlements that constitute the transnations (Cunningham and Nguyen 2003). For some groups, politics in the homeland or in other parts of the diaspora are of abiding interest, especially in times of crisis (Bunt 2009). Media are often used to mobilize support for the homeland causes (Hassanpour 2003). The utilization of media by transnations challenges the incorporation of immigrant groups into the countries of settlement. The large migrations of previous centuries were a consequence of colonization and trading connections as well as of the steady improvements in


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transportation. More recent human flows from Africa, Asia, and Latin America to Europe, North America, and Australasia seem to have been prompted, in part, by the economic involvement of the latter in the former. The “off-shoring” of production, foreign investment into export-oriented agriculture, and the power of multinational firms in the consumer markets of developing countries has often led to mass movements of people (Sassen 1996). These movements have created diasporas whose members are located around the world. However, the characteristics of all such transnations are not the same; indeed, major differences exist even within respective diasporas. Complex historical, social, and cultural dynamics in specific groups have shaped identities within diasporas. Mandaville (2003: 135) views these communities as being continually “constructed, debated and reimagined.” In order to appreciate better how individual diasporians situate their own selves, researchers need to understand how worldwide communities are internally layered according to periods of migration, the historical receptivity of societies to various waves of migration, and the continuation of the diaspora’s links with the home country and with other parts of the transnation. These sociological factors have produced a range of differences in the strength of such groups’ internal and external attachments. The characteristics of diasporas are also shaped by factors such as the extent of the retention of ancestral customs, language, religion, marriage patterns, and the ability to communicate within the diaspora. Multiculturalism policies tend erroneously to view members of immigrant communities as having engaged in a one-way move that breaks all ties with their past. Migrants often follow nonlinear routes, frequently back-tracking and returning to particular sites on the planet in sequences that vary between persons and groups. Apart from their multifarious connections with the land of origin, worldwide diasporas develop intricate networks linking their various settlements. The resulting identities are complex and dynamic – sharing different cultural characteristics with specific parts of their transnational community and simultaneously with the respective national populations of whom they have become a part. Diasporians carry documentation attesting to their membership in a national group, but usually

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not to that which identifies them with a diaspora. Their relationships with various groups are subject to change in accordance with events in an individual’s or community’s life. A person’s multilayered identity may from time to time shift the hierarchy of attachments modulated by ethnicity, religion, nation, as well as other forms of belonging. Some may relate to a religious diaspora that is more ethnically diverse than an ethnocultural group; others may feel comfortable engaging with several diasporas or with a conglomeration of groups from a geographical region (including an entire continent, such as Africa). Certain cultural studies and postcolonial perspectives have tended to view diasporas as standing in opposition to global and national hegemonies – of the empire’s subjects striking back. Jon Stratton and Ien Ang suggest that for the postcolonial immigrant to Britain, “what the diasporic position opens up is the possibility of developing a post-imperial British identity, one based explicitly on an acknowledgement and vindication of the ‘coming home’ of the colonized Other” (Stratton and Ang 1996: 383–384). But having left the old nation, the migrant finds it difficult to become completely a part of the new one; diaspora existentially becomes the cultural border between the country of origin and that of residence – Homi Bhabha’s (1994) “third space” – a site of intense, cutting-edge creativity born out of the migratory angst of not feeling at home either here or there. The romanticism about diasporic opposition to global capitalism notwithstanding, there are many examples of diasporic participation in transnational economic activity. From the eighteenthcentury banking network of the Rothschilds to the more recent global family businesses like Li Ka Shing, diasporic clans have been important players in high capitalism. At US$450 billion, the annual economic output in the early 1990s of the 55 million overseas Chinese, was estimated to be roughly equal to that of the 1.2 billion people in China itself (Seagrave 1995). However, studies that focus primarily on the economic features of diasporas tend to overlook the significant internal disparities in wealth, education, and social status. Ray (2003) highlights some of the socioeconomic disjunctures in Australia between the multi-generational, lower-caste Fiji Indian immigrants and uppercaste Hindu high-technology workers who arrive directly from India.


Globalizing from Below Richard Falk (1993: 39) distinguishes between “globalization-from-above” and “globalization-frombelow.” The “collaboration between leading states and the main agents of capital formation” characterizes the former. Transnational corporations are also major participants in the globalization of communication. They include global news agencies, giant advertising companies, media and telecommunication corporations, as well as non-communication global firms that are engaged in massive cross-border information flows. “Globalization-from-below” is carried out mainly by organizations that do not have strong links with governments or large corporations. They include transnational civil society bodies like Greenpeace and relief agencies such as Médecins Sans Frontières. Transnational religious organizations and diasporic groups also participate in “globalization-from-below” by developing lateral links between members in various parts of the world (Karim 2010). They may not oppose international governmental activities or transnational corporations directly, but they are nevertheless distinct from them. (Whereas Falk tends to limit his conception of “globalization-from-below” to groups actively involved in countering the influence of governments and large corporations, I would like to extend this category to those who do not necessarily do so.) Notwithstanding the predictions of the declining influence of borders under pressures of globalization, the spaces of nation-states mainly continue to remain exclusive. But diasporas present a significant challenge to this territoriality by seeking to produce their own interstitial spaces that link national and transnational milieus. They make connections between the local and the global, between the colonial and the postcolonial. Instead of dwelling on physically reversing geopolitical configurations, the cultural production of most diasporas involves the creation of imaginative space alongside existing mappings. In the face of the homogenizing forces of globalization, diasporas, as deterritorialized nations, are seeking ways of “reterritorializing” and “re-embedding” their identities in other imaginings of space (Lull 1995: 159). Claudia Egerer (2001) comments on the writing of Hanif Kureishi (who was born in England and

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Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism has Pakistani ancestry), saying that he remaps London with his narrative. He superimposes a postcolonial reading on the metropolitan center, producing a new geography and new modulations of cultural power. Nevertheless, Eurocentric worldviews still remain globally hegemonic. Diasporic re-imaginings of space do not necessarily displace the dominant geography, but what emerges in vibrant bodies of literature and other arts is the coexistence of multiple cultural cartographies. Migrant communities make homes in milieux that are removed from the homeland. John Wise (2000) writes about the ways in which the infusion of a space with one’s own rhythms is integral to marking it out as one’s home. (Re)territorialization occurs through sounds and movement – cadences and action. The languages, accents, and rituals spoken and performed in a space establish its cultural connections to its occupants and give it an identity. Diasporas (re)create home by instilling such resonance into the spaces: they do it with their languages, customs, art forms, arrangement of objects, and ideas. Their media, especially electronic media, reterritorialize the diaspora through the resonance of electro-magnetic frequencies. However, the milieux that diasporas seek to create are not bounded by the borders of nation-states – their rhythms resonate transnationally to mark out the non-terrestrial spaces that stretch out inter-continentally. Such “supraterritoriality” (Scholte 1996) of diaspora is created and sustained by imaginatively transforming a milieu – this is not a physical place but an existential location continually dependent upon the resonance of cultural practices. Diasporas account for space as an existential location as they seek to redefine and transform their existence from under the historical conditions of colonialism and/ or the current exigencies of “globalization-fromabove.” These dynamics of spatialization are imaginative; they usually do not involve the appropriation of territory but carry out an engagement with dominant cartographies. The diaspora exists virtually in the relationships maintained in a transnational milieu, held together by and in the intercontinental “space of flows” – in mass media, telecommunications, computer connections and the like – [which] is a realm where religions, nations, classes, genders, races, sexualities, generations and so on continuously overlap and interrelate to produce complex and shifting identities and affiliations. (Scholte 1996: 597)


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The Media of Diaspora The term “ethnic media” generally is used in this chapter to refer to the communication operations of ethnic minorities within a country; those that link ethnic groups across countries are called “diasporic media.” These media have sought out the most efficient and cost-effective means of communication due to the relatively small and widely scattered nature of the communities which they serve. Technologies that allow for narrowcasting to target specific audiences rather than those that provide the means for mass communication have generally been favored (Bailey et al. 2007). The particular challenges they face in reaching their audiences have spurred diasporic media frequently to be at the leading edge of technology adoption. Many families in the Indian community in Southall, England, had obtained video cassette recorders (VCRs) as early as 1978 – “well before most households in Britain” (Gillespie 1995: 79). Whereas authorities in developing and developed countries had expressed fears that digital broadcasting satellites (DBS) would erode their sovereignty by transmitting foreign programming to their populations in an unregulated manner, this technology is providing remarkable opportunities for diasporic communities. Ethnic broadcasters, previously having limited access to space on the electromagnetic spectrum in Northern countries, are finding much greater options opening up for them through DBS. For example, in the 1990s, a center-right government in France actively encouraged the country’s national broadcast regulator, the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, to exclude Arabic stations from licensed cable networks. The response of Maghrebi immigrant families was to subscribe in large numbers to DBS services, which provide them with programming from Arab countries across the Mediterranean Sea (Hargreaves and Mahdjoub 1997) (see also Naji, ch. 19). Diasporic programming using this technology has grown exponentially in the last two decades, well ahead of many mainstream broadcasters in some cases. Even as mainstream networks in Europe were making plans to introduce digital broadcasting, the Arab-owned and operated Orbit TV in Rome had begun by 1994 to provide extensive programming via DBS to Arab communities both in Europe and the Middle East. One of the

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most fascinating uses of DBS technology in the Middle Eastern context is MED-TV, a Kurdish satellite television station (Hassanpour 2003). This is a case of a diaspora within and outside the divided homeland attempting to sustain itself and to counter forceful suppression with the use of communication technology. MED-TV faces resistance not only from governments of various states straddling Kurdistan but also from anti-terrorist police forces in the UK, Belgium, and Germany (Hassanpour 2003). Television programs produced in India are broadcast to its diaspora. Strong subscriber bases have developed for channels such as Zee, Sony, Star Plus, and B4U. They include not only Indians but others with origins in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan. These communities include significant proportions of middleand upper-middle-class households that are able to pay for multiple services. The channels are carried on international networks like Sky in Europe and Asia as well as other providers, such as DISH and ATN in North America. Cable and satellite services in the North have realized the viability of ethnic channels and are making them a part of their offerings. The transnational diasporic commercial broadcasting infrastructure has become integral to the global economy. Niche marketers are actively using advertising on ethnic radio and television as a way to reach growing minority populations in a time of fragmenting audiences. The largest Spanishlanguage US network, Univisión, has a growing number of stations and affiliates, and is also carried on hundreds of cable systems in the country with massive viewership in centers with concentrations of Hispanics (Dávila 2001). The global impact of diasporic media is also cultural. Either Univisión or Telemundo, the secondlargest Spanish-language network in the US, is available on almost every cable system in Latin America. Local television stations regularly run stories from Univisión or Telemundo’s nightly newscasts for their own use, giving these Hispanic American networks a degree of credibility and visibility that their mainstream (English-speaking) US counterparts do not enjoy. The picture that Latin Americans see of American society in these North– South news flows is very different from that presented by mainstream global television news agencies. Univisión and Telemundo adhere to Latin


American news values that favor greater analysis than that offered by mainstream American television. Diasporas are also making extensive use of the Internet (Brinkerhoff 2009). New media seem especially suited to the needs of transnational communities, allowing for relatively easy connections for individuals residing in various continents. The broadcast model of communication, apart from offering limited access to minority groups, is linear, hierarchical, and capital intensive. Online media allow relatively easier access and are non-linear, largely non-hierarchical, and relatively cheap. The ability to exchange messages with family members and friends on the other side of the planet and to have access to community information almost instantaneously changes the dynamics of diaspora, allowing for qualitatively and quantitatively enhanced linkages. Diasporic web site and blog content largely consists of cultural, heritage, genealogical, and religious information. The availability of the technology in developing countries lags behind industrialized ones. Consequently, members of diasporic groups in the North are the most active in producing cultural resources on the web. A primary motivation on the part of immigrant communities seems to be survival in the face of the overwhelming output of the dominant culture and the limitations of their own access to the cultural industries in countries of settlement. There appears to be an attempt by diasporic participants in cyberspace to create a virtual community that supposedly eliminates the distances that separate them in the real world. The global dispersion from the home country over a period of several generations is also seemingly reversed by bringing together disparate members of the ethnic group to interact in an electronic “chat room.” Time and space are erased in this scenario to reconstitute parts of the community and to exchange cultural knowledge held in the diaspora. Social networking sites allow for participants, many of whom tend to be of particular ethnic, cultural, or religious backgrounds, to communicate from any place where they have access to the Internet. Discussions range on topics that include current events in the countries of origin and settlement and contemporary religious debates (Bunt 2009). With immigrants being able to obtain cultural materials with growing ease from other parts of the world through access to new media, governments

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Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism are finding it increasingly difficult to compel minorities to assimilate into the dominant national culture. The current conceptualization of multiculturalism within the context of the nation-state does not allow for a well-considered response to the transnational contexts in which immigrants live out their lives. Policy-makers will have to account for the ways in which the diasporic aspects of individuals’ worldviews influence the ways in which they act as citizens of their new countries.

Diaspora and Cosmopolitan Citizenship The last decade and a half has seen a series of international discussions take place on the issues of cultural rights and cultural citizenship (World Commission on Culture and Development (WCCD) 1995; Robins 1997; Andrew et al. 2005). A number of commentators on cultural citizenship link it with cosmopolitanism (see Stevenson 2001). This concept is enjoying a revival of sorts due to the human dynamics of globalization, the vastly increased rates of international migration, and the transnational linkages fostered by the Internet and satellitesupported media. The growing diversity of national populations and the proliferation of multiculturalism policies have underlined the need for a broader range of cultural competencies than those that were traditionally required for societal participation within countries. A greater consciousness of the larger world is being fostered by the use of consumer goods and images from around the planet that are increasingly available to the middle and upper classes. In discussing the “globalization of citizenship,” Anthony Elliot (2001: 59) states that the rising access to global information has prompted a sensitization to problems of localities, which is having far-reaching consequences for citizenship. Whereas Elliot’s essay draws illustrative examples from environmental issues, one could expand this to other moral issues raised by other far-off occurrences that evoke a humanistic response, such as endemic poverty, genocide, and cultural degradation. David Held’s (1995: 281) “cosmopolitan model of democracy” seeks to provide a framework for ensuring accountability for the use of the globe’s resources, as well as advance greater equity in the world’s


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regions, peaceful dispute settlement and demilitarization, human rights and fundamental freedoms, sustainability across generations, the mutual acknowledgement of cultures, the reciprocal recognition of political and religious identities, and stability across political institutions. In order to operate successfully as a cosmopolitan citizen one does not necessarily need to be familiar with the endless stream of information about the world that is delivered by the mass media, but to be able to have the means of interpreting what one does learn about other localities knowledgeably. Much of the reporting of foreign news is patchy and colored by stereotypes. The level of understanding required for active world citizenship has to be able to transcend the oftensimplistic media frameworks. Even the plethora of information on the Internet is useless without the ability to place it within cognitive frameworks that can make sense out of it. Hermeneutic competencies that enable individuals to place events in their contexts are developed through a combination of learning and experience in situations that take them out of their own local spaces. The media do have a role in this, but their content has necessarily to be complemented with first-hand interaction with peoples and institutions shaped by other societies. Given the increasingly multicultural domestic environments of many countries, this is possible to do without traveling extensively around the world. The European Union and its cosmopolitan aspirations are struggling with ways in which to engage with non-European immigrants. Even as issues such as national values and social cohesion are raised in debates about settling immigrants, very little attention is given to the possible influence of their transnational and cosmopolitan outlooks on the resistance to dominant national discourses (Karim 2010). Focussed primarily on developing ways to integrate immigrants into the nation, policy-makers do not appear to concern themselves with the extra-national worldviews of the latter. Newcomers are expected to adopt the dominant values and culture of their new country in due course, and cut their ties with the old one. This belief goes against the workings of human psychology – an individual’s worldview can be modulated but it usually cannot be erased. The socialization carried out in formative years influences the rest of one’s life.

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This is not to say that no one is able to change and adapt to new circumstances. Immigrants have indeed been successful in integrating into their countries of settlement by internalizing new social expectations and developing new modes of behavior. This includes learning the local language, modulating one’s accent, internalizing the dominant social discourses, and even consciously turning away from previous ways of thinking. However, these changes are difficult for people who move to a new country after their formative years. Nevertheless, it is impossible for a person to remain impervious to the norms of the society of settlement if he or she is to be able to function within it. Even the individuals most resistant to change do undergo some personal transformation. Prior to the onset of the Internet and satellite television, it was difficult for migrants to remain in daily contact with the home country. It was therefore possible for policy-makers to conceive of a complete assimilation of newcomers into the receiving society. This was achieved to some extent with earlier European immigrants to countries like the US, especially beginning with the second generation. However, the new technologies have now made the “melting pot” model largely untenable. Intercontinental transportation has also become much faster and relatively cheaper, enabling migrants to peregrinate frequently between the new and old countries. A cosmopolitan outlook fostered by a global mobility is emergent among migrants. Not only are middle and upper classes among them able to travel physically back and forth with some regularity, they can keep in touch with family and friends on a constant basis through the Internet-based media. The concept of singular citizenship with respect to a single country is becoming increasingly strained under these circumstances. People who have diasporic connections around the world tend to view themselves as citizens of the world and may, indeed, hold dual and even multiple citizenships. They have family and friends in several countries, where they may also conduct business. Whereas governments prefer to view persons as subjects of specific jurisdictions, members of diasporas increasingly view themselves as cosmopolitan citizens (Breckenridge et al. 2002). Several migrant-producing states have realized the value of establishing diaspora policies that mobilize emigrants to invest in the home country and lobby for its interests in the new one. Various


governments, such as those of India and Israel, have developed elaborate means to engage with their respective global diasporas and have designated cabinet ministers to oversee their implementation. According to Aihwa Ong (1999), East Asian and Southeast Asian governments appear to be accommodating diasporic Chinese entrepreneurs who conduct business in their diaspora in these regions. Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Italy permit diasporic members to participate in national elections in their home states. A number of the migrant-producing states are actively using transnational media to enhance their respective diasporas’ sense of belonging to the transnation. However, even in those countries that are actively engaging with their diasporas, hierarchies have emerged in the privileges that are provided nationally and transnationally. The government of India provides forms of diasporic citizenship: NonResident Indian (NRI) status is offered to firstgeneration emigrants and Person of Indian Origin (PIO) documentation is granted to individuals of Indian ancestry born in other countries who choose to maintain formal ties with the homeland. The legal status of the citizenship offered through these designations is inferior to that of Indian residents. These diasporic citizenships take for granted cultural competencies and cultural capital derived from Indian descent and the continuation of adherence to an Indian culture. However, its formalization as a legal status stems from the potential benefits to be derived from other forms of capital – financial and technological – that NRIs and PIOs would repatriate to the motherland. Consequently, greater citizenship rights are offered to Indian diasporas living in wealthier and technologically advanced countries of the West than to their cousins in Africa, other parts of Asia, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific. Even as the government of India seeks to extend its citizenship to a global scale, the scope of Indian citizenship at home and abroad remains much diminished. Arjun Appadurai (2002: 73–80) observes that the already cosmopolitan Indian city of Mumbai has undergone “urban cleansing” of certain citizens. He describes how people of various ethnicities and religions had created a vibrant metropolis which was the commercial hub of the country. However, the ethno-politics of the revivalist Hindu party Shiv Sena, which has ruled the state of Maharashtra of which Mumbai is the largest city,

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Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism has succeeded largely in violently removing Muslims from what has become a mainly Hindu public sphere. Mumbai’s Muslims, especially those in lower classes, have tended to congregate in areas where they feel safe. Mumbai is also the home of Bollywood, the leading cultural engine of India’s film and music sectors. Muslim cultural workers have a disproportionately large role in Bollywood. They have learnt to become participants in this aspect of the dominant public sphere by learning the cultural competencies of a predominantly Hindu India, enabling them to reproduce in celluloid and music the most profound Hindu sensibilities. The system of nation-states is currently facing the prospect of significant changes in the way that it deals with its central goals of territorial domination, administrative control, consolidation of collective cultural identity, and the achievement of political legitimacy (Benhabib 2002). Various pressures of globalization, including diasporic transnationalism, are prompting it to revisit these objectives. The transformative changes wrought by new modes of communication and transportation are also forcing a consideration of the deterritorialization of governance. Multiculturalism, as conceived within traditional notions of the nation-state, is out of step with the thinking about multilayered forms of cultural attachment that it has helped to put into motion. The multiculturalists who seek to foster policies that respond to contemporary circumstances plead for the pluralization of cultural identities; they demand the decentering of administrative uniformity and the creation of multiple legal and jurisdictional hierarchies; they ask for the devolution of democratic power to regions or groups; and they welcome the weakening of the bond between continuing territorial residency and citizenship responsibilities. (Benhabib 2002: 181, emphasis in original)

It appears that it is the outdated multiculturalism policies, rather than multiculturalism as a philosophical project, that have failed to engender an integrative sense of citizenship for contemporary times – as has been pointed out by Parekh (2000) among others. The exclusive claim that the nation-state (as conceived presently) makes on the loyalty of the


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individual citizen is at odds with diasporic cosmopolitanism. Supporters of the inwardly oriented nation-state are concerned about its possible demise if validity is accorded to the transnational linkages of its constituent groups. We appear to be at an historical moment which demands a substantial overhauling of the internal and external structuring of the nation-state. It is clear that a major rethink is necessary in order to address the growing political impasse between the vertical structure of the nation-state and the horizontal pull of transnations. Capitalism has brought us to a stage where transnational networks have become necessary to the economic survival of the nation. Even as some elites vacillate in their support for globalization, its infrastructure – particularly transnational media – is knitting the entire planet ever closer togther. Migration has also become an integral feature of the contemporary international system. The economies of developed countries would experience much difficulty in functioning without the constant infusion of labor from poorer states which, themselves, are increasingly dependent on emigrants’ remittances. In the face of these economic realities, the supporters of the traditional nation-state seek to maintain the purity of their nations. The likes of Samuel Huntington (2004) bewail the perceived loss of Anglo-American identity in the US as a result of Hispanic immigration. Cultural diversity is viewed as a threat that destroys social cohesion. Rather than “integration,” American policy-makers and opinion leaders still talk about “assimilation” (supposedly into the mythical “melting pot”). There is a growing antipathy towards those who are viewed as “unmeltable,” such as Muslims. It is interesting that among the only cases in which government policy-makers discuss transnationalism and diaspora seriously are those related to security issues. Whereas governments have the necessary task of preventing terrorism, they do not seem to appreciate the need to understand better the nature of diasporas. The contemporary dynamics of globalization and technological development make it impossible to corral minority groups within borders of countries. Diasporic spaces overlap with other forms of transnational connections. The multiple layering of intercontinental communication networks appears to have become an intrinsic feature of globalization: diasporic media

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using satellite and Internet technologies are piggybacking on the structures established and maintained by governments and corporations. “Globalizationfrom-above” and “globalization-from-below” do not always work in opposition.

Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism Media policy in the area of cultural pluralism has addressed two primary issues: the fair portrayal and the participation of minorities in the media. The most significant and concrete actions have been taken at the national rather than the global level. Nevertheless, the general international policy infrastructure that has supported human rights, the place of minorities in nation-states and the elimination of racial discrimination has provided the moral basis for respective governments to develop specific guidelines promoting cultural pluralism in the operation of the media. A United Nations World Television Forum held in 1997, supported by the Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), foregrounded cultural diversity in television around the world. It underlined the growing activity of civil society organizations, such as Public Broadcasting for a Multicultural Europe, that sought to promote the increased participation of minorities in the public sphere as well as the rise of diasporic broadcasting (Robins 1997). However, the overview chapter also cautioned that: Cultural rights alone cannot be the foundation of a new transnational public culture. For the pursuit of cultural rights alone may lead to the dangerous and divisive situation of cultural solipsism, the development of parallel cultures, and even cultural apartheid. It is also necessary … to exercise cultural responsibilities and cultural reciprocity. (Robins 1997: 24)

The debate on cultural rights is related to that on “the right to communicate,” which has been discussed for half a century (Hamelink and Hoffmann 2008). Charles Husband drew upon this discussion to develop a model of a “multi-ethnic public sphere” that would include policies “directed at the enhancement of the role of public service broadcasting and


the strategic subsidisation and facilitation of minority ethnic media production and dissemination” (Husband 1998: 144). A later rendition of this article (written with John Downing) states that “it is neither accurate nor sensible to write-off commercial media enterprises” (Downing and Husband 2005: 215) – in acknowledgement of the difficulties that public service broadcasting was facing and the rise of commercial diasporic media. Varying policy models exist around the world to promote cultural pluralism in the media. Donald Browne (2005) discusses the measures taken in Australia, the US, South Africa, and Germany to address the access of minorities to media content that serves their respective cultural needs. The Australian government’s establishment of the Special Broadcasting Services (SBS) channel in 1978 sought to provide television programming in a variety of languages. The American broadcast regulator the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) minority preference policies have enabled various ethnic groups to obtain radio and television licenses. However, US policy implementation depends on lobbying by community groups, the presence of sympathetic commissioners, the environment created by Equal Employment Opportunity legislation and court rulings. The creation of Berlin’s SFB4 Radio MultiKulti was also the result of the presence of almost half a million minority members in the city, the political support of the Green Party and the public sympathy generated by the murders of Turkish residents. Similarly, political lobbying by language-cultural groups and the support for democratic structures promoted by the anti-Apartheid movement contributed to the passing of South Africa’s Independent Broadcasting Authority Act in 1994. It enabled licensing based on geographically and interest-based communities. Several jurisdictions which have sought to address the issue of the lack of, or stereotypical representation of, minorities in the media have attempted to bring to attention this problem by commissioning studies that monitor minority portrayal. Catherine Murray lists several European initiatives in this area: European analysts have called since 1983 for multilateral attempts to mount a global race and representation media monitoring project but their efforts proved fruitless. Some progress is being made at the regional level, as the notable effort by the European Commission entitled

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Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism “Tuning Into Diversity” (2001–2004) attested; it explored unacceptable levels of representation of minorities, guidelines for offensive contents and dialogues to promoted intercultural understanding. A pilot media-watch project called the “European Day of Monitoring” began in 2003 and was repeated annually until 2005. It enabled migrant and refugee organizations to collect credible data to exert pressure on the media to change. BBC Monitoring also stepped into the vacuum, entering into partnerships with the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at Oxford University to search for instances of media hate around the globe, leading not to “shaming and blaming” but to dialogues over mutual correction. (Murray 2009: 677).

Monitoring, however, is not favored by the media. Therefore, European agencies working on this issue have adopted less confrontational approaches. The European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency has collaborated with the EBU on a number of initiatives to promote cultural pluralism in the media, such as a “diversity tool kit” for journalists, under the “Mainstreaming Diversity” program. A sustained effort to raise the level of international discussion on cultural diversity during the 1990s was motivated partially by the concern of the global dominance of US cultural industries. This discussion was tied to the role of culture in development. The UN-sponsored Report of the WCCD titled Our Creative Diversity called for “a new global ethics” that would include the protection of the cultures of minorities (WCCD 1995: 44–45). It encouraged the transition from recognizing cultural diversity to the promotion of cultural pluralism (WCCD 1995: 54–75) and the protection of cultural rights as human rights (WCCD 1995: 281–284). The report laid the groundwork for the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, adopted in 2001. Article 9 of the Declaration states: While ensuring the free circulation of ideas and works, cultural policies must create conditions conducive to the production and dissemination of diversified cultural goods and services through cultural industries that have the means to assert themselves at the local and global level. It is for each State, with due regard to its international obligations, to define its cultural policy and to implement it through the means it considers fit, whether by operational


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support or appropriate regulations. (UNESCO 2001: Article 9)

This Article encourages governments to develop approaches to address cultural diversity in their respective jurisdictions through cultural industries such as media. It was followed by the adoption of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (UNESCO 2005) and in 2009 by the publication of the UNESCO World Report: Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue, which has “communication and cultural contents” as a key vector under which cultural diversity is examined. Whereas its recommendations tend to be general in nature (UNESCO 2009: 256–257), this extensive study provides those governments that have decided to implement cultural pluralism policies with informed possibilities for action. The WSIS Declaration of Principles states that “the Information Society should be founded on and stimulate respect for cultural identity, cultural and linguistic diversity, traditions and religions, and foster dialogue among cultures and civilizations” (WSIS 2005). As with the 2009 UNESCO World Report, it will be up to the determination of governments, civil society, and the private sector in each country to bring such principles to fruition. Whereas it is important for there to be enabling policy frameworks, it seems that for progress to occur in specific jurisdictions the presence of a political climate for action as well as the space for social entrepreneurship is crucial.

Case Study: Canada Canada’s experience offers an insight into a country that has engaged at governmental and nongovernmental levels with cultural pluralism in the media. It became the first country to initiate a multiculturalism policy in 1971 and is the only one to have a fully fledged Multiculturalism Act of parliament (Government of Canada 1988). While the policy remains contentious, its origins in Canada are reflective of the history of relationships between its various peoples. Multiculturalism has validated the public presence of cultural diversity in Canada, particularly in the country’s institutions. The 2006

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Census reported over 200 ethnic origins in the Canadian population; this included eleven that had passed the one million mark (Statistics Canada 2008: 5–6). Whereas the languages and cultures derived from its British and French ethnic groups remain dominant, room has been made for others in certain expressions of public life. Multiculturalism does not stand on its own but is integral to the Canadian state’s overall social policy framework which addresses broader issues of pluralism. In addition to government, a number of other actors have helped to give form to the policy. Civil society has been vital to the institutionalization of pluralism in Canada. This includes the work of ethnocultural groups, social organizations, social entrepreneurs, academia, artists, and the media. The Canadian Ethnic Media Association, for example, represents the interests of members who are engaged professionally in print and electronic media as well as creative writing. The ethnic media in Canada have had a long history in expressing diversity of coverage. This work has engaged numerous entrepreneurs either working alone or in teams. Canadian ethnic media have grown significantly over the last decade (see Ahadi and Murray 2009). They range from small newspapers run from home basements to wellestablished and professionally run broadcast stations. Most of them have substantial diasporic content. Third-language media are also the only sources of information on matters such as public health, education, training, job-seeking, and business opportunities for many newcomers who have not yet obtained proficiency in one of the two official languages. However, a significant number of ethnic media appear in English or French. Whereas ethnic programming has been present in Canada for more than half a century, the primarily third-language CHIN Radio (established in 1966) and OMNI Television (which arose from CFMT – “Canada’s First Multicultural Television,” established in 1979) have been pioneers. Both are run by the private sector. A unique approach to ethnic broadcasting has developed in Canada under official multiculturalism. The Multiculturalism Act (Government of Canada 1988) proclaims the federal government’s policy to recognize the diverse cultures of Canadian society. In the same vein, the Broadcasting Act (Government of Canada 1991) asserts that the Canadian broadcasting system should reflect the diversity of the country’s cultures. The Canadian


Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which introduced an Ethnic Broadcasting Policy in 1985 (revised in 1999), specifies the conditions under which the dissemination of ethnic and multilingual programming can be carried out (CRTC 1999). The policy is based on Section 3 (d)(iii) of the Broadcasting Act (Government of Canada 1991) that states that the Canadian broadcasting system should “reflect the circumstances and aspirations” of Canadians, including the “multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society.” As one way of furthering this objective, the Commission has licensed ethnic television and radio broadcasters that specialize in providing ethnic programming. Ethnic programming is programming directed to any culturally or racially distinct group other than one that is Aboriginal Canadian, or from France or the British Isles. Such programming may be in any language or combination of languages. (CRTC 1999: np)

According to the licenses that the CRTC awards under this policy, radio and television stations are required to devote at least 60 percent of their schedule to ethnic programming. In addition to the CRTC’s policy initiatives, the federal cabinet has also indicated an interest in enhancing ethnic broadcasting in the country. The minister for the Department of Canadian Heritage, within her limited authority to give directives to the CRTC, asked the Commission in 1998 to reserve the next available radio frequency in the Greater Toronto Area for use in promoting the “multicultural and multiracial nature of Canadian society” (Saunders 1998: np). The cabinet also issued two Orders in Council in 2000 asking the CRTC to report on the future establishment of a television service in the Greater Vancouver Area and a radio service in the Greater Toronto Area, respectively, that would meet the needs of minority audiences (CRTC 2000; CRTC 2000a). In both cases the government referred to the growing linguistic and cultural diversity of the metropolises. Ethnic radio programming is present in most Canadian cities of significant size. This includes time slots acquired on mainstream stations, community radio, campus radio, as well as 24-hour multilingual broadcasters such as CHIN in Toronto and Ottawa. The CRTC has granted a number of ethnic AM and FM licenses in metropolitan areas

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Global Media Policy and Cultural Pluralism as well as a number of Aboriginal station licenses. Subsidiary Communications Multiplex Operations (SCMO) technology has allowed several thirdlanguage stations operating on sub-carrier frequencies to emerge in various cities. However, subscribers need to acquire specialized radio equipment to access this programming. Besides the multicultural channels OMNI (Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta) and CJNT (Montreal), ethnic and multilingual television content can be found in various time slots on community cable, commercial stations, and a national network (Vision TV). The national cable channel, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN), was established in 1999 (Alia 2003). The CRTC’s proactive policy requires broadcast cable and satellite distributors to carry APTN and to collect a fee from subscribers, which is redistributed to the channel and without which it would find it difficult to survive. Various specialty television services in languages including Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese are available nationally via satellite and digital cable services. These Canadian channels carry a blend of programming produced in Canada and in other parts of their respective diasporas. A growing number of foreign-based services are available in cable packages. The license applications have revealed some strongly competing ethnic and religious interests. Telelatino, the national Italian and Spanish specialty TV channel, opposed the arrival of RAI, the Italian state-owned public service broadcaster, on national cable services in Canada (Canadian TV Forums 2003), arguing that its market share would be substantially diminished. However, RAI’s bid was successful in 2005 following a petition by Italian Canadians and pressure from the Italian government. The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC News Releases 2004) opposed the application of Al Jazeera Arabic, on the basis that some of the private broadcaster’s content was perceived to be anti-semitic. The Qatar-based Arabic-language channel had strong support from Arab Canadians. Whereas the CRTC granted the license, it imposed onerous monitoring conditions on the carrier, which effectively dissuaded any cable company from offering it. Al Jazeera’s English-language service was approved by the regulator in 2009, without similar conditions. Falun Dafa (Clearharmony


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2006) and Tibetan organizations (Little and Chan 2008) protested the permission granted to state-run China’s CCTV to be made available in Canada. The CRTC has also been active in promoting the presence of minorities in private mainstream broadcasting content. In 1999, section 114 of its “Policy Framework for Canadian Television” stated that it: will expect all conventional television licensees (at licensing or licence renewal), to make specific commitments to initiatives designed to ensure that they contribute to a system that more accurately reflects the presence of cultural and racial minorities and Aboriginal peoples in the communities they serve. Licensees are expected to ensure that the on-screen portrayal of all minority groups is accurate, fair and non-stereotypical. (CRTC 1999a: np)

It followed up on this policy in 2001 with a requirement of private broadcasters to commission a baseline study of portrayal of minorities in their programming. The private-sector Canadian Association of Broadcasters produced this research and engaged with the regulator in responding to the country’s cultural diversity. Whereas the policy initiatives of the CRTC, with respect to ensuring cultural pluralism in the media, have provided for a diversity of content, the problems of racial discrimination and minority access to the public sphere have not been resolved in Canada. Despite the Broadcasting Act’s requirements that employment opportunities as well as programming should reflect the multicultural and multiracial reality of Canadian society, research shows that specific ethnic groups continue to be underrepresented or misrepresented in the media (see Hirji and Karim 2009). Nevertheless, the Canadian model is an illustration of a set of possibilities in providing for justice and fairness in the media’s engagement with minorities.

Conclusion Cultural pluralism is a global issue since it is a reflection of humanity. It has worldwide import not only because diversity exists in every country but also because diasporas span the globe. National and regional policies are beginning to do justice to

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diversity within borders, but there is an obvious need for the development of global policies that create common standards for the treatment of minorities in media content and the promotion of their participation in media structures. Marc Raboy and Claudia Padovani note that: “global media policy” includes all processes, formal and informal, where actors with different degrees of power and autonomy define and express their interests, produce relevant knowledge and cultural practices, and engage in political negotiation while trying to influence the outcome of decision-making in the domain of media and communication. (Raboy and Padovani 2008: np)

International bodies are dependent on the cooperation of member states in the actualization of global media policies. The presence of cultural pluralism policies and enabling sociopolitical environments in certain nations has allowed for negotiation between actors with different degrees of power and autonomy to develop media that respond to diversity. Minority media tend to thrive where government regulations are not restrictive, such as in the production with print and online materials. It behooves national authorities to develop policies promoting cultural diversity in broadcasting, where regulations tightly control licensing. However, even when the political climate is favorable toward the promotion of cultural pluralistic media policies, bureaucracies and other societal actors may not have the know-how to develop media that successfully meet the needs of a diverse population. The establishment of institutions and programs that assist governments and social entrepreneurs to give shape to cultural diversity in the media appears vital for this objective to be reached. Civil society can play an important intermediary role between international bodies and states in facilitating this process. The Global Centre for Pluralism, an initiative of the Aga Khan Development Network in Canada, cites in its mandate support for building capacity internationally for enhancing pluralism in various sectors including the media (Global Centre for Pluralism 2006). It is interesting to note that this organization is the result of a transnational Muslim community’s collaboration with the Canadian government to promote this issue globally. WSIS has already made some space for the participation of civil society in its deliberations.


UNESCO has also demonstrated its willingness to go beyond cultural diversity between states to that existing within them. The coming years will show how well the programming of state-based international institutions and global gatherings, as well as those organizations engaging in “globalizationfrom-below,” are able to meet the media needs of the communities within nations as well as diasporas that reside transnationally.

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18

The Emergent Supranational Arab Media Policy Sphere Marwan M. Kraidy

Introduction On February 12, 2008, Arab information ministers adopted what became known as the Arab Satellite Television Charter (ASTC) during an emergency meeting in Cairo dedicated to reining in the burgeoning satellite television industry. As the first Arab League-sponsored policy document addressing transnational television, the Charter reflects the concerns and anxieties of Arab governments over their dwindling control over television. Since the 1990s, the advent of a vibrant transnational commercial television industry has posed difficult challenges to Arab states. In the early 1990s, “offshore” London-based Arab satellite channels hosted various Arab dissidents on their programs. Since 1996, guests on Al Jazeera talk-shows have skewered leaders of the Arab status quo for corruption, authoritarianism, and dependence on the United States (US), while the Lebanese channels LBC and Future TV have regaled the public and spawned controversies with bold social talk-, variety and reality shows. In 2003, the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq compelled Saudi interests to launch Al-Arabiya, a pro-Saudi, pro-US, direct rival to Al Jazeera, while unleashing the unbridled growth of an anarchic Iraqi television scene. The pan-Arab satellite television industry has grown to

include approximately 500 channels dedicated to women, youth, music, religion, finance, and real estate, most of which lie beyond the direct control of Arab states (Kraidy and Khalil 2007, 2009). With the ASTC, Arab governments appeared to be finally catching up with the television industry, after decades of reactive, slow-moving, inconsistent, and limited policy-making. Besides regular meetings of Arab information ministers that result in rhetorical pronouncements about the need to develop Arab media, regional (i.e., pan-Arab) policy developments concerning television were, until recently, restricted to the establishment of the Arab Satellite Organization (ARABSAT), headquartered in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU), headquartered in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. ARABSAT was established to create a satellite infrastructure for the telecommunication needs of Arab states, and the ASBU to facilitate program exchanges and organize training workshops for employees of national broadcasting sectors. Designed as instruments for inter-national cooperation between Arab states, the two organizations, in effect, prepared the ground for a transnational commercial satellite television industry. When one considers that the commercial satellite sector arose in 1991 and developed with breakneck speed, the fact that it took Arab governments nearly twenty



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years to react reflects the dearth of transnational pan-Arab policy-making. The ASTC and related meetings of Arab information ministers and major media owners reflect an emergent transnational sphere of media policy-making. Following Braman (2004), I use “emergent,” a notion borrowed from complex adaptive systems theory, to describe a system that is undergoing continuous evolution. Considering the transnational Arab media industry as a field for policy analysis means stepping beyond the comparative media systems approach (Rugh 2003; Hallin and Mancini 2004) which is grounded in the nation-state as the primary unity of analysis. Like the relatively recent interest in global media policy (Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006; Raboy 2007), supranational media policy in the Arab world is in its initial phase where it is “subject to a complex ecology of interdependent practices, structures and institutions” (Raboy 2007: 343). Unlike global media policy’s institutional “placelessness,” however, the emergent pan-Arab media policy sphere operates primarily during meetings (and ensuing exchanges) of Arab information ministers under the auspices of the League of Arab States. There is a vast chasm, however, between pan-Arab and pan-European media policy, the latter being to my knowledge the only well-established transnational media policy sphere. In the conclusion, I will offer a preliminary comparative analysis of the ASTC and the Television Without Frontiers directive in Europe (Michalis 1999; Wheeler 2004). The formulation of the ASTC is best understood as a formal attempt by dominant Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to project their national media policies onto the pan-Arab arena. To understand the historical underpinnings of this process, this chapter explains how a few national media policy frameworks were instrumental in shaping what is perhaps an emerging pan-Arab policy regime. My analysis of events, leading to a consideration of the supranational as an emergent sphere of media policy-making, is based upon the recognition that national media policies in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have played a disproportionate role in shaping the pan-Arab media environment. Saudi Arabia, a country with vast resources and considered the cradle of Islam, developed media policies to ensure internal control and the transnational


projection of influence, blending Islamic proselytizing with a foreign policy aligned with US priorities. Perhaps most importantly, the Saudi royal family enabled sympathetic Saudi moguls to invest petrodollars in the then-nascent satellite television industry in the early 1990s, setting the ground for an industry that is privately owned, but friendly to governments. In addition, the prime importance of the Saudi advertising market meant that panArab satellite producers and programmers assiduously catered to Saudi viewers. Lebanon, a small country with a weak state, witnessed the development of a vibrant and anarchic – precluding post2003 Iraq – media scene during the 1975–1990 war, out of which a few advertising-supported channels emerged as pan-Arab leaders in entertainment television. Lebanese media workers fleeing the war pursued lucrative employment opportunities in the growing Saudi media interests. Through the development of Dubai Media City (DMC), the UAE provided a space where Saudi capital and institutions employed numerous Lebanese workers, directors, producers, and programmers, resulting in what I have called the “Saudi–Lebanese connection” (Kraidy 2009). This is not to deny the contributions of other national sectors to the emergent pan-Arab policy landscape, but it highlights the importance of the combined Saudi– Lebanese–UAE role.

Challenges to National Media Policies Comprehending the shift to transnational policymaking requires an understanding of the central issues that historically have animated media policymaking at the national level in the Arab world. At the top of the list is regime survival. In a region with few rulers who enjoy popular legitimacy, kings and presidents have long regarded media institutions as a key instrument through which to hold on to power. Royal families, ruling parties, and political dynasties have, since the late 1950s, monopolized television broadcasting, banning critical coverage of themselves, the armed forces, and other components of the apparatus of power. In addition to political calculations, putative moral values, and sociocultural concerns motivate many Arab media policies. Television is especially susceptible to

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Emergent Arab Media Policy Sphere censorship based on concerns about its impact on national and cultural identity, relations between men and women, young people, and prevailing moral values. These concerns are permeated by religious discourse, whether by governments seeking to justify policies through religion or Islamist opposition decrying governments’ lack of legitimacy. In this context, opponents of Westernized television content assert themselves as moral guardians against a Western “cultural conquest” that they claim endangers Arab and Islamic values. Another concern is national development: as newly independent Arab states struggled to solidify national unity and foment socioeconomic development, television policies in many Arab countries focussed on promoting socioeconomic development while preventing coverage of financial and economic issues in ways that could undermine national economic health. A couple of recent challenges have compounded customary policy concerns. One is the decline of state broadcasters, combined with the rise of the commercial satellite industry, which compelled states to embark upon a process of liberalization – understood in the narrow sense of allowing privately owned satellite (but rarely terrestrial) channels to operate within strict political constraints – with the twin goals of reaching their own national viewers and projecting transnational influence. This has included establishing “media cities” (in Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, and Syria) with attractive terms and passing laws permitting privately owned media to operate on their territories. Another challenge resides in the fact that Arab opposition movements have exploited the emerging media environment in order to solidify national bases and forge transnational links. Saudi dissidents attack the Saudi royal family on Al Jazeera from London, bloggers affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt post videos of police abuse that end up on satellite television, and Hizbollah uses its television channel alManar to mobilize its Lebanese base against the pro-Western ruling coalition in Beirut and to influence pan-Arab public opinion in its favor. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Beirut hosted Arab dissidents – exiled politicians, fiery intellectuals, and threatened journalists – who spoke and wrote critically. Nowadays, London, Paris, and various Arab capitals host dissenters against other Arab regimes, and states wage rhetorical wars via television. Arab states have scrambled to address such challenges through national regulatory frameworks focussed on preserv-


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ing the political status quo. Beyond regime preservation, however, national media policies differ in some respects, as reflected in the cases of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the UAE, to which we next turn.

Saudi Media Policy: Domestic Control and Foreign Influence Saudi Arabia is the most important national advertising market in the Arab world. It also has a peculiar philosophy on the role of the media in society, as reflected in the country’s media ownership structure, policies, and regulations. Saudi rulers in the 1960s launched a television service to promote national unity and move forward with a modernization plan (see Kraidy 2007). In a sparsely populated country marked by resilient local identities, television was to play a crucial role in creating a sense of national affiliation. Saudi media resembled other mid-century systems in the global South that focussed on fomenting national socio-economic development, preserving national unity, and forging national identity. In other aspects, Saudi Arabian media have had a unique history, characterized by clerical hostility to “new” media (Kraidy 2006). A historical alliance between the al-Saud (the rulers) and the al-Sheikh (the establishment clerics) gave the former supremacy in politics while awarding the latter leadership in the domains of religion, education, and culture, including media policy, over which Wahhabi clerics hold sway. As Saudi media space grew more integrated in the larger, pan-Arab media space in the 1990s, clerics lost control over what Saudis watched on television. As a result, a parallel “policy” space developed, whereby clerics made numerous public pronouncements and religious rulings about television, outside of the purview of state institutions explicitly tasked with media regulation, like the Ministry of Culture and Information established in 1962 (Kraidy 2009), and shortly before King Faisal announced a plan to launch a national television service in 1963. The decision was motivated by several reasons. First, television was a vital instrument of modernization and there was a need for it in order to cater to a growing Saudi professional class that experienced television in Egypt and Lebanon. Second, there was the need to counter hostile

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propaganda from Egypt, mostly reaching Saudis through radio. Third, television was an educational and developmental tool. Finally, television would foster national unity (Boyd 1999). When militants marched on the Saudi television building to shut it down in 1965, Saudi police shot dead a prince whose brother took revenge ten years later when he assassinated King Faisal. Nonetheless, television served the royal family well in December 1979, by demonstrating, after days of conflicting accounts, that armed militants who had stormed the Grand Mosque were in the custody of Saudi security services. To tighten control on the media, a July 1981 royal decree reshuffled the Saudi Higher Media Council and placed the Interior Minister and royal Prince Nayef at the head of a new media committee that controlled information policy in the kingdom. During the following years, Saudi princes and business moguls expanded their stakes in pan-Arab television industries, beginning with the Middle East Broadcasting Center in 1991, leading to the 2003 launch of al-Arabiya (described as an anti-Al Jazeera news channel), and the growing Saudi influence over Lebanese satellite channels (Kraidy 2009). This transnational expansion went hand-in-hand with continuing government ownership and operation of all channels (terrestrial and satellite) based on Saudi territory. There are currently five channels, including the all-news channel al-Ekhbariya which was launched in 2004, within a media reform plan that included revamping existing channels and launching a sports channel, designed to lure Saudi viewers back to state television in the wake of their migration to commercial satellite channels. Since the 1960s, media regulation prohibits any sexually arousing scenes, women with revealing clothing, women dancing, or scenes which “show overt acts of love,” drinking alcohol, betting and gambling, attacks on any of the “heavenly religions,” criticism or mockery of other countries and their rulers, criticism of the House of Saud, and references to Zionism and excessive violence (Shobaili 1971 in Boyd 1999: 164). In the case of Egyptian movies shown on Saudi television, unmarried actors acting as a married couple are prohibited from sitting on the same bed at the same time and in the same room with the door closed; no women should appear on the screen during Ramadan; and parents cannot be seen kissing their children of the opposite sex (Boyd 1999: 165). Though some of


these guidelines have changed (women are now seen on the screen during Ramadan), the standards remain largely similar. As mentioned earlier, television policy does not fall within the exclusive realm of the Ministry of Culture and Information. When they feel sidelined, Saudi clerics make consequential public statements about the television industry. During the Holy Month of Ramadan, which is also the yearly peak viewing season (see Kraidy and Khalil 2009, chapter 5), Saudi clerics are vocally critical of television programs. For example, in 2008, it was a Turkish series, Nour (Light), dubbed in Arabic, featuring an egalitarian romantic relationship about a young married couple, that allegedly led women to neglect professional and familial duties. After King Abdallah reshuffled his cabinet in early 2009, a group of 35 clerics in late March 2009 issued a call to the new information minister to ban the appearance of women on Saudi television and in the press (Al-Quds al-Arabi 2009). The king did not acquiesce, and during Ramadan 2009, the Saudi Mufti renewed attacks on Tash ma Tash, a longstanding and widely followed Saudi comedy show that skewers social norms.

Lebanese Media Policy: Stability at Home and Positive Image Abroad In comparison to Saudi Arabia, Lebanese television is under-regulated. After three decades of a government–private sector shared service, the 1975–1990 civil war unleashed chaos on the airwaves when assorted militias and warring parties launched unlicensed television channels (Boyd 1991; Kraidy 1998). The situation was not regulated until the 1990s, with the postwar reassertion of state authority leading to the passing of the AudioVisual Media Law (AVML) in October 2004, the first Arab legislation to address privately owned radio and television. The AVML revoked TéléLiban’s exclusive rights to broadcasting, reaffirmed constitutional guarantees of media freedom, and gave the Council of Ministers media licensing power. The AVML also created the National Council of Audio-Visual Media (NCAVM) and charged it with setting technical standards, monitoring media performance, and recommending

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Emergent Arab Media Policy Sphere sanctions. The powers of the Minister of Information were enhanced to include the right to audit all financial records since the law prohibited stations from operating in deficit for a protracted period. The NCAVM reported to the Minister of Information in a purely advisory role. The law affirmed core prohibitions against stirring sectarian conflict, insulting the head of state and those of friendly countries, and endangering public order and national security (Kraidy 1998). All four stations were licensed on February 2, 1996, out of dozens of applicants, and had close connections to leading politicians (including the Prime Minister and the President of the Council of Deputies) and reflected the country’s consociational division of resources despite the legal stipulation of multi-sectarian boards: the ownership of LBC was Maronite Christian; that of Future TV Sunni Muslim; MTV was owned by Greek Orthodox; and Shi’i Muslim-owned NBN. By licensing only a few privately owned television stations and establishing a regulatory framework, the 1994 AVML set the ground for commercial competition to operate in tandem with political calculations and sectarian considerations (Kraidy 1998). In the first few years thereafter, the government used direct and indirect media control mechanisms (Kraidy 1999) and there have been several major political crises over media policy. The last two of these crises, the closure of Murr Television (MTV) on September 4, 2002, and the forced disconnection of New TV in December 2002, revealed political instrumentalization and overlapping jurisdictions in media policy formulation and implementation, in addition to the customary twin concerns of Lebanese media policy – preserving stability internally and projecting a positive national image externally. The decision to close MTV and the raid by security forces that shut the channel down stunned the country, raised troublesome questions, and drew attention to policy contradictions. First and foremost was the strong condemnation of the raid by Minister of Information Ghazi Aridi, who condemned the shutdown as “purely political” and affirmed his lack of knowledge of the decision. This raised questions about who was running media policy in the country; it obviously was not the information minister. Second, the way in which the Beirut Court of Publications reached a verdict without giving an opportunity for the station to appeal raised questions about legal due process


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and overlapping jurisdictions. This is an important issue because under the 1994 AVML the Minister of the Interior is charged with monitoring and sanctioning the media. Third, the way the action was carried out smacked of repression, with security forces pushing, beating, and hurling obscenities at the station’s employees and others who worked in the building. Finally, the shutdown set an alarming precedent as it was the first time in Lebanon’s history that a television station was shut down permanently by the authorities (Kraidy 2003). After fundamental changes in the Lebanese political landscape, that began in 2005 when Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon, MTV re-opened in April 2009. The Beirut Court of Publications ordered the closure under the provision of Article 68 of the Elections Law, which prohibits radio and television stations from airing electoral advertising. This law was initially passed before the 1992 elections, Lebanon’s first postwar elections. The law prevented Lebanon’s then unregulated and anarchic sixty-station television sector from becoming a propaganda nightmare. It called for the “complete suspension of violators,” without right of appeal before the order was executed. When MTV was shut down, appeals to various courts revealed that the government had interpreted “complete” to mean “permanent.” The other troubling issue is that the 1992 election law was superseded by the 1994 AVML, which charges the information minister (in consultation with the National Council for AudioVisual Media) with the task of ordering sanctions against television stations (Kraidy 1998). The shutdown of MTV exposed, more than any other incident, the convoluted regulatory environment in Lebanon, which is prone to overlapping jurisdictions and crippling political interference. Though MTV did commit a technical violation of the law by airing political communication during the 2000 legislative elections, so did virtually every other television station, including Future TV and Télé-Liban. MTV, however, had become the voice of the anti-regime, anti-Syrian, and predominantly Christian opposition. As information that transpired after the 2005 Syrian withdrawal made clear, MTV was shut down by orders from Syrian military intelligence. Because of the politicization of media regulations and the seemingly overlapping jurisdictions, the year 2002 ended with calls to revise and update media laws in the country, in addition to renewed calls to reform the judiciary

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and to grant it more independence. However, under Syria’s suffocating control of public affairs in Lebanon, these calls went unheeded, and some observers worried that the traditionally vibrant Lebanese media sector was forcibly driven under authoritarian control. MTV returned to the scene in April 2009 (four years after Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon).

UAE Media Policy: Dubai as Crown Jewel Media policy in the UAE is confederal in the sense that each Emirate has considerable autonomy in policy-making. Dubai Media City (DMC) is the crown jewel of a system focussed on creating dynamic clusters of media activity that enjoy considerable economic freedom but whose editorial margin is greatly restricted. With scarce natural resources, Dubai has, since 1979, aimed to become a major commercial hub between Southeast Asia and Europe, capitalizing on geographic location with the establishment of free zones such as the Jebel Ali Port. DMC reflects an advanced stage in Dubai’s transition to a service economy, and the growing importance of economic policy as a shaper of media policy in the Arab world. In January 2001, DMC started with a cost estimated at more than US$800 million (Arab Advisors Group 2004). The timing was opportune as Dubai benefited from both the repatriation of Arab money from the West after the events of 9/11 and a spike in Iranian and Saudi oil revenues. With its motto “freedom to create,” DMC has also provided an ostensibly “safe,” but in fact highly self-censored, haven for creative talent escaping difficult security or working conditions in countries like Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, and Syria. The number of users of DMC has increased from 880 in 2004 to over 1,200 in 2008 (Kraidy and Khalil 2009), and the area is a significant hub for seven media activities: marketing, broadcasting, new media, publishing, music, film, and events services. In 2005 alone, twenty new television channels were introduced and, by 2009, DMC was home to over sixty satcasters operating some 150 channels. Despite this growth, older production centers like Beirut and Cairo remain important: in 2005 the trade magazine Arab Ad estimated that only 20 percent of Arab


television output was produced in Dubai (Arab Ad 2005). As a result, US$110 million were spent in building Dubai Studio City (DSC) with the intention to increase film and television production. Also, DMC sponsors the Dubai International Film Festival, which has become a gathering for Arab, Hollywood, and Bollywood producers and stars, in addition to the Ibda’a (creativity) Media Student Awards, designed to capitalize on emerging creative talent. With this widening gamut of activities, DMC’s organizational structure has evolved from a government project to a private subsidiary of TECOM Investments, the parent company of Dubai Internet City, Knowledge Village, Dubai Studio City, and the International Media Production Zone. TECOM is one of seven companies under the umbrella of Dubai Holding, which handles “large-scale infrastructure and investment projects” (Dubai Holding 2008). Although Dubai Holding is a private company, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum, Dubai’s ruler and the UAE’s Prime Minister, controls it and is credited with coming up with the idea of media-focussed free zones as “symbols of the potential of the knowledge economy in the region” (Gulf Business 2002: 22). The government builds infrastructure and subsidizes its use by private ventures, attracting investments from companies operating in DMC, in addition to private investors who develop buildings on DMC-owned land. DMC manages properties and takes care of immigration and labor paperwork for its customers. DMC has transformed Dubai into a center of creative media activities, competing with historical media production centers like Beirut and Cairo. By relocating to DMC, pan-Arab broadcasters like MBC, international broadcasters like BBC World, and news agencies like Reuters and CNN provide concrete recognition of new parameters for media autonomy – though these are still only relative. This centralization of media activity in DMC has affected the development of media cities in the UAE and in the region. It was only when DMC was unable to meet demands for space and facilities that potential broadcasters started looking for alternatives in Jordan, Bahrain, and Kuwait. By acting as a catalyst for regional developments, DMC has provided an economic impetus for the deregulation of media industries across the region, with governments hoping to benefit from muchneeded direct foreign investments. The Jordanian

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Emergent Arab Media Policy Sphere and Bahraini governments, for example, were able to lure, respectively, Arab Radio and Television (ART) to fund the establishment of Jordan’s Media City in 2001, and Orbit to relocate its headquarters to Bahrain in 2003. In addition to giving a boost to regional television industries, Dubai’s grounding of media policy in its economic policy, which has included generous subsidies and lease terms at DMC, exposes these same television companies directly to the impact of economic changes. At the time of writing, the future growth of DMC is challenged by factors peculiar to Dubai, such as the soaring cost of living, external factors like competition in various parts of the Arab world, in addition to the global economic recession. But Dubai’s loss could be another Arab city’s gain. For example, if Syrian officials manage to launch a credible media city, which at this time has not been fully realized, the relative low costs of operating out of Damascus may compel some institutions to relocate from Dubai, though Syrian authorities would have to modify other economic and labor policies accordingly. The recent expansion programs of TECOM, DMC’s mother company, have focussed on developing local talent and investing in Indian production centers which are seen as important attempts to maintain DMC’s market lead. This would result in a diversification that focusses on the local (Dubai and the UAE) and the global (Bollywood), instead of emphasizing exclusively the pan-Arab sphere (Kraidy and Khalil 2009). Dubai rulers and DMC executives like to imagine themselves as trendsetters. The extent to which DMC will succeed in inspiring developments in Arab media policy remains to be seen, but DMC’s transnational outlook appears to have influenced what can be described as an emerging pan-Arab television policy regime. The media policy environment, even in DMC, remains inconsistent. One challenging area has been the regulation of media labor. After CNBC Arabiya, a pan-Arab satellite franchise of the US financial cable channel, laid off some employees in 2006, the fired workers started a media campaign claiming ill-treatment by the company’s management. According to a former CNBC Arabiya employee and spokesperson for dismissed workers at the channel, DMC reacted by pushing CNBC Arabiya to settle the matter promptly and quietly (Kraidy and Khalil 2009). Another problem area relates to editorial content, for which DMC established a


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Broadcasting and Publication Standards Tribunal (BPST) in November 2003. The tribunal’s singular achievement was devising a media code that covers issues related to religious sensibilities, alcohol, smoking, and sex (Addington 2006). Nonetheless, the Dubai government’s promise of media freedom was shown to repeatedly mean self-censorship. When the first issue of Focus On (FO!) magazine hit the stands with a pullout of Miss May, a seminaked model, DMC shut it down for not adhering to its “business plan” (Addington 2005). Geo, a DMC-based Pakistani satellite channel, was shut down by DMC under the claim that Geo interfered with the politics of Pakistan (Associated Press 2007). A third challenge is related to the global economic crisis that started in the fall of 2008, and which had a particularly damaging impact on Dubai. As frequent Western press stories shifted from lauding Dubai as the new Eldorado to focussing on the flight of suddenly unemployed workers and bankrupt business owners and the accompanying mistreatment by the local authorities, the UAE government reacted in an attempt to preempt negative reporting about Dubai and the UAE in general. The result was the controversial Media Law. On January 20, 2009, the Federal National Council (national legislature) passed a draft Media Law, whose writing was undertaken by the National Media Council and has triggered ongoing controversy. Though the law reflected advances over previous legislation, notably in terms of not subjecting journalists to imprisonment, it renewed concerns about government intervention and selfcensorship. Several watchdog groups, most notably Human Rights Watch, expressed concerns about various issues including, among others, “content-based restrictions … stymieing criticism of the government” and the “ambiguous, overbroad provisions” against reporting about the national economy and disparaging government figures (Human Rights Watch 2009). Writing in the English-language Gulf News, the director-general of the UAE National Media Council, Ibrahim Al Abed, replied, arguing that the law distinguished between criticism of government officials and “insults to the person” of said officials. He emphasized that allegations against the media of harming the national economy had to be proven in court before any sanctions could be applied. He also denied that the law was introduced in response to a wave of negative reporting in the wake of the economic

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crisis that started in 2008, and claimed instead that legislative work on the law had begun two years earlier and had entailed extensive vetting by several groups, including the UAE Journalists Association (Al Abed 2009).

The Emergent Supranational Policy Sphere The preceding national examples have shown that Arab states have become adept at developing flexible, abuse-prone regulatory and policy environments, and at instrumentalizing the changing media landscape. “Catchall” ambiguous provisions pertaining to “national unity” and the “national economy” are used instrumentally to repress opposition; royal decrees and presidential fiat trample over regulatory bodies, and overlapping jurisdictions lead to inconsistency and arbitrariness with various ministries (e.g., information, the interior, telecommunications, or religious affairs) and clerics, in the case of Saudi Arabia, laying claim to media policy and regulation. Further, dated press and publication laws are applied instrumentally to television and the emerging media environment. The boundary between state-owned and privately owned media has become increasingly porous with states enabling privately owned and politically sympathetic satellite channels while, at the same time, clamping down on institutions expressing dissent. To regain viewers who deserted state-owned television for the more exciting fare of commercial satellite channels, Arab governments have facilitated the production of entertainment programs. By attempting to preserve both states’ capacity for repression and the commercial interests of main media players, the ASTC brought into view multiple contradictions within and between Arab states, reflecting confusion and an inability to confront challenges posed by new permutations of delivery platforms, programs, and viewers. Clearly, television can no longer be considered as an “autonomous” medium isolated from the Internet and mobile telephony which are now integrated in television programming via “interactive” features in game, variety, music, and reality shows. Similarly, through blogging, fan sites, and value-added services such as ringtones, music, and video downloads,


and others, the Internet is now linked to both television and the mobile telephone. In addition to being shaped by media convergence, Arab television programs are characterized by a blurring of genres that puzzles policy-makers long-accustomed to a single and rigid distinction between “political” and “non-political” programs. Religion mixes with personal finance or sexuality, reality shows dabble in politics, infomercials blend news and advertising, talk-shows blur politics and entertainment and drama discusses public affairs like AIDS and terrorism. To rein in this media anarchy, states have alternatively used direct repression and the enactment of new laws and regulations that repress and co-opt the television industry. In this respect, the 2008 ASTC represents an attempt to expand national policy regimes of key Arab states to the supranational realm. The main motivation for passing the Charter was political, even if Arab governments paid lip service to permanently salient concerns about morality and social change, and took into consideration influential commercial interests. In the weeks leading up to the meeting in Cairo, the Saudi and Egyptian information ministers lobbied their Arab counter parts to support the Charter, a draft of which had been prepared by a “committee of experts.” Work on the document started after the war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, when the Israeli military devastated Lebanese infrastructure after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border operation. When hostilities broke out, Egyptian and Saudi leaders first condemned Hizbollah’s actions as reckless, but changed the tenor of their discourse in light of Hizbollah’s better-thanexpected military performance and the mounting civilian casualties brought about by Israel’s onslaught. In the meantime, Hizbollah’s television station al-Manar climbed to the top ten in panArab ratings, and live talk-show hosts struggled to prevent callers from heaping verbal abuse on pro-US Arab regimes. Though not criticized as intensely as Saudi government leaders, the Mubarak regime contended with a growingly sophisticated Muslim Brotherhood whose voice can be heard through a variety of platforms from Al Jazeera to Hamas’ al-Aqsa television to the Arabic-language blogosphere. In that context a regulatory document that would place “political restrictions” on Arab airwaves was a shared Saudi– Egyptian interest.

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Emergent Arab Media Policy Sphere The ASTC is a broad-ranging document, covering news, political shows, entertainment, and sports programs. It recognizes the broad diversity of the pan-Arab television scene, which has come to include, in addition to general news and entertainment channels, niche outlets dedicated to religion, real estate, music, and fashion. At the same time, the Charter is restrictive, giving Arab governments tools to sanction satellite broadcasters that attack leaders, damage the national reputation, or air socially unacceptable content. The ASTC hits several birds with one stone, so to speak. By penalizing content that allegedly promotes sexual activity or alcohol consumption, the Charter placates socially conservative Islamists, including Egypt’s Brotherhood, which for years has advocated such restrictions. By purporting to protect “Arab identity from the harmful effects of globalization,” the Charter resonates with Arab nationalist and Islamist ideologies. And by prohibiting content that would “damage social harmony, national unity, public order, or traditional values” – notice the all-encompassing nature of these terms – the Charter justifies authoritarian rule. Finally, the Charter has a populist provision, stipulating Arab viewers’ rights to information, including the right to watch sports competitions on free-to-air government channels even when commercial channels hold exclusivity agreements. In addition to reasserting the rights of state television channels, this gives the Charter some popular credibility among Arab publics (Kraidy 2008). The Arab Charter also reflects the double standards inherent in the emerging policy landscape, in that it reflects changes in national media policies. The controversial UAE draft Media Law, for instance, de facto stipulates a double standard. As the head of the National Media Council stated unequivocally, the law “does not apply to the media Free Zones, in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and elsewhere, which is where offices of foreign publications, television channels and news agencies are based” (Al Abed 2009). It essentially creates two classes of media institutions, one predominantly local and subject to the law, and the other predominantly foreign and not subject to the law. In this context, the extent to which Arab countries are willing and able to apply the ASTC to the half-dozen Arabic-language television channels operated by non-Arab states, which include al-Hurra (The Free One) funded by the US


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Congress; Rusya al-Yawm (Russia Today) bankrolled by the Kremlin; ALALAM (The World) owned by the Iranian state; the resuscitated BBC Arabic; Deutsche Welle World TV; and France 24, a French channel broadcasting in various languages including Arabic, and TRT, a Turkish Arabic-language channel. Applying the ASTC to these power-owned channels risks complicating relations between Arab states and great powers, while not applying it exposes Arab leaders to domestic accusations of double-standards and of succumbing to foreign and, in the case of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, especially US, pressure. Reflecting post-9/11 anxieties in the capitals of great and regional powers and the resurgence of the Arab world as a geopolitical flashpoint, these channels operate in a regulatory vacuum at the intersection of the global, regional-transnational, and national realms. As such, al-Hurra and similar institutions warrant analytical and theoretical attention by global media policy scholars. Arab media and journalism circles felt that the ASTC dashed hopes that the pan-Arab media sphere would continue to offer them more editorial autonomy than national television channels. A pan-Arab framework is indeed needed to regulate hundreds of channels peddling fortune-tellers, alternative medicines, Jihadi ideas, titillating bodies, stock market schemes, and more mainstream news and entertainment. But in addition to the daunting challenges inherent in establishing a transnational policy regime, the Arab governments’ record on media autonomy is dismal. Even Syria, which at the time was engaged in a media war with Saudi Arabia over the Lebanese situation, signed off on the Charter. Arab journalists, intellectuals, and dissidents are now worried that, even when regimes disagree on many things, information ministers agree about muzzling speech. It is too early to have a full grasp of the evolution of the emergent pan-Arab media policy framework. Implementation of this non-binding document has been uneven. Egypt owns NILESAT and Saudi Arabia controls ARABSAT, so, technically, they can disconnect undesirable channels, but such radical action carries political and business risks, especially as they have competition from European satellites and, since 2005, a privatelyowned Bahraini satellite, NOORSAT (Kraidy and Khalil 2009). Qatar declined to sign the Charter, citing potential conflict with its own laws, a significant

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Table 18.1 Selected Arab media laws and regulations Law Audio-Visual Media Law Audio-Visual Media Law Interim Broadcasting Programme Code of Practice Arab Satellite Television Charter Media Law (National Authority for Audiovisual Broadcast Regulation) Media Law (National Media Council) Press Law

Country

Year

Lebanon Jordan Iraq Pan-Arab Egypt

1994 2002 2004 2008 (2009, pending)

UAE Iraq

(2009, pending) (2009, pending)

Source: Adapted from Kraidy and Khalil (2009).

act since Al Jazeera is based in that country. The Lebanese information minister stated that the Charter was a “guiding, not binding” document. National journalists’ unions are up in arms, and there is widespread suspicion in the Arab press that the Charter is intended to silence criticism of US policy and align Arab countries further on the US–Israel axis to counter the rise of Iran. The director of the Saudi Information Ministry, Abdullah al-Jasir, was compelled to explain that the Charter “distinguishes between incitement to violence and resistance to occupation” (al-Barraq 2008). At the same time, even if there are no actual implementation mechanisms for the ASTC, the document has become a framework, even if a rhetorical one, for Arab media institutions. For example, the director of Jordan Media City ( JMC) told me in April 2009 that the ASTC was the framework for the work of JMC (Alkhas interview, April 30, 2009; al-Wishah interview, April 30, 2009). In addition, the Egyptian government has effectively used the Charter to shut down one religious satellite channel and to intimidate others. Though there are virtually no laws regulating post-broadcast television content or transnational newspapers like the London-based Arabic-language newspapers that distribute throughout the Arab world, the 2008 Arab satellite Charter and a leaked draft Egyptian television law forecast a hardening regulatory climate with forthcoming laws aimed at controlling words, sounds, and images no matter the medium of distribution. This brings into the regulatory fold mobile telephones, text-messaging, and social networking media. When considered in tandem with other pending media and press laws in Iraq and the UAE (see Table 18.1), they threaten to expand old “catchall” legal provisions on national


security, the national economy, and other clauses open to arbitrary and instrumental implementation of the emerging media landscape, including social networking media like Facebook and MySpace, mobile telephones, Twitter, and YouTube. This chapter has discussed various national policies and regulatory frameworks that have shaped the development of Arab television industries, concluding with an analysis of an emerging pan-Arab regulatory landscape represented by the 2008 ASTC. Arab television policies have been motivated traditionally by regime self-preservation, the desire to protect cultural, moral, and religious values, promoting national unity and socioeconomic development, and, more recently, by the desire to attract tourism and direct foreign investment in the media industries. In spite of shared bases for media policy among Arab states, there are significant differences between them that have given rise to different national media policies that have changed over time. At the time of writing, it remains unclear whether the passing of the ASTC passed by a majority of Arab information ministers in February 2008 was merely a symbolic gesture or whether it constituted a concrete step toward a repressive pan-Arab media policy regime. The ASTC is a telling document, less because it has been effectively implemented – it has not – and more because it makes visible those actors that are contending to shape media policy. It unmasks their agendas and brings into focus industry and related social and political developments that lead to and shape the emerging Arab policy regime. As the first formal pan-Arab regulatory text, the Charter reflects the policy agendas of Arab governments attempting to reassert control over an unwieldy transnational media scene that, in addition to

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Emergent Arab Media Policy Sphere television, is witnessing an explosion of “small media” like mobile telephones, blogs, and social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and their local versions, which include Naqa Tube, a Saudi alternative to YouTube that is compliant with “Islamic principles.” With growing harassment and arrest of bloggers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere, a more sweeping Charter regulating the Arab Internet is now to be expected, and a document concerning mobile phones may follow.

National/Supranational Dynamics of Media Policy: The Arab World and Beyond A full grasp of the implications of the ASTC and its possible impact on global media policy cannot be achieved within the short period of time since Arab information ministers voted on the Charter. The Charter poses dilemmas concerning the relationship between the national and the supranational. It reflects a stronger regulatory approach by Arab states, one in sync with a global post-9/11 emphasis on security and control. It is, in effect, an extension into the transnational sphere of national Arab media laws, virtually all of which have ambiguously worded language that sanctions libel, slander, and any criticism of leaders and their families. It also affirms current practice: several Arab states have revoked Arab satellite channels’ licenses to report from their territories. The ominous catchall provision against harming “national reputation” allows the adoption of a wide range of repressive measures. The Charter in this respect extends into the pan-Arab sphere those provisions already in effect within nation-states. In doing so, it essentially contradicts itself when it asserts the “country of origin principle,” which stipulates that media outlets would be regulated by the laws in effect in the country from which they transmit, while emphasizing individual states’ prerogatives to independently enact their own laws that regulate incoming satellite signals. In this aspect the ASTC differs sharply from the European Union’s Television Without Frontiers directive, a foundational document in European supranational television policy. In Europe, the country of origin principle was instrumental for


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constructing a pan-European sphere – based on the notion of mutual recognition enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty (Wheeler 2004) – because it simplifies media law and reinforces competition among states – motivated by: (1) their ability, under the country of origin rule, to influence media content, which is more valuable as an unimplemented, potential threat lest it drive potential broadcasters away; and (2) revenues from rent, local employment and taxes, to create national environments favorable to satellite broadcasting (Price 2008). A second major difference between the European and Arab documents is that the former expresses concerns about media consolidation, while the latter ignores the issue altogether, a logical outcome when one considers that pan-Arab media ownership is concentrated in the hands of Saudi moguls close to the royal family. A third contrast lies between Television Without Frontiers’ reaffirmation of what it regards as core European values of pluralism, cultural diversity, and the “enhancement of citizen choice” (Wheeler 2004: 252), whereas the Arab Charter reasserts concerns about national unity, public order, and putative (Arab-Islamic) social values. One important implication of the emergent pan-Arab policy sphere that can be teased out is the endurance of supranational media spheres. The Charter represents a de facto recognition by Arab states that the satellite television industry has achieved a level of social relevance, cultural resonance, and political influence that matches or exceeds the capacities of national media systems. Since the satellite television industry has become the professional benchmark in programming strategies, production values, and institutional practices for national broadcasters, the Charter also reflects the convergence of previously separate national systems, a trend visible as well in post-Soviet developments in East European media systems (see Price 2009). It can therefore be concluded that the national scale is receding as a locus of analysis in favor of the regional-transnational, where policy-making is more grounded and concrete than at the global level (see Raboy 2007). This, however, does not mean that the nationstate qua nation-state has become a less powerful actor in the media field. Rather, the Arab sphere reflects the rise of some nation-states as dominant supranational actors, specifically Saudi Arabia, while

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other states see their cross-border influence dwindling in the transnational environment. Though a few similarities exist between the Charter and the Television Without Frontiers directive and its successor, including the transnational scale, the regulatory challenges posed by the rise of powerful commercial media institutions, the discussion of national broadcasters’ rights to air sports events of national relevance, and more, it could be argued tentatively that the Arab sphere is an alternative model of transnational policy to the European model. The two realms reflect a fundamentally different ecology of inter-state relations in radically different contexts of governance, with the dominance of liberal democracy in Europe, and the pervasiveness of authoritarianism in the Arab world. This explains additional differences between the two documents. Whereas the amendments to the Television Without Frontiers directive called for assisting European countries with weak production capacities (Wheeler 2004), the ASTC affirmed the agendas of powerful Arab states. This is exacerbated by the breadth and depth of the institutionalization of media policy in Europe, where a variety of bodies, commissions, and bureaucracies conduct policy-making and implementation, compared with the absence of such specialized institutions in the Arab world. Clearly, institutional developments are an important site of comparative research on supranational media policy (Puppis 2008). A fundamental difference between the Arab world and Europe is the linguistic unicity of the former and the linguistic diversity of the latter. In this respect, the Arab world resembles Spanishspeaking Latin America more than the European Union. Consisting of 22 geographically contiguous countries that share the Arabic language, the region is a “geo-linguistic market” (Straubhaar 2007), a sphere within which media messages face relatively weak cultural obstacles. This does not mean that the boundaries of the Arab sphere are impermeable to outside influence. But unlike the Television Without Frontiers directive in Europe, which focussed on strengthening continental television by softening borders within Europe while hardening the boundaries of Europe’s media space to American media flows, the ASTC was motivated less by concerns about US programming (which are virtually absent from the leading Arab and pan-Arab channels’ primetime programs)


than by anxieties about Iranian influence through militant Arabic-language channels like al-Aqsa (Hamas), al-Manar (Hizbollah), and Iran’s own ALALAM. After a November 2009 meeting of select information ministers and media moguls in the Saudi capital, a decision was made to suspend ALALAMs satcasts from the Saudi-controlled ARABSAT and Egypt-owned NILESAT satellites. In addition, the rise of Turkey as a regional political and economic powerhouse, together with the wide success of dubbed Turkish soap operas in the Arab world, have alarmed authorities in countries like Saudi Arabia. These developments have diminished fears of an exogenous Western (read American) “cultural invasion” and built up concerns about endogenous politico-cultural influence emanating from non-Arabic-speaking nations in the Middle East itself. The rise of Iranian and Turkish influence, diplomatic and mediatic, poses new challenges while affirming the importance of the regional-supranational realm, both for media policy and for its academic study.

References Addington, T. (2005) 2005: A Year to Remember, http:// campaignME.com (accessed 25/12/2005). Addington, T. (2006) Media Tribunal Awaits First Case, http:// campaignME.com (accessed 26/03/2006). Al Abed, I. (2009) “Facts about the new UAE media law” (April 19), Gulf Times. Al-Barraq, N. (2008) “Abdallah al-Jaser: Satellite Charter distinguishes between incitement to violence and resistance to occupation” (February 20), Al-Hayat [Arabic]. Alkhas, R. (2009) Director General, Jordan Media City, personal interview with author, Amman, Jordan, April 30. Al-Quds al-Arabi (2009) Saudi Ulemas Demand the Total Prohibition of Women Appearing in the Mass Media, http:// www.alquds.co.uk [Arabic] (accessed 25/03/2008). Al-Wishah, W. (2009) Production Manager, Jordan Media City, personal interview with author, Amman, Jordan, April 30. Arab Ad (2005) “Arab satellite TV channels: The future is promising but…” (May), Arab Ad, p. 12. Arab Advisors Group (2004) Media Cities in the Arab World. Amman: Arab Advisors Group. Associated Press (2007) “Dubai shuts down independent Pakistan TV station under pressure,” Associated Press, November 17. LexisNexis academic online database (accessed 15/10/2008).

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Emergent Arab Media Policy Sphere Boyd, D. A. (1991) “Lebanese broadcasting: Unofficial electronic media during a prolonged civil war,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 35(3): 269–287. Boyd, D. A. (1999) Broadcasting in the Arab World: A Survey of the Electronic Media in the Middle East (second edition). Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. Braman, S. (2004) “The emergent global information policy regime,” in S. Braman (ed.) The Emergent Global Information Policy Regime. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 12–37. Chakravartty, P., and Sarikakis, K. (2006) Media Policy and Globalization. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dubai Holding (2008) About Dubai Holding, http:// dubaiholding.com/en/about-dubai-holding (accessed 15/10/2008). Gulf Business (2002) “The next generation,” Gulf Business (April): 22–23. Hallin, D., and Mancini, P. (2004) Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Human Rights Watch (2009) Just the Good News, Please: New UAE Media Law Continues to Stifle Press. New York: Human Rights Watch. Kraidy, M. M. (1998) “Broadcasting regulation and civil society in post-war Lebanon,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 42(3): 387–400. Kraidy, M. M. (1999) “State control of television news in 1990s Lebanon,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 76(3): 485–498. Kraidy, M. M. (2003) The Shutdown of Lebanon’s MTV: National and Regional Factors, unpublished manuscript. Kraidy, M. M. (2006) “Governance and hypermedia in Saudi Arabia,” First Monday, 11(9), http://firstmonday. org/issues/special11_9/kraidy/index.html (accessed 15/10/2007). Kraidy, M. M. (2007) “Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and the changing Arab information order,” International Journal of Communication, 1(1): 139–156, http://ijoc. org/ojs/index.php/ijoc/article/view/18/22 (accessed 01/06/2008).


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Kraidy, M. M. (2008) “Arab states: Emerging consensus to muzzle media?” (March), Arab Reform Bulletin, 6(2). Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, http://www.carnegieendowment. org/publications (accessed 01/06/2008). Kraidy, M. M. (2009) Reality Television and Arab Politics: Contention in Public Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraidy, M. M., and Khalil, J. F. (2007) “The Middle East: Transnational Arab television,” in L. Artz and Y. Kamalipour (eds) The Media Globe: Trends in International Mass Media. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 79–98. Kraidy, M. M., and Khalil, J. F. (2009) Arab Television Industries. London: British Film Institute/Palgrave Macmillan. Michalis, M. (1999) “European Union broadcasting and telecoms: Towards a convergence regulatory regime?,” European Journal of Communication, 14(2): 147–171. Price, M. E. (2008) “A charter of contradictions,” Arab Media and Society, http://www.arabmediaand society.com (accessed 04/01/2008). Price, M. E. (2009) “Media transitions in the rear-view mirror: Some reflections,” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 22(4): 485–496. Puppis, M. (2008) “National media regulation in the era of free-trade: The role of global governance,” European Journal of Communication, 23(4): 405–424. Raboy, M. (2007) “Global media policy: Defining the field,” Global Media and Communication, 3(3): 343–361. Rugh, W. (2003) Arab Mass Media: Newspapers, Radio and Television in the Arab World. Westport, CT: Praeger. Shobaili, A. S. (1971) A Historical and Analytical Study of Broadcasting and Press in Saudi Arabia. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. Straubhaar, J. (2007) World Television: From Local to Global. London: Sage Publications. Wheeler, M. (2004) “Supranational regulation: Television and the European Union,” European Journal of Communication, 19(3): 349–369.

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19

The Mediterranean Arab Mosaic between Free Press Development and Unequal Exchanges with the “North” Jamal Eddine Naji Translated by Oleh Replanksy

Introduction Arab media and media professionals, much like the average Arab citizen, have experienced increased freedom, as Internet users and even bloggers, thanks to information and communication technologies (ICTs). They currently experience newfound freedom in the “global mediasphere” from a very specific cosmogony. Most of the countries within the Arab Persian Gulf have media cosmogonies that are primarily oriented toward the Mediterranean. Although a handful of countries in the region are culturally and politically aligned with the Anglo-Saxon world, and therefore draw heavily from British and American media, most media cosmogonies in the region are based on the media standards and practices in place on the north shore of the Mare Nostrum, or the Mediterranean Sea. The viewpoints of the North shore’s media impact on the responses of the media of the South shore. Since the media of the North highlight events and facts of the South, they sway the agenda of the South toward Northern issues,

challenges and ideals, such as the struggles for freedom of expression and democracy, as well as Northern values such as good governance, tolerance, diversity, and human rights. Consequently, the North’s “media influence” on the South has an impact on the political relationships and tensions between the two regional blocs, not only in daily media headlines but also in diplomatic action. The links and associations between “the news,” as it is treated on both sides, characterize this North–South power relationship and its often uncontrollable and unanticipated effects on the relationships between countries on both shores. The incident involving the caricatures of Prophet Mohammed, as well as the continuing debates about the “veil” and the “burqa” (a constant source of irritation within the region), provide good examples of this. In the “Mediterranean cosmogony,” Arab media and the people they serve confront conflicts, misunderstandings, and even treason and war (i.e., media treason and war) with their crossMediterranean counterparts. At the same time, the Mediterranean Arab cosmogony itself faces



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Mediterranean Arab Media Mosaic multiple professional challenges, deficiencies, and disagreements on identity and ethical issues, regardless of the form of expression the cosmogony takes in the different contexts, from the Atlantic to the Gulf. This dynamic shapes the presiding politics that these countries use to manage the expression of their media and their national affairs. Arab media, much like the people they address, are painstakingly advancing toward full freedom of media expression, albeit they do so alongside many serious challenges, such as the circulation of the myth that there exists a “united” and “Arab World,” and the unequal coverage of global events by the North. Ultimately, the future of Arab media, citizens, state politics involving the media, and civil society in the region is torn by two forces: the specific developmental needs of each individual country (particularly given that the unity of the region is simply a myth that must be transcended), and the unequal exchange with the North shore of the Mediterranean. Given its current state of professional iniquity and political nearsightedness, the North cannot adequately claim to support the advancement of freedom of expression and the creed of democracy in the so-called “Arab World,” despite the importance placed on these ideals at home. In response to the first force, the media, journalists, and legislators, as well as Arab citizens, must allow freedom of expression to flourish. This is a pressing and fundamental need. In fact, these societies, and their governing elites, have already begun to address this need by honoring the creed of universal human rights and democracy (as they should be honored), following decades of cantankerous single-party regimes, military dictatorships, absolutist monarchies, and the like.1 In response to the second force, which is closely tied to the first and based on the same issue, the Mediterranean media must work toward mitigating unequal exchanges and fostering effective solidarity among the democrats found on both shores, namely those who are the defenders and promoters of free expression and democratic media governance. Democratic media and media professionals, ultimately, can produce better-quality content if they seek to promote a more balanced picture of the views emanating from both the North and the South.


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The Arab World and the Need to Develop Freedom and Professionalism No one can deny that the “Arab World” has altered the conditions under which media operate at a fundamental level. This change has not been limited to rendering the borders between countries less permeable after they succumbed to satellite imagery and the irreversible path toward cyberspace (including even the most impenetrable borders between certain enemy states). Rather, this change has encompassed the entire cosmogony of the “Arab,” which has been altered to the point of being simultaneously reinforced and deconstructed by the media. Such a situation was unthinkable only two decades ago. For those who lived through the cosmogony that framed the “Arab World” as an idea, the quasibiblical concept of “Arabness” and the space “between the Ocean and the Gulf ” were imprinted in the spirits and hearts of the average person. These were not manifested in tangible objects, materials, merchandise, machinery, and technology, and they were even less pronounced in artistic forms of expression at the time. Although books and cinema were an exception to this trend, they did not foster any multi-sided exchanges between the countries of the region. Furthermore, books and cinema were mostly produced in only two capital cities: the quasi-monopolistic city of Cairo and its younger multicultural and multilingual sister city, Beirut. In addition to books and cinema, songs and music also had an integrationist influence on the population of the region by creating a feeling of belonging to one “Arab” culture and one “World.” Nevertheless, this form of artistic expression was also limited in its diversity as it originated from only two sources as well, rather than from the many dozens of other possible sources in the region. During these years, neither television (with the exception of a few rare and irregular cross-border cases which were mostly to the benefit of either Egypt or Lebanon) nor the written press, could expand the integrationist scope of this “World” that stretched from the Gulf to the Ocean. Radio programs also had little effect, as in the case of the Arab Voice called The Voice of Cairo under Nasser’s pan-Arab regime. This radio program was

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nothing more than a short-lived mouthpiece for an impalpable unity. This was affirmed only during vain displays of glory (usually based on the ancient history of these peoples) or within an atmosphere of pain and frustration (during wars that did not involve “unity” per se, but which were waged in its name for the sake of a common and united future, such as the many conflicts in Palestine). In other words, the “Arab World” was not forged by merchandise, inventions, or technology. Even though the movement of people did contribute ever so slightly to forming the concept, freedom of expression, the media, and the masses did little to that end. Today, after inheriting technology that was developed by peoples from outside the region, namely digital technology, satellite, and the Internet, local media now enable multiple forum discussions and meetings that stand to foster an exchange of realities and discourses from the many different areas of the “Arab World.” Countless groups and individuals from the Ocean to the Gulf make use of this new space. In a sense, the mythical aspects of an Arab cosmogony lose out to varied, instantaneous, direct, and institutional expressions made by Internet users and bloggers via satellite companies. This is, of course, made possible by the Internet and its technological properties and capacities. This phenomenon has undoubtedly changed the dynamics between the governors and the governed and creates veritable challenges and issues in public policy, communication, and governance itself.

Toward eliminating the myth of “Arab unity” Arab media have conquered large spaces and innumerable communication frequencies between countries, their elites, and their citizens. Their expressions go “in all directions and the reverse” and include “opinions and their rebukes.” This can be seen in the case of Al Jazeera, which is perceived to be the network of the “Arab World,” both within the North and elsewhere. Programs aired on this news network typically consider all controversy, criticism, and suspicion around recent and past developments, regardless of their importance and impact on the political situation of these countries.2 Nevertheless, this new space within an Arab cosmogony, which is consistently working toward framing the entire region from the Ocean to the


Gulf as a united and common universe, is often overlooked. In fact, the lessons that can be learned from its effects and which can be used to better the future have not even been analyzed. In this Arab congregation, each national reality has rid itself, or is in the process of ridding itself, of the old myth of unity. This myth could only have persisted in the absence of a large diversity of voices, discourses, visions, expressions, and media, or, in other words, within a long-term reign of centralist and monopolistic policies and forms of governance that hinder media freedom and independence. The sites for expression and freedom are in the midst of transformation in more than one of the countries of the region, creating pockets or spaces for the development of the following: an uncensored pluralism with various media platforms for expression, the reorganization of somewhat established audiovisual areas of activity for the public, unprecedented private capital investment in the media, the use of tried and tested ICT equipment in all forms of media, more or less systematic commitments toward digital expression (depending on the country), and a veritable telecommunications revolution that leaves room for privatization and partnership with large international or foreign operators. It goes without saying that this transformation includes a progressive dismantling of the state’s monopoly on audiovisual expression in certain countries. Despite all of these changes, however, the professionals and civil society of these countries, including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) centered on defending the media, remain unconvinced that freedom of expression is fully developed or that it has even been standardized as a norm against which only marginal and negligible exceptions can be contrasted. Thus, while Arab media seem to generate pluralism and diversity, break up monopolies, and encourage modern technology and products to be offered to the public, they do not sufficiently make up for all of the shortfalls that hindered freedom of expression in all its forms, and that existed in the past. Why is this? The influence of the ideological or political choices made by governing units is only part of the answer. Although the policies adopted by each of these countries to manage, govern, or regulate the field of the media offer a partial explanation of this deficiency, the change experienced in the South was actually influenced by a combination of both the political will of states to

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Mediterranean Arab Media Mosaic undertake media reform (which, in actuality, has been quite limited), and the liberating forces emerging from the discourses that seem to be innate to new technology and media (i.e., crossborder satellite television, the Internet, and the blogosphere). Any analysis of Arab media cannot discount the proliferation of new media technology or label the political regimes of the region as the sole cause of the poor state of media freedom. To do so would be to question one’s credibility. Rather, all factors, be they political, technological, economic, professional, or even societal, must be considered as contributions to the current developments in the region. Indeed, the convergence of these factors renders freedom of expression irreversibly critical of new and inevitable forms of governance. Arab states can no longer contain the current push toward more freedom for media and their practices.

Freedom of expression developing for all Having said this, an analysis of the current state of media freedom in the region should focus heavily on the reactions and new stances taken by states, civil society, and media in response to the evolving framework for Arab expression. In such an analysis, the central issue becomes the media’s ability to adapt to new fields of Arab expression. In other words, we must ask the following questions: Ranging from legislators to the public and including operators and professionals, are all actors in their respective fields sufficiently well equipped and capable of grasping the developments in such a way as to improve freedom of expression? Since the ultimate objective of these societies is to function as democracies similar to, but different from, the democracies of the North shore (which are, incidentally, viewed as models by the South’s governing actors, the media, and civil society), can freedom of expression in the region become “normalized,” effective, and appropriate to meet such an objective? Any change requires learning and development; therefore, freedom of expression in this region of the world needs to be worked out regardless of any recent expansion or gains that may have been made on different levels and in various sectors. After all, players that have been, for the longest time, playing


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a game that is closed off, hermetic, confined, rigorously monitored, poorly (if not anachronistically) equipped in terms of technology, politically controlled by the state’s monopoly on audiovisual expression, and socially elitist (as demonstrated by a partisan press), need to fundamentally redesign their strategies when the game becomes more open and diverse, and to embrace new political choices, regulations, means, goals, and targets. Media freedom in the “Arab World” is no longer an exception to the rule of constraint and monopoly by the state. Rather, it has become the rule of thumb to shake up the policies, positions, and practices of all the players involved. It is therefore the sum of all the new challenges that these players are faced with, be they state legislators, professionals, or the general public. How, then, should these players go about enjoying freedom of expression when they have very little experience in doing so and when the ins and outs of such freedom have yet to be tested? How can the rights and obligations that are necessary for such freedom to take root permanently – to flourish, develop, and grow in a sustainable manner – become manifest in the field of the media? Arab legislators should keep these questions in mind so that they may enact laws and codes to uphold freedom of expression, particularly when faced with issues concerning technological innovations. These incessant innovations present a major challenge to legislators, who must keep up with a pace that renders even the newest legislative texts inadaptable or obsolete within a short period of time. The impasse that the global discussion on Internet governance has currently run up against, at the level of the United Nations (UN), attests to this challenge. Moreover, judges and lawyers who have little experience in dealing with “media infractions” should also work toward instilling freedom of expression in their fields, given that such infractions were previously treated, almost systematically, as “trials of opinion” or “political trials.” In other words, the infractions were used as opportune pretexts in long and epic struggles between opposing political camps, such as the regimes in power and their opponents. The development of freedom of expression, which is much more apparent in the region today than it has been for decades, nevertheless hinges on the activity of the media and their professionals for success. Which media and professionals become key players will ultimately depend on the form that

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freedom of expression takes in each respective society. As beneficiaries of this freedom’s privileges and guarantors with the means to maintain it, the media and journalists are always at the forefront of the claims and practices that uphold freedom of expression. As such, throughout all the countries of the region, they have been late to learn the lesson of self-regulation. The media and their professionals are currently in the midst of acquiring the ethics that come with any political decision and, similarly, with any political victory.

Self-regulation: searching for the road to ethics In addition to addressing the essential issue of regulation and control of media freedom by legislators and judges – which, of course, can only occur in a state with a rule of law or a democracy – we must also consider self-regulation. Vital in all advanced or smooth-running democracies, media and professional self-regulation generally occurs when a code of ethics is in place. As stated by François-Xavier Alix (1997), when examining the matter from the Gutenberg revolution to the coming of the Internet: Ethics, the set of principles that are the basis of any value judgment on an act, must be founded in reflection on the very essence of whatever is at issue, in this case, information. They are soaked in the importance of what is being done, and dictate what fundamental conditions apply to the outcome sought by the actor. Failure to respect these conditions leads to the insufficiency, poor quality, or even perversion of the act. Ethics shape the living dimension of human activity under the law. If they are well founded, they may expose an occasional imperfection in the law. In the case of a good and just law, they may inspire citizens to follow rather than submit. Ethics are the order of a worldview, they are the benchmark.3

When the media navigate around this benchmark of values, they do so for one reason, which is also the root of all practices and content of the profession as well as the very source of self-regulation through a code of ethics. And that reason is the truth. The Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), dated April 1954 and amended


June 1986, reads as follows: “Respect for the truth and for the right of the public to truth is the first duty of the journalist” (see www.ifj.org). Therefore, if the need for professionalism, framed in terms of ethics, is on the agenda of media and media professionals, as well as Internet-using citizens in these Arab countries, how, then, should the challenge of creating such an ethical framework be overcome? (In fact, the issue of Internet governance has remained open-ended all over the world, leaving citizens to browse the Internet without the guidance of an explicit ethical framework, thus far, as a result.) If the required changes are brought about, it could guarantee a “journalism of excellence,” that is to say, a journalism that serves the democratic creed. Such journalism would help media professionals and the media in their struggle against the non-democratic public policies that continue to frame the media landscapes of most Arab countries.

A collection of developments to take place at once In actual fact, this challenge is merely a collection of developments that must be undertaken simultaneously – albeit gradually – by all parties involved. The media and their professionals will not be the only ones who will have to act; however, they will have to be the ones to act first. The developments will have to include: ●

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The development of the rule of law: The challenge here lies in having all the actors in the field of Arab media put democracy and the separation of powers to the test in a positive and progressive manner. Combined with the independence of the judiciary branch of power, this would guarantee the genuine and lasting growth of freedom of expression. Developing the rule of law is a decisive step toward democracy, and the media in this region of the world would play the role of beacon, pioneer, example, and teacher by promoting this development to all citizens, be they the governors or the governed. The development of professional rules of conduct and their ethical aspects: This would involve Arab institutions that train journalists and offer continuing education programs in journalism, media, and communications.

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Mediterranean Arab Media Mosaic The combination of these two key developments (i.e., the rule of law and professional and ethical curricula) leads to the notion of responsibility, which is a controversial matter in the eyes of Arab journalists and legislators. In fact, it is currently a hotly debated topic between Arab journalists and legislators. The concept of responsibility, which is included in all ethical charters around the world and written into the preambles of some, is held in high regard by professionals primarily because it justifies journalists’ raison d’être and establishes their credibility. After all, a “journalism of excellence” is based on the sacrosanct principle of respect for the truth. The ethics issue is therefore an essential equation that must be solved because of its influence on the future of the policies and choices related not only to expression but also to the grand scheme of the public sphere where governors and the governed are bound in a relationship that determines political and legislative outcomes. The term “responsibility” (or “responsible journalism”) generates all of the controversies and conflicts apparent in the current relationship between the media and the governors of Arab countries, or, in other words, between governments and civil societies. In 1996, the only declaration to be drafted by Arab professionals and which would be adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) General Conference in 1997, was the Declaration of Sana’a. The Declaration recognized that: Sound journalistic practices are the most effective safeguard against governmental restrictions and pressures by special interest groups. Guidelines for journalistic standards are the concern of the news and media professionals. Any attempt to set down standards and guidelines should come from the journalists themselves. (UNESCO 1997)

We can clearly discern from this that Arab journalists are conscious of their responsibilities regarding professionalism and ethics. The challenge therefore lies entirely in leading them to maintain and to further develop this sense of responsibility while remaining aware of the current state of change and evolution taking place within Arab media, and then ensuring that this can consolidate an irreversible change towards freedom of expression. This challenge is essentially a societal and political debate


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on state policies. Given the tremendous progress in ICTs that has rendered the realm of the media much more open and accessible to all citizens of the world (including Arab citizens), the debate can no longer involve only professionals. Rather, the “Arab World” needs a political debate on the practices, ethics, and “social responsibility” of the media in its societies.

The Mediterranean World and Collateral Damage from Unequal Exchange Establishing democratic norms in the Mediterranean communication space is one of the most ambitious projects of the democratic creed that advocates universality, shared identities, and synergy among different cultures and diverse expressions, thereby promoting both local knowledge and global convergence. The emerging paradigm supported by new ICTs gives journalists new ways of expressing themselves and allows them to work toward designing and implementing the democratic creed in all Mediterranean spaces. Widespread access to these new means of communication has placed journalism at the heart of the effort to build democracy, as the primary social function of journalists is to “interpret the actual” or “translate” occurrences into factual events. Nevertheless, the possibilities made available by new ICTs also pose many different and complex challenges regarding the professions of journalists and communicators. These challenges raise issues in areas ranging from journalists’ perception of themselves as responsible, accountable professionals, exercising their craft in the public sphere, to their fundamental canons, codes of conduct, and ethical paradigms, as well as their traditional techniques for communicating factual events. These challenges cannot be properly identified and managed without first considering the epistemological aspects of the cultural and professional sites within this Mediterranean space. Such an analysis requires a transdisciplinary approach that allows for a dialogue about the comparisons that can be made between Arab sites of communication and their European counterparts. In order to define and explain exchanges of experiences, visions, practices, and strategies for

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“translating” the actual ethical stances and methods of appropriating and using technology and other tools, it is important to note that an epistemological analysis must view the activities of the field of journalism as a continuous process of teaching, learning, and training for professionals working in information and communication. This process can be clearly observed within the tensions and controversies that persist between the states of opposite shores, as well as in the incidents concerning the press. In the past, governments of the South have banned Northern publications from their territories or even called on Northern states politically and diplomatically to “better control their media” for the sake of “good relations between states.” Therefore, in the spirit of coexistence and in support of democratic growth, we propose five avenues of thought aimed at instilling the democratic creed in the coverage and reporting done by the North and the South. We present these considerations without necessarily drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of the practices of journalism or deriving analytical theories on the motivations for “professionalism” on both sides of the Mediterranean. Rather, we merely aim to encourage reflection, without epistemological pretension, in the hopes that these considerations will serve as pertinent references for analyses or theoretical frameworks for action.

A fictitious and common reality in an elitist fog Today, as in the past, we are inclined to conclude that both sides of the Mediterranean share a common destiny, based on the number of events that instantaneously become accepted as facts in our “daily news.” The “translation” of events into facts occurs at a faster speed than ever, and can lead us to believe that audiences on both shores share a common reality via digital media (e.g., through radio, television, long-distance printing, and cyberspace). In the event, however, this common reality does not exist. The daily news only originates from the forges of the North; the Arab shore, therefore, is not part of this “common reality.” The South’s participation in this reality is anecdotal and never occurs at the same level as that of the North. The South’s reality never makes an impact on media items that are exposed to the entire world, such as


reports on stars, music hits, books, films, diplomatic events that may affect future political outcomes, and “thriller” trials such as those involving serial killers. The North’s “local” news has invaded global media space to such an extent that the local news of the South is only able to make small dents in the global media. Furthermore, the North’s media “spotlights” only consider these dents with a certain amount of attention, when the North itself is affected by such local events. For example, media of the North covered the 2006 tsunami in South Asia to the extent that it affected Northern tourists. Similarly, news broadcasting on famine often features interviewees who are “good Samaritans” from the North, and basks in the glow of their Northern roots, their foundation’s logo, the name of their UN agency, and so on. In fact, the media of the South broadcast multiple versions of samesourced “local” news because they too are geared entirely toward the North’s reality. As such, Southern media are left with only one option that allows them to be on a par with the North in Mediterranean media space: imitation, or “cutting and pasting.” For example, Morocco and Lebanon ended up throwing together their own versions of “Star Academy.” This was, of course, lauded by advocates of the “global village,” who see the hegemonic “one shore” model as the basis of a “common reality.”4 We all live in a reality shaped by the newsreel of a single shore! This framework leaves no room for autonomy, originality, or the news from the other shore (i.e., the South shore). The conviction with which professional Arab news editors fight to include the front-page news of the North on the front pages of their own publications in the South attests to this framework. One even suspects that media broadcasters of the South feel “professional shame” when they miss Northern updates that are considered “necessary” to provide “breaking news” on their front pages or TV headlines. These stories, launched from an ivory tower on the other side of the Mediterranean and soaked in the North’s newsreel for the day, are then presented as the South’s top stories. In some cases, opening a magazine or switching to a public television channel in the South means reading or seeing the local news of the North being presented as an unavoidable or “universal” event in “daily news.” In the parts of the South that are said to be “emerging” or “transitioning

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Mediterranean Arab Media Mosaic towards democracy,” access to the North’s news is even seen as a feat because it represents a bold infringement of the media’s traditional and forced tendency to give precedence to whatever the local regime wishes to air. The selection of the “news” and its organization into a hierarchy of importance is therefore skewed by the mentalities of both sides of the Mediterranean from the very outset. At the end of the day, the “global village” that is expressed in the South is, in fact, a virtual carbon copy of the topics and headline choices made in the North. This, of course, is not at all in line with standards of “professionalism.” An examination of the target audience of Southern newscasts illustrates that this dynamic is encouraged by the like-mindedness of the elite found on both sides of the Mediterranean. The elite experience a common reality that is ambiguous, noticeably hybridized, and truly fictitious. This reality honors a set of facts that originates from one shore and is built upon one set of events, one world, one local reality: those of the North. Nevertheless, this common framework is only present among the elite of the region. The realities of journalists and other media professionals in this Mare Nostrum dynamic are set on veritable minefields that are in no way conducive to building true unity and sharing a common chronology of events. This unstable ground does very little to foster and stimulate dialogue or share a successful mix of identities, memories, cultures, facts, projects, politics, and the future. This version of reality is passed on to the public on both sides of the Sea after first being sprinkled with a few local characteristics. Even beyond the frontiers of the “Arab World,” this delocalized “professionalism” (which benefits only the North’s “local” reality) causes the South to suffer from a long list of deficiencies and contingencies. These include: ●

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The inadaptability of the media’s form and content to suit local needs and demands. The absence of the establishment of the South’s own chronology of events that would automatically become part of the North’s and the South’s daily news. Any catastrophes, attacks, famines, epidemics, or genocides are presented as travel warnings for tourists or potential tourists, investors, or diasporas that sympathize with the North.


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The absence of the “South’s views” of itself and its views of the North (or the North as seen through the South’s eyes) in the “global” daily news. The absence of a horizontal chronology of events in the South that would highlight the region and “unity” of the Maghreb, the “Arab World,” or even Africa.

Why have Arab media not made any attempts to take one of the many paths still available in the South that would easily allow them to avoid control by the government, the military, security agencies, or any other “guardians of the temple” on the South shore of the Mediterranean? In the North, the fictitious “common reality” shared with the South stems from: ●

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A sense of unity created by fear, mystery, incomprehension, superficiality, approximation, and ignorance of the Other’s chronology of events, that was present long before the attacks of September 11th. Media descriptions of events from the South never aim to make an impact on the people of the North. As such, facts and actions in the South are never properly explained to the public of the North. Key issues, events, and even terms are missing from the collective consciousness of the North due to a lack of effort on the part of the media. Words such as Sunnis, Shiites, Islam, fundamentalists, integrationists, veil, or “moderate” Islamists are rarely understood in the North, and their strangeness masks their true meaning and significance. There is no access to the facts of the real world surrounding the North. Because of this, the North hides in the comfort of an elitist illusion, a common reality that is kept together by cultural proximity with the elite of the South. Yet, the elite of the South differs greatly from the mysterious plebe, or the “misery of the world” that constantly pours into “pateras” (often deadly makeshift boats) that run aground on the shores of the North, rain or shine.

Clichés, stereotypes, and false beliefs seduce the public because they allow the narrator, who defends the chronology of the North, to translate the events of the South without dismantling the reassuring self-importance of the ancestors of the conquerors

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(or “civilizers”) of the lands and “tribes” of the South. The North’s reign of ignorance over the South becomes reinforced with every wave of beggars that is beached on the defenses of “Fortress North.” Unfortunately, by unequal media exchange between the two shores, this is only the tip of the iceberg, the “collateral damage” that is caused by unequal media exchanges between the two shores. Countries of the South tried in vain to correct this imbalance in the 1970s and 1980s after being coopted by the former Soviet Union and its satellite states, to call for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). Today, such unequal exchange can no longer be addressed using the same terms or the political rationale of the Cold War between the East and the West. Since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), held in 2003 and 2005, this unequal exchange is expressed as a discrepancy between countries that are either “info-rich” or “info-poor.” The legitimate goal of making the knowledge society accessible to the peoples of both the North and the South is now being sought in the spirit of solidarity, tolerance, understanding, and respect for individuals and communities in all their diversity.

“Glocalization” and the Internet trap For the moment, it seems as though the vision of cyberspace that the international community wanted realized may be the only way to grant universal access to the knowledge society. This vision saw an eventual and definitive elimination of the “digital divide,” together with the harmonization of the global with the local using the Internet and its digital computer technologies. Although the North and the South have progressed in this general direction, they are nowhere near being “glocalized”; the changes that led to this technology-inspired “promised land” have been limited in both worlds. The essence of each shore is not yet accessible by the click of a mouse! At this point, cyberspace is not the site of universal fusion as it was previously made out to be. The Internet has ultimately proven to be a sum of “locals” or even a mish-mash of juxtaposed “locals.” Nevertheless, the recognition of the diversity of its users has proven worthwhile; it legitimizes, for example, the discourse found in the UNESCO (2001) Universal Declaration on Cultural


Diversity. From the very outset of this Declaration, diversity is described as the “common heritage of humanity.” The Declaration adds that diversity is “guaranteed” by human rights (UNESCO 2001: Article 4, emphasis added). The Declaration then calls for “access for all to cultural diversity” (Article 6). In October 2005, UNESCO formally introduced the objectives for its Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. These objectives are, among others, “to create the conditions for cultures to flourish and to freely interact in a mutually beneficial manner” (UNESCO 2005: Article 1b), “to encourage dialogue among cultures with a view to ensuring wider and balanced cultural exchanges in the world in favour of intercultural respect and a culture of peace” (Article 1c), and “to foster interculturality in order to develop cultural interaction in the spirit of building bridges among peoples” (Article d). Do the media not have a role to play in the building of these “bridges”? Are they not able to assume this role given the new transborder technologies that they have at their disposal? Even though the diversity of existing bridges has been established, information travels freely through fiber optic cables, and access to the Internet has grown and diversified to near-infinite levels all over the globe, has cultural understanding improved? Has knowledge of the Other become more sensitive? Nobody involved in manufacturing “the news” can ignore the integral communication trap of the Internet as it relates to these questions. The language of the Internet and the Internet itself – as a vehicle in other words, considering both its form and its framework – allow for only the briefest event highlights. These highlights are often obscured and dumbed down because of the fickle, impatient, rushed, and nomadic nature of the target audience. How, then, should the publics of the North be properly exposed to the very substance of the Other’s “local” so that they may develop a genuine knowledge of the South that would allow for truly universal dialogue? Even if good practices, such as the use of links (i.e., the “inverted iceberg” approach), were recommended and used in an attempt to solve the problem, the majority of Internet users would not feel any more encouraged to make the extra effort required to decipher the unknown, the strange, and the unusual, more than they do at present. The time required to research, read and assimilate new

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Mediterranean Arab Media Mosaic information or overcome language obstacles (such as Arabic in this case) is simply too great, as is the cost of any required software and related equipment. In short, the Internet can be misleading insofar as it does not use, or cannot always use, all of the potential it claims to offer. In many cases, it does not offer many tools that would help overcome obstacles or pitfalls that are practical and real. Under these circumstances, there is little chance left for an “encyclopedic” knowledge of the Other to develop, except in the most motivated of social circles. Without this knowledge, the path towards contextualizing “the event” in a useful and professional manner becomes impossible, as does the constructive bridging or mixing of identities, memories, and futures of multiple worlds (in this case, between the North and South of the Mediterranean). Furthermore, brief, hasty, superficial, approximate, and incomplete reporting undoubtedly exacerbates the situation and encourages behavior that leads to misunderstandings or even conflicts with the Other. The resulting damage can be vast. Often, the media of the North leave themselves open to the criticism – or sometimes even the wrath – of the regimes and establishments of the South shore. This results in censorship, prohibition, expulsion of Northern media correspondents, or distribution of propaganda “medication” to the peoples of the South by their leaders, who inadvertently perpetuate these oppressive practices that are historically associated with the South.5 And when the media of the North or their institutionalized consciousness (like Reporters Without Borders – Reporters sans frontières) cry foul because of censorship, very few professionals in the South actually become concerned. This is due, on the one hand, to the professional fickleness of the North, and, on the other hand, to censorship no longer being an exclusively Southern phenomenon. Nowadays, even the major players or globally proclaimed gurus of the Information Society practice censorship. What is more, they practice it only for the benefit of censoring states of the South. This becomes glaringly obvious when one recalls Yahoo’s or Google’s “Chinese syndrome” and any number of other less-publicized syndromes! In this type of “professional” and “glocalized” reality, highlights of Southern events never go past the point of “breaking news.” Natural disasters, civil wars, political conflicts, state or societal struggles for self-determination, or other dramatic,


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tragic, or “sensational” events are always presented as “trivial” news items and are rarely ranked as important. This format presents a common reality only at a psycho-emotional level, as the cultures or stories in the background of the event are rarely, if ever, properly researched or presented. Consequently, journalists who are native to the South often follow suit by replicating the same “breaking news” patterns, based on the South’s experiences and with just as much hype. And, of course, the sensationalizing and politicizing of their news demonstrates the most prized of all qualities in journalism: impertinence. Disproportionate, archaic, overly cumbersome, and repressive reactions instilled by the governments of the South then render this impertinence profitable and even honorable in the eyes of its counterpart in the North, and the international community more generally.6 Such situations are provoked by a “professionalism” that has been fundamentally led astray by the North’s failure to develop a deeper understanding of its Other, and the South’s insistence on mimicking the North’s shallow yet widely accepted understanding of events, be it an unconscious act or a deliberate attempt to gain higher ratings. Ultimately, these situations only further entrench the elitism of the media on both shores of the Mediterranean, creating a discrepancy between what is reported and the realities of millions of people who do not have the means to lay the foundations of a Southern media that could eventually become democratic and representative of the people.7 This type of professional reality could not realistically contribute toward the “glocalization” of the Mediterranean, where the media of both shores would work consistently toward a deeper understanding of each Other. Its glocalizing effects on the public on both sides would be even more negligible. Low professional and ethical standards therefore guarantee a limited, illusory, and elitist level of understanding between both shores. Furthermore, considering that new ICTs help to sustain a professional framework that reduces the efforts to learn about the Other and oneself to a minimum, how could anything be properly “contextualized” (for instance, in the vein of Edgar Morin’s eulogy of “contextualization” during the first Gulf War)? In fact, effort and hard work are not the only necessary steps toward developing a better understanding of the Other and contextualizing the subject and chronology of events. There should also be a

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fundamental passion for wanting to understand the Other, a desire that not only encourages both sides to meet and unite but that also enriches each individual by offering a chance to surpass oneself in the process. A passionate project aimed at understanding the Other and one that is sustained from one day to the next by the daily routine of highlighting events can only be conceived in a free environment. This would allow individuals to release their desire to profoundly get to know “foreigners,” to shine the light of knowledge over “them,” and to encourage “them” to shine this light over us. The environment or biotope that would allow for a genuine sharing of the realities experienced on two distant shores and two distinct cosmogonies is quite simply democracy and the borderless spaces it permits. Perhaps, then, it is time that this regime be voluntarily chosen. In so doing, even the most innocent but dangerous of reflexes can be flushed away, along with the possibility of any “collateral damage” that would prevent the media and their professionals from sharing the Mediterranean chronology of events and from building a productive, qualitative, and humanly enriching perspective for all identities inhabiting the space known as the “Mediterranean World.” After all, this space continues to glorify the creed that it originally nurtured: that is, the creed of democracy!

Terrorism’s entertainment gamble Regardless of what “information sermons” or “debate jousts” are on the airwaves of the North, the illusion of exchange and dialogue only fools those who want to be fooled by the reality that is being shown to them: mass culture that plays on clichés and stereotypes for entertainment purposes. The most symbolic example in this respect is the terrorism phenomenon, which is, today, the most conventional fuel for all of the stereotypes of the “Arab World” and its citizens, transmitted via the North’s media content. The media’s answer to this grave phenomenon has been to sensationalize it, whether on the street, on the radio, on the web, or, most of all, on satellite screens, which quite paradoxically is completely in line with the goals of the terrorists! This horror show shocks public opinion and the consciousnesses of fragile elites, diffuses the credibility


of the democratic state, blurs the social contracts of different peoples, forces the struggle for principles to be abandoned, and discourages men and women who are capable of fighting for principles to act accordingly. Today’s terror strategy aims to use the media to occupy what is most formidable in people’s spirits: the solidarity, legitimacy, and dignity of any highly committed combatants defending the same principles and a common cause. But what are we seeing today with barbarity’s new Hydra? We are helping out in systematically “zapping” anything that may carry the torch and hold up a front against death and obscurantism. We are assisting in a veritable lobotomy of the entire democratic nervous system in the North and the South! We are taking part in the creation of a lobotomy cocktail made of pale and inconsistent European elites, equally outdated Arab and African elites, and the sensationalized image imperialism of Europe, America, and the Arab Persian Gulf. We are allowing sources of knowledge of and about the Other to dry up. The cocktail has been shaken to the point that nostalgia for the knowledge of yesteryear has developed in the quest for a frank and profound dialogue with the Other and for the intimate discovery of the Other as a companion and adversary. Creators, sociologists, political scientists, great reporters, even orientalists of centuries past (from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries more precisely), were numerous in Europe. Some had bad intentions while others had good ones, but none but the most superficial or approximate looked to mirror the short-lived limelight of stages, cozy lounges, and a depraved and uncultivated media. Therefore, today’s brightly lit stages, news “hosts” and essayists or “consultants” who are targeting “the newsstand” help zap the battle for principles while leaving universalist democrats on both shores in the dark wings and dressing rooms of television studio sets. In a sense, they prefer to arrange any media platform to accommodate the clamor of terrorist demands, the deafening and horrific sounds of exploding terrorist bombs, sensationalized news, and any other strange and horrible related phenomena, be they Neanderthal beards, women mummified in enormous “modesty aprons” known as the hijab or the burqa, or bits of bodies of suicide bombers and mere innocent bystanders. In other words, the media prefer to put

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Mediterranean Arab Media Mosaic forth all that is horrible and revolting in a malicious show that provides great entertainment! This is undeniably the result of professional practices that continue to drift further and further away from tested rules and ethics and apply less integrity toward the accurate and nuanced presentation of issues and events. In the case of terrorism, this has meant drifting further away from the rights and values of humanity that let us distinguish ourselves from the animal world! Once again, media ethics turn out to be a political issue involving the media themselves, states, and their relationship with the media, and the relationship between the media of the North and those of the South. Broadcasts depicting macabre scenes with careless commenting on images that are approximate, irresponsible, or even downright ignorant follow very much the same storyline as a folktale: a panicked “protagonist” reacting to the diabolical determination and violence of an enraged “madman antagonist.” It is indeed a generic scene of a beast and its hunter. And what is the show’s final outcome? The beast (or the terrorist), who worries the populace and shares the leading role with its hunter, may infringe on any principles or rules that serve to uphold his status in a state with the rule of law. Under a democratic regime, the hunter is above all (and quite paradoxically) meant to be vigilant and obstinate about democratic values and human rights. Such a paradox has resulted in many a “Patriot’s Act” being cooked up in both the North and the South. The “Arab World” was no exception to this. On the contrary, numerous regimes in the region acted very quickly to seal up any cracks or openings in the measures of repression that they had, in fact, permitted during the last few years – specifically, measures that framed freedom of expression. In the end, this resulted in a worrying decline in the number of political processes encouraging more liberty and democracy within Arab countries. As a result of all this, we are still far from a universal humanity that would call for equal exchanges at an ideological and political level. The media continue to be used to promote unstable and unbalanced news reporting, facts, and event chronologies, on a daily basis. Without ethics, values, and their corresponding practices, such media will never promote media and state policies to encourage bridge-building between peoples, or, in our case, between both shores of


the Mediterranean. On the “Arab World’s” path toward a genuine dialogue with the North, multiple deficits and obstacles compound this lack of ethics and threaten the strongly desired, future goals outlined in this chapter. The media have an increasingly prominent role to play in bringing about democracy in the varied contexts of the Mediterranean Arab mosaic.

Notes 1

2

3 4

5

6

Principles of “universally recognized” human rights are increasingly becoming entrenched in the region. Despite not being legally binding, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 1948) serves as an important “political and cultural rupture” and is a strong lever for the emergence of dynamic civil societies in this part of the world. In certain countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Syria, civil society is sometimes represented by unavoidable actors that are taken seriously in global forums and institutions, such as within the bodies and agencies of the UN. They often serve as counterweights for the official politics of these countries. For instance, in the case of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, independent NGOs have been presenting counter-reports to official government reports for several years now. Governments of the region occasionally block Al Jazeera from opening offices or reporting from a specific territory. At times, the Emirate of Qatar, patron and sponsor of the network, has found itself in serious political and diplomatic confrontations with another state that considers a program to be undermining its sovereignty or its institutions or operating as a propaganda disseminator for somewhat radical opposing forces, such as integrationist or terrorist movements. See Alix (1997: 8; our translation). Lebanon also had its version of American Idol. Additionally, several Arab broadcasting companies planned local versions of Loft Story and Survivor that, in the end, never aired, according to the companies, because of budgetary reasons. The Moroccan regime administered previously unheard-of forms of this “medication” in the 1980s and was later imitated by regimes in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania. The “citizens” of these countries were made to write letters of protest to the media of the North and even the President of France, denouncing the “misinformation campaigns” aimed at their respective countries. This includes censorship, political, and opinion-based trials (rather than trials based on the rule of law),

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exorbitant fines, and even the imprisonment of journalists (e.g., in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, Egypt, and Lebanon). For example, for the last ten years, between 300,000 and 400,000 copies (usually closer to 300,000 copies) of around 520 titles (22 dailies and the rest weeklies) were printed for more than 30 million Moroccans. There is an average of 275 radio sets for every 1,000 people in the Middle East and North Africa (as compared with 409 sets in Latin America and the Caribbean and 1,322 sets in industrialized countries). For television, the region’s average is 114 sets, compared to 204 in Latin America and the Caribbean and 641 in industrialized countries (see www.ifj.org).


References Alix, F.-X. (1997) Une éthique pour l’information: De Gutenberg à Internet. Paris and Montréal: L’Harmattan. International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) (1954/1986) IFJ Declaration of Principles on the Conduct of Journalists. Brussels: IFJ. UNESCO (1997) Declaration of Sana’a. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2001) Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO (2005) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Paris: UNESCO. United Nations (1948) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: United Nations.

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20

Rethinking Communication for Development Policy: Some Considerations Linje Manyozo

Introduction Communication for development is an umbrella term describing the strategic employment of media and communication in order to facilitate the collaborative generation, sharing, and utilization of knowledge toward strengthening good governance and sustainable development initiatives. Central to this concept is the question of policy within which such programs are planned and implemented. This chapter is a response to invitations from developing world governments and international media and development organizations, requesting countries from the global South, and their partners, to develop coherent communication for development policies (ICSCP 1980; Balit and Ilboudo 1996; FAO 1997; 2002; SADC-CCD 2006). The chapter begins by distinguishing between communication for development policies and communication policies in relation to development, an important distinction if we are to understand some of the implications and consequences of these invitations. Communication for development policies, the subject of the present discussion, refer to commitment statements and action plans created by governments, in liaison with stakeholder organizations, that demonstrate how mediated and non-mediated

forms of citizen participation and engagement can drive the design and implementation of national, regional, and international development policies. Communication policies in relation to development, however, refer to general communication statements of intent without any strategies toward implementing participation. They offer a few guidelines on how certain media and communication initiatives can support development. The major point of contention in relation to the former (communication for development policies) concerns cultural imperialism (Tomlinson 1997); that is, whether Western governments and institutions influence the structure, format, and nature of these policies (ICSCP 1980). Emanating largely from the discussions revolving around the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP), chaired by Sean MacBride, in the late 1970s, cultural imperialism encompassed the concerns of the global South against Americanization, Westernization, and cultural homogenization of national media and communication systems through globalization (ICSCP 1980; Tomlinson 1997). The proponents argued that cultural imperialism was advanced through regulation, in which policy-making becomes the first step toward Westernizing communication institutions, values, and systems (Tomlinson 1997). This chapter samples and examines the roles of the



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United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in facilitating and setting the agenda for the national communication for development policies in the global South. The aim is to consider whether external influence and control can be conceived as a form of cultural imperialism which manifests itself in a culture of dependence and a lack of project sustainability. While UNESCO was establishing the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC) to implement media development initiatives, FAO established the Communication for Development Group (under the Extension, Education and Communication Service in the 1980s), to facilitate the implementation of participatory and rural development communication. The discussion in this chapter critically assesses the roles of both UNESCO and FAO in influencing the design of national communication for development policies. The overall agenda-setting by external organizations does not provide a space for national governments to develop capacities to implement these policies because these organizations are based mainly on a conceptualization of communication for development that is homogeneous and heavily influenced by external, Western considerations and priorities. In the case of UNESCO, its communication for development policy debate is media-centric and its approaches treat, as a footnote, the importance of participatory communications which is central to communication for development policies. In the case of FAO, its debates are development-centric or rooted within sustainable and rural development discourses. FAO is also communication-centric without giving adequate attention to media development and governance questions. The core argument here is that communication for development policy debates in the global South have been designed in ways that give Western and “earlier experiences some universal validity” (Freire 1978: 10) such that nation-states are being co-opted to adopt “packaged and prefabricated” media development indicators. Developed by UNESCO’s IPDC (2008), media development indicators refer to a universal framework for media practice and systems that encourages the media to promote freedom of expression, good governance, and sustainable development.1


Communication for Development References to communication for development are often used interchangeably with development communication and have varied with time and place since Quebral coined the term in the late 1960s. Quebral (1975) saw the concept as being concerned with the art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a society and its peoples, moving from a stage of underdevelopment to one that would achieve economic growth and a higher quality of life. This understanding reflected the dominant thinking of that time (Rostow 1950; Lerner 1958, 1971; Rogers 1962, 1976; Schramm 1964). Quebral (2002: 16) later defined communication for development as “human communication linked to the planned transformation” of a poor society into one experiencing socioeconomic growth, greater equality, and the realization of individual potential. Similarly, Anyaegbunam et al. (1998) define the concept as the strategic employment of participatory activities and communication in development strategies to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods. Wilkins and Mody (2001) conceptualized the term as an institution–community process of strategic intervention aimed toward positive social change. In the same vein, the Communication for Social Change Consortium, one of many similar organizations based in the United States (US), introduced an integrated communication for social change model, defining it as a process where “community dialogue and collective action work together to produce social change in a community that improves the health and welfare of all of its members” (Figueroa et al. 2005: 5). In line with this, it has been argued that “development programmes cannot produce change without an ongoing, culturally and socially relevant communication dialogue among development providers and clientele, and within the recipient group itself ” (Servaes 2008: 15), thus placing emphasis on the need for dialogue. These definitions are representative of many of the definitions in the “field” that have, in effect, become popularly known as communication for development. There are two crucial issues that are problematic with these definitions, however. The failure to resolve these issues continues to create

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Communication for Development Policy challenges for organizations and governments interested in developing national communication for development policies. This chapter examines how these problematic issues negatively affect the conceptualization and implementation of such policies in the global South. The first issue concerns the prominence of communication and development theories and discourses that treat, as a footnote, the role of media and democracy. There is an underlying modernist assumption that communication can produce development and positive social change. This assumption persists because scholars generally locate communication for development definitions within prevailing dominant development paradigms. This is visible, for example, in the cost–benefit evaluations and studies that emphasize the impact of specific communication interventions on behavioral and social change. This is also apparent in the uncritical celebration of participation as a window to empowerment, especially within what has been called the multiplicity paradigm (Quebral 1988; Melkote and Steeves 2001; Servaes, 2003, 2008; Gumucio-Dagron and Tufte 2006). It seems unlikely that strategically planned communication, based only on an assessment of audience or community needs and dialogue, could produce empowerment, development and social change. With so much emphasis on producing development, the debate on democracy and good governance seems surprisingly absent in this literature (Quebral 1975, 1988; Singhal and Rogers 1999; Melkote and Steeves 2001; Servaes 2003, 2008; Figueroa et al. 2005; Gumucio-Dagron and Tufte 2006; McPhail 2009; Quarry and Ramirez 2009). For the pioneers of the field, the absence of democracy in development communication discourse was arguably a “necessary” oversight. In much of the global South in which this discourse was pioneered, most governments were dictatorships. Development communication was an attractive arena for the ruling elites as it did not promote the radical transformation of their societies, but instead focussed on mobilizing societies to engage in development initiatives which had been planned by the “dictatorial politburo.” It is for this reason that some Western scholars associated development communication with government propaganda (Quebral 1988, 2002). The media and democracy discourse would evolve from within UNESCO in the 1960s and


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1970s, in the form of the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) debates, culminating with the ICSCP (MacBride) Report, Many Voices, One World (ICSCP 1980). Yet because there was such a gap between the emergence of development communication, on the one hand, and the emergence of media and development debates, on the other, these issues were not seen as part and parcel of one singular discourse on communication for development. Even within UN organizations, development communication (as in mobilizing and modernizing populations to participate in development activities) was seen as the prerogative of “development-oriented” agencies, such as the FAO and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), both of which would establish communication for development sections. UNESCO would take up the issue of freedom of expression, around which the discourse of media and democracy would be packaged, without clearly linking it to the development debate. The second issue emerging from the development communication tradition discussed above is the absence of a political economy discourse within the field. This resulted in the absence of scholarship dealing with debates related to cultural imperialism and the role of funding policies, bureaucracies within international development organizations, and power relationships among Western and local organizations and their influence on project design, media ownership, control, and sustainability. Arguably, development communication initiatives in the global South are mainly reliant on and characterized by external donor dependency. This issue has not been adequately addressed in the literature that is concerned with the emergence of global media and communication policy. Despite the different views that can be drawn from Marxist and non-Marxist thinking, political economy can be conceived as the study of the relationship between two interdependent economic and political processes – the production, sharing, and consumption of “values of all kinds,” and the production, exchange, and exercise of power (Mansell 2004; Graham 2007). The political economy of media and communication then becomes a study of “how communication figures in political economic formations” (Graham 2007: 2). There are various points of emphasis that emerge

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when applying political economy to the study of media and communication: ownership and control, or the “commodity cycle in mass media” (from production to consumption), content, universal access, technology, or information and knowledge flows. There are many implications of this perspective for communication for development as it opens up the space to address important issues. For instance, it is imperative to answer questions such as: how do political and economic power influence the ways in which communication for development initiatives are planned and executed? Can media, communication, participation, and dialogue bring about social change when the political economy of development does not change? What kinds of ownership and control models would allow for the design, implementation, and sustainability of communication for development initiatives? Political economy also allows for the consideration of issues related to consciousness, value, mediation, symbolic form and meaning, and action in relation to structures of power and institutions (Graham 2007). In the light of the discussion so far, I suggest that communication for development should be conceived as the theory-based and methodinformed employment of media and communication to influence and transform the political economy of development in ways that allow individuals, communities, and societies to determine the direction and benefit of that development. Since this can be realized only with the “humanization of people” (Freire 1978), political and cultural citizenship becomes a necessary precondition for their participation. Thus, democracy needs to become a central feature in development initiatives and, as such, media can be understood as providing a space and a site that allow fully humanized citizens to contest development discourse and its political economy. Dialogue may be important, but discursive power is even more important, as it is a matter not only of speaking but also of being heard and of being recognized. To achieve this, it is essential to consider the field of communication for development as it is advanced within three major approaches. These approaches are discussed in the following section and will be illustrated thereafter, drawing on the experiences of policy development in Africa and the specific case of Mali and the countries which would eventually follow Mali’s lead.


Three Approaches Toward Defining Communication for Development Among the various methodological and theoretical conceptualizations, communication for development is based upon three approaches or strands that coexist but that sometimes have been interpreted independently of each other. This is because of the lack of an active working relationship between the different organizations promoting the various approaches. These are: (1) media for development, (2) media development, and (3) participatory and community communication. Together, these approaches provide the glue that consolidates the field. Moreover, the discourse of communication for development emerges as a crucial component of the broader field of global media and communication policy. The term “media, communication and development” (or media and communication for development) is fitting because it reflects the different roles and attributes that both media and communication bring to the development debate. The media for development approach generally emphasizes the use of radio, television, or any other media hardware and software used to disseminate development information, to educate and/or to influence positive behavior changes among audiences. This approach is usually rooted in social learning, behavioral change, social marketing, and health communication theories (Rogers 1962, 1976; Bandura 1977; Singhal and Rogers 1999). It also embraces media advocacy initiatives supporting various aspects of development, such as human rights. In practice, media for development usually involves journalists and subject matter specialists who prepare content that has, as its aim, communication on and about development for mass audiences. The second approach, media development, is usually implemented in both developing and developed countries, as it deals with consolidating democracy and good governance. Unlike media for development, media development focusses largely on building and modernizing media systems, infrastructure, and networks (i.e., new radio and television stations, computerizing newsrooms, and so on), training media personnel, and lobbying for the introduction of enabling policy and legislation in order to strengthen good governance and development.

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Communication for Development Policy This approach is primarily rooted in Lerner’s media modernization proposals in which he called for the scaling-up and scaling-out of mass media development: the mass media should “continue to spread around the world – inexorably and unilaterally” (Lerner 1971: 870–871). The approach aims at breaking knowledge monopolies and closing digital divides through the provision of “universal” access to media hardware and software (the assumption being that increased access to and participation in the public sphere strengthen civil society as a space where hegemony can be contested). As such, the approach is rooted in public sphere theory (Habermas 1962), political economy (Mansell 2004; Graham 2007), liberty of the press (Mill 1859/1989), and, more recently, communication power theory (Castells 2009). The third approach, participatory and community communication, frequently refers to community engagement processes in which development stakeholders collaboratively make and implement decisions aimed at improving their lives and societies (Quebral 1988; Kivikuru 1994; GumucioDagron and Tufte 2006; Taylor et al. 2008; Tufte and Mefalopulos 2009). This is the strand that emerged from the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines, as a result of an “intensification of efforts by the teaching staff interested in extending the results of agricultural sciences research to the farmers and other end users of the new knowledge and technology” (Quebral 1988: 150). As such, this strand emerged not out of Western concerns with underdevelopment in other places but as a response to the prevailing poverty and underdevelopment by which Quebral and others found themselves surrounded. Today, the strand draws from other disciplines that emphasize community models of interactions and social change, such as participatory action research, adult education, rural sociology, agricultural development, and community health development (Tufte and Mefalopulos 2009). This strand offers an opportunity for consultative, collaborative, and collegial forms of participation (Tufte and Mefalopulos 2009). For Kivikuru (1994: 408), community communication refers to the participatory grassroots forms of communication that have a “program of motivation and activation, in which the final goal is the improvement of the quality of life for those living in the community.” For Taylor et al. (2008), community


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engagement is a strategy for building social capital and community strength and cohesion which allows for local communities to take the lead in community health development. The central idea is the employment of participatory communications, within a community, to open up the possibilities for the generation, sharing, and utilization of knowledge for building sustainable communities, livelihoods, and the environment. Examples include community-based natural resource management or the participatory radio forum that offer communicative spheres for collaborative generation, exchange, and utilization of knowledge for development. Leading organizations that promote the community engagement approach include the FAO, UNDP, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and, especially, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Together, these three approaches form the basis of, and even consolidate, the concept of communication for development. Table 20.1 elucidates this threefold typology. These three approaches are introduced here as a way of dealing with the two problems within communication for development thinking: the overemphasis on participation, communication, and development discourses and the simultaneous treatment of media development discourse as a footnote, as well as the absence of a political economy discourse. The three approaches are inadequate on their own. The praxis of communication for development should be conceived as a plural venture that amalgamates all three approaches or strands that are, in themselves, different theoretical viewpoints, perspectives, and practices. At this point in time, however, they remain only loosely connected to each other. The implication is that conceiving communication for development policy in an integrated manner requires careful consideration of each of these three strands.

Communication for development policy and cultural imperialism In the analytical tradition of political economy of communication (Mansell 2004; Graham 2007), media policies are understood as strategies that define and organize the operations of media systems within sociopolitical structures and systems (Raboy 1995; van Cuilenburg and McQuail 2003;

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Table 20.1 Typology of methodological and theoretical approaches within communication for development Communication for Development Attribute

Media for Development

Media Development

Development Communication

Key Concepts

Entertainment–education Behavioral change communication Modeling Para-social interaction

Media and political pluralism Media power Freedom of speech Media freedom Internet governance Global information infrastructures Community radio Information societies Rights and citizenship

Agriculture extension Rural communication Community engagement Community-based natural resource management Participatory action research Indigenous knowledge

Origins and History

Modernization theory Economic development

International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems NWICO

Agricultural Communication Postcolonial theory

Major Theories

Social change Social marketing Health/population communication

Liberal democratic political theory Political economy Democracy

Participatory action learning Collaborative decisionmaking Participatory democracy and decentralization

Key Theorists

Daniel Lerner Everett Rogers Wilbur Schramm Jan Servaes Arvind Singhal

Manuel Castells Helen Hambly Michael Meadows Paolo Mancini Robin Mansell Kaarle Nordenstreng Francis Nyamnjoh Alfred Opobur Clemencia Rodriguez Jan Servaes and others

Guy Bessette Celeste Cadiz Helen Hambly Chris Kamlongera Rico Lie Bella Mody Nora Quebral Clemencia Rodriguez Jan Servaes Keyan Tomaselli Karin Wilkins and others

Functional Objectives

Using media to promote and sell positive attitudes and behaviours

Development of media [infra] structures, policies, and capacities to promote good governance

Engagement among development stakeholders within decentralised decision-making processes

Key PolicyOriented Institutions

Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs

Annenberg School for Communication Programs BBC World Service Trust

University of the Philippines IDRC SADC-CCD Communication for Social Change Consortium

Source: Author.

Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006). Policies therefore are regarded as authoritative statements and strategic plans that translate media research and theory into reality. They are the bridge connecting and translating theory into practice. For Western thinking, media and communication


policies are located between the market and the public interest. In the US, for example, broadcasting policies tend to favor market-oriented models of ownership, and the media are conceived as a “marketplace of ideas.” In promoting the concept of clandestine, pirate, free, and micro-power

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Communication for Development Policy stations, Dunifer (1998), of Free Radio Berkeley, criticizes this policy model as it aims to sell commodities and promotes consumerism without ethical concern. In the United Kingdom, more importance is accorded to the public service broadcasting model, with its emphasis on a strong relationship between public service broadcasters and the public. What ties these policy approaches together is the centrality placed on discourses of freedom of communication, access, and accountability, as well as the democratization of communications (Raboy 1995; van Cuilenburg and McQuail 2003; Karppinen 2007). The most appropriate approach to policy resulted in strong points of contention for countries of the global South during the UNESCO General Assemblies in the 1970s, as there was a general feeling that Western nation-states were imposing such policies on the global South as a way of controlling them. During the negotiations, countries and representatives from the global South argued that cultural imperialism manifested itself through unidirectional and flawed flows of communication content into their countries, the dominance of Western media content, and the dominant Western imaginings of the global South (ICSCP 1980; Tomlinson 1997). One strand of cultural imperialism, following a postcolonial critique, is the role of global and transnational capitalism in regulating cultures, absorbing them “into a global-homogenized culture” (Tomlinson 1997: 125). Most media development indicators are predicated upon the assumption that a free, independent, and pluralistic media environment is essential for fostering democracy and is an “indispensable component of development strategies” (UNESCO IPDC 2008: v). The postcolonial questions are: Whose freedom? Whose independence? What pluralism? Who said that the Western model of democracy is the best governance system for these countries? The media development thesis is thus imbued with Rostowian modernization approaches in which it is assumed that all societies in the global South should reflect the values of freedom and independence authored in the West which would allow them, theoretically, to become more democratic and developed. The indicators are based on universal categories against which Southern media systems are measured and judged. These categories include: (1) a system of regulation conducive to freedom of expression, pluralism,


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and diversity of media, (2) plurality and diversity of media where there is a level economic playing field and transparency in ownership, (3) treatment of media as a platform for democratic discourse, (4) professional capacity building and development of supporting institutions that underpin freedom of expression, pluralism, and diversity, and (5) sufficient infrastructural capacity to support independent and pluralistic media (UNESCO IPDC 2008). The disregard for indigenous knowledge communication systems in these indicators shows that the media development debate is largely, even today, a response to Lerner’s (1958, 1971) call to modernize media systems in the South by, among other strategies, distancing people from their indigenous and traditional ways of life. Perhaps as a measure to respond to concerns about cultural imperialism, some countries in the global South have initiated endogenous approaches toward media development. For example, after the end of Apartheid, the South African government set up the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) through an Act of Parliament (Act 14 of 2002; see MDDA 2007). The aim was to develop the country’s media environment and infrastructure as a vehicle for empowering “communities marginalised by years of racial segregation and political conflict” to have access to media as managers, producers, and active consumers (MDDA 2007: np). The initiative focusses on establishing community and small commercial media; encouraging the ownership and control of the media, as well as access to it, by historically disadvantaged communities and language groups; building the capacity of communities to own and manage media structures; and facilitating active research on media development and diversification.

UNESCO and media development policies UNESCO was one of the earliest international development organizations to experiment with formulating communication for development policies with a focus on media development. The organization’s apparently modernizing contribution has been fundamental in three ways: first, it provided an international forum for research and discussion on communication for development

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policies, especially the media development strand. Between the 1950s and 1980s, UNESCO-funded studies were intended to help the development of relevant media systems for the developing world. Unfortunately, however, they reflected and were characterized by the modernization paradigm. By the 1960s, UNESCO was organizing workshops and expert forums to discuss how mass media could contribute to the development and eradication of poverty in the developing world. The organization also funded a series of studies to provide background reports to assist the work of the ICSCP (Raghawan and Gopalakrishnan 1979). Second, UNESCO supported or funded communication for development initiatives, as was the case with rural radio forum projects in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Rogers et al. (1977: 361) defined a radio forum as a “small listening and discussion group that meets regularly to receive a special radio programme, which the members then discuss.” They further contended that based on the program and discussion, radio forum members would then decide on what relevant action to take. In this model, the objectives of the radio forum included “encouraging people to solve their local community problems, breaking down rural isolation and developing community leadership” (Rogers et al. 1977: 369). The objectives were not just about disseminating rural development information. Third, UNESCO supported national governments to integrate communication for development aspects within their national development plans. In India, for instance, development communication, especially the media development and media for development strands, operated within well-defined government policies. India’s first Five Year Plan of 1951, for example, observed that a widespread understanding of development priorities enabled citizens to embrace a country’s vision of the future (Raghawan and Gopalakrishnan 1979). Alluding to the media for development strand, the Plan highlighted the development of appropriate communication to be used in approaching people, with a focus on providing development research to the people in “every home, in simple language and symbols of the people, and expressed in terms of their common needs and problems” (Raghawan and Gopalakrishnan 1979: 3). The ICSCP (1980) discussions represented the first time the global community had come together to discuss communication for development policy.


And cultural imperialism became an issue again here, as questions were raised about “the type of development being pursued,” and considering the different development perspectives (ICSCP 1980: 203). Recognizing the challenge to the modernization approaches to development, the ICSCP raised questions in relation to communication for development policies: The crux of the matter then is to determine the implications of the new development approach to communication policies. What are the challenges in communication patterns needed to reflect the change from a foreign to an endogenous development model? What type of communication practices and structures are needed to institute truly active involvement by the people in making global, overall development their own responsibility? What is the meaning of “another” communication order for “another” development? … The essential objective of any communications policy, particularly for developing countries, must be to provide each nation with the infrastructures in general, with telecommunications and media in particular, best suited to its needs. (ICSCP 1980: 205)

This observation may reflect the technologically deterministic conception of policy in the 1970s and 1980s, but it also recognizes the importance of “communication between men” as being central to bringing about “another development” (ICSCP 1980: 205). The consequence of the technologically deterministic model was that, instead of developing communication for development policies, UNESCO would take a media-centric approach and promote the development of communication policies that would include sections on national development. UNESCO’s media development philosophy would begin to focus on regulatory frameworks, capacity building, and the provision of media stations, networks, and infrastructures. By failing to bring into this debate “development” organizations such as FAO or UNDP, development became an “appendix” and led to the conceptualization of communication policies that support development, rather than communication for development policies. The result was that UNESCO and other media development organizations (such as the British Broadcasting Corporation’s World Service Trust, and the Global Forum for Media Development)

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Communication for Development Policy would begin to focus on “incorporating” national communication policies (supporting development) within regional and international policies. By the 1990s, such incorporation would involve preliminary studies and reports to develop media indicators as templates for streamlining and universalizing national media development initiatives. The media development, as well as the media for development, biases in the Many Voices, One World report (ICSCP 1980) also were reflected in the communication policies in support of development that were suggested: Communication policies should aim at stimulating and encouraging all means of communication. [Develop] strong national news agencies … National book production should be encouraged … The development of comprehensive national radio networks. [Develop] national capacities for producing broadcast materials … necessary to obviate dependence on external sources … The development of community press in rural areas and small towns … Utilization of local radio, low cost small format television and video systems and other appropriate technologies would facilitate production of programmes relevant to community development efforts, stimulate participation and provide opportunity for diversified cultural expression. The educational and informational use of communication should be given equal priority with entertainment … Organization of community listening and viewing groups … Communication be given a high priority in national development. (ICSCP 1980: 254–7)

The emphasis here is on the role of media and communication systems and structures in supporting good governance and development initiatives that already have been planned. However, the MacBride Commission did recognize the third strand of communication for development – the participatory communication strand, of which the Report noted that: Development strategies should incorporate communication policies as an integral part in the diagnosis of needs and in the design and implementation of selected priorities. … Communication should be considered a major development resource, a vehicle to ensure real political participation in decision-making; a central information base for defining policy options, and an instrument for creating awareness of national priorities. [Recommending the] promotion of dialogue for development as a


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central component of both communication and development policies. Implementation of national policies should be carried out through three complementary communication patterns. (ICSCP 1980: 258)

The implication of these distinctions among policy plans that must be implemented simultaneously suggests that the MacBride Commission participants understood the three strands within communication for development in different ways. The problem was that the participatory communication strand was not given adequate consideration in the media development strand for which the IPDC would be formed to act as an implementation agency. From the 1990s, UNESCO’s IPDC (2008, 2010) focussed its attention on media development initiatives and is now considered a “major forum in the UN system designed to develop free and pluralistic media with a global approach to democratic development” (UNESCO IPDC 2010: np). Unfortunately, if a national communication for development policy does not conceive of the micro policies of all the strands simultaneously, policy initiatives simply become Western projects of enlightenment and modernity. For the global South, the development project extended mainly through the work of international development organizations such as UNESCO, which emphasized the importance of using media, communication, and technology to modernize traditional societies, thus presumably helping them move towards development and urbanization (Mansell 1982; Adedeji 1993). These processes had already taken place in the West, when “ordinary men found themselves unbound from their native soil” and moved “from farms to flats and from fields to factories” (Lerner 1958: 47). As is the case for media development indicators, Western experience seemed to serve as the “full-scale model” (Lerner 1971: 867). The role of media development was said to bring about modernity through the provision of systems and content that would provide new mobilities and modernized identities to people (Lerner 1971). What is important here is that the global communication for development policy debate, starting within UNESCO in the 1970s, became mediacentric and technologically deterministic, leaving the sustainable development discourse behind in the process. The resulting scholarship on media and

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communication policy was about policies in support of development, and not necessarily about communication for development policies in their entirety. While UNESCO was developing the media development strands, the FAO and UNDP were also working on participatory communication policies and models in which the media were considered “tools” supporting development initiatives.

The FAO and communication for development policies in Africa FAO has been supporting UNESCO initiatives for many years (FAO 1997, 2002). Since the 1980s, the FAO has called for the establishment of national communication for development policies, often in relation to participatory action research and participatory communication, as well as rural radio stations with specific mandates to support development initiatives. Such Western models of media and communication are problematic, again, because, for the FAO, development and good governance were issues that were treated as a footnote, if not discarded entirely. The FAO either funded or collaborated with governments, especially those from Francophone West Africa, in order to lobby regional governments to establish such policies. For the FAO, a national policy in communication for development must be planned, implemented, and coordinated systematically so as to achieve cost-effectiveness and to avoid duplication of efforts (Balit and Ilboudo 1996). As with most Western governments where there is often a Department of Communities mandated to coordinate the implementation of multi-sectoral programs for community engagement, the FAO (2002) discouraged ministry-based communication departments. The reason, they claim, is because this creates a scenario where confusing messages and approaches are implemented simultaneously. A particular feature of the FAO’s approach toward policy development in communication for development is that it focusses on developing national rural communication systems in collaboration with other nongovernment sectors (Balit and Ilboudo 1996). A national communication for development policy is considered an action-plan-based statement that frames the design and implementation of “overall development priorities” (Balit and


Ilboudo 1996). This is achieved through establishing the development of communication systems and structures that ensure citizen participation and the sharing of knowledge and skills as well as the coordination of efforts among development partners and stakeholders (Balit and Ilboudo 1996). In many respects, the FAO used Mali to perfect the template for policy development, which was then implemented in other African countries as well. It is to this experience in Africa that I next turn. Policy development in Mali With “technical and scientific support” from the FAO and UNDP, Mali was the first African country to establish a national communication for development policy in 1993, followed by Guinea-Bissau in 1995, Burkina Faso in 2001, and Niger in 2002 (FAO 2002). Mali’s political dictatorship and instability ended in 1991, and by 1992, multi-party democracy was instituted (Ilboudo 2000; Sangaré 2001; Diarra 2002). Following this development, there was renewed interest by international development organizations in supporting and strengthening democracy and good governance (Ilboudo 2000; Sangaré 2001). Such support encompassed funding the Rural Radio Revival Project (funded by international development organizations and the Dutch government) and consultative meetings, research studies and a national workshop for the creation of the country’s National Communication for Development (NCD) Policy. The national workshop to define Mali’s NCD Policy would be held in early October in 1993, bringing together 130 participants from different institutions and departments within and outside of government (Diarra 2002). To support this workshop, an “international consultant” (probably from the FAO) and 12 national experts were recruited. If national experts were not able to do so, the international consultant was to develop an introductory report of the workshop proceedings (Diarra 2002). The national experts would then create a themebased and research-informed inventory of Mali’s communication resources and environment. The workshop methodology involved five different committees and plenary (and summary) sessions, each with a different mandate: to define the objectives of the NCD Policy and the role of stakeholders, to define the legal and institutional framework of the Policy, to define the media and technological choices, to determine the training needs and relevant

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Communication for Development Policy training in the field, and, finally, to define the policy’s action thrusts and strategies for communication for development (Diarra 2002). Central to Mali’s NCD Policy that emerged were the philosophies of community and stakeholder engagement. Decentralization initiatives introduced by Western governments and organizations, especially after the political crisis in the 1990s which had resulted in multi-party governance, ushered in local government systems. This required that governments share power, authority, and responsibilities with citizens, allowing them to create development together as partners. It is also important that communication and media were not mentioned in the principles, since they were seen as tools meant to facilitate working relationships and stakeholder engagement. They would, however, be mentioned in the objectives which aimed to: Enhance the participation of the population at defining and implementing the overall development orientations of the country, by initiating a dialogue between all the development partners … Privileging the exchange of information, knowledge and techniques within communities … Allow all those who are responsible for broadcasting information or introducing innovations in the different development sectors, to have social and educative instruments available … Develop … training and communication systems based on dialogue, consultation and participation strategies. (Diarra 2002: 11)

As in the Integrated Rural Development Programmes implemented by international development organizations in the 1970s and 1980s, when the term development support communication was invented, Mali’s NCD Policy understood media and communication as support instruments, to smooth and facilitate the operations of the decentralized development structures and initiatives. Lerner had placed the mass media at the center of such development interventions, in order to avoid “going back to an oral system of communication” (Lerner 1971: 871). Going against Lerner’s advice, Mali’s NCD Policy contended that at the center of development interventions there should be participation and stakeholder engagement. The media (especially traditional media and other forms of oral communication) were expected to support this process through facilitating communicative relationships (Diarra


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2002). It seems, therefore, that Mali’s policies were a radical departure from the modernization paradigm but, in reality, as the following discussion will demonstrate, the implementation plan achieved only “superficial revisionism” (Mansell 1982); that is, the continued existence and sustenance of the old paradigm and its approaches were merely clothed in new terms. In the implementation plan, the NCD Policy recommended institutional measures such as encouraging the government to adopt the policy (which would include funding the implementation strategy), sharing the policy with all development stakeholders, and establishing a transitional committee responsible for communication for development within the Prime Minister’s office (Diarra 2002). While attaching such a policy within a government department may compromise the political independence of the initiative, workshop participants realized that the NCD Policy would become another white elephant (which it did eventually), if it relied on establishing independent institutions at the outset. Questions regarding donor funding and sustainability would always be raised. The initiative might also have suffered from illegitimacy as government departments might have seen it as an “outside” project. The FAO’s influence in developing this initiative is evident in how Mali’s policy was “copied” or “superficially revised” in countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea-Bissau. I suggest that Mali provided the FAO with a national communication for development policy template for Africa. The attributes that would become “superficially revised” comprised the role of the FAO in setting the policy agenda, the placation of national governments through “local expert” involvement in carrying out preliminary studies, the format of the policy formulation workshops, and the terms of the policy and implementation plans. Policy development in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea-Bissau In Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea-Bissau, NCD policies reflected most of the Malian pattern in terms of scope and implementation plan. In Burkina Faso, the 2000 NCD Policy workshop focussed on training and information and communication needs, media and information and communication technologies (ICTs) (including traditional media), and legal and institutional reforms (Balima 2002).

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Training might have been high on the agenda because the country was, at the time, home to the Inter-African Centre for Rural Broadcasting Studies of Ouagadougou (CIERRO), which closed in 2006. The plenary sessions in all these cases examined the thematic research studies that the national experts had produced based on their understanding and assessment of national communication needs. In what way then did these policies reflect a “superficial revision” of Mali’s policy? In the context of the preliminary studies for NCD policy, the workshops and sessions were based on studies carried out by “local experts” carefully chosen and approved by the FAO. For instance, in Niger, the January 2002 national workshop held in Niamey allowed participants to build their discussions around ten research studies and the summaries of reports emerging from eight consultative workshops organized throughout the country. The research studies provided content that would shape the format and objectives of the plenary sessions, though instead of looking at the problems of communication and development, in general, there was a marked bias toward the media and its tools (Diallo 2002). The coordination of these workshops was the responsibility of three consultants and a committee selected by the Minister of Communication (Diallo 2002). In Guinea-Bissau, the advancement of communication for development policy involved holding four consultative meetings in the country to analyze Guinea-Bissau’s communication needs, propose objectives for the NCD Policy, analyze the role and place of media in the country, plan the training for communication for development, and rethink the institutional and juridical framework. Alongside these consultations, thematic studies were carried out on radio broadcasting, the juridical and institutional framework for television broadcasting, the press, and, lastly, communication for development training. In 1995, the country adopted its NCD Policy. Like Mali, the national workshops in the three other countries involved holding plenary sessions with the responsibility of examining the “draft of the national communication for development policy as drawn up by the national coordinator” (Balima 2002: 35). It is clear that such workshops were being organized after the draft policies had already been developed and were awaiting ratification. In Burkina Faso, 13 consultative workshops were organized within the country, soliciting views


that were incorporated into a draft policy that was then presented to the national workshop for revision and adoption (Balima 2002). In this case, the Burkinabe participants unwittingly granted what Freire (1978) terms “universal validity” to the FAO’s experiences in Mali. This was reflected in the clauses included in the implementation plan. This is because the FAO tightly controlled the policy design process in providing a “finished formula,” to use Freire’s terminology (Freire 1978: 128). As in the other three countries, Niger embarked upon the process of developing its NCD Policy, based largely on the knowledge and management models promoted within agricultural research institutes such as CGIAR (Diallo 2002). Niger’s workshops comprised six plenary committees that looked at the following aspects of the NCD Policy: communication technologies (telecommunication, information and communication technologies, radio, television, and press), communication for development training, traditional media and their communication and tools and areas, the mass media, the institutional and juridical framework, and the summary/recommendations (Diallo 2002). These discussions would eventually shape the final principles upon which Niger’s NCD Policy was based: dissemination of the policy document, judicial and institutional reforms, developing a harmonized development plan for mass media and local means of communication, creating media education programs, elaborating sectoral strategies of communication for development, and building capacity for communication for development as well as supporting research in the field (Diallo 2002). Interestingly, the principles reflected UNESCO’s three-pronged approach that characterizes the praxis of communication for development. As far as the implementation plans were concerned, Guinea-Bissau’s NCD Policy had objectives which read like a duplication of Mali’s NCD Policy: promoting civil society participation in defining and implementing national development policy through stakeholder dialogue; promoting information, knowledge, and skills exchange among communities; increasing communicators’ capacity for social and educational communication instruments; and promoting training and communication systems that are dialogical and participatory (de Carvalho 2002). Participation was central to these initiatives, as the policy emphasized applying participatory approaches to behavioral change

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Communication for Development Policy programs, promoting stakeholder consultation and knowledge sharing among development partners, and integrating communication for development components within all development projects (de Carvalho 2002). In terms of action plans, there was an emphasis on government adoption of the policy and action plan, dissemination of policy, creation of rural radio networks, creation of a training institute and programs in social communication, and establishing information-sharing networks in communication for development for Lusophone Africa (de Carvalho 2002). As a result of political instability in the country, the national coordinating unit never took off. By 2000, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) would develop an Operation Plan for the 2003–07 Programme which included Communication for Development in three subprojects: advocacy, capability building for social communication organizations, and behavioral change communication for children (de Carvalho 2002). Simultaneously, UNESCO continued its media development initiatives in training information and communication professionals and the rehabilitation of media infrastructures. Similarly, Burkina Faso’s NCD Policy was aimed at fostering the collection and exchange of information among development stakeholders, mobilizing communities for development activities, strengthening training skills and communication capacity for development workers, using communication technology in training and education programs, and alerting development stakeholders to understand grassroots concerns (Balima 2002). The rapporteurs documenting these practices were local journalists brought on board by the FAO team. The action plan details strategies for disseminating the NCD Policy itself, the legal and institutional reforms required, training and research in communication for development, and the development and decentralization of mass media, telecommunication and ICTs. The plan also offered strategies for the development of channels and means of communication, the design of sectoral strategies for communication for development and support for monitoring and evaluation, and support in preparation and implementation of the NCD Policy (Balima 2002). Importantly, as was the case with Mali, the Burkinabe government was mandated to host the secretariat for the implementation of the NCD


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Policy. This constitutes the evidence base that provides the basis for the reassessment of the field of media and communication policy, as discussed in the following section.

Rethinking Communication for Development Policy in the Age of “Superficial Revisionism” and Cultural Imperialism As if collaborating with Freire’s warning against adopting external communication for development approaches in the developing world, Mansell (1982: 52) argues that the traditional top-down paradigm of Western media development that had become a blueprint for media for development and participatory communication initiatives had not gone away; rather it had undergone “superficial revisionism.” She points out that the “so-called” transformations in theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches in communication for development had not changed. “Superficial revisionism” is evident in the UNESCO and FAO approaches toward media development and participatory communication policy development where these international development organizations funded, controlled, and then eventually set the agenda by influencing the nature of the studies informing policy and policy implementation plans. In Niger, for instance, the proposed coordinating unit for the implementation of the policy failed to start its activities when key donors (e.g., the FAO, UNDP and UNICEF) did not provide funding (Diallo 2002: 73). In line with Mansell’s earlier insight, I argue that a key problem with modernization approaches (past and present) is the emphasis on technology in stimulating economic growth, as well as on modifying the local belief systems to suit Western values and systems. This is evident in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) approaches in Mali. Soon after the FAO helped the government to introduce its NCD Policy, USAIDMali developed a Country Strategic Plan for the years 2003–12, whose purpose was to reduce poverty and accelerate economic growth through partnerships. Without making direct reference to the NCD Policy, USAID-Mali (2002: 2) introduced a

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five-year Communication for Development Special Objective that should “accelerate development by making information accessible through innovative communication techniques and appropriate tools.” The centerpiece of this Special Objective encompasses interventions including enhancing the quality and quantity of development information through improving Internet and radio access, establishing partnerships in the ICT sector, and reducing regulatory and policy constraints to information access (USAID-Mali 2002). In these and other economic growth-centric models of development, the emphasis is on modernizing the polities, the economies, and the mobilities of the global South (Adedeji 1993). It is no surprise, therefore, that numerous externally driven communication for development initiatives gave minimal attention to indigenous knowledge communication (and evaluation) systems as they are considered primitive and traditional, the very elements about the “other” world that Lerner (1958, 1971) and others sought to modernize. Epistemologically, indigenous knowledge is created, modified, used, and passed on through the generations within overt and covert communicative practices. There can be no indigenous communication that exists outside structures and processes of indigenous knowledge (Pottier et al. 2003; Mazonde and Pradip 2007). To discuss indigenous knowledge communication systems is, therefore, to call for an understanding of the indigenous knowledge systems in which they are created and nurtured. This is something that the donor-sponsored NCD Policy initiatives glossed over. Mansell (1982) criticized these kinds of policies in two ways. The first was the superficiality of transformation in the methods and theories that eventually “mask[ed] the nature of communication relationships in the development context” (Mansell 1982: 52). Similarly, the more recent NCD policies not only treated, as a footnote, the development debate, but the policy dialogues, themselves, ignored the tensions between the dependency and interdependency questions, the unequal and unbalanced power relationships, and the agonism and antagonism existing among the participants in communication relationships. The second criticism was aimed at the “ideological premise of the ‘free’ flow of information”


which is “implicit” in the “new” media development models (Mansell 1982: 54). The central tenet in most media development initiatives is that the free flow of information (within a liberalized media system) strengthens good governance, based on evidence from the West. UNESCO’s media development approach calls for impact evaluation of projects against categories of indicators developed by international development organizations (UNESCO IPDC 2008). For the NCD policy-makers, rethinking regulatory frameworks implies changing their countries’ systems to suit these formulas which have been “packaged and prefabricated” (Freire 1978: 9) through co-opted consultative mechanisms in which participants often “participate in participation itself ” (Arnstein 1969: 220). This gives impetus to claims of cultural imperialism.

Conclusion In contrast to the experience depicted here, it is essential that in creating communication for development policies in the global South there must be a consideration of the challenges and indicators that have been decided upon by local peoples and organizations (de Carvalho 2002). To do so, it is important to fully understand the national context for drawing up national policies (Raboy 1995; Balima 2002). Even if external stakeholders are involved, it is vital that the process evolve organically with the involvement of national decisionmakers, legislators and citizens (Arnstein 1969; Raboy 1995). I contend that governments and civil society organizations in Africa and, indeed, the whole of the global South should develop their own communication for development policies organically. The lessons from the failure of the modernization paradigm demonstrate that the “idea of a Marshall Plan for the development of third world communications is inappropriate,” as it will “reproduce western values and transnational interests” and will eventually “reinforce minority power structures within third world countries” (ICSCP 1980: 281). Ansu-Kyeremeh (1994) cautioned, as Freire (1978) had done earlier, that development experiments should not be transplanted but should rather be reinvented. The challenge is to achieve this organic

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Communication for Development Policy policy development at the same time that reliance on donor funding and Western technical expertise continues to be acknowledged. A NCD policy should not amount to a list of strategies aimed at spicing up the development rhetoric with “participation.” It should instead be seen as a political struggle, a struggle to formulate a new national consciousness in a process of reconstructing a country (Freire 1978). To avoid the superficiality of the modernization paradigm and its caricatures operating all over the developing world, NCD policy should establish “conceptual clarity or insight into systemic factors that constrain development processes” (Mansell 1982: 55). The theory and practice of communication for development, including policy development, should be seen as a three-pronged approach: media development, media for development, and development communication. In creating NCD policies, these concepts should not be treated independently of each other, or independently of the dependency and interdependency relationships that promote underdevelopment and which perpetuate inequality within international development. To remove concerns about cultural imperialism, the ideologies of modernization, especially the concept of the free flow of information, should not serve as a universalized benchmark for communication for development policy-making. The basis for these policy initiatives should be a critique of the development framework within which media and communication systems operate. We have been lamenting the lack of transformation in communication for development for too many decades, observing that modernization is being reaffirmed through the continuing teleporting of Western models and indicators as templates for transforming media and communication systems and policies in the global South with far too little attention to indigenous knowledge and power relations. In this chapter, I have offered a reassessment of the major developments in the field of media, communication, and development policy. I call for greater attention to the political economy of this field, the need to enable voices in the global South not only to speak but also to be heard, and to play a far greater role in influencing the development of media, communication, and development policy in the name of “another development” that is localized in, and for, the global South.


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Note 1

For additional reading and an overview of the issues raised in this chapter, see Chambers (2005), Freire (1996), Hemer and Tufte (2003), Hickey and Mohan (2004), and Mody (2003).

References Adedeji, A. (1993) “Marginalisation and marginality: Context, issues and viewpoints,” in A. Adedeji (ed.) Africa within the World: Beyond Dispossession and Dependence. London and New Jersey: ZED Books and African Centre for Development and Strategic Studies, pp. 1–13. Ansu-Kyeremeh, K. (1994) Communication, Education and Development: Exploring an African Cultural Setting. Edmonton: EISA Publishers. Anyaegbunam, C., Mefalopulos, P., and Moetsabi, T. (1998) Participatory Rural Communication Appraisal: Starting with the People. Harare and Rome: SADC Centre of Communication for Development and UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Arnstein, S. (1969) “A ladder of citizen participation,” Journal of the American Planning Association, 35(4): 216–224. Balima, S. T. (2002) “The case of Burkina Faso,” in FAO (ed.) Communication for Development Case Study 25: A Bilingual Regional Workshop: Current Status of the Definition and Implementation of the National Communication for Development Policy, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea-Bissau. Rome: FAO, pp. 29–57. Balit, S., and Ilboudo, J. P. (1996) “Towards national communication-for-development policies in Africa,” United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Rome: FAO, Communication for Development Branch (SDRS), http://www.fao.org/sd/cddirect/ cdan0001.htm (accessed 22/03/2010). Bandura, A. (1977) Social Learning Theory. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Castells, M. (2009) Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chakravartty, P., and Sarikakis, K. (2006) Media Policy and Globalization: History, Culture, Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Chambers, R. (2005) Ideas for Development. London: Earthscan. de Carvalho, F. B. (2002) “The case of Guinea-Bissau,” in FAO (ed.) Communication for Development Case Study 25: A Bilingual Regional Workshop: Current Status of the Definition and Implementation of the National Communication for Development Policy, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea-Bissau. Rome: FAO, pp. 77–108.

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Diallo, D. (2002) “The case of Niger,” in FAO (ed.) Communication for Development Case Study 25: A Bilingual Regional Workshop: Current Status of the Definition and Implementation of the National Communication for Development Policy, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, GuineaBissau. Rome: FAO, pp. 59–76. Diarra, C. (2002) “The case of Mali,” in FAO (ed.) Communication for Development Case Study 25: A Bilingual Regional Workshop: Current Status of the Definition and Implementation of the National Communication for Development Policy, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, GuineaBissau. Rome: FAO, pp. 3–27. Dunifer, S. (1998) “Free speech: A fable,” in R. Sakolsky (ed.) Seizing the Airwaves: A Free Radio Handbook. Oakland, CA: AK Press, pp. 1–6. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (1997) Development of Rural Radio in Africa: Declaration and Plan of Action, Ouagadougou, June 1996, http:// www.fao.org/docrep/w3618e/w3618e01.htm (accessed 19/11/2010). Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2002) Communication for Development Case Study 25: A Bilingual Regional Workshop: Current Status of the Definition and Implementation of the National Communication for Development Policy, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea-Bissau. Rome: FAO. Figueroa, M. E., Kincaid, D. E., Rani, M., and Lewis, G. (2005) Communication for Social Change: An Integrated Model for Measuring the Process and Its Outcomes. Communication for Social Change Working Paper Series. New York: Rockefeller Foundation. Freire, P. (1978) Pedagogy in Process: The Letters to Guinea Bissau. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative. Freire, P. (1996) Letters to Cristina: Reflections on My Life and Work. New York: Routledge. Graham, P. (2007) “Political economy of communication: A critique,” Critical Perspectives on International Business, 3(3): 226–245. Gumucio-Dagron, A., and Tufte, T. (eds) (2006) Communication for Social Change Anthology: Historical and Contemporary Readings. South Orange, NJ: CFSC Consortium. Habermas, J. (1962/1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, transl. T. Burger and F. Lawrence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hemer, O., and Tufte, T. (eds) (2003) Media and Glocal Change: Rethinking Communication for Development. Göteborg and Buenos Aires: NORDICOM and CLASCO. Hickey, S., and Mohan, G. (2004) Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation? Exploring New Approaches to Participation in Development. London: ZED Books. Ilboudo, J. P. (2000) “Case study 3: Local community radio in Southern Mali, Implementation methodology and


lessons learned,” in K. Boafo (ed.) Promoting Community Media in Africa. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 147–157. International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP) (1980) Many Voices, One World: Communication and Society, Today and Tomorrow; Towards a New More Just and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order. London: Kogan Page and UNESCO. Karppinen, K. (2007) “Making a difference to media pluralism: A critique of the pluralistic consensus in European media policy,” in B. Cammaerts and N. Carpentier (eds) Reclaiming the Media: Communication Rights and Democratic Media Roles. Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 9–30. Kivikuru, U. (1994) “Going grassroots,” in U. Kivikuru in collaboration with W. Lobulu and G. Moshiro (eds) Changing Mediascapes? A Case Study in Nine Tanzanian Villages. Helsinki: University of Helsinki Institute of Development Studies, reprinted in A. GumucioDagron and T. Tufte (eds) (2006) Communication for Social Change Anthology: Historical and Contemporary Readings. South Orange, NJ: CFSC Consortium, pp. 407–418. Lerner, D. (1958) The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York: The Free Press. Lerner, D. (1971) “Toward a communication theory of modernization: A set of considerations,” in W. Schramm and D. Roberts (eds) The Process and Effects of Mass Communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, pp. 861–889. Mansell, R. (1982) “The ‘new dominant paradigm’ in communication: Transformation versus adaptation,” Canadian Journal of Communication, 8(3): 42–60. Mansell, R. (2004) “Political economy, power and new media,” New Media & Society, 6(1): 96–105. Mazonde, I., and Pradip, T. (eds) (2007) Indigenous Knowledge System and Intellectual Property Rights in the Twenty-First Century: Perspectives from Southern Africa. Dakar: Codesria. McPhail, T. (ed.) (2009) Development Communication: Reframing the Role of the Media. Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell. Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) (2007) “The Media Development and Diversity Agency,” MDDA, http://www.mdda.org.za (accessed 22/03/2010). Melkote, S., and Steeves, H. L. (2001) Communication for Development in the Third World: Theory and Practice for Empowerment. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Mill, J. S. (1859/1989) “Of the liberty of thought and discussion,” in S. Collini (ed.) On Liberty and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mody, B. (ed.) (2003) International and Development Communication: A 21st Century Perspective (second edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

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Communication for Development Policy Pottier, J., Bicker, A., and Sillitoe, P. (eds) (2003) Negotiating Local Knowledge: Power and Identity in Development. London: Pluto Press. Quarry, W., and Ramirez, R. (2009) Communicating for Another Development. London: ZED Books. Quebral, N. (1975) “Development communication,” in J. Jamias (ed.) Readings in Development Communication. Laguna: UPLB College of Agriculture, pp. 1–11. Quebral, N. (1988) Development Communication. Laguna: UPLB College of Agriculture. Quebral, N. (2002) Reflections on Development Communication, 25 Years After. Los Baños: UPLB College of Development Communication. Raboy, M. (1995) “The role of public consultation in shaping the Canadian broadcasting system,” Canadian Journal of Political Science, 28(3): 455–477. Raghawan, G. N. S., and Gopalakrishnan, V. S. (1979) Towards a National Policy on Communication in Support of Development, The Indian Case: Report Number 43 Prepared for the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. Paris: UNESCO. Rogers, E. (1962) Diffusion of Innovations. New York: Free Press. Rogers, E. (1976) “Communication and development: The passing of the dominant paradigm,” Communication Research, 3(2): 213–240. Rogers, E., Braun, J. R., and Vermilion, M. A. (1977) “Radio forums: A strategy for rural development,” in P. L. Spain, D. Jamison, and E. G. McAnany (eds) Radio for Education and Development: Case Studies. World Bank Staff Working Paper 266. Washington, DC: World Bank, pp. 361–381. Rostow, W. W. (1950) The Process of Economic Growth. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sangaré, O. (2001) “Impact of radio broadcasts in the Malisouth region: Follow-up and evaluation.” Paper presented at the International Workshop on Farm Radio Broadcasting: Information and Communication Technologies Servicing Farm Radio, New Contents, New Partnerships, February 19–22, Rome, http:// www.fao.org/docrep/003/X6721E/x6721e14.pdf (accessed 22/03/2010). Schramm, W. (1964) Mass Media and National Development: The Role of Information in the Developing Countries. Paris and Palo Alto, CA: UNESCO and Stanford University.


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Servaes, J. (ed.) (2003) Approaches to Development: Studies on Communication for Development. Paris: UNESCO. Servaes, J. (ed.) (2008) Communication for Development and Social Change. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Singhal, A., and Rogers, E. (1999) Entertainment-Education: A Communication Strategy for Social Change. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Southern African Development Community-Centre of Communication for Development (SADC-CCD) (2006) Report of the CTA-FAO-SADC-CCD Sensitisation Workshop on Rural Radio for Policy and Decision Makers in East and Southern Africa, 26–29 April 2005. Rome: FAO. Taylor, J., Wilkinson, D., and Cheers, B. (2008) Working with Communities in Health and Human Services. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tomlinson, J. (1997) “Internationalism, globalization and cultural imperialism,” in K. Thompson (ed.) Media and Cultural Regulation. London and Milton Keynes: Sage Publications and Open University Press, pp. 117–162. Tufte, T., and Mefalopulous, P. (2009) Participatory Communication: A Practical Guide. World Bank Working Paper Number 170. Washington, DC: World Bank. UNESCO IPDC (2008) Media Development Indicators: A Framework for Assessing Media Development. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO IPDC (2010) “International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC).” Paris: UNESCO, http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev. php-URL_ID=13270&URL_DO= DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (accessed 22/03/2010). USAID-Mali (2002) “Country strategic plan, 2003–2012: Reducing poverty and accelerating economic growth through partnerships,” USAID-Mali. Bamako: USAID, http://www.usaid.gov/ml/documents/csp_comm. PDF (accessed 22/03/2010). van Cuilenburg, J., and McQuail, D. (2003) “Media policy paradigm shifts: Towards a new communication policy paradigm,” European Journal of Communication, 18(2): 181–207. Wilkins, K. G., and Mody, B. (2001) “Reshaping development communication: Developing communication and communicating development,” Communication Theory, 11(4): 385–396.

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The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity: Cultural Policy and International Trade in Cultural Products Peter S. Grant Introduction This chapter deals with the global conflict over the right of countries to maintain space and choice for their own films and other cultural products, in the face of a massive trade imbalance in favor of the Hollywood-based multinational companies. It is a story involving dramatic confrontations, emotional arguments, and pitched battles in a number of glamorous international cities. Of course, Hollywood blockbuster films are known around the world for action-filled confrontations, special effects wizardry, and a plot involving global combatants. But it is unlikely that the story recounted in this chapter will ever be told in a blockbuster film, at least not one financed by Hollywood. Part of the reason is that the story is more complex than the kind of story that Hollywood films like to tell. But part of the reason is also that the story reveals an appalling and embarrassing disconnect between the position espoused by Hollywood and the position of virtually every country outside the United States (US). This is not an objective account, since it is told from the point of view of one of the combatants. The story culminates in the overwhelming approval in 2005 of a new international convention on cultural diversity by countries around the world,

despite frantic efforts by the US to oppose it. I can say that I had a small hand in the creation of this convention since I first suggested the idea at a meeting of a Canadian trade advisory group in 1998. That group adopted the idea, published it in a report in 1999, and then stepped back as governments and cultural organizations – first in Canada, then around the world – took up the struggle to implement it. But I am ahead of my story. It is a complex narrative, dating back to the early part of the twentieth century. And the story has not yet ended.

Trade in Cultural Products We now live in a globalized world where cultural products – books, sound recordings, magazines, TV shows, films – can be accessed from just about anywhere. It is a world of seemingly unparalleled choice. Sixty years ago, international trade was a fraction of what it has since become. And international trade in cultural products was also tiny in comparison with present-day trade flows. Since then, cultural trade has exploded in size. It has also changed dramatically. Formerly, most trade took the form of physical goods shipped across borders, such as



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UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity books, magazines, or film. Now, trade in cultural products typically involves the transfer of intellectual property, and what crosses borders is frequently a digital bit stream, sent through satellite links or fiber optic cable. This has also made such trade very difficult to measure or to value. Disputes abound as to whether cultural products are best described as “goods” or “services,” and how to price or value such products when most of the value is intangible and the marginal cost of producing a copy or obtaining an additional viewer is close to zero. In this regard, a study released by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics in 2005 included the following commentary:1 Generally trade statistics cannot accurately measure the economic value of copyrighted cultural works sold in foreign markets. Cultural products have both a tangible element, such as the platform of product format, and an intangible element which determines their content and makes them reproducible as many times as desired. This intangible nature of cultural products leads to underestimations of the actual global value of exchanges. For example, trade statistics assign a small value of US$100 to an original work protected by copyright, i.e. a film print or a master version, when exported from one country to another. Yet, this original work may generate millions of dollars in sales and royalties through copies, exhibition rights and reproduction license fees. However, if unsuccessful, this product may generate almost no revenue at all. Thus, trade statistics as they are currently collected cannot reflect the intangible assets or the market value of many of the cultural products being exchanged among countries. This constitutes the main limitation to attempts to measure cultural trade, which ideally requires the formulation of alternative methodologies and statistical classifications.

Another problem arises because customs data do not track the origin of the content but only the origin of the manufactured copy that crosses the border. The two are not necessarily the same. As noted in the UNESCO Institute for Statistics study:2 Only limited information is available on the origin of the cultural content of traded products. The rules applied to origin and destination of imported and exported products relate to the location of where the product is processed, but


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do not specify the origin of its cultural content. It is possible for the original work and its copies to be produced in different locations. For example, many films created and projected in country A may have been imported in the form of release prints from country B, which benefits from competitive laboratories that process at lower prices. In trade records, the products are declared as originating from country B. However, from a cultural point of view, country B is not considered as the country of origin of this product.

A third problem is a definitional one. In trade terms, cultural products can be seen as only one part of a broader classification of creative-industry products, which can include computer software and the products of related industries like advertising, architecture, design, or fashion. Many studies of “creative clusters” focus on this broader classification, making comparisons more difficult. Recent studies have attempted to develop a better picture of trade flows in regard to cultural products, although none of them has fully addressed the issues noted above. Using the broader definition of what is encompassed, a 2008 study by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) concluded that the value of world exports of creative industry goods and services reached US$424.4.billion in 2005 (3.4 percent of world trade) compared with $227.4 billion in 1996. Over the period 1996–2005, the creative industries increased their shares of global markets, growing at an overall annual rate of 8.7 percent for the period 2000–05.3 A more recent US study focussed on a narrower definition and estimated that the revenue generated in 2007 by foreign sales or exports of cultural products created in the US was US$7.62 billion for prerecorded records and tapes; $20.38 billion for motion pictures, TV, and video; and $5.78 billion for newspapers, books, and periodicals.4 A number of other countries also have export success for their cultural products. Television programs from Mexico are widely distributed throughout Latin America and in Spanish-speaking parts of the US. Countries with large internal markets, like Brazil’s television and India’s film industries, also have some export success. However, much of the trade in cultural products is seen as largely one-way. In 2007, movies produced in Hollywood accounted for 63 percent of the box office receipts in European theaters.5 The box office

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share of Hollywood films is even higher in other countries, often reaching 90 percent or more. By contrast, the percentage of box office achieved by foreign films in the US is typically below 10 percent. The US is also the dominant television exporter. A British study estimated that 85 percent of all children’s programming, 81 percent of television movies, and close to 75 percent of dramatic television programs sold in the global television market were of US origin.6 The size and perceived importance of the trade in cultural products has grown exponentially. The “cultural industries” are also increasingly seen by many developed countries as a vital part of their economy. A major study published in November 2006 entitled “The Economy of Culture in Europe” underlined the culture sector’s potential for creating more and better jobs in the future.7 The study showed how the cultural industries in Europe drive economic and social development, as well as innovation and cohesion. According to the study, the cultural sector in Europe employed at least 5.8 million people in 2004, which is more than the total working population in Greece and Ireland put together. Furthermore, that sector accounted for 2.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the European Union (EU) in 2003. In August 2008, a similar study was published by the Conference Board of Canada. The analysis, entitled “Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada’s Creative Economy,” concluded that Canada’s cultural sector directly contributed about C$46 billion – or 3.8 percent – to overall Canadian GDP in 2007. It also estimated that the culture sector’s impact on the economy was much broader – C$84.6 billion in 2007, or 7.4 percent of total real GDP. As the study noted, “Countries around the world, as well as many cities and regions, recognize that a dynamic culture sector plays a key role as a magnet for talent, enhances economic output, and acts as a catalyst for prosperity.”8

Why Cultural Products are Different There is undeniably an active marketplace for cultural products, be they books, sound recordings, magazines, TV shows, or films. These products can be bought and sold. So why should they be treated any differently from other commodities in


terms of trade law? In particular, why are special policies or measures required for products of popular culture? After all, if they are popular, won’t the market automatically supply them? These are logical questions. But to the consternation of economists and policy-makers, the answers are not easy. In fact, it is widely acknowledged that the economic principles applicable to ordinary commodities are difficult if not impossible to apply to cultural products. Cultural goods and services are affected by what The Economist has called “curious economics”9 and these have to be carefully borne in mind. Table 21.1 lists a number of attributes that make it clear that the marketplace is quite different for cultural products when compared with the market for ordinary commodities.10 To illustrate this, it may be useful to look at the economics of a popular new TV drama series made in the English language.11 Drama is the most costly to produce of the forms of audiovisual entertainment. An hour-long television drama in the US now costs upwards of US$2–3 million to make. However, cultural products like TV drama also operate in a market that is very high risk. Most new TV shows fail. That being said, where the market size is large enough, the few titles that do succeed can produce a very high reward, much higher than for other products. This is because the marginal cost of each additional viewer is very low so any revenue from additional sales drops to the bottom line once the initial cost is covered. These economic realities mean that market size is a key determinant in recovering the high costs of TV drama. And in this respect, the US has a crucial advantage over other markets. Because of its size, the US is the only English-language market where highcost TV drama can be produced profitably without government or regulatory support. Looking just at the population of the English-language markets, the US market is five times the size of the United Kingdom (UK) market, 13 to 15 times the size of the English Canadian or Australian markets, and over 60 times the size of the Irish or New Zealand markets. The enormous size of the US television market allows networks in that country to support expensive local TV drama without subsidy or government intervention. Because the cost of a successful program is typically recouped in the domestic US market, prices in foreign markets can be a fraction of the price paid in the US, and are typically far below the cost of local productions in those markets. In 2007, for example, Variety International reported that

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Table 21.1 Why cultural products are not like ordinary commodities Attribute

Ordinary commodity (e.g. car, detergent)

Cultural good or service (e.g. TV show, book, CD)

Nature of product

Serves utilitarian purpose

Communicates ideas – information or entertainment

Nature of production process

Assembly line; each unit requires significant resources

Expensive one-time process; creates intellectual property which then can be cheaply stored, duplicated and delivered

Marginal cost of unit of product

Significant

Insignificant

Predictability of demand

Demand largely predictable month after month

Difficult to estimate demand in advance of incurring cost

Substitutability

Large degree of substitutability with competing brands

Limited substitutability; product is perceived as “unique”; copyright law protects monopoly on each title

Time line of demand

Demand for product continues indefinitely until next product cycle (measured in years)

Demand falls off sharply after introduction of the product and next product replaces it (measured in weeks or months)

Who determines demand

Ultimate consumer

Ultimate consumer in the case of books and movies; advertiser in the case of magazines and commercial broadcasting; cable or satellite gatekeeper for niche broadcast channels

Setting the price

Non-discriminatory; arbitrage precludes market differentiation

Within markets is often set at a conventional “going rate”; between markets is discriminatory (by market, nature of use, and time line of use); copyright law permits unlimited subdivision of markets

Pricing latitude

Dependent on competitive forces of demand and supply; constrained by significant marginal cost and non-discriminatory pricing

Marginal cost is insignificant, and pricing of cultural products can be highly discriminatory between markets

Nature of consumption

Each unit of product is consumed and is not available to others

Original intellectual property is not consumed but can be made endlessly available; “public good” attributes

Time line of advertising

Continual advertising over many years to reinforce brand

Intense advertising at time of introduction of product before it is displaced by next product

Source: Table 3.1 in Peter S. Grant and Chris Wood (2004) Blockbusters and Trade Wars: Popular Culture in a Globalized World. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd (now D&M Publishers Inc.), pp. 44–45. Reproduced with permission from the publishers and authors.

the average price paid by a free-to-air TV broadcaster for the broadcast rights to a one-hour US drama (which, again, typically costs upwards of US$2–3 million to make) was only US$300,000 in the UK, $100,000 in Canada, $75,000 in France, and $60,000 in Australia. The average price for the local broadcast rights to a half-hour TV situation comedy (typically costing upwards of $2 million to make) was reported to be only $200,000 in the UK, $60,000 in Canada, and $35,000 in Australia.


With ordinary commodities, according to economic theory, the socially optimal price for the good would be its marginal cost. However, in the case of broadcast programs, recovery of program production costs cannot occur if such programs are priced at the socially optimal price of zero. Accordingly, broadcast programs are priced (particularly across borders, but in other ways as well) on a highly discriminatory basis which bears little or no relationship to cost.

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The problem of competing with US productions was examined in 2005 by David Graham & Associates Limited, a UK economic consulting firm (since renamed “Attentional”). Their report included the following analysis:12 Substantial economies of scale and scope, combined with the culturally specific nature of much TV and audiovisual content, leaves the USA – which has the world’s most valuable and culturally homogeneous audiovisual market – with an unbeatable competitive advantage when it comes to international trade in TV and related material. This in turn leads to persistent trade deficits in audiovisual activities for even the largest European countries … Even though audiences and consumers in these foreign domestic markets may have a preference for home-grown material, the US material is still able to secure a high share of its domestic markets as it often contains ten to twenty times the production value and creative endeavor of domestic content, while effectively being sold into the domestic market at the same – or an even lower – price than the domestic material.

In an earlier study for the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Graham group calculated that UK broadcasters were acquiring imported programs for only one-sixth of the cost per hour of acquiring programs from independent UK producers.13 Given this price and cost disparity, experience has shown, particularly in English-language markets outside the US, that unless governments or regulators act, there will be little or no local high-cost drama on television screens. And because of the cost disparity, that applies even if the local TV drama is more popular in its country of origin than the imported drama is. Historically, many commentators have founded the need for broadcast regulation on arguments concerning the scarcity of spectrum and the public character of radio frequencies. But these are not the only arguments for the regulation of broadcasting. In the area of entertainment programming, another key argument is that, unless there is regulation, viewers in smaller countries would be presented with a menu of program choices largely dominated by high-cost productions acquired from dominant global or regional players, particularly the US, at a fraction of their cost. Similar arguments can be made in regard to other cultural products. Despite the apparent


increase in choice, we live in a world where the market for books, films, and sound recordings is dominated by blockbusters and bestsellers, where concentration of media appears to be growing, where independent producers find it harder to survive, and where the priorities of the relatively few companies that dominate the sector have little reason to include the new, the experimental, the alternative, or the exotic or local forms of cultural expression. As a result, the market alone would not deliver true cultural diversity.

The Cultural Tool Kit Given this situation, what policy measures can governments take to sustain or develop a broader range of popular cultural products, without undermining freedom of expression? I have provided an inventory of such measures in a previous book and have referred to these measures as comprising a “cultural tool kit.”14 Among others, the tool kit includes six types of measures, which are widely used in developed countries around the world: ●

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The institution of public broadcasting is considered a key support measure for cultural diversity, because public broadcasters can be given a mandate to support local cultural expression in a variety of formats and languages. However, their ability to do so is vitally dependent on the funding they receive from TV license fees or government appropriation, and this varies significantly between countries.15 Public broadcasters can also be seen as a means to provide local and alternative expression in digital and online media. The imposition of reasonable scheduling or quota requirements on private broadcasters and other cultural gatekeepers. Many countries require private broadcasters to include program genres that would otherwise be under-represented in their program schedules, in particular, local drama, children’s programs, or documentaries. And a few countries require a certain proportion of screen time in cinemas to be devoted to local films. The imposition of expenditure requirements on privately owned cultural gatekeepers to support the creation of local cultural products. A variant of this model is to impose a levy on box office

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UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity

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or distributor subscription revenue which goes to a funding agency to support investment in local expression. Examples include the box office levy by the French government to support local film production and the requirement imposed by Australia, Canada, and France on subscription programming services to expend a certain proportion of their revenue or programming budget on local drama. In Canada, all cable and satellite distributors must contribute 5 percent of their subscription revenue to a fund that supports Canadian programming (and in 2009, the broadcast regulator increased this to 6.5 percent). In Italy, commercial broadcasters must spend at least 4 percent of their revenue on the support of European films. In France, the amount is 3.2 percent. In Spain, the amount is 5 percent. The application of national ownership rules in certain cultural industry sectors. Broadcasters in the US, Canada, Australia, and many other countries are required to be locally owned. In countries outside the US, the effect of these rules is to create broadcast companies that provide a local “green light” for the benefit of indigenous producers, so they have more doors to go to besides Hollywood. The problem with national ownership rules, of course, is that the larger the local company becomes, the more its program choices become indistinguishable from those of a multinational. The use of competition policy measures, to support independent production and to lessen the dominance of gatekeepers. An example is the rule in a number of countries requiring their broadcasters to acquire a certain proportion of their programs from independent producers. Another example is the imposition of access rules on cable or satellite companies, requiring them to carry indigenous broadcast services. Again, the object of the exercise is to promote diversity of source. The support of the creation or distribution of cultural products through subsidies or tax incentives. This is probably the most common type of measure used in developed countries around the world to support a diversity of cultural expression. For example, the movie trilogy The Lord of the Rings would never have been made but for tax incentives from Germany and New Zealand.


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There is no question that when properly applied, measures of this kind can be quite effective in maintaining a level of pluralism in cultural expression. However, most of the measures in the cultural tool kit have weaknesses as well as strengths, and they need to be carefully drafted and implemented in order to be fair and effective. In addition, the cultural policy appropriate for one society may be quite different than that for another, just as every cultural product is unique. It is also important to note that with the digitization of media, the fragmentation of audience, and the increased availability of cultural products on the Internet, the cultural tool kit needs to be constantly reinvented. In an on-demand world, for example, scheduling requirements become less relevant, and greater emphasis needs to be placed on measures such as public broadcasting, expenditure requirements, and subsidies.

Evolution of Trade Law on Cultural Products The first major multilateral treaty dealing with trade was signed in 1947.16 Called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),17 it focussed only on trade in goods, not services, and contained a number of key principles: ●

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tariff reduction (reducing customs duties on the importation of goods) most favoured nation (treating imported goods from one country no differently than like products from another) and national treatment (treating imported goods no differently than like products of national origin in respect to laws affecting their internal sale, distribution, or use).

The beliefs underlying the GATT were based on the theory of “comparative advantage,” which asserts that each country should specialize in producing and exporting goods in which its comparative advantage is greater, or its comparative disadvantage is smallest, and should import goods in which its comparative disadvantage is greatest. For most goods, this specialization arguably leads to higher real incomes for all, lending force to arguments for free trade.

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However, the theory rests on classic economic assumptions, including the assumption that the goods being compared are readily substitutable and that the relative efficiency of countries can be measured by looking at the marginal cost of the commodities they produce. Neither assumption applies in regard to cultural products, since the value of each product is based on its unique intellectual content and the marginal cost per unit is close to zero. Trade in cultural products in 1947 was a tiny fraction of what it has become. However, a number of European countries were concerned with the dominance of Hollywood films and had imposed quotas for local films in their cinemas. Such quotas would be inconsistent with the principle of “national treatment” and so Article IV was added to the GATT permitting countries to reserve screen time for “films of national origin.” Only one other provision in the GATT addressed cultural products. Article XX stipulated that nothing in the agreement prevented the enforcement of measures “necessary to protect public morals” or “imposed for the protection of national treasures of artistic, historic or archaeological value.” But there was no “cultural exception.” The GATT therefore applied – and continues to apply – to trade in cultural goods such as books, newspapers, magazines, sound recordings, and film (subject only to the provision allowing domestic screen quotas in theaters). However, the GATT does not apply directly to cultural services such as film production, the performing arts, broadcasting, or the dissemination of cultural works by satellite or cable. In the 1960s, the US tried unsuccessfully to argue that the national treatment principle in the GATT should apply to strike down European scheduling quotas for local content in television. Although it did not succeed, the issue did not go away. In the 1970s, Canada introduced a number of tax and regulatory measures to reduce the adverse impact on its domestic broadcasting system of the US television stations along the Canada–US border. The US border stations then commenced what has been called the “border broadcasting war,” attacking the Canadian measures in the Canadian courts, and seeking retaliation by US regulators and legislators. While their efforts largely failed, the dispute underlined the vulnerable state of the Canadian cultural sector in the face of threatened trade retaliation.18


In 1987, Canada and the US negotiated a bilateral free trade agreement. The Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) did contain a cultural exemption, although a number of concessions were given to the US in the cultural field. When the Agreement was expanded to include Mexico in 1994 with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA 1994), Canada maintained its cultural exemption.19 By 1995, however, the move toward free trade took a major step forward with the completion of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The agreements entered into created the World Trade Organization (WTO), set up a binding dispute resolution process, reconfirmed the terms of the GATT, and added a new General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).20 In the latter agreement, a number of European countries led by France had pressed for a “cultural exception.” The US, intent on rolling back the television broadcast quotas in Europe, refused to countenance this approach. In the end, the GATS was silent on the matter of cultural services. However, the national treatment provisions in the GATS only applied to those service sectors for which each country made affirmative commitments. To the dismay of the Motion Picture Association of America, the US agreed to go forward with the agreement even though almost all countries refrained from making national treatment commitments in regard to audiovisual services.21 However, the GATS also called for future negotiating rounds in which further trade liberalization would be expected. The Uruguay Round gave teeth to the GATT and, within a year, Canada found itself on the defensive in a US complaint to the WTO concerning its measures to protect its domestic magazine industry. For decades, Canada had protected Canadian magazines from competition from foreign “splitrun” magazines by prohibiting their importation. (A “split-run” magazine would be a Canadian edition of a foreign magazine, using editorial matter that had already been amortized in the foreign market, and stripping in Canadian ads. Canada freely allowed foreign periodicals into the country provided they did not try to “cream-skim” the Canadian ad market with split-run editions.) In 1993, Time Warner had proposed to avoid the customs tariff on a new split-run magazine by sending the page proofs by satellite to a printing firm in Canada. After Canada introduced legislation to tax away any profits from such activities, the US

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UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity brought its complaint. In the end, the WTO sided with the US, ruling that Canada’s measures breached the provisions of the GATT. Canadian arguments that US magazines were not “like products” to Canadian magazines fell on deaf ears.22 Following its defeat in what has come to be known as the Periodicals case, Canada introduced a new servicesoriented measure that it felt would pass scrutiny at the WTO, since it would fall under GATS, not GATT. However, the US threatened immediate trade retaliation and the two countries eventually settled their differences in mid-1999, with Canada agreeing to allow split-run editions of foreign magazines with up to 18 percent Canadian ads.23 The Periodicals case brought home to the Canadian side two realities about the WTO process.24 The first was the apparent inability of a dispute resolution panel to see any difference between local and foreign cultural products. The second was the fact that the process focussed entirely on whether a complained-of measure fit within the words of the treaty and had no regard for whether, in the absence of the measure, one would have a failed market in economic terms, given the publicgood nature of the content in the product. The WTO was clearly oblivious to the “curious economics” of cultural products. Arguments of this kind were essentially irrelevant to its process.

The Idea of a Cultural Diversity Convention By 1998, the Periodicals case was coming to a head at the WTO. And it was the central topic at the meetings of the Cultural Industries Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade (SAGIT), a trade advisory group set up by the Government of Canada to advise its Minister of International Trade. The group was also concerned with the trade liberalization agenda in the GATS, which might impact Canadian protection measures in the broadcasting field. A word about the SAGIT process is in order. The idea of having trade advisory groups from various industry sectors to advise the government is not a Canadian idea. In fact, such groups had long been part of the trade process in the US, and the influence of such industry groups on the US Trade Representative was well known. Accordingly,


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in the mid-1980s, Canada had followed suit. It had set up some 15 industry panels to help it develop its trade position in trade negotiations. All panel members contributed their time without compensation. One of these panels was the Cultural Industries SAGIT. In its earliest incarnation, it was seen as ineffective, largely because a number of its members were drawn from the artistic community which viscerally opposed free trade in general. But then the government changed its membership to include more of the cultural industries – particularly those parts of the sector considered more business-oriented – broadcasters, and book and magazine publishers. I had advised a group of high-level Canadian communications executives about the implications of a Canada–US Free Trade Agreement in the 1985–88 period. That group had been formed at the instance of Pierre Juneau, then President of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s national public broadcaster, and Donald Hunter, then President of Maclean Hunter, one of Canada’s largest multimedia companies. This group consisted of a dozen “heavy hitters” from the cultural industries who carried little of the emotional fervor of the creator community. The group fully recognized that Canada was a trading nation and needed the benefits of a free trade agreement. But it also recognized the curious economics of local cultural products and their unique vulnerability in smaller countries like Canada. I was commissioned by the group to prepare an inventory of cultural assistance and protection measures and to help it lobby the government to keep culture policies “off the table” of the FTA negotiations. In this, the group was largely successful. I was added to the Cultural Industries SAGIT in the early 1990s. The President of Maclean Hunter, Ron Osborne, was asked to chair it. And the membership became more disciplined, responsive, and business-oriented. By 1998, when the Periodicals case was before the WTO, the group had participated in numerous meetings over the years to discuss trade issues involving cultural products. But the meetings now had a more urgent tenor. In the Canada–US FTA, and in the Uruguay Round, Canada had dodged some bullets. But now it had been blindsided by the US complaint to the WTO about Canada’s policies to protect and assist its magazine sector.

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I was particularly affected because I was also counsel to the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association, which was embroiled in the Periodicals case. And represented on the SAGIT were some of Canada’s biggest magazine players – Maclean Hunter, Telemedia, and Southam. By the mid1990s, the SAGIT was chaired by Scott McIntyre, the head of a Canadian book publishing company. He was later succeeded by Ken Stein, a former civil servant who had headed the cable industry trade association and then become a senior executive with one of Canada’s cable companies. As we discussed the case with our government trade negotiators, the mood became increasingly dispirited. The Periodicals case brought us face to face with a troubling reality. The WTO structure seemed to be biased against the kind of analysis that distinguished cultural products from other trade products. For example, in a dispute resolution process, who would be the impartial judges? Judges were picked from a roster of former WTO trade officials or trade law academics. All of them had an institutional bias towards liberalizing trade. All of them wanted the WTO treaties to “work” and to minimize any perceived loopholes. None of them seemed to have any acquaintance with the curious economics of cultural products. While they might attend symphony concerts and profess to be sensitive to “culture,” they would have little inkling of the forces that affect trade in popular cultural products or in distinguishing one form of expression from another. It was also clear that the WTO itself would not be sympathetic to a “protocol” that exempted cultural policies from trade retaliation. The delegates to WTO meetings were trade ministers, rather than culture ministers. They generally came from hardnosed economic ministries and had considerable clout. Culture ministers were all too often seen as lightweight dispensers of subsidies to the arts community. They would have no impact on the WTO. The staff of both the culture and trade ministries attended these SAGIT meetings, and from time to time, the Canadian Heritage Minister at the time, Sheila Copps, would also attend. Copps was very supportive. But she wanted ammunition. Her cabinet colleagues were not all convinced. Give me some arguments besides just “cultural protection,” she would say. It was clear to all of us that it would be pointless to tackle the WTO head-on. First, we needed to


educate the world. But what to do? As we kicked ideas around the table, André Bureau, the chair of Astral Communications Inc., suggested having the government create a Cultural Ambassador who could travel the globe, proselytizing the concept of cultural sovereignty. Then I suddenly had an idea. How about pushing for an international treaty specifically dealing with culture and trade, I said. The room quieted as I talked further. Instead of focussing on the concept of a “cultural exemption,” why don’t we talk about the need to protect “cultural diversity”? And if we can’t win inside the WTO, maybe we can influence public opinion outside of it. After all, the landmines treaty was done without any involvement of a UN organization at all. The real issue was how to mobilize world opinion behind our goals. There was a lot of discussion as to how such a treaty might be negotiated. There was broad agreement that it would be best to do it outside the aegis of the WTO. The obvious agency to tackle it would be UNESCO, although there were reservations about that agency’s clout or effectiveness. By the end of the meeting, the group had coalesced around my idea. And it was decided that the group would prepare a report – ostensibly to the Minister, but also for public dissemination – outlining the idea in more detail. A writer was hired to help put the report together. I helped draft the key portions. The report was published in February 1999 and was the first document to propose a legally binding cultural diversity convention that would address the interface between cultural policies and trade obligations.25 In the end, it was left open as to where such a treaty might be negotiated. With regard to content, the report recommended the following: Canada could initiate a new international instrument, which would lay out the ground rules for cultural policies and trade, and allow Canada and other countries to maintain policies that promote their cultural industries. A new cultural instrument would seek to develop an international consensus on the responsibility to encourage indigenous cultural expression and on the need for regulatory and other measures to promote cultural and linguistic diversity. The instrument would not compel any country to take measures to promote culture, but it would give countries the right to determine the

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UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity measures they will use (within the limits of the agreement) to safeguard their cultural diversity. A kind of blueprint for cultural diversity and the role of culture in a global world, the instrument would clearly define what was covered, and stress the importance of cultural sovereignty. The new instrument would identify the measures that would be covered and those that would not, and indicate clearly where trade disciplines would or would not apply. It would also state explicitly when domestic cultural measures would be permitted and not subject to trade retaliation.

Later that year, the Canadian government endorsed this idea. And so started a seven-year effort by many players which culminated in the adoption in October 2005 of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (see UNESCO 2005). How this came about is a complex story.26 Among the key milestones were the following: ●

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In May 2000, the European Commission and UNESCO sponsored a Forum on Globalization and Cultural Diversity in Valencia, Spain. Delegates from the audiovisual sector in countries from six continents attended. I attended the forum and was chosen to be the rapporteur. No one there was aware of the Canadian idea before I described it to them. However, there was immediate agreement with the concept, and the final communiqué included a statement that “there is an urgent need for the negotiation of a new international instrument on cultural diversity to address issues related to cultural products.” This was the first international recognition of the concept of a new cultural trade instrument. In the fall of 2000, the International Network of Cultural Policy (INCP) met on the Greek island of Santorini. Following a UNESCO conference on cultural diversity held in Stockholm in 1998, the INCP had been created in 1998 at the instance of Sheila Copps, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, to bring culture ministers from around the world together in annual meetings. (Having no culture minister, the US was not included in the INCP.) In Santorini, a working group led by Canadian officials presented a discussion paper and an illustrative list of principles to be used as a starting point for the development of an international instrument


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on cultural diversity. In the ensuing annual meetings of the INCP, the membership of which grew to include 72 countries, the culture ministers exchanged ideas, advanced the discussion, and built support. At the Santorini meeting, a group of private nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) representing artists’ and cultural groups in 21 countries decided to create an International Network on Cultural Diversity (INCD). This organization timed its meetings to coincide with the ministerial meetings of the INCP. Over time, the INCD grew to include 500 individuals from 70 countries. By lending the voice of civil society to the pressures for a new international instrument, the INCD played a significant role in garnering further support. Also in 2000, the Coalition for Cultural Diversity (CCD) – a group of Canadian cultural professional associations that had been established in Quebec in 1998 – decided to embrace the concept of a new instrument for cultural diversity. It then focussed its attention on helping to create sister organizations in other countries, so that professionals in the cultural field in those countries would have a focal point to lobby their governments to support the proposed convention. Robert Pilon, the CCD’s Executive Director, spent most of the next few years on a plane travelling to conferences and meetings in countries on six continents. Eventually, through his efforts and those of many others, coalitions for cultural diversity were set up in 42 different countries. In June 2001, culture ministers of La Francophonie, an international organization of fifty Frenchspeaking countries, meeting in Benin, added their backing to “the principle of a universal international regulatory instrument that supported the promotion of cultural diversity.”27 La Francophonie proved to be a key player in supporting the new instrument.

For those that appreciate the importance of leadership in international policy-making, a word is in order about the role of Sheila Copps. A strong supporter of Canada’s cultural policies, she was seen as irrational and intransigent by the US entertainment industries. The mere mention of her name to a senior executive in the US sound recording sector would bring forth a spitting-mad tirade. But overseas, Copps was magical and charismatic.

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Fluent in English, French, and Italian, she could mesmerize international audiences in both developed and developing countries. I can remember standing with a few other Canadians at the back of a packed conference room in Rabat, Morocco, as she spoke extemporaneously to public broadcasting officials from across Africa. As that audience listened spellbound, we looked at each other with widened eyes. Copps’ communication skills seemed to be little recognized or applauded in her native country, but she was magnetic and compelling when speaking in other countries about the importance of cultural diversity.

The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity Although the initial discussion of the new instrument did not specify where it would be negotiated, opinion quickly coalesced around UNESCO as the logical body for this purpose. In 2001, UNESCO had adopted a non-binding Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, and by 2002, the culture ministers in the INCP, meeting in Cape Town, agreed that UNESCO was “the appropriate international institution to house and implement an International Instrument on Cultural Diversity.”28 Pressed by a number of Member States to take up the matter, in October 2003 UNESCO unanimously approved a resolution calling for “the elaboration by 2005 of an international standard-setting convention regarding the protection of the diversity of cultural contents and artistic expressions.”29 Even the US, which had rejoined UNESCO earlier that year after a 19-year absence, did not, in the end, oppose the resolution. The US had asked for and received a formal recognition in the resolution of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), an acknowledgement in it of the right of free speech, and a statement calling on the Director-General of UNESCO to undertake consultation with the WTO and other agencies. So began an intense two-year campaign within UNESCO to develop and approve a binding convention.30 The first step was the creation of a group of 15 independent “experts” to come up with a draft of such a convention. By this time, a number of drafts were in circulation, including versions prepared by the Canadian Cultural Industries SAGIT,


the INCP, and the INCD. The group of independent experts met three times in late 2003 and the first half of 2004 and issued a useful first draft and an accompanying report. Then, matters were handed to an intergovernmental group of experts – actually comprising almost 550 people from 132 Member States – which met three times in 2004 and 2005 to consider and approve a final draft for consideration at the upcoming UNESCO General Conference. This process was bogged down by the end of the second meeting, given the endless drafting suggestions from a number of states, most of which were put in square brackets, indicating lack of agreement. The suggestions included a number of clauses proposed by the US which undermined or diluted the draft convention. It was necessary to cut through the confusion to get to a final text, and the task fell to the Chairman, Kadar Asmal, a former minister in Nelson Mandela’s cabinet. After the second meeting had concluded, he convened a week-long get-together in Cape Town with four officials to come up with a “Chairman’s Draft” that eliminated all the square brackets. This became the starting point for the third meeting of intergovernmental experts held in May 2005, which made relatively few further changes, approved it, and sent the document on to the UNESCO General Conference. By this point in time, the earlier efforts of the INCP, the INCD, La Francophonie, and the Coalitions for Cultural Diversity had paid off. Within Europe, Finland, France, and Belgium were the most supportive. (France had initially been wedded to the “cultural exception” approach to trade negotiation but eventually realized that “cultural diversity” was a stronger way to argue the case for cultural sovereignty.) Germany was initially cooler to the concept of a binding convention until Jacques Chirac buttonholed Gerhard Schroeder in early 2004 and convinced him to support it in the interest of European unity. With Germany’s support came much of the Eastern bloc. Spain came aboard after a change in government. The UK and the Netherlands were not particularly supportive at first but eventually agreed to support the panEuropean position. In Africa, the efforts of La Francophonie came to fruition as Senegal and Benin led other countries on the continent to support the initiative. In Latin America, Brazil brought many other countries into the fold, although Argentina was less interested. In

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UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity the Asia Pacific region, China came aboard early, but Australia hung back, intent on pursuing a free trade agreement with the US. Japan was “cranky” until the end. The US had largely ignored the mounting pressure for an international instrument until UNESCO agreed to pursue it in 2003. As matters progressed at UNESCO, however, the US became increasingly involved in trying to stop it. It focussed its rhetoric on two arguments. The first was the claim that the Convention could justify government-imposed restrictions on freedom of expression and other human rights abuses, although language in the Convention expressly contradicted this. The US’s second concern was that the Convention could adversely affect trade rules at the WTO. To bolster this argument, the US tried to have the WTO communicate this concern to UNESCO. The WTO did carry out an informal consultation among its Members, but no consensus was reached on the issue and the WTO report to UNESCO made no recommendations in this regard. As the final UNESCO negotiations were about to start in October 2005, the US played a last frantic card, a personal letter from Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice to all the UNESCO Member country ambassadors. The letter criticized the draft convention, complained of the process, and darkly hinted that the US might reconsider its support for UNESCO if Member States agreed with the draft. The matter finally came to a head in the week of October 16–22, 2005. The debate took place at UNESCO headquarters at 7, Place du Fontenoy, Paris, in a large accordion-shaped building with fluted concrete walls and a copper-plated fluted roof, only a few blocks away from the Eiffel Tower. This building was the site of the largest conference room in the UNESCO complex. It was a room that needed to be big enough to accommodate delegations from over 150 countries around the world. Each country could bring a dozen delegates – and many did. The interest in the subject was intense – so much so that on the first day the meeting had to be moved out of a smaller conference room when there had been standing room only and late-arriving delegates had been stopped at the door. Over the days of debate, the dialogue was emotional and heart-felt. Delegates from more than a hundred countries from every corner of the globe rose to be heard. During the days of deliberation, procedural resolutions and amendments put


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forward by the US were defeated by votes of 54–1, 53–1, and 158–1. The final vote came on October 20, 2005. In the end, the Convention was approved by a vote of 148 in favor, two opposed (the US and Israel), and four abstaining (Australia, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Liberia). The US Delegation did not help matters by ending the session with an angry and bitter closing speech. The Convention came into force on March 18, 2007, three months after at least 30 countries ratified it. But it was widely understood that the Convention would not be seen to have broad applicability unless a significant number of countries – say, 50 or 60 – ratified it. That has also occurred. In fact, by the beginning of 2010, the Convention had been ratified by over 100 countries around the world, including large and small players from every part of the globe. The international support for the Convention and the speed with which it had been ratified is almost unprecedented. Even Australia, which had abstained from voting for the treaty in 2005, had a change of government and ended up ratifying the treaty in 2009. The result was a stunning victory for those who felt that the rules of international trade needed to defer to the desire for cultural diversity. At the same time, the debate revealed what appears to be an unbridgeable chasm between the position of the US and the rest of the world.

Ambit of the Convention The title of the Convention is the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. But what does the Convention say? To begin with, it declares that “cultural activities, goods and services have both an economic and a cultural nature, because they convey identities, values and meanings, and must therefore not be treated as solely having commercial value” (UNESCO 2005). A key objective of the Convention is “to reaffirm the sovereign right of States to maintain, adopt and implement policies and measures that they deem appropriate for the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expression in their territory” (UNESCO 2005). At the same time, the Convention notes that cultural diversity can be protected and promoted only if freedom of

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expression, information, and communication are guaranteed. Article 6 elaborates on the kinds of measures that each party may adopt to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions. These include measures that “provide opportunities for domestic cultural activities, goods and services among those available within the national territory,” measures to aid “artists and other cultural professionals,” measures to provide access to the means of production and distribution for “domestic independent cultural industries,” and “measures aimed at enhancing diversity of the media, including through public service broadcasting.” Given the broad wording of Article 6, all the measures noted earlier in this chapter as part of the “cultural tool kit” can be said to be supported and endorsed by the Convention. At the same time, by virtue of Article 3, paragraph 2, any such provisions must be consistent with the provisions of the Convention which include freedom of expression, information and communication (UNESCO 2005). So the Convention does not support measures that prohibit the importation of foreign cultural products; rather, it supports measures that afford space and choice for a variety of cultural expression. The Convention also creates an International Fund for Cultural Diversity, to support cultural diversity in developing countries. While the word “trade” is not to be found in the Convention, it is obvious that many measures endorsed by the Convention would be inconsistent with the national treatment and most favored nation principles set out in trade agreements. So a crucial question is how does the Convention interrelate to other trade agreements and, in particular, to the WTO agreements? The answer is found in Article 20 of the Convention, which was the subject of much heated debate. Article 20, paragraph 2, states that “Nothing in this Convention shall be interpreted as modifying rights and obligations of the Parties under any other treaties to which they are parties.” So as it stands, the Convention does not roll back existing obligations that countries may have under WTO or other trade agreements. However, Article 20, paragraph 1, states that “without subordinating this Convention to any other treaty, parties shall foster mutual supportiveness” between this Convention and other treaties, and when interpreting and applying the other treaties or when entering into other


international obligations, parties “shall take into account the relevant provisions of this Convention” (UNESCO 2005). Accordingly, the Convention would appear to stop dead any future WTO agreements that would be inconsistent with cultural policies. It would also provide an avenue to interpret existing trade obligations – at least where they are ambiguous – in a way that recognizes the specificity of cultural goods and services.

Where We Stand Today So how can one assess the impact of the Convention? Since 1995, progress in further trade liberalization has stalled at the WTO for a number of reasons having little to do with cultural policies. But by virtue of the UNESCO Convention, any further encroachment on cultural policies in regard to audiovisual services at the WTO is unlikely to occur. For the US, the global support for the UNESCO Convention was a dismal defeat, all the more galling because it had come on the heels of what the US thought was an important victory in the Periodicals case at the WTO. Acting at the behest of Time Warner to fight that battle at the WTO, in the end the US lost the war. In fact, had the WTO not been engaged by the US in 1996, it is unlikely that the UNESCO Convention would ever have materialized in 2005. There has been a growing literature about the impact of the UNESCO Convention on the WTO and vice versa. Some commentators have noted that the Convention does not override the WTO and therefore question its effectiveness.31 But others have taken a more positive view, noting that the Convention could influence the interpretation and operation of the GATT and GATS, and pointing to other benefits.32 It is certainly true that the Convention does not affect past WTO commitments by countries. Nor does it stop the US from continuing to press for trade liberalization in cultural products, particularly at the bilateral level. In the absence of multilateral progress, the US has entered into bilateral free trade agreements with a number of countries. In those agreements, it has sought concessions in regard to trade in cultural products, and it has succeeded in a number of cases, although existing cultural protection measures in these countries typically have been

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UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity grandfathered. The US particularly has pressed to have any protection measures removed for products delivered digitally, taking the view that this is where future delivery of cultural products will focus.33 Again it has had mixed success in this regard at the bilateral level. However, progress in multilateral negotiations on this issue would now be highly doubtful given the global support for the principles of the UNESCO Convention. So what does the Convention do? I see it as achieving six objectives: ●

●

●

●

●

●

the Convention blesses the tool kit of government measures to support cultural diversity, such as public broadcasting, scheduling and quota rules, spending rules, foreign ownership rules, competition policies, and subsidies; the Convention educates the world that cultural products are different from ordinary commodities and that countries should have the sovereign right to implement measures to protect cultural diversity without fear of trade retaliation; the Convention creates a fund to help developing countries in producing local, distinctive cultural products; the Convention supports freedom of expression and does not empower countries to stop or prohibit foreign content; while not overriding preexisting trade obligations of the parties, the Convention can aid in the interpretation and application of those obligations; and most significant, the Convention dissuades countries from further trade liberalization in the cultural sector, and strengthens their hand in resisting pressure to do so.

Countries representing over two-thirds of the world’s population have now ratified the Convention and more are likely to follow suit. But as noted at the beginning of this chapter, the Convention has also made clear an appalling and embarrassing disconnect between the position espoused by Hollywood and the position of virtually every country outside the US. It is too early to tell how effective the Convention will be in achieving the objectives noted above. The Convention was referred to in the course of argument in the recent US–China dispute before the WTO over publications and audiovisual products. However, the decisions of the


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Dispute Resolution Panel34 and the Appellate Body35 in that case largely turned on the specific commitments made by China in its WTO Accession Protocol to grant non-discriminatory trading rights to foreign-owned distributors. The US did not seek to overturn China’s restriction on the number of US films permitted to be exhibited in the country. In a more interesting case, the European Court of Justice was asked to review a requirement by Spain that private broadcasters in that country expend at least five percent of their revenue on European films, at least 60 percent of which must be earmarked for films made in one of the five official languages of Spain. The broadcasters contended that this amounted to state aid in favor of the Spanish film industry, which was not compatible with the European Convention. Spain argued that the measure at issue had a cultural basis, namely, the defence of Spanish multilingualism. The decision of the Court made specific reference to the UNESCO Convention in upholding the Spanish requirement:36 Since language and culture are intrinsically linked, as pointed out by, inter alia, the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, adopted at the General Conference of UNESCO in Paris on 20 October 2005 and approved on behalf of the Community by Council Decision 2006/515/EC of 18 May 2006 (OJ 2006 L 201, p. 15), which states in paragraph 14 of its preamble that “linguistic diversity is a fundamental element of cultural diversity”, the view cannot be taken that the objective pursued by a Member State of defending and promoting one or several of its official languages must of necessity be accompanied by other cultural criteria in order for it to justify a restriction on one of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Treaty … The fact that such a criterion may constitute an advantage for cinema production undertakings which work in the language covered by that criterion and which, accordingly, may in practice mostly comprise undertakings established in the Member State of which the language constitutes an official language appears inherent to the objective pursued. Such a situation cannot, of itself, constitute proof of the disproportionate nature of the measure at issue in the main proceedings without rendering nugatory the recognition, as an overriding reason in the public interest, of the objective pursued by a Member

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State of defending and promoting one or several of its official languages.

In the end, the protection and support of cultural diversity will be the responsibility of individual states. However, the UNESCO Convention hopefully will assist them in being able to maintain space and choice for a broad range of cultural products – including their own cultural expression – in a globalized world.

16

17 18 19 20 21

22 23

Notes 1 UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2005: 18). 2 UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2005: 19). For a discussion of the definitions used in various countries to determine what is a “national” film or other cultural product, see Grant and Wood (2004: 139–167). 3 UNCTAD (2008: 106). 4 See Siwek (2009: Table A.5). Note that in addition to the three “cultural” sectors mentioned, foreign sales or exports of US-created computer software were estimated to be US$91.86 billion in 2007. 5 European Audiovisual Observatory (2009). 6 DCMS (1999), cited in Bielby and Harrington (2008: 39). 7 KEA European Affairs (2006). 8 Conference Board of Canada (2008). 9 The Economist (2001: 88). 10 For a detailed examination of the economics of cultural products, see Grant and Wood (2004: 42–109); Baker (2000). 11 For a recent study of this issue, see Grant (2008), from which much of the following information is taken. 12 Graham and Associates Limited (2005: 68–69). 13 Graham and Associates Limited (2000). 14 See Grant and Wood (2004: 139–314). 15 Public broadcasters in high-support countries, like the UK, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland, receive per capita funding from US$100 to $150 per year. Public broadcasters in medium-support countries, like France, Ireland, Austria, and Belgium, receive per capita funding from US$60 to $80 a year. By contrast, public broadcasters in low-support countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand receive less than US$40 per capita funding from government or license fees to support their operations. See Grant (2008), where calculations of the per capita support for public broadcasters in 18 countries, prepared for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by Nordicity Group Ltd., and expressed in Canadian dollars, are set forth in Appendix 2.


24 25 26

27 28 29 30

31 32

33 34 35 36

For further details on the evolution of trade agreements affecting cultural products, see Véron (1999); Grant and Wood (2004: 352–377); Geradin and Luff (2004); Voon (2007). GATT (1947). Grant and Wood (2004: 360–361). Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (1987). GATS (1999). In the end, to its later regret, only New Zealand made national treatment commitments in regard to audiovisual services. World Trade Organization (1997). In the end, however, the Canadian magazine sector managed to thrive within the terms of the negotiated settlement and the few US split-run periodicals that launched eventually ceased operation. Even Time Canada, a long-standing Canadian split-run edition that had been grandfathered in the 1970s, gave up the ghost in 2009. For a discussion of the Periodicals case, see Magder (1998). Cultural Industries SAGIT (1999). For other descriptions of the evolution of the UNESCO Convention, see Grant and Wood (2004: 378–405); Bernier (2005, 2008). For a US perspective, see Fullman (2005); Balassa (2008). Grant and Wood (2004: 387). Grant and Wood (2004: 397). Grant and Wood (2004: 397). The reports of the expert committees, the reports of the intergovernmental group of experts, and other UNESCO documents relating to the Convention can all be accessed at: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/ en/ev.php-URL_ID=11281&URL_DO=DO_ TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. See, for example, Voon (2007); Hahn (2006). See, for example, Graber (2006); Khachaturian (2006); Carmody (2007); Smith (2007); Raboy and Mawani (forthcoming); Bernier (2008; 2009). Bernier (2004). World Trade Organization (2009). World Trade Organization (2009a). European Court of Justice (2009: Paragraphs 33–35).

References Baker, C. E. (2000) “An economic critique of free trade in media products,” North Carolina Law Review, 78: 1357. Balassa, C. (2008) America’s Image Abroad: The UNESCO Cultural Diversity Convention and U.S. Motion Picture Exports. Nashville, TN: The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. Bernier, I. (2004) “The recent free trade agreements of the United States as illustration of their new strategy

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UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity regarding the audiovisual sector,” http://www. diversite-culturelle.qc.ca/fileadmin/documents/ pdf/conf_seoul_ang_2004.pdf (accessed 12/04/2010). Bernier, I. (2005) “La négociation de la convention de l’UNESCO sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité des expressions culturelles,” Canadian Yearbook of International Law, 43: 3–43. Bernier, I. (2008) The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: A Cultural Instrument at the Junction of Law and Politics, http://www.diversite-culturelle.qc.ca/fileadmin/ documents/pdf/carrefour-du-droit_eng.pdf (accessed 12/04/2010). Bernier, I. (2009) “The relationship between the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions and other international instruments: The emergence of a new balance in the interface between commerce and culture,” (August), http://www.diversite-culturelle.qc.ca/fileadmin/ documents/pdf/ANG_Relations_entre_Convention_ Unesco_instruments_internationaux.pdf (accessed 12/04/2010). Bielby, D. D., and Harrington, C. L (2008) Global TV: Exporting Television and Culture in the World Market. New York: New York University Press. Canada–US Free Trade Agreement (1987) Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreementsaccords-commerciaux/assets/pdfs/cusfta-e.pdf (accessed 12/04/2010). Carmody, C. (2007) “Creating ‘Shelf Space’: NAFTA’s Experience with Cultural Protection and its Relevance for the WTO,” Asian Journal of WTO and International Health Law and Policy, 2(2): 287–312. Conference Board of Canada (2008) Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada’s Creative Economy. Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada. Cultural Industries SAGIT (1999) New Strategies for Culture and Trade: Canadian Culture in a Global World (February). Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade, http://www.international.gc.ca/ trade- agreements-accords-commerciaux/fo/ canculture.aspx?lang=en (accessed 12/04/2010). DCMS (1999) UK Television Exports Inquiry: The Report of the Creative Industries Task Force Inquiry into Television Exports. London: Department of Culture, Media and Sport. European Audiovisual Observatory (2009) Film and Home Video: Yearbook 2009, Film, Television and Video in Europe, vol. 3. Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory. European Court of Justice (2009) Unión de Televisiones Comerciales Asociadas (UTECA) vs. Administración General del Estado (March 5). Luxembourg: European Court of Justice, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/Lex


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UriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62007JO222:EN:HTML (accessed 12/04/2010). Fullman, A. R. (2005) “Reconcilable differences: The United States versus Canadian perspective towards UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions.” Unpublished Master’s Thesis, George Mason University. GATS (1995) General Agreement on Trade in Services. Geneva: WTO, http://www.wto.org/English/docs_e/legal_ e/26-gats_01_e.htm (accessed 12/04/2010). GATT (1947) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Geneva: WTO, http://www.wto.org/English/docs_e/legal_ e/gatt47_01_e.htm (accessed 12/04/2010). Geradin, D., and Luff, D. (2004) The WTO and Global Convergence in Telecommunications and Audio-Visual Services. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Graber, C. B. (2006) “The new UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity: A counterbalance to the WTO?” Journal of International Economic Law, 9(3): 553–574. Graham, D., and Associates Limited (2000) Out of the Box: The Programme Supply Market in the Digital Age, Report for the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport. London: DCMS. Graham, D., and Associates Limited (2005) Impact Study of Measures (Community and National) Concerning the Promotion of Distribution and Production of TV Programmes Provided for Under Article 25(a) of the TV Without Frontiers Directive. Brussels: Audiovisual, Media and Internet Unit, Directorate-General Information Society and Media, European Commission. Grant, P. S. (2008) Stories Under Stress: The Challenge for Indigenous Television Drama in English-Language Broadcast Markets. International Affiliation of Writers Guilds, http://www.iawg.org/Stories%20 Under%20Stress.pdf (accessed 12/04/2010). Grant, P. S., and Wood, C. (2004) Blockbusters and Trade Wars: Popular Culture in a Globalized World. Vancouver and Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre. Hahn, M. (2006) “A clash of cultures: The UNESCO Diversity Convention and international trade law,” Journal of International Economic Law, 9(3): 515–552. KEA European Affairs (2006) The Economy of Culture in Europe. Brussels: European Commission. Khatchaturian, A. (2006) “The new cultural diversity Convention and its implications on the WTO international trade regime: A critical comparative analysis,” Texas International Law Journal, 42: 191–209. Magder, T. (1998) “Franchising the candy store: Split-run magazines and a new international regime for trade in culture,” Canadian-American Public Policy, 34(April 1): 1–66. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1994) NAFTA. Ottawa: Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, http://www.international.gc.ca/

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trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agracc/nafta-alena/index.aspx?lang=en (accessed 12/04/2010). Raboy, M., and Mawani, A. (forthcoming) “Are states still important? Reflections on the nexus between national and global media and communication policy,” in A. Calabrese and C. Padovani (eds) Communication Rights and Global Justice: Reflections on the Short History of a Social Movement. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Siwek, S. E. (2009) Copyright Industries in the U.S. Economy: The 2003–2007 Report. Prepared by Economists Inc. for the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA ), June 2009, available at www.iipa.com. Smith, R. C. (2007) “The UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions: Building a New World Information and Communication Order?” International Journal of Communication, 1: 24–55. The Economist (2001) Globalisation. London: Profile Books. UNCTAD (2008) Creative Economy Report 2008. Geneva: UNCTAD, http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Web flyer.asp?intItemID+5109 (accessed 12/04/2010). UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2005) International Flows of Selected Cultural Goods and Services, 1994–2003. Montreal: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, http:// w w w. u i s. u n e s c o. o rg / t e m p l a t e / p d f / c s c l / IntlFlows_EN.pdf (accessed 12/04/2010). UNESCO (2005) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Paris: UNESCO.


Véron, L. (1999) “Hollywood and Europe: A case of trade in cultural industries, the 1993 GATT dispute.” Unpublished paper, Columbia International Affairs Online. Voon, T. (2007) Cultural Products and the World Trade Organization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. World Trade Organization (1997) Canada: Certain Measures Concerning Periodicals (WT/DS31/ AB/R); Appellate Body Report, adopted 30 July 30. Geneva: WTO, http://www.wto.org/ english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds31_e.htm (accessed 12/04/2010). World Trade Organization (2009) China: Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications and Audiovisual Entertainment Products, WT/DS363/R and Corr.1, Dispute Resolution Panel Report, circulated to WTO Members (12 August). Geneva: WTO, http:// docsonline.wto.org/imrd/gen_searchResult.asp?R N=0&searchtype=browse&q1=%28%40meta%5F Symbol+WT%FCDS363%FCR%2A+and+not+R W%2A%29&language=1 (accessed 12/04/2010). World Trade Organization (2009a) China: Measures Affecting Trading Rights and Distribution Services for Certain Publications and Audiovisual Entertainment Products (DS363), Appellate Body Report (December 21). Geneva: WTO, http://www.wto. org/english/news_e/news09_e/363abr_e.htm (accessed 12/04/2010).

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Part IV

Markets and Globality


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22

Economic Approaches to Media Policy Robert G. Picard

Introduction Traditional media and communication policy-making and regulatory bodies have relied primarily upon social, cultural, and political approaches in analyzing issues, developments, and potential policy responses. However, economic approaches increasingly now play a greater role in media and communication policy-making. These approaches are being used in the belief that economic analysis offers a fundamentally important means for studying choices and alternatives – and their potential outcomes – under a wide variety of conditions and settings. Economic approaches apply a variety of perspectives, models, and theories to inform choices involving media structures and operations and how the available alternatives can be used to achieve desired policy outcomes. Analysis involves consideration of the economic effects of policies on the media industries, firms, consumers, and society. Economic approaches are being used in a wide range of media and communication policymaking settings to answer questions such as the following: What will be the effect of an increasing number of broadcast stations on the operation of existing stations? What levels of subsidy will be necessary to provide universal broadband telecommunication services to rural areas? Will a merger

of media firms produce concentration that is harmful to consumers? How can the increased domestic production of films be promoted? How can media services be provided to persons who use minority languages? Such questions are being addressed using economic approaches because regulations and incentives introduced by policy-makers have economic effects that have a bearing on the creation, promotion, and management of market-based activities, on responses to market failures, and on alternative ways of addressing issues of social welfare in media and communication systems and their behavior. These issues include the capabilities of members of a society to communicate and express themselves and to access news, information, entertainment, and cultural materials, despite economic, social, gender, or other differences. Economic analysis employs models that can provide important evidence of the potential outcomes of policy alternatives that may be under consideration and of the effects of previous or existing policies. A variety of methods is used in the economic analysis of the media and communication industries, including describing market and industry conditions, and projecting and forecasting future developments with and without proposed policy interventions. Econometric models are used to evaluate the effects of policy alternatives and to perform



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cost–benefit analyses. The potential effects of policies on the economy as a whole are often examined using general equilibrium, rational expectations, and optimal growth models. The importance of economic analysis in all types of public policy decisions involving markets and social welfare has grown over the past century (Stein 1982; Dimand 1988; Crew and Parker 2006; Harcourt 2006). Economic analysis has been applied in the examination of the effects of policies involving health, transportation, the environment, and a variety of other social issues. Today, through media and communication policies, states both knowingly and unknowingly employ a variety of economic approaches and analyses that influence cultural, political, and industrial development as well as other social objectives. The increasing use of economic evidence in media and communication policy is part of a broader shift in policy-making toward an evidencebased approach, when considering proposed policies and evaluating their outcomes (Pawson 2006; Bogenschneider and Corbett 2010; Weimer and Vinning 2010). Using both theoretical and applied approaches, economic analysis provides evidence of the need for, and the probable effects of, proposed policies and they illuminate the economic effects of policies once they have been put into place. These approaches do not take the place of non-economic analysis, but they can provide quantifiable analytical criteria to be used alongside nonquantifiable criteria (Entman and Wildman 2000). Economic approaches are especially important where media are concerned because the diverse economic conditions under which various media operate require different policies to produce the desired outcomes (Wildman 1998). Three major traditions – theoretical, applied, and critical – inform media economics research and policy analysis (Picard 2005). The theoretical tradition focusses on choices, decisions, and economic factors affecting producers and consumers of communication goods and services and seeks to explain the forces that constrain and compel actions involving media and communication systems (Owen et al. 1974; Webb 1983; Owen and Wildman 1992). The applied tradition examines the structures of media and communication industries and markets with an emphasis on understanding trends and changes. This tradition typically focusses on strategies and policies for controlling or responding to changes in the economy, media technologies, and consumer behavior (Picard 1989, 2002;


Albarran 1996; Alexander et al. 1998). The critical tradition is associated with the work of political economists who study culture. It tends to focus on issues of economics and media power, cultural effects, the nature of work and labor relations, and how society is being altered by a shift from the industrial to the information economy (Mosco and Wasko 1988; Dyson and Humphreys 1990; Garnham 1990; Doyle 2002). Because of their varying impacts on different media and communication systems, separate economic policies tend to be constructed and applied to issues involving media and communication infrastructure, market structures, and content production and distribution. Many nation-states with rather liberal free market economies, for example, have long regulated telecommunication, broadcasting, cablecasting, and satellitecasting for reasons of technical necessity, and also because they involve the use of public radio spectrum and rights of way, generate interactions upon which social institutions and public activity depend, and produce social effects. Policy-makers have sought to influence media market structures, operations, costs, and behaviors in ways that produce desired social outcomes with respect to the services provided to the public, by whom these services are offered, and under what conditions. Despite the general trend toward the liberalization of telecommunication and broadcasting policy worldwide, policy-makers still regularly introduce and alter policies that have market effects through their decisions about how licenses are provided, how competition laws are applied, what content requirements are placed on firms, and how access to and use of media and communication systems should take place. The increasing use of economic approaches in policy-making in this area can be seen in the United Kingdom (UK), where the Office of Communications (Ofcom), the national regulator for broadcasting and telecommunication services, has included economists on its staff and now requires economic analysis to support decision-making processes – something that the United States (US) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has done for many years. Public broadcasters across Europe are applying forms of the “public value test” that is now being used by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to examine the case for new activities. The test includes analysis of the “value for money” resulting from expenditure of the BBC license fee paid by citizens and the effects of initiatives in the commercial market

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Economic Approaches to Media Policy (BBC Trust 2010). At the global level, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) charged with overseeing intellectual property treaties, recently added economist members to its copyright division, recognizing the significant economic effects of such protection and the need for economic analysis of existing and proposed treaties. Public activities with respect to the media involve a variety of economic factors, including regulations and incentives which are found in competition, industrial, cultural, and media-specific policies designed to produce different types of desired outcomes. These activities respond to and produce economic effects on media market structures, firm revenues and operating costs, market entry and exit, and overall social welfare. Issues of social welfare involving the media are complex because they involve the pursuit of multiple and sometimes conflicting objectives. For example, social objectives of connectedness to the community, the state, and the world, and reductions in disparities in access to news, information, and entertainment are pursued; cultural objectives promoting domestic culture and identity are pursued and reliance on foreign content providers is promoted; political objectives creating an informed and consenting population are supported; media development objectives – a form of industrial policy – encouraging private investment that creates and strengthens domestic media and systems are put in place; national economic policies promoting wealth creation and economic growth are developed; and consumer welfare objectives, such as ensuring that monopolistic tendencies in media and communication systems do not unduly harm consumers and society, are also promoted. This array of policies requires the pursuit of optimal social welfare outcomes that balance multiple objectives in order to ensure an equitable distribution of benefits and costs. This is far more difficult that simply weighing choices on a balance scale or lever and pendulum, and is more akin to simultaneously balancing a board with different outcomes on top of a ball, as shown in Figure 22.1. Achieving the optimal balance ultimately requires economic tradeoffs. For instance, pursuing universal access to broadcasting and a variety of providers may involve providing access to public service or state broadcaster services, and allowing commercial providers to serve only those areas that are commercially viable. Promoting the development of strong commercial players may be


Social objectives

Cultural objectives

National economic objectives

Political objectives

Consumer welfare objectives

Media development objectives

Figure 22.1 Media policy involves choices in balancing social welfare objectives Source: Author.

traded off against anti-siphoning rules with respect to sports and other major national events to ensure their availability on free-to-air television. And promoting consumer welfare may involve controlling and regulating the prices of cable television services as well as the mix of services offered. The historical involvement of the state in the broadcast industry and the use of the state apparatus to achieve social welfare outcomes that may not be achievable through market mechanisms alone both illustrate the social importance accorded to audiovisual media. There is, however, a contemporary trend for states to liberalize policy and regulation, particularly with regard to cablecasting and satellitecasting, and especially when pay services are involved (Dunnett 1990; Silj 1992; Council of Europe 1998; Davis 1999; Napoli 2001; Harcourt 2007). The economic rationale for liberalization is based on the argument that these broadcasting services tend to be niche-oriented and more closely related to private consumption than to public consumption of freeto-air broadcasting. Such services are also seen as being primarily supported by private infrastructure investment than by public investment and as relying on relatively few public resources. Thus, social welfare production, in the case of such services, is seen as being closely aligned with a market-based view of welfare economics. Economic approaches to media policy-making are most clearly evident in the competition and ownership policy, industrial development policy, and cultural and media-specific policy domains,

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each of which is examined in greater detail in the following sections.

Competition and Ownership Policy Competition (anti-trust) policy and laws are based on economic arguments in both theory and practice. They are designed to halt or limit developments that distort competition and the workings of the marketplace. This policy domain is industry neutral insofar as media and communication systems are viewed as being just another industry segment within a wide range of service, manufacturing, and retail industries. Economic analysis in this area employs standardized economic tests of market power, demand elasticity, and market concentration. Economists conceptualize markets as locations in which exchange activities take place and in which sellers provide the same good or service or closely substitutable ones. When applied in analyses for public purposes, this is refined to include a specific “relevant market” for a product or service and a geographic area in which exchange takes place. It is recognized that there are many markets and that firms may be active in only some, or many, markets at different times or simultaneously. Competition policy is based on a normative view of the preferred outcomes of free markets and effective competition. The competition policy approach applies economic analysis to issues involving competition law enforcement. It uses a variety of tests of market power, including “top 4” and “top 8” firm analysis and the Herfindahl– Hirschman Index to establish the level of concentration in a relevant market (Gellhorn and Kovacic 1994; Kaserman and Mayo 1994; Viscusi et al. 2000; Gerardin et al. 2010). These methods are used to determine whether to intervene to halt or alter the terms of proposed mergers and acquisitions or to assess whether dominance in one segment of the industry will be extended to other segments. Economic analysis is also used in examining violations of competition policies intended to tackle predatory pricing, refusals to deal, bundling, and other restraints on trade as well as to determine whether there is a case to take action against companies.


For example, based on the findings of economic analysis, Microsoft was forced in 2006 to unbundle its Windows music player from sales of its personal computer (PC) operating system because the European Commission found that Microsoft had violated competition laws with respect to market concentration by levering its near-monopoly in PC operating systems into the market for network servers and music players. Earlier, the European Commission moved to block a US$20 billion merger between the music industry firms Warner Music Group (Time Warner) and EMI on the grounds that the combined company would gain too much control over contemporary recordings and the catalog of previously recorded music. Central to economic analysis are the ideas that access to the marketplace and independent action by merchants and customers are fundamental in creating broad economic benefit and that access should not be limited by acts of firms or market structures, lest these create imperfections in the market that deny public benefit. This notion has been so powerful that the allied idea of a “marketplace of ideas” is accepted in political philosophy and it became the principal reason for promoting pluralism and diversity in the media industry (Milton 1644/1959; Mill 1982; Schmuhl and Picard 2005) (and see Nordenstreng, ch. 5). Competition law, based on economic analysis, is often applied in cases of media and communication firm mergers and acquisitions, but it has not been particularly effective in limiting the organic growth of large media firms. This has tended to push those interested in promoting plurality and diversity and the implications for media ownership toward the use of cultural or media-specific policies for that purpose.

Economic reasons for consolidation and concentration of media firms The ineffectiveness of competition law and many media-specific ownership laws has stemmed from economic factors and business strategies that create tendencies toward consolidation and concentration. Unless media policies address these underlying issues, they tend not to produce their intended consequences. In general, consolidation and concentration tend to appear in mature industries with saturated

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Economic Approaches to Media Policy markets, in the early phases of new industries and markets, in capital-intensive industries and markets, in small industries and markets, in “natural monopoly” industries, and during the contraction phase of the business cycle. These tendencies are particularly relevant in the case of media markets and ownership policies because books, newspapers, magazines, radio, and television are all mature industries with saturated markets; the Internet, content-on-demand, and other advanced digital services are relatively new industries and are developing new markets; and the costs of creating cable, satellite, and broadband infrastructures are enormous, requiring large firms capable of capital-intensive investment. Small nationstates have fewer media firms than larger ones as a result of resource limitations, tendencies toward monopoly and oligopoly in certain infrastructure markets (especially telecommunication), and as a result of recessions, which tend to promote closures and mergers of media firms – economic factors that also promote consolidation. There are, in addition, specific economic factors in the media industry that tend to promote consolidation and concentration. High “first copy” costs for media content, combined with near-zero marginal costs, join with the significant economies of scale and scope in the media industries, to coalesce in high fixed costs for many media firms, and creating an impetus toward serving large markets with mass audiences and, as a result, concentration. Huge investments are needed to produce television, cable, satellite, and video-on-demand systems, and few firms have the required financial resources. Production costs for major motion pictures and television programs require significant funding by large companies; declining profit margins for individual newspapers, magazines, radio, and television channels can be compensated for by owning multiple units and aggregating revenue across them. The recognition of such characteristics in policy-making, arguably, has led to more informed and effective decision-making in media and communication policy where it is based on competition law.

Ownership control conflicts with other policies A significant challenge in dealing with issues of media concentration is that conflicting economic policies affect media consolidation and concentra-


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tion because policy-makers often pursue different objectives simultaneously through various administrative and regulatory agencies. Objectives for media firms and media industry structures may be addressed through industrial development, labor, trade, competition, cultural, and media-specific policy. Synchronizing the policies in each area to produce a unified outcome with regard to media ownership is nearly impossible because of their respective and incompatible objectives. A first set of policy objectives is related to domestic economic issues and is pursued through industrial development, labor, and trade policies. These have the objectives of developing and sustaining large, successful, domestically owned companies that will contribute significantly to the national economy and employment. These policies also promote the growth of media firms so that they can compete with major firms from other countries or regions with the goal of reaping the economic benefits that flow back into the domestic economy. This objective is especially relevant in Europe, where both European Union (EU) and national policies exist to foster and support regional and domestic media firms that can compete with global media firms based in the US and Asia. A second set of policies is designed to create a level playing field in the media and communication market. This is pursued through competition policy which is intended to halt firm activities that are likely to distort or harm markets, and this is an important policy for addressing media concentration. As noted previously, however, competition policy can block actions that will increase market concentration but it can rarely undo de facto concentration that has occurred primarily because of market choices and the organic growth of media firms. A third set of objectives is pursued through cultural and media-specific policies. These are intended to promote media structures and behaviors that yield social benefit, such as reducing market concentration, promoting plurality, and facilitating information flows and debate. They also include promoting domestic content production, a goal that sometimes involves making choices that encourage concentration at the national and regional levels in order to encourage media production and service provision capabilities. It is clearly difficult to pursue all three sets of objectives with equal vigor, and decisions made to pursue one set of policies often conflict with those

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made in the pursuit of others; or they lead to governmental inaction because there is no consensus on which should take priority.

Industrial Development Policy Governments use policy to develop and promote industries and they have done so in the name of industrial development for two centuries. Initially targeting the manufacturing industries to promote employment, trade, and economic growth, governments have increasingly expended significant resources on developing new technologies and industries by creating cooperative research initiatives involving the state, higher education institutions, and firms. These have been part of national science, technology, and industry policies in promoting developments in electronics, advanced military equipment, information and communication technology (ICT), and biomedical technology and products (Kenney 1986, 2000; Luger 1991; O’Mara 2004). This economic approach is designed to improve competitiveness, create employment, and generate wealth. During the past century and a half, governments have used industrial development policies to promote media and communication infrastructure development such as the telegraph, the telephone, broadcasting, the Internet, and broadband. In recent years, governments in many parts of the world have used similar policies to promote media content production by creating media clusters and other agglomerations designed to generate economic benefits for content creators, especially in the audiovisual production sector (Picard 2008; Achtenhagen and Picard 2009). In Europe, many states and the EU have embedded industrial development policy in media-specific policies such as independent television production quotas. By specifying percentages of broadcasting that must be provided by independent producers, policy-makers have forced public service broadcasters to outsource some production, thus creating demand for the services of independent production companies and leading to the establishment of new firms. The European Commission’s Television without Frontiers Directive (recently updated in the form of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive) (see Pauwels and Donders, ch. 32) embodied this


approach, countering the television production monopolies of public service broadcasters. A new sector was created that could meet demand from the burgeoning commercial television sector by offering European-produced programming, a development which is seen as promoting both economic and cultural objectives. The policy to increase independent European production has been largely effective and it provides a new source of programming for both commercial and public service broadcasters. Although this approach to policy has been economically successful in creating a television production market, critics argue that it has not been particularly successful in encouraging content production that conveys European culture and identity, since the producers primarily offer music, reality, and other popular programming formats that do not serve European cultural public interest purposes. Economic policy has played a significant role in the development of ICT and the Internet. From the 1950s, national science and industrial policies in North America, Europe, and Asia supported the development of the electronics and computer industries. The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (the first Internet linking military and university researchers) and the World Wide Web (the hypertext linked system that was developed by researchers in the European nuclear science community) were developed through government initiatives and became the workable basis for the Internet as we know it today (Hafner 1998; Abbate 2000; Sherman 2003).

Cultural and Media-specific Policy Policies are pursued to promote desirable cultural and social outcomes from media and communication systems, but they too have significant economic aspects because they involve factors such as the structure of media, the production of content and financial support for the media.

Broadcast media structure The appearance of radio and later television confronted policy-makers with three primary philosophical and economic questions: (1) To whom do

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Economic Approaches to Media Policy the airways belong? (2) Who should have use of the radio spectrum? And (3) How should broadcasting be financed? (Coase 1959; Mander 1984). A common answer – the airwaves belong to the public – was nearly universally accepted by policymakers, but they developed different answers to the second and third questions. Whereas European states developed civilian radio as governmentor quasi-government-funded initiatives, the US adopted a commercial approach. This difference was primarily because the political philosophies, financial resources, and capabilities of the European and US governments varied considerably. The US government was relatively weak by comparison. It had little ability to tax the public and faced enormous geographic and technical challenges. Thus, the US government embraced economic incentives for private firms to develop broadcasting services. In consequence, it created the policies of broadcasting localism and local ownership of commercially financed broadcasting stations to increase the number of firms investing in radio and to diffuse economic power away from national enterprises. Today, following the liberalization of broadcasting and telecommunication policies and markets, governments worldwide are revisiting economic questions posed by the development of digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasting, streaming Internet broadcasting, and a range of broadbandbased services. The economic choices that are being made, and which have already been made, all have significant consequences for the structure, ownership, and financing of media systems and their capacity to serve social objectives. Commercial media and systems, which are increasingly becoming the dominant source of content, face challenges posed by their multi-sided platform operations (sometimes called two-sided or dual product markets) in that they must simultaneously serve the needs of both the information and entertainment audiences/consumers and advertisers, and sometimes other groups such as systems operators or retail establishments. In making investment and price decisions they must account for different demand characteristics and interactions among the various consumers. Economic analysis helps to inform price and service choices, and the regulatory incentives that are used to promote the development of such media services. Policy-makers are wrestling with questions about whether to assign spectrum to broadcast or


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telecommunication uses, whether to choose licensees based on auctions or non-price factors, and whether to subsidize the rollout of broadband and digital television services. All of these involve choices about what uses will be made of the spectrum resource, how to finance investment in new services, how to arrange payment for services, and how to achieve the optimal economic and social outcomes for society, including the interests of companies and consumers. The economic approaches to policy-making are well suited to providing evidence in support of these policy processes.

Pluralism Pluralism of media supply, distribution, and use is often sought to ensure access to a variety of information sources, opinions, and expression so that individuals can form their own views and be well represented in the media. Pluralism exists if there are multiple independent and autonomous media; a wide range of media types and diversity of media content; and representation in the media of, among others, the various political and ideological persuasions found in society, the various cultural and ethnic groups, and regions and municipalities. These aspects, of course, are heavily dependent on the economics and financing of the media. As a normative objective, pluralism is easier to promote than to achieve because creating diversity in media supply and encouraging multiple distribution platforms does not necessarily bring plurality in content. And the production of plurality in content is not necessarily welcomed and consumed by audiences. Pluralism is typically pursued through economic policies designed to increase the number of media producers, suppliers, and distributors, by regulating them and by incentivizing their behavior. In doing so, however, policy-makers need to ensure that they do not weaken the industry to the point that content quality is diminished in favor of content quantity or that policies do not hinder the investment of sufficient private financial resources for the development of new communication methods, systems, and services. Policy must thus balance desired outcomes in support of pluralism with available media resources, fashion such policies for the development of both public service media and commercial media, use incentives as well as restrictions, and ensure that policy does not unduly

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inhibit investment. This balancing act requires economic analysis to inform policy-makers about whether their interventions will achieve optimal outcomes. In neoclassical economics, social welfare is defined as the sum of consumer and producer surplus (Moore 2006; Feldman and Serrano 2009). This view of social welfare in the marketplace is sometimes used to justify arguments for limitations on state intervention in the media market, especially by those with an economic interest in the outcome. However, this approach to social welfare does not acknowledge the extensive contributions of Keynesian and post-Keynesian economics and other contributions to economic theory to understanding of public goods, imperfect markets, and the role of states in pursuing social welfare (Stein 1982; Dimand 1988; Harcourt 2006; Lowe and Bardoel 2007). The limited neoclassical view of social welfare is somewhat problematically applied in the analysis of broadcasting because it involves the use of public spaces (e.g., radio spectrum and rights of way for cable infrastructure) and imperfect markets. Most nation-states have rejected a purely market-based approach in order to pursue cultural, political, industrial, as well as other social objectives, through broadcasting policy.

Subsidization Subsidies are sometimes provided for in cultural and media-specific policy in order to pursue particular goals. The general rationale is that the market itself has failed to provide sufficient resources to sustain certain types of firms or specific types of content. The market failure argument is an economic one and many of the choices about how to finance and provide subsidies are based on the economics of content production. In television, this argument is often made with regard to programming for news and public affairs, children, education, and culture – all of which are used as justifications for public service media (Blumler 1992; Engelman 1996; Nissen 2006). In some cases, small countries – or countries overwhelmed by content from larger producers – introduce subsidies to ensure original production of domestic language books, television programs, and films. Ireland, for example, has a film production


policy designed to assist domestic or domestically themed film production as a measure to overcome the effects of the country’s limitations as compared to the UK and the US, both leading suppliers of films to Ireland. Subsidization is also used to support political content production in many nationstates. In the Nordic countries, for example, policy-makers have subsidized newspapers in order to ensure that a range of political views, corresponding to multiple political parties in parliament, can be sustained in the public sphere. The costs of subsidies often are borne through economic policies of taxation. Admissions to motion picture theaters in France are taxed, for example, and generate about €125 million annually in revenues for subsidies directed to the production of French films (Dibie 1993). The Swedish government began taxing newspaper advertising in the 1970s in order to provide subsidies for secondary newspapers as a measure aimed at preserving plurality. This policy has been attacked, however, by the papers themselves, because television advertising – a more recent development – does not have access to a subsidy that would be generated by a similar tax (Picard 1985; Murschetz 1997).

Distribution policies The creation of media products is separate from the distribution of content. Producers with easier access to distribution channels have a significant advantage in getting content to audiences. Where private sector firms are involved, content that is likely to attract larger audiences and/or generate a higher return is more likely to be widely distributed. This phenomenon has been characteristic of the retailing of books, magazines, CDs, and DVDs for many years because retail shops face space limitations and are interested in stocking titles that both move rapidly and generate higher returns. Similar limitations are faced in television and motion picture production, especially in the international trade in audiovisual products. Policymakers in many countries and regions have considered, or are considering, subsidies and other methods to encourage and incentivize mechanisms to improve the distribution capabilities and to reduce the costs of distribution. Policy-makers are increasingly facing similar bottlenecks when dealing with issues including:

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Economic Approaches to Media Policy cable and satellite capacity and choices regarding the channels to be carried, debates over “net neutrality” and whether to permit operator preferences for different types of digital content and capacity utilization, and which firms should receive channel and multiplex allocations on digital terrestrial television platforms. All of these issues involve the underlying economics of media distribution systems and platforms as well as policy choices about whether to use public funds or to introduce regulations and incentives in an effort to achieve socially desirable outcomes.

Conclusion Economic approaches to media and communication policy focus on issues relating to how economic and financial pressures affect communication activities, systems, organizations, and enterprises, including the media and telecommunication. Their application provides a body of knowledge about the choices and uses of resources at the individual, firm, industry, and societal levels and about how the benefits of these choices can be maximized. Economic analysis provides not only a means to examine the inner workings of industries and firms but also the methods for analyzing how choices and uses of resources is likely to affect broader issues, such as consumer and social welfare. Such analysis is concerned with how economic choices affect the kinds of media and communication systems available in society, the kinds of structures and content these systems create, and the implications of these for culture, politics, and society as a whole, including the role of media and communication in economic and social development. As noted above, the approaches within economic policy analysis range from the neoclassical microeconomic and macroeconomic to the highly critical political economy. The appropriateness of a given approach depends upon whether policymakers are studying issues involving individual firms and consumers, markets, and competition, or the overall effects of the range of communication systems and policies. Historically, the bulk of policy-making involving media and communication was conducted at the national level. However,


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the globalization of trade and communication is creating the need for international policy-making on an unprecedented scale. This level of policy is made primarily through multilateral treaties under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and regional and intergovernmental organizations. Increasingly, economic arguments, criteria, and analysis are informing the decisions of these organizations. Great reliance is being placed on economic analysis which is used to inform the creation of economic incentives for markets in order to pursue desired policy outcomes primarily because policy-makers within international organizations do not have the funds at their disposal that policy-makers at the country level typically have available to them for pursuing nonmarket-led options. This reality is resulting in more emphasis on private investment and consumer choice in the development and operation of global communication systems and content markets. Policy-makers at the state level are placing greater emphasis on private investment and consumer choice because public funding for additional communication and media services is limited and competing demands for other financing of social services such as education, health, and social welfare are high. As a result, the roles of regulation and economic incentives in achieving desired policy outcomes are growing in importance and economic analysis is helping to inform debates about the viability of alternative policy options. This is because economic analysis assists policy-makers in assessing the resources available, forecast the likely results of policy interventions, and evaluate the outcomes of such interventions. However, economic approaches, such as those outlined in this chapter alone, cannot fully address the range of issues confronting policy-makers in the field of media and communication policy.

References Abbate, J. (2000) Inventing the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Achtenhagen, L., and Picard, R. G. (2009) “Challenges and success factors in media cluster development,” in I. Bernhard (ed.) The Geography of Innovation and

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Entrepreneurship. Trollhättan: University West, pp. 9–26. Albarran, A. B. (1996) Media Economics: Understanding Markets, Industries and Concepts. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. Alexander, A., Owers, J., and Carveth, R. (eds) (1998) Media Economics. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. BBC Trust (2010) News Services: Public Value Test. London: BBC Trust, http://www.bbc.co. uk/ bbctrust/our_work/new_services/index. shtml (accessed 28/03/2010). Blumler, J. G. (1992) Television and the Public Interest: Vulnerable Values in West European Broadcasting. London: Sage Publications. Bogenschneider, K., and Corbett, T. (2010) Evidence-Based Policy Making: Insights from Policy-Minded Researchers and Research-Minded Policy makers. New York: Routledge. Coase, R. H. (1959) “The Federal Communications Commission,” Journal of Law and Economics, 2: 1–40. Council of Europe (1998) Radio and Television Systems in the EU Member States and Switzerland. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing. Crew, M., and Parker, D. (2006) International Handbook on Economic Regulation. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Davis, W. (1999) The European TV Industry in the 21st Century. London: Informa Publishing Group. Dibie, J.-N. (1993) Aid for Cinematographic and Audio-Visual Production in Europe. London: John Libbey. Dimand, R. W. (1988) The Origins of the Keynesian Revolution. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Doyle, G. (2002) Understanding Media Economics. London: Sage Publications. Dunnett, P. (1990) The World Television Industry: An Economic Analysis. New York: Routledge. Dyson, K., and Humphreys, P. (eds) (1990) The Political Economy of Information: International and European Dimensions. London: Routledge. Engelman, R. (1996) Public Radio and Television in America: A Political History. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Entman, R. M., and Wildman, S. S. (2000) “Reconciling economic and non-economic perspectives on media policy,” Journal of Communication, 42(1): 5–20. Feldman, A., and Serrano, R. (2009) Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory. New York: Springer. Garnham, N. (1990) Capitalism and Communication: Global Culture and Information Economics. London: Sage Publications. Gellhorn, E., and Kovacic, W. E. (1994) Antitrust Law and Economics in a Nutshell (fourth edition). Minneapolis, MN: West Wadsworth. Gerardin, D., Padilla, J., and Petit, N. (2010) EC Competition Law and Economics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Hafner, K. (1998) Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster. Harcourt, A. (2007) The European Union and the Regulation of Media Markets. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Harcourt, G. (2006) The Structure of Post-Keynesian Economics. New York: Columbia University Press. Kaserman, D. L., and Mayo, J. (1994) Government and Business: The Economics of Antitrust and Regulation. Andover: Thomson Learning. Kenney, M. (1986) Biotechnology: The University-Industrial Complex. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kenney, M. (2000) Understanding Silicon Valley: The Anatomy of an Entrepreneurial Region. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Business Books. Lowe, G. F., and Bardoel, J. (eds) (2007) From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media. Göteborg: NORDICOM. Luger, M. I. (1991) Technology in the Garden: Research Parks and Regional Economic Development. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Mander, M. (1984) “The public debate about broadcasting in the 1920s: An interpretive history.” Journal of Broadcasting, 28: 167–184. Mill, J. S. (1982) On Liberty. New York: Viking. Milton, J. (1644/1959) Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. New York: Macmillan. Mosco, V., and Wasko, J. (eds) (1988) Political Economy of Information. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Murschetz, P. (1997) State Support of the Press: Theory and Practice: A Survey of Austria, France, Norway and Sweden. Düsseldorf: European Institute for the Media. Moore, J. C. (2006) General Equilibrium and Welfare Economics: An Introduction. New York: Springer. Napoli, P. M. (2001) Foundations of Communications Policy: Principles and Process in the Regulation of Electronic Media. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Nissen, C. S. (ed.) (2006) Making a Difference: Public Service Broadcasting in the European Media Landscape. Eastleigh: John Libbey. O’Mara, M. P. (2004) Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search for the Next Silicon Valley. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Owen, B. M., Beebe, J. H., and Manning, W. G. (1974) Television Economics. Lexington, VA: Lexington Books. Owen, B. M., and Wildman, S. S. (1992) Video Economics. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Pawson, R. (2006) Evidence-Based Policy: A Realistic Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Picard, R. G. (1985) The Press and the Decline of Democracy: The Democratic Socialist Response in Public Policy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

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Economic Approaches to Media Policy Picard, R. G. (1989) Media Economics: Concepts and Issues. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Picard, R. G. (2002) The Economics and Financing of Media Companies. New York: Fordham University Press. Picard, R. G. (2005) “Historical trends and patterns in media economics,” in A. B. Albarran, S. ChanOlmsted, and M. Wirth (eds) Handbook of Media Management and Economics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 23–36. Picard, R. G. (2008) “Media clusters: Local agglomeration in an industry developing networked virtual clusters.” Working Paper 2008-3. Jönköping: Jönköping International Business School. Schmuhl, R., and Picard, R. (2005) “The marketplace of ideas,” in G. Overholser and K. Hall Jamieson (eds) The Institutions of Democracy: The Press. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 141–155.


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Sherman, J. (2003) The History of the Internet. London: Franklin Watts. Silj, A. (1992) The New Television in Europe. Luton: University of Luton Press. Stein, J. L. (1982) Monetarist, Keynesian and New Classical Economics. Oxford: Blackwell. Viscusi, W. K., Vernon, J. M., and Harrigan Jr., J. E. (2000) Economics of Regulation and Antitrust (third edition). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Webb, G. K. (1983) The Economics of Cable Television. Lexington, MD: Lexington Books. Weimer, D., and Vinning, A. (2010) Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice (fifth edition). White Plains, NY: Longman. Wildman, S. S. (1998) “Media and multimedia: The challenge of policy and economic analysis,” Information Economics and Policy, 10(1): 1–8.

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23

Postcolonial Media Policy Under the Long Shadow of Empire Amin Alhassan and Paula Chakravartty

Introduction1 Media and communication policy for nations and societies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is deeply embedded in discourses and practices of development and modernization, which we trace to a longer history of colonial, national and international governance. In the contemporary neoliberal era, the postcolonial state often legitimates its authority in articulating national development as the basis of policy initiatives around expansion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the liberalization of its media and cultural industries. What we find if we unpack the normatively neutral assumptions behind national media and communication policy is not simply the unequal balance of power of transnational corporations and institutions of governance (such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO)) over local actors. Rather, it is within the discourse of modernization and development that the postcolonial state finds the language to connect with various constituents of the nation. The legacy of the colonial encounter, as we argue below, is visible in the ways in which the actual state practices of policy-making often betray what are unresolved fundamental questions of inequality and exclusion, upon which national discourses of development are founded.

The challenge of inequality and resource distribution has become even more daunting in recent times when outcomes of national policy initiatives are highly contingent on a narrow set of rules established in the global arena, despite the most recent financial crisis in the very heart of Empire.2 Obviously, the collapse of the very coherence of the “Third World” as a geopolitical category, and the rise of regional – if not global – powers, such as China, as well as Brazil, India, and South Africa, challenge our assumptions about axes of political, economic, and cultural power. However, we would argue that, if anything, narratives of dramatic economic growth in the context of unprecedented social disparity within the few powerful postcolonial nation-states that are considered “emerging powers” provide even more reason to intervene in an attempt to re-theorize the role of the postcolonial state in discussions of media and communication policy. We argue that this is true in terms of the need to reconsider the legacy of Empire in constituting the global governance of communication both historically and in the present day. In terms of conceptualizing the developmental state, we mean the shared postcolonial legacy whereby the nation-state, in pursuing a modernization approach to development, has a commanding influence in the macroeconomic allocation of resources and in defining the spaces for private



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Postcolonial Media Policy and Empire sector participation in the national economy. The non-developmental state is often limited to a regulatory function of the economy and the provision of an enabling environment. For the developmental state, however, the state becomes a key industrial actor as well as a regulator of the economy. Drawing on postcolonial studies of the culture of the state, we seek to show that an historically specific understanding of the regulative and distributive actions of the state should start with an interrogation of its formation, taking into consideration its colonial roots, the routes of international capital, and the role these two factors play in shaping the growing importance of civil society groups in policy-making. Although Foucault himself had little to say about the colonial encounter, we are building upon Foucault’s attention to knowledge creation as a constitutive dimension of the making of Empire. Beginning with Edward Saïd (1979), postcolonial scholars influenced by Foucault have convincingly shown the pedagogic power of modernizing discourses rooted in the assumed “backwardness” of non-European cultures and peoples.3 As Saïd (1979) argued, the power of Orientalist discourse tells us much about how the West continues to see itself in relation to the aberrant imagined non-West. In the postcolonial context, it also helps us trace a certain degree of consistency between the logic of colonial liberal paternalism toward subject populations and the postcolonial state’s use of mass media for mobilization, modernization, and cultural uplift (Abu-Lughod 2005). Since the 1990s, scholars studying colonial societies, where rule was based on conquest, have found it productive to engage with Foucault’s concept of governmentality to examine how practices of rule were articulated through sovereignty, government, and discipline (Mbembe 2001; Mitchell 2002; Ong 2006; Murray-Li 2007). For these scholars, “politics as technology” is a crucial link between colonial and postcolonial modes of governmentality that become especially resonant in the contemporary era of neoliberalism. To that effect, our chapter begins with a brief literature review of the field of communication policy in relation to development communication (see also Manyozo, ch. 20), followed by a substantive discussion of the historical legacy of the colonial rule of law and the theoretical significance for our understanding of postcolonial nation-state– society relationships. To expand on this argument


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empirically, we follow up with a brief discussion of how the postcolonial state was understood in terms of the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) era of the 1970s and an extended discussion of how civil society was conceptualized in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) era. Our objective is to show that the colonial/postcolonial encounter is mutually constitutive such that the discourses and practices of media and communication policy in the North are, themselves, at least partially, a reflection of this historical formation.4

Communication Policy as Development: The View from the South In considering the scholarship on media and communication policy since the institutionalization of the field of international communication as an area of inquiry, it becomes clear that for nations in what we now recognize as the global South “development” has been the primary analytical focus with the assumption being that the postcolonial state holds unquestioned entitlement to be the principal agent. Against this backdrop, the postcolonial state in much of Asia, Africa, and Latin America successfully has legitimated itself, not as an outcome of a negotiated product of civil society and capital as, for instance, Johan Galtung (1999) will have it, but as an institution that founds its primary purpose of existence upon the discourse of national development planning and modernization. Martín-Barbero (1993: 165) points out that the postcolonial state appropriated the modernizing technologies of communication in part to realize this selfproclaimed mandate of development. In looking through the extensive discussions on communication and modernization contained in the first generation of scholarship (e.g., Lerner 1958; Schramm 1964), however, one finds a stunning absence of a theoretical attempt within the field to understand the institutional agency of the state. Instead, the search for clues to effective modernization is sought through human behavioral patterns (as was the case with modernization theorists) or through subsuming the complexity of local and national actors under the wider global political economy of international communication.

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The subsequent attempts at expanding the field followed this paradigm of neglect of theorizing the state. For instance, Jayaweera and Amunuguma (1987), Casmir (1991), and Melkote (1991) (with a focus on development communication), and Schiller (1976) and Nordenstreng and Schiller (1979, 1993) (for instance, on international communication) were all disinterested in analyzing the postcolonial state as a site of power. Rather, the assumption was that the serious business of development was enough justification for the state’s existence as the initiator and principal actor on media and communication policy. The landmark text of the MacBride Report (ICSCP 1980) was, however, explicit about its expectation of the state, be it in the global North or the global South. It recognized the main prerogative of the state as providing “conditions for communication” within the nation-state. It also acknowledged that the state sometimes takes part in the business of dissemination, which could lead to anti-democratic outcomes (ICSCP 1980: 120). The historical trajectory of the state, its colonial heritage, and how power is reproduced within the postcolonial context as the embodiment of the state apparatus was simply unappealing to these scholarly attempts at laying the foundation for development communication policy. Recent scholarship in the field, while broaching the subject of the state, tends to shift the emphasis away from making sense of the historical formation of the postcolonial state and how its trajectory impacts on its agency ( Jacobson and Servaes 1999; Servaes 1999; Okigbo and Eribo 2004; Hemer and Tufte 2005; McPhail 2009).5 How do we make sense of this scholarly neglect of what Mosco (1996: 250) calls “the constitutive role of the state?” In 1985, Cees Hamelink lamented that: Over the past 20–30 years insufficient attention has been paid to research results by policymakers. All the studies that have been done so far on the relationship between social research and actual policy making show that in the majority of cases, policy makers on various levels totally neglect research. They do not want to be bothered by it or even read it. (IPDC 1985: 26)

Hamelink cussion of Tampere UNESCO,


was contributing to a roundtable dispolicy-makers and experts convened at University, Finland, on behalf of on communication and development

activities. Almost two decades later, Sandra Braman (2003) would bemoan this enduring chasm between policy-makers (the state) and academic policy researchers. Whether this chasm is a consequence of a lack of a comprehensive theory on the state in communication policy may be a subject for debate. However, what is undeniable is the lack of theory about the postcolonial state as an agent of communication policy. Where an attempt is made explicitly to account for the relationship between the state, civil society, and capital, the tendency has been to subsume the European or American experience of state formation as the default framework. Johan Galtung’s (1999) chapter on “State, capital and the civil society: A problem of communication,” which was used as the seminal introduction in Towards Equity in Global Communication: MacBride Update (Vincent et al. 1999), is an example of this approach. Galtung’s normative framework locates the media in the center of the triangle of state, capital, and civil society, and develops a typology that shows how all three categories relate to each other, through, and outside, the media. The framework is helpful in understanding the complex business of communication policy-making at both the national and international levels. The state is liable to capture by capital through lobbying, especially as capital has the ability also to infiltrate civil society as a force to reckon with, through sponsorship of civil society groups. In another scenario, the ability of civil society to shape state agency depends upon how weak or how strong it is. And in a regime of weak capital, both state and civil society tend to have dominance in the outcome of policy-making. As a normative framework, Galtung’s model is reflective of a particular modernist experience where the state is a product of a negotiation of an emerging civil society and a bourgeoning capitalist class over the restructuring of a weakened European feudal state. In a sense then, it is a modernist attempt at a grand theory of state, civil society, and capital. While it acknowledges the state as a site of contestation, it does not allow us to understand how this contest is regularly resolved and crystallized in policy-making and policy outcomes in circumstances where international actors have local economic interests to promote. Further, it does not make a space for us to interrogate how the history of state formation impacts upon the complex processes of contemporary policy-making.

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Postcolonial Media Policy and Empire

Colonial Power and the Rule of Law What can the colonial and postcolonial experience of state formation teach us about media and communication policy? Is the assumption that the postcolonial state automatically represents the “national interest” in development and communication policymaking sustainable? Taking this discussion further into history uncovers the fact that commonplace assumptions and practices of development and modernization have been shown to be rooted in understandings of social change in what have been called the “traditional societies” that emerged through the colonial encounter. As many rigorous theoretical and historical works have uncovered, colonial power, while enacted through violence, was justified by liberal reformers both in theory and practice, as a humanitarian endeavor intended to transform (civilize) traditional societies by replacing arbitrary despotism with the rule of law (Bhuta 2008). Political theorists like Uday Mehta have shown how this notion of the “sacred trust” of tutelage by the colonial administrators of native subjects was understood as a necessary form of temporary domination – such that the subjects could be educated to govern themselves – for the ultimate longterm goal of societal emancipation. In his study on how British colonial rule of India shaped liberal legal theory, Mehta (1999: 79–80) argues that “the will to power” that liberal reformers like John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham expressed for Empire was always “a beneficent compensation for someone else’s powerlessness relative to a more elevated order.” That “elevated order” was the ideal liberal polity which granted individual rights that would eventually free the lowly Indian villager who had to abide by feudal customs of caste and community determined through arbitrary rule by illegitimate local rulers. For liberal reformers, the main responsibility for colonial administrators of the British Raj was thus understood as “security and happiness of its native subjects.” As Nehal Bhuta (2008: 5) argues, this was realized through “the reconstruction of Indian political institutions, to make Indian law more ‘rational’, and thus more benevolent.” Similarly, Achille Mbembe (2001) captures so well the anatomy of the colonial state in Africa


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with his analysis of the commandement as its very essence. Mbembe (2001) resurrects a colonial term, commandement, aptly to describe the nature of the relationship between the colony state and its subjects as well as the postcolonial state and the people it rules. He suggests that we give up a binary understanding of power relations characterized by, among others, resistance/passivity, subjection/ autonomy, hegemony/counter hegemony. The commandement as an apparatus of violence was a colonial invention to ensure the colony’s “forced loyalty” to the Empire. Thus, it did not derive legitimacy from the people it ruled. This brutally constructed machinery of government is the replica of the postcolonial government. The commandement in the postcolony seeks to legitimate itself in the form of a fetish. And like the mystery that characterizes a fetish, the power relations between the commandement and the ruled cannot be understood by a simple binary logic of domination; it is a complicitous relationship. Liberal rights were promised as a form of “permanent deferral” given that members of native society were “destined to become rights-bearing individuals, but always too immature to exercise those rights” (Wilder 2005: 45–47). In practice, rationalizing sovereign rule meant transforming institutional structures and establishing the rule of law in large and complex societies like India or Egypt, which led to massive efforts at “creating and codifying knowledge” by experts who carefully studied indigenous customs, important texts and ways of life (Dirks 2008). Thus, well beyond exerting direct or indirect control, colonial bureaucracies were “relentless” in their “quest for detailed information about subject populations, in order to better rule them in an enlightened manner and to authorize the fact of that rule” (Bhuta 2008: 6). Extending the same line of reasoning in the case of Egypt, Timothy Mitchell (2002) argues that the expert with command over the technical knowledge necessary accurately to map, survey, and categorize colonial societies can be understood as a form of colonial techno-politics. Mitchell and others have argued that technical expertise by mapmakers, medical scientists, anthropologists, and eventually statisticians rendered colonized peoples as objects of knowledge, whose lives would be improved with technical intervention as opposed to political engagement. Mitchell’s critique of techno-political colonial rule in Egypt,

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like Dirks’ study of Indian colonial social categorization, shows that knowledge creation justifying the implementation of the rule of law was far from neutral and certainly had ambivalent, if not largely negative, consequences in disciplining “traditional” colonial societies.6 For Mitchell, “politics as technology” is a crucial continuity between colonial and postcolonial modes of governmentality. In addition to these Foucauldian perspectives that demonstrate the function of development as a political technology of control in international relations, there is the question of the historical specificity of the state. In his discussion of the Indian experience, Partha Chatterjee makes the point that the postcolonial state acquired its representativeness, and for that matter, its legitimacy, by pursuing a developmental ideology. A developmental ideology then was a constituent part of the self-definition of the postcolonial state. The state was connected to the people not simply through the procedural forms of representative government; it also acquired its representativeness by directing a program of economic development on behalf of the nation. (Chatterjee 1993: 203)

Goran Hyden also captures this phenomenon well when he says that the postcolonial state rearticulated certain key concepts to imply progress. For instance, the class society of yesterday, characterized by privileges based on race, became the classless or revolutionary paradise to be achieved; “law and order type of administration became development administration” (Hyden 1983: 19). The postcolonial state acquired its structures – the military, the police, the civil service, the judiciary – from the colonial system, which the local elite had attacked as alien, exploitative, and unrepresentative of the people. Thus, the postcolonial state acquired its legitimacy and justification by setting up a development administration. “It was in the administration of development that the bureaucracy of the postcolonial state was to assert itself as the universal class, satisfying in the service of the state its private interests by working for the universal goals of the nation” (Chatterjee 1993: 205). Mahmood Mamdani’s (1996) insightful analysis of the obstacles to democratization in contemporary postcolonial Africa offers us a comprehensive new reading of the legacy of colonialism and the state in Africa. One of his central questions focusses on the extent to which the structure of power in


contemporary Africa, embodied in the state, is shaped by its colonial ancestry rather than by the anticolonial revolt that ostensibly brought it into being (Mamdani 1996: 7). Conventional historiography says the British ruled their colonies in Africa through the practice of “Indirect Rule,” while the French did so through “Association.” Mamdani (1996: 37) unmasks these terms and points out that what really took place was a well-thought-out policy of a state form, better described as decentralized despotism. In brief, this was a bifurcated power apparatus between the two worlds of the citizen in the colony and the subject in the protectorate. At the top was the colonial state that oversaw the two types of communities. The first one was a civil society type of arrangement that had a burgeoning modern system of public administration, law, and order with various civil liberties. This first community had, as its members, the expatriate staff of colonial administration and businesses and, in some cases, a young crop of native, Western educated elite. The other community, often larger in terms of population, was the world of the subject under traditional administration. This was the protectorate. It was, so to speak, a case of subletting to local African chiefs large chunks of the colonial area of control. Where there were no previous centralized systems of administration, new chiefs were invented to do the job. These local chiefs were accountable to the colonial state as its junior partners but were not accountable to their subjects. Here, there was no rule of law or any of the known privileges and rights of civil society. On this note, Mamdani (1996: 8) dismisses the tendency to see the apartheid state as an aberrant colonial state. After unmasking the brutal colonial state apparatus in its operations in the protectorates, he points out that the apartheid state was indeed a generic form of the colonial state. From this general historiography we can now read political independence as the moment of the collapsing of the colony and the protectorate into the postcolonial nation-state, as well as an inauguration of an indigenized, but not democratized, state (Mamdani 1996: 8). Thus, the nation-state in most of the global South in this conjuncture can be read as a discursive product. In this discursive project, the symbolizing codes of race, class, and ethnicity were relied upon in order to domesticate difference between what used to be the citizen and the subject. For as it were, in the process of nation

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Postcolonial Media Policy and Empire formation through anti-colonialism, power reproduced itself by exaggerating racial difference and denied the existence of an oppressed majority defined by ethnicity, class, and location. How do we bring this historical account of the global South to bear upon our analytical understanding of contemporary information, and media and communication policy processes? Overlooking how the implications of the historical trajectory of the postcolonial state operated in the constitution of information and media and communication policy prevents us from making sense of how various local actors in both the state and civil society respond to development initiatives related to ICTs and questions about digital inclusion. Is the citizen/subject divide still evident in these new nationstates? How is it reflected in the policy preferences that the local state initiates in the name of development? We contend that while there is clearly great variation, depending on historical differences as well as geopolitical and economic power among postcolonial nation-states, these are important epistemological questions that should be part of the problematic of media and communication researchers. Specifically, in this chapter, we are interested in examining what this means in terms of conceptualizing the state’s relationship with civil society in the context of neoliberal global integration. While the post-World War II discourse of modernization and development disavows the crudest forms of essentialism and racist hierarchies of the past, the development industry – formulated, in part, through the establishment of the Bretton Woods Institutions, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and within the United Nations (UN) and its agencies, more generally – continues in the colonial tradition of rendering the problem of poverty a technical concern, to be solved by experts, whether engineers or economists. Universities in the developed North, as Alhassan (2007) points out, have also benefited from this imperial relationship by replicating a colonial knowledge economy in which the postcolonial margin becomes a site for raw materials to feed the theory mills of development communication. In his influential study of the development industry in Lesotho, James Ferguson argues that the development apparatus served as an “anti-politics machine” that reposes “political questions of land, resources, jobs, or wages as technical ‘problems’


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responsive to the technical ‘development interventions’” (1994: 270). From this perspective, communication resources of the nation are often discussed, not as resources for democracy but as those for “development” in the technical sense of diffusion studies. In order to develop a contextualized framework for theorizing information, media and communication policy-making in the global South, we propose a rethinking of the categories of state, civil society, and capital as given, and we question the relations between the state and the nation. For in the pursuance of policy objectives, especially in the wake of the challenges of regulating new ICTs, the national interest is often invoked, as if the state and nation have no problematic relationship. In his analysis of the African experience of state, civil society, and development discourse, Ferguson (1998) suggests that we abandon thoughts about the state as distinct from society. The idea that each is real and is a framed entity composed of reified and disembodied structures is an illusion, according to Ferguson (1998: 55): “States are viewed not in opposition to something called ‘society’ but as themselves composed of bundles of social practices, every bit as ‘local’ in their social situatedness and materiality as any other.” The very nature of the foundation of the state under the postcolonial milieu suggests that we depart from the normative framework proposed in Galtung (1999).

The Nostalgia for NWICO in Retrospect Following the spread of new ICTs in the 1970s and 1980s, especially the first generation of transborder data flow technologies, the near monopoly situation in global news gathering by only five news agencies, the increasing domination of American films worldwide, and the corresponding decline in the reach of developing countryowned media, developing countries, under the banner of the Non-Aligned Movement, launched a campaign to demand a more democratic communication order (Nordenstreng 1984). What was ironic about the demands of developing countries, in what become known as the NWICO debates at UNESCO, was their disinterest in the

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democratization of communication at the national level, while expecting the West and the United States (US), in particular, to yield to their demand for global democratization (Servaes 1999: 138). How do we make sense of this paradox in information, media, and communication policy? Elites from developing countries acquired an institution of the state that was only indigenized but not democratized and legitimacy through the rhetoric of development and not democracy. The idea that democracy is a luxury that could wait for the serious business of development to be accomplished seems to have been the creed of many postcolonial leaders who led their countries to independence. This thinking went unchallenged even at the international levels until the 1980s, as if the two ideals (i.e., democracy and development) were somehow separable (Alhassan 2004). Media and communication policy in the global South was based on the assumption that the mass media would serve as agent for both individual mobilization and social cohesion. The modern liberal subject would, through media exposure, be driven to achieve as an individual as opposed to following prescribed norms or customs. At the same time, the pedagogic relationship between the postcolonial state and Third World subjects meant that state censorship of minority or oppositional perspectives was also justified for the larger purpose of national development. The promotion of individual rights associated with access to media and new ICTs became linked to the tightening grip of the state in regulating mass media in line with the ostensible objective of national development. If we think of Egypt, Indonesia, Brazil, Chile, and Peru as examples among many others, this almost always happened with the explicit backing of the US and other Western powers, who set aside their commitment to “freedom of information” and, instead, supported authoritarian regimes faithful to a modernization agenda without social upheaval. If we take into account the history of the postcolonial state and interventions in the context of the Cold War, then the trajectory of the promotion of communication rights can be seen as embedded in the contradictions of the project of modernization in the twentieth century. These contradictions stem from the techno-political vision of governance in the colonial era. In this period, Third World political elites embarked on the project of national development, attempting to move forward and to shed


the “flawed” characteristics of pre-modern institutions (Huntington 1968). By the 1960s, with national liberation struggles spilling over to civil wars spurred by the rival superpowers, both bilateral agencies (e.g., USAID) and multilateral ones (e.g., UNESCO), began to make media and communication policy reform a priority. Throughout this period, the Third World village and slum became a social laboratory for development scholars experimenting with the “diffusion of innovations.” These scholars became interested in whether peasants could adopt the rights of individual citizenship or even imagine themselves as entrepreneurs, whether they would use condoms, if they would reject communal practices of religious collective identity, and whether “nation building” could take place without the threat of land redistribution or political revolution. Private firms based primarily in the US and Western Europe saw opportunities for expansion in areas such as telecommunication equipment and the transfer of technologies, advertising, and trade in film and television within the larger objective of promoting development (Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006: 27–28). In retrospect, we can see how the postcolonial state rearticulated development as a way of accommodating difference. But in so doing, it redefined its constitutive role as “developmentalist” and as a provider of public goods by championing development planning. The peculiarity of this developmentalist state has become pertinent in view of the current liberal impatience with states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The privatization of many aspects of developing economies, including their telecommunication sectors (as contained in Structural Adjustment Programs backed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and, by extension, the entire UN system), portends the death of the developmentalist state so to speak. Development as the primary business of the state is now, more or less, being jettisoned and has resulted in the upsurge of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as a replacement for the developmentalist state. The task of postcolonial progressive communication scholarship should be directed at recovering the postcolonial state, not in its old guise as an institution of developmentalism but instead as an accountable institution that guarantees the equitable and democratic distribution of information and communication facilities. To do this, we have to investigate why the recent upsurge of NGOs

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Postcolonial Media Policy and Empire coincides with the dismantling of the state as a provider of public goods. The upsurge of NGOs as actors in global and local communication governance discourse, such as in the WSIS process, makes such an investigation even more timely and relevant.

Neoliberal Techno-Politics and Civil Society in the Era of WSIS In the present era of neoliberal governmentality, we contend that there is a new emphasis on good governance which has reignited and reinvigorated the centrality of ICTs in spurring both development and democracy (Charron et al. 1999; Mkandawire 2004). Liberal media modernization projects dating back to Daniel Lerner in the 1950s and 60s, and through the various reformulations of diffusion of innovation models, were premised on state-led development interventions meant to free individuals to govern themselves as citizen-subjects with a set of rights and responsibilities. In contrast, the neoliberal model is based on a critique of state intervention (e.g., the welfare state, the developmentalist state) and “is predicated on the need to recreate or recapture the individualist essence, in danger of being lost” (Hale 2002: 496). While it may seem counter-intuitive, the “recuperation of the individual” is seen as possible only through the strengthening of non-state actors, whether they are communities, civic associations, faith-based organizations, or NGOs. As Charles Hale (2002: 496) puts it: “the neoliberal state unloads onto its neoliberal citizen-subjects the responsibility to resolve the problems – whether daily or epochal – in which they are immersed.” For institutions like the World Bank, the turn to neoliberal techno-politics thus has meant the active re-regulation of state power toward the promotion of liberalization and trade and the re-organization of state intervention through new “partnerships” with private capital and civil society actors and/or communities (Mitchell 2002; Goldman 2006). The World Bank’s articulation of a good-governance agenda emerged in the early post-Cold War era as the neoliberal institution-building counterpart to its aggressive promotion of structural adjustment policies. External pressures and opposition to World


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Bank and IMF intervention led to an important degree of internal rethinking and reform within the Bank, with a new “post-Washington consensus” discourse emphasizing “inclusive growth” and prioritizing NGO and community participation in studies and projects.7 The new emphasis on eradicating poverty and achieving development through good governance promised community participation and was based on the objectives of transparency, efficiency, and competition. As Tania Murray-Li (2007: 230) demonstrates compellingly, “development in the age of neo-liberalism” draws on the colonial legacy to truly understand local customs and communities in order to transform them effectively. Drawing on a large-scale participatory social development project in Indonesia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Murray-Li shows how new Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques adopted by the World Bank and other development organizations in the 1980s and 90s once again began systematically to remap, classify, document, and interpret characteristics of social organizations across Indonesia, in order to transform political and economic practice. The important point here is to note the ways in which new techniques of development, premised on community/civil society participation, promote individual rights and empowerment by displacing structural and historical inequalities. Individual rights and the legitimacy of specific social actors (i.e., NGOs or civil society organizations (CSOs)) are naturalized against the assumed corrupt or illegitimate motivations of other actors (state actors, political parties, or even social movements). The fact that most “developing” countries lacked civil society organizations with the technical expertise to carry out good governance projects and evaluations, like the one described above, helped usher in a new area of intervention for organizations like the World Bank and USAID. Thus, the promotion of those rights which would hold state organizations accountable, enforce property rights, and provide incentives for individuals to engage in the right to participate in the market, became the object of civil society training and expertise. As Robert Jenkins (2001) points out, the “NGO-ization” of the political landscape embraced by development donors tends purposely to conflate social movement criticisms of the violence of the development state with neoliberal economic orthodoxy.

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In nations with histories of vibrant social movements, often at odds with both powerful state actors and elite private interests, CSOs are encouraged to mobilize behind “free market” reforms that “remove … many decisions not only from the purview of the state, but also the political community, democratically constituted or otherwise” ( Jenkins 2001: 262–263). In this sense, it is constructive to engage with critical discussions about human rights and recognize the substantive limits of the “right to development” as embraced by UN organizations and national governments implementing neoliberal economic reforms. As legal scholar David Kennedy argues in The Dark Sides of Virtue, the human rights movement has directly, if inadvertently, taken issues of distribution off the national and international development agendas (Kennedy 2004), while simultaneously legitimating a series of politically regressive policies. As with the growing prominence of NGOs, the expansion of rights-based approaches to the problem of development most often reinforces political power while promising the gift of individual rights. Given that CSOs (exemplified by NGOs), either in principle or in practice, replaced the role of nonaligned nation-states in raising ethical concerns in the multilateral forum of global communication governance in the era of the WSIS, it then becomes important to map the historical trajectory of these organizations. For many scholars and researchers, the legacy of the NWICO MacBride Commission spurred on a new generation of activists targeting both the national and multilateral policy arenas which challenged the dominant logic of tradebased expansion (Calabrese 2004). With the dramatic collapse of Communism, civil society actors emerged in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s articulating an alternative normative vision for the rules governing the new “information economy.” This new generation of activists presented a distinct normative vision about the role of communication in society, and participated in a novel form of “transnational associational life” as an extension of specific kinds of local or national struggles based largely in the “developed” North (Hamelink 1994). This vision provided a coherent and progressive alternative to the narrow and emerging neoliberal vision of the information society. Colin Sparks (2005) reminds us that the theoretical res-


urrection of civil society as fostering democracy from below, and as expressed by private (capital) interests holding states accountable in the area of communication reform, owes its origins to the political events leading up to the collapse of Communist states in Eastern and Central Europe. While Sparks and other political economists have questioned the “boundedness” or autonomy of civil society (especially from the influence of private capital), the “emancipatory” potential of progressive associations – community media, women’s organizations, human rights organizations, among others – is taken as the starting point for much of the recent discussion about CSOs in the global information economy (Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006: Chapters 5–7). It was such a coming together of voluntary organizations, initially based in the US and Europe, that formed the basis for what would become formalized participation in the WSIS. The WSIS was a two-phase UN Summit held between 2003 and 2005, hosted by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU).8 In 2001, some of these groups formed the Communication Rights for the Information Society (CRIS) campaign, which played a pivotal role in coordinating the civil society voice in the WSIS process, and reinforced the right to communicate as a foundation for debates about social justice: Our vision of the Information Society is grounded in the Right to Communicate, as a means to enhance human rights and to strengthen the social, economic and cultural lives of people and communities. The information society that interests us is one that is based on principles of transparency, diversity, participation and social and economic justice, and inspired by equitable gender, cultural and regional perspectives. (See www.crisinfo.org)

From this statement the way in which progressive organizations like CRIS and others positioned themselves against the dominant discourse of privatized and commercialized cultural industries and the emerging information society is clear. We would also argue, however, that many of the dominant voices within the WSIS civil society positioned themselves as bounded organizations. These organizations hold state and capital in check such that their institutional histories can be traced to Tocquevillian prescriptions for associational life in modern liberal democracies, as

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Postcolonial Media Policy and Empire recently rearticulated by Galtung (1999). In practice, this means that officially recognized civil society organizations like CRIS, among others, while often at loggerheads over substantive objectives, were more often than not in agreement with bureaucrats in multilateral institutions about their legitimate institutional role in democratizing the global governance process.9 In practice, the dominant role of some of these organizations resulted in the centralization and bureaucratization of civil society within the WSIS and became the subject of much heated debate and disagreement within civil society. In effect, a civil society “voice” was coordinated from above through the WSIS Civil Society Bureau and in this process the question of “who counts” as civil society became a central point of contention. The emphasis on the transformation of values was evident at the onset of this process. CSOs began to voice concerns about the fact that accredited national representatives to the ITU from authoritarian states like China, Pakistan, Singapore, and Tunisia were preventing the accreditation of independent voluntary human rights groups from participating. This specific concern raised by prominent CSOs was bolstered by the fact that Northern states strongly opposed the Chinese Delegation’s persistent objection to the inclusion of language in the WSIS official documents that would support the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including Article 19, guaranteeing the right to freedom of expression ( Jørgensen and Marzouki 2005). Northern state delegates, led most aggressively by the US, strategically separated this narrow definition of the “right to communicate” from other redistributive concerns like financing access to affordable telecommunication and ICTs and renegotiating the basis of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in terms of more open access to content, in contrast to the best intentions of the CSOs outlined above (Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006: 158– 159). It is therefore not surprising that the WSIS (2003) Declaration of Principles reaffirms the right to freedom of expression, a right that virtually all CSOs, private sector actors, and the vast majority of nation-states (and most importantly those from the North) vociferously supported. In other substantive areas, especially in the priority development areas seen as crucial to meeting the Millennium Development Goals that directly


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link the alleviation of poverty with access to information resources, there was little agreement between civil society and its “partners” in negotiation. The two most significant areas that were left largely unresolved were IPRs and financing the “bridge” of the digital divide. In these two foundational areas, Northern states were considerably successful in reinforcing existing IPRs and keeping meaningful negotiation off the WSIS agenda, despite the fact that Southern states like Argentina, Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and others argued persistently for the need to rethink the redistributive and developmental impact of laws that favor Northern nation-states and private firms. In the area of digital infrastructure, leading up to the first phase of the Summit in Geneva, the Senegalese Delegation proposed a “Digital Solidarity Fund” (DSF) which led to fervent opposition from the US, the European Union, and Japan. The US proposed a counter “Digital Freedom Initiative” (DFI) that built upon a preexisting USAID African development scheme of promoting “‘enabling environments’ for the creation of US corporate interests in Africa” (Accuosto and Johnson 2005: 8). Critics have argued that the DSF was, in essence, sidelined as a weak mode of financing dependent on voluntary contributions from the North. The absence of tangible mechanisms to address disparities in access between North and South through the WSIS process has been recognized as a profound failure of the WSIS, especially by CSOs based in the South (George 2005; Gurumurthy 2005; Accuosto 2006). Many experts from the global North like Carpentier and Servaes (2006) and Kleinwächter (2004), as well as prominent civil society organizations like the Association for Progressive Communication (APC), saw the lack of meaningful policy intervention in the areas of IPRs and access to ICTs as the result of the low participation of CSOs from the South. That European and North American organizations dominated civil society discussions was explained by the prohibitive costs of attendance, the language of deliberation, and the requisite “expertise” in ICT-related areas (Carpentier and Servaes 2006). The “underrepresentation” of CSOs from the South, especially in contrast to the perceived “overrepresentation” of heads of state from the developing world, was rationalized by many experts as exposing the overwhelming power of

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state actors in the South in relation to civil society organizations. Asian and Middle Eastern countries were seen as exemplary of this kind of civil society deficit (Kleinwächter 2004). As for the differences in perspectives of groups and individuals within civil society, there emerged a sense of frustration, expressed most clearly in the regional meetings in the Arab world, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, that civil society priorities reflected a Northern bias. The arguments presented in these meetings focussed on the prioritization of the civil society agenda. These groups and individuals raised questions about the relevance of a narrow definition of human rights as “freedom of information,” as well as concerns about claims that focussed on state power over individual expression as opposed to state obligations to citizens and communities (Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006). Exemplifying this distinction is the “developmentoriented” focus in creating an information society, as spelled out by delegates from Latin America and Caribbean nation-states participating in the WSIS negotiations in the Rio Commitment: Our firm conviction that all individuals should take an active part in an information society based on shared knowledge, not only as users of new technologies but also as agents of development and content production. To achieve this, we reaffirm the need for promotion of the free flow of ideas and information and the development of a regional and global culture of knowledge sharing.10

The separation of what was referred to as a “development agenda,” emphasizing redistributive demands, as opposed to the narrow claims for freedom of information, was heightened during the WSIS negotiations by the US in voicing condemnation over abuses in some countries in the global South, given the Bush Administration’s persistent evasion and violation of universal standards applied to other nation-states and peoples. Among civil society participants, those who had been most active in the WSIS process, like Anriette Esterhuysen (2005), the Executive Director of the APC, argued that the most significant positive outcome had been the capacity-building and networking opportunities for Southern CSOs to influence policy at the national level. Giving examples from Kenya, the Philippines, South Africa, Senegal, and Brazil, Esterhuysen claimed that local NGOs were able to draw from the alternative Civil Society


Declaration at the WSIS to hold national and local states more accountable. Partnering with local organizations has become the mandate of groups like the APC, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (known by its French acronym, AMARC), and others that internationalized their agendas throughout the 1990s and function today as global networks consisting of local NGOs. This strategy of building transnational grassroots networks illustrates what anthropologist Arturo Escobar conceived of as “post-development,” with local grassroots practitioners embedded in a global network that holds states accountable to placebased interests of the marginalized (Escobar 2001). This model of local “empowerment” aims to improve the expertise in technical areas and is surely a benefit for a range of Southern organizations that have to adapt to the new development prioritization of ICTs in the context of the WSIS. However, we would question this post-developmentalist framing given its tendency to reify the “local” as well as the familiar pedagogic role of CSOs in relation to their Southern counterparts, with the assumption that more training and resources for local organizations in the area of ICTs will lead inevitably to greater public interest intervention modeled after Northern campaigns. For example, the incorporation of civil society within the official development agenda of organizations like the World Bank demonstrates the tenuousness of separating progressive from politically-tainted NGOs, since their overall role in functioning in lieu of or as the state defies political distinctions. The ambivalent relationship between the state and civil society is especially apparent with the “NGO-ization” of politics in the South, beginning in the 1980s and intensifying since the mid-1990s. It is precisely for this reason that postcolonial theorists have turned to the Foucauldian concept of governmentality, where the act of modern government is not the exclusive domain of states from above to society below (Ferguson and Gupta 2002; Mitchell 2002). As James Ferguson (2006: 103) argues, this helps us reconceptualize NGOs in the era of neoliberal development “not as ‘below’ the state, but as integral parts of a new, transnational apparatus of governmentality.” Theorists of global integration have questioned increasingly the pedagogic relationship between CSOs from the North providing technical guidance to local civil society groups, who are assumed to

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Postcolonial Media Policy and Empire have organic connections to communities resisting globalization from below.11 George Yudice reminds us of the “sobering” caution expressed by Brazilian cultural historian Muniz Sodre: critique may be more useful if it focusses on the relations among the state, the consumer market, and civil society, and if it adopts as a given that there is no autonomy of civil society from the state and the market. It may continue to be useful to think of civil society as the institutionalized terrain of the lifeworld but one that is continuous and in tension with the state, with legality, with the market and with transnational entities. (Yudice 2004: 185)

We should take from this cautionary insight the lesson to consider historically the tensions that emerged during the WSIS within civil society. In this case, we must recognize that the relationship between the state and civil society has a specific history and politics in the global South. It is for this reason that Ferguson, Mamdani, and others forcefully question the relevance of the Hegelian formulation of civil society – “sandwiched between the patriarchal family and the universal state” (Mamdani 1996: 14; cf. Ferguson 2006: 92) – in the postcolonial context. Critical scholars studying the relationship between civil society and communication remind us of the thin line between private interests and voluntary associations and are generally cautious about the conflation of NGOs and progressive social movements (Calabrese 2004; Hamelink 2004; Sparks 2005). Clearly, the proliferation of the corporate charity model of development that passes for civil society can be contrasted easily with efforts by more “grassroots” voluntary associations that advocate a “humanitarian” alternative to the neoliberal information economy (Pieterse 2005). While we are in agreement with these critics, we also point out that the assumptions about the very boundedness of a separate sphere of civil society influencing the transnational governance arena is itself problematic. This is not simply because of the growing reach of private interests but also because of the blurriness between the categories of state and civil society that can be traced back to our earlier discussion of colonial and postcolonial state–society relations. In terms of separateness from the market, the point is not that Southern CSOs are “polluted” by their contact with international donor agencies.


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Rather, it is that Southern CSOs are often limited in resources and are therefore dependent on international funding sources if they are to have any impact on transnational governance forums like the WSIS. These constraints on autonomy have to be weighed against the fact that in the two years between the first phase of the WSIS in Geneva and the second phase in Tunis the private sector injected hundreds of millions of dollars into media and communication for the South through public– private partnerships (PPPs), the economic and social impact of which has yet to be understood. The argument put forward here is not that private participation in development communication policy is inherently unethical. Rather, the terms laid out for PPPs tend to replicate a technocratic version of the charity model of development, with civil society and state organizations held captive to the structurally limited good will of corporate partners. Research on comparable corporate social responsibility projects in other development-related sectors, ranging from employment and education to the environment, shows that while these efforts can deal with “some of the worst symptoms of maldevelopment,” they cannot account for the “key political and economic mechanisms through which transnational corporations undermine the development prospects of poor countries” (Utting 2005: 375). In other words, the influence of the private sector in the global governance arena is troubling not because of what this means for civil society autonomy – a problematic assumption in the first place – but rather because of what it means in limiting the range of options for governance. In the case of the WSIS, this meant absolute opposition to any kind of tax-based solution to the “digital divide” following a Global Public Goods framework proposed by some Southern states and CSOs (Accuosto and Johnson 2005). Furthermore, greater participation of the private sector ensured that the issue of IPRs and the “shrinking public domain” were kept firmly off the WSIS agenda (Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006).12

Conclusion Media and communication policy, as understood through the imperatives of development communication, has seen a dramatic renaissance in the

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twenty-first century, similar to the early decades of the Cold War, when winning the hearts and minds of the Third World masses was linked intrinsically to exposure to modern mass media. There are clear differences between the geopolitically charged experiments in modernization from above and the current iterations emphasizing the organic synergy between corporate and state partnerships and local and community empowerment. Moreover, the politically neutral tone of the new participatory approach to development, as discussed in some detail above, helps to justify the astonishing acceleration – both in the scale of development projects incorporating ICTs and in their symbolic significance – and represents a painless transition to modernity. In this chapter, we have argued that it is important to reconsider the historical trajectory of the postcolonial state-civil society formation, a conspicuously under-theorized area within the field of global media and communication policy.13 We have shown how the very assumptions about national media and communication policy in the previous state-led development era (1950s–1970s), as well as the contemporary era, are embedded in a longer and more ambivalent history of development, modernization, and colonial rule. We hold that this historical legacy became especially significant with the end of the Cold War. After the Cold War, a growing geopolitical vacuum allowed for the development of an institutional space in which there was a resurgence of idealized liberal democratic institutional norms; these were treated as the only normative possibility. As legal theorist Nehal Bhuta (2008: 8) frames the issue, “in the absence of an ideological and geopolitical competitor, the horizon for the active realization of these liberal democratic ideals about domestic politics and international order seemed unbounded.” Just as the declining legitimacy of the Western welfare state became the breeding ground for the political movement that gave birth to the Reagan and Thatcher neoliberal revolutions, we can trace the failure of state planning and centralized modernization as the basis for new thinking and practices in the global and national fields of media and communication policy. For nations of the global South, this meant transformative policies of rapid privatization, liberalization, deregulation, and commercialization of the information and cultural industries. Critical scholarship in global media and communication policy studies should pay attention to how


the core values that underwrite imperialism and capitalism are often recycled and renewed to operate in different historical conjunctures. In the colonial and early postcolonial setting, we saw how development was de-politicized and transformed into a technical-managerial project of transforming the individual subject into a modernized citizen. In the postcolonial milieu, development (and, by extension, development communication theory and practice) was as instrumental as political technologies in governmentalizing the global South in international relations. International forums like the NWICO debates, in retrospect, allow us to uncover the illogical stands of the postcolonial state as a lead actor in development and not democracy. In the neoliberal conjuncture, the postcolonial state, legitimized at the dawn of the modernization paradigm as the lead actor in national development, is almost de-legitimated and CSOs are touted as the new bearers of the mandate of development. In the spirit of offering direction for future scholarship, we want to caution that, because conjunctures differ in terms of the opportunities they offer for progressive policy intervention, a normative prescription for our current regime of a neoliberal, globalized framework risks repeating the errors of the past. Taking into consideration the overdetermined character of the agency of institutional and individual actors, we propose that a postcolonial information, media, and communication policy framework should consider how international capital goes through a process of localization within countries of the global South and acquires domestic political instrumentality. For instance, transnational capital, like its predecessors under colonialism, is able to shape and control the rearticulation of the objectives of these policy issues through the financing of, and collaboration with, local NGOs and partnerships with the public sector. What we have, then, is a postcolonial setting where the boundaries of state, civil society, and capital are often collapsed into a hegemonic relationship in which domestic policy outcomes often are borne under the shadow of the imperial requirements of capital. Instead of a blanket designation of which institutional actors bear the legitimate standing of being progressive, we should always interrogate claims to stakeholder representation – be it the postcolonial state, CSOs, or private industry. In addition, national development, often used as a basis for policy initiatives, should always be questioned, as what constitutes development is open to articulation.

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Postcolonial Media Policy and Empire We propose that public access, equity, and democratization should be used as benchmarks for the evaluation of policy initiatives and policy outcomes. When the postcolonial state, CSOs, multilateral institutions, or private sector actors invoke the mantra of development to justify information, media, and communication policy, we have to ask: qui bono?

Notes 1

2

3 4

5

6

7

The authors wish to acknowledge that the section of the chapter that discusses the WSIS debate draws extensively from two previous publications by co-author Chakravartty. See Chakravartty (2007); Chakravartty and Sarikakis (2006: Chapter 6). For more on the history of Empire in shaping economic development choices in the twentieth century, see the influential work of Chang (2002). We provide a more extensive discussion of these works in the second section of the chapter. For further reading on the issues raised in this chapter, see Abu-Lughod (2005), Alhassan (2004a), Chang (2002), Chakravartty and Sarikakis (2006), Chakravartty and Zhao (2008), and Mehta (1999). For a detailed discussion on the neglect of the state in development communication policy, see Waisbord (2003), Alhassan (2004), and Chakravartty and Zhao (2008). Dirks (2008), for example, shows that liberal reformist efforts to change the Indian legal system based on rationalist principles created a “radically different” system of categorization. In practice, this meant that the new British justice system was “far more draconian than Islamic justice had been”. With “an emphasis on fixed and immutable punishment, the new system imposed capital punishment much more frequently” (Bhuta 2008: 6; see also Dirks 2008). While pointing out the important role played in shaping the limits of the neoliberal development agenda, we do not mean to suggest that institutions like The World Bank are monolithic organizations with singular mandates. Charles Hale (2002) argues in his assessment of the Bank’s influence in the arena of indigenous cultural rights, that beginning in the mid-1990s former opponents of the Bank, from social movements and NGOs, began to work for the Bank exerting critical influence from “within.” However, the specific reforms that are initiated by the World Bank could be seen as “actions taken to cede carefully chosen ground in order to more effectively fend off more far-reaching demands, and even more important, to pro-actively shape the terrain on which future negotiations of cultural rights take place” (Hale 2002: 488).


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8 These included, among others, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) based in Canada, the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) based in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK), and the Association for Progressive Communication (APC), a loose network of NGOs that began in the US and the UK. 9 As one of the leading civil society voices in this arena, APC, explained: “The greater involvement of CSOs and other non-state actors may have stemmed from the specialised technical nature of WSIS and does not necessarily create a precedent for other UN processes. Nonetheless, a step has been taken in changing the nature of intergovernmental process. Other global public policy spaces, which require the full involvement of non-state actors in order to shape policy environments that benefit all, could do well to follow the model. For CSOs the specific challenge is to find ways of working on the inside without being diverted from their priorities”; see APC (2006) Pushing and prodding, goading and handholding: Reflections from the APC at the WSIS, at: http://rights.apc.org/ documents/a pc_wsis_reflection_0206.pdf (accessed 24/03/2010). 10 See http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/regional/ declaration-rio.pdf (accessed 24/03/2010). 11 In the last decade, there has been a growing critical debate about the politics of civil society in relation to both redistributive justice and legitimacy and political sovereignty. For further discussion, see Chandhoke (2003), Chatterjee (2004), Chakravartty and Sarikakis (2006), and Ferguson (2006). 12 According to IP Watch, Microsoft became an official sponsor of the WSIS Tunis Summit, at least partially as a way to intervene in the terms of the IPR debate. For more details, see Chakravartty and Sarikakis (2006). 13 In contrast to communication scholars, anthropologists working in media studies have paid closer attention to the legacies of colonial and postcolonial power. For examples of compelling work in this area see Larkin (2008) and Abu-Lughod (2005).

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Wilder, G. (2005) The French Imperial Nation State: Negritude and Colonial Humanism Between the Two Wars. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2003) WSIS Declaration of Principles. Geneva: WSIS. Yudice, G. (2004) The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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24

Policy Imperialism: Bilateral Trade Agreements as Instruments of Media Governance Andrew Calabrese and Marco Briziarelli

Introduction Trade and imperialism have been interdependent for millennia. To be sure, much of the trade in which hegemonic powers have been engaged has shifted from overtly coercive relationships to ones that embrace the veneer of consensus. But this shift is not to suggest that the “armor of coercion” (Gramsci 1971) is missing. It has not been uncommon for the extensive and protracted United States (US) military presence in the Middle East to be characterized as arising out of US oil interests (Harvey 2003). The rise of public relations in international politics and the rituals underlying “soft power” make for new manifestations of imperial domination, along with more complex relationships between military and trade-related hegemony. In the modern world, this is most evident in the preponderant location of the deployed military resources of the current global hegemon – the US – in the part of the world where the most vital strategic resource upon which its economy depends is located. The inextricable relationship between trade and empire is as old as imperialism itself. Spices, silk, sugar, tea, precious metals, and human flesh are among the treasured commodities that have been foundations for the riches of many empires,

including Mongol, Roman, Venetian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Ottoman, and British. As to what constitutes “empire,” this subject has drawn attention and efforts at philosophical refinement in recent years, especially in the light of arguments about the decentered-ness of power and about whether there is such a thing as an American Empire (e.g., Hardt and Negri 2000; Walzer 2003; Passavant and Dean 2004). Our aim is not to contribute further to these debates, despite their usefulness for some purposes. Rather, we employ the concept of imperialism in its quotidian sense, the justification for which we believe is made evident in our discussion of how political-economic power is deployed in areas of global trade related to telecommunication and intellectual property. More specifically, we turn our attention to how the policy instruments used in “global media governance” provide complex and sophisticated means by which trade and empire are bound together. The particular relationship between empire and communication has long been of academic interest. The Canadian political economist Harold Innis pioneered this subject by exploring how the means of communication are central – necessary, but not sufficient – to the rise and fall of empires (Innis 1950/2007). The subject has been taken up by many scholars since (e.g., Schiller 1992;



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Hills 2007; Winseck and Pike 2007), and the breadth of coverage is even wider if we include studies with more of a cultural and less specifically media-centric emphasis (e.g., Tomlinson 1991; Saïd 1993). Apart from its scholarly interest, as some of the works cited here demonstrate, the subject of imperialism also has been central to political practice in the field of communication policy. This is evident in the post-World War II era through provisions in the United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) related to freedom of expression and cultural autonomy; in the 1970s with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Mass Media Declaration (1978), the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) and the MacBride Report (ICSCP 1980); and it also has been a theme in various “civil society” initiatives during and since the period of the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (Calabrese 2006). This chapter closely examines the uses of bilateral trade agreements (BTAs) as instruments of transnational media policy. After presenting an argument for how and why trade agreements, both multilateral and bilateral, display modern manifestations of the exercise of imperial power, this chapter focusses on issues of BTAs in the areas of trade in telecommunications technology and intellectual property. Specific cases of problematic bilateral trade in these areas are presented and analyzed, with the aim of highlighting the risks involved. The chapter concludes by acknowledging that it is unlikely that any global governing mechanisms can or will be put into place to eliminate these risks in the foreseeable future. Since such safeguards are not likely to be implemented, the chapter emphasizes ethical norms that should be used to guide such agreements and emphasizes the value of the ongoing public monitoring of trade terms and enforcement mechanisms. Since this chapter employs a critical stance against bilateralism as a mechanism enabling strong countries to take advantage of weaker ones, we need to look in greater detail at the specific trade-off between multilateralism and bilateralism. This is because BTAs are growing consistently, and we need to explain the possible reasons why these regimes of negotiation remain attractive for countries that are likely to be more exposed to power relations and that, nevertheless, are more attractive


than multilateral ones. In the following two sections, we review arguments for and against the two approaches.

Multilateralism According to thinkers as different as Marx (1906) and Schumpeter (1947), the global capitalist economic system was not characterized by stability, but rather by a permanent state of disequilibrium and the possibility of systemic irrational outcomes. Similarly, Polanyi (1957) describes the inherent double movement in capitalism between laissez faire and state interventionism. The most noticeable contradiction that Polanyi points out is between the normative view of liberal ideology, which conceives of the market as self-regulating, and the undeniable fact that any market, at both the national and supranational levels, necessarily requires a complex structure of regulations that guarantees and enforces law and is responsive to the calculation of risks and profits. From this point of departure, one can imagine replacing Adam Smith’s (1937) “invisible hand” with a set of interventionist activities in the economy: not just within the state but also among states. Apart from this perspective, one can regard activities such as trade negotiations and the operations of an international arbitration regime dealing with disputes and enforcing common rules as efforts to secure national and international political and economic interests. However, the presence of multiple and competing interests presents at the international level the necessity for policy coordination, and, in this sense, multilateralism is widely embraced as the appropriate, if not the best, method of negotiation and mediation. Blum (2008) maintains that the reason that multilateralism has captured so much scholarly attention is because it is instinctively associated with the highest levels of politics, security, human rights, environment, and trade. Cooper (2003: 332) argues that multilateralism conveys a sense of universalism often associated with the aspiration for an “international rule of law.” That appears as the single most important goal of the international system, one upon which all other goals – peace, prosperity, and effective international cooperation – depend. The idea is normatively driven by the Enlightenment

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Policy Imperialism, Media and Bilateral Trade conviction that an international system of sovereign states ruled by the Kantian notions of ratio and veritas could guarantee a “perpetual peace” (Kant 1932). By contrast, multilateralism carries symbolic power that is lacking in the particularistic and fragmentary character of bilateralism. There is also another powerful general argument about the benefits of multilateralism. Viner (1950) examined the two negotiation environments in terms of economic utility and the economic effects of these two paradigms. According to Viner, multilateralism leads to “trade creation” and bilateralism to “trade diversion.” Based on this approach, most academic scholars are critical of the new bilateralism and regionalism which often result in only a modest reduction of mutual trade barriers, claiming that they often cause more trade diversion than trade creation. In similar ways, Bhagwati (1991) frames the debate over multilateralism as about “building blocks” or stumbling blocks to the multilateral freeing of trade. Building blocks contribute to multilateralism by adding new members or by prompting acceleration in multilateral trade negotiations. Stumbling blocks produce the opposite effects. According to Ó Siochrú and Girard (2002), the first attempt that aimed at global coordination emerged from the Congress of Vienna with the objective to re-establish a post-Napoleonic Europe. This first official multilateral European experience was regarded as a way to build consensus and avoid new wars. In the twentieth century, unsurprisingly, the strongest attempts to create a multilateral environment for the discussion and solution of global issues emerged after the two world wars: in the aftermath of the “Great War” in 1919, the League of Nations was created; in 1944, in the final stages of World War II, the International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (later incorporated in the World Bank) were created as a result of the Bretton Woods agreement and the United Nations was ratified in 1945. Those multilateral entities were dedicated to creating a unified international financial system. The Bretton Woods conference raised the necessity of regulating trade as part of the post-World War II economic recovery. After the failure of the United Kingdom (UK)–US-sponsored International Trade Organization (ITO), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), formulated in 1947, remained the only working agreement on international trade aimed at reducing the barriers (mainly


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through tariff reductions) of global trade (GATT 1947). Finally, in 1995, due to discussions that emerged in the so-called “Uruguay Round,” the GATT was superseded by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO institutionalized the previous agreement, guaranteeing a permanent structure, capable of enforcing authoritative sanctions. The WTO, like the GATT that preceded it, had a distinctively multilateral nature (WTO 2010). We first turn to arguments that explicitly favor multilateralism, or at least that prefer it, to the negative implications of bilateralism. Viner (1950) offers a strong argument that multilateral, nondiscriminatory trade arrangements are more effective in ensuring the efficient allocation of manufacturing resources. This is because, for instance, looking at the GATT, all imports must be treated equally and according to the “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) principle (Article I), thus creating the obligation to allocate the resources to the most efficient foreign producer. Conversely, the preferential nature of bilateral agreements may privilege a less efficient foreign producer so that resources will be inefficiently allocated. Multilateralism appears also as the solution to those problems requiring fully coordinated action with no defection by any party because, as Stern (2000) notes, some issues may be solved only through coordination of the international legal system. Thus, the success of an international initiative is due to its ability to establish an effective multilateral regime, which no state could afford to violate. Third, multilateralism offers economies of scale, with lower transaction costs involved in one central negotiation and drafting process that binds parties to one another (Ives 2003). Further, multilateralism can provide coherence and uniformity of regulation, whereas bilateralism promotes fragmentation. The harmonization of rules can reduce the cost of transaction by avoiding the diversity of “rules of origin.” However, uniformity is not universally regarded as desirable. For instance, Koskenniemi (1990) argues that the increased legalization of international negotiation may be counterproductive because it impedes the development of the widest range of possible solutions to a trade issue. A final argument in favor of multilateralism is constructed around the idea that it avoids the unfair advantages of the stronger party created by

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the bilateral agreement. As Kwakwa (2000) notes, weaker countries frequently become “rule takers” instead of negotiating parties. In opposition to bilateralism, multilateral negotiations offer weaker countries the potential to coordinate their positions and bargain collectively with the stronger countries, which may lead to more balanced results. Odell argues that multilateralism as coalition-building constitutes one of the most important resources for developing countries: “A set of mostly weak states managed to gain significantly from a WTO negotiation despite the unfavorable power asymmetry they faced. They worked together as an explicit coalition, larger than most, creating unusual credibility” (Odell 2006: 109). However, Kingsbury (1998) argues that, in fact, much of the world’s inequality is due to the notion of sovereign equality which sanctifies the idea of formal equality over substantive equality.

Bilateralism Despite the popularity of multilateralism, in recent years increasing numbers of countries have pursued regional and BTAs. The first significant trade agreement between the US and Israel, the US–Israel Free Trade Area Agreement (2004), came into effect in 1985, followed by one between the US and Canada in 1989, which led subsequently in 1994 to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA 1992) between the US, Canada, and Mexico. The establishment of NAFTA marked a departure from the WTO format. Rather than focussing on tariff reductions, NAFTA included a discussion of numerous non-tariff barriers to trade and included many topics that attempted to harmonize the commercial legal regimes governing the three states. In addition, NAFTA has been used as a baseline for each of the recent bilateral/ regional FTAs.1 Greenaway (1990: 1286) connects the surge of bilateral negotiations to the anxiety created by an economic recession that preceded the 1990s. He divides the post-WWII era into two periods: 1948–73 and 1974–90. The first period can be considered a golden age for world trade. The average annual global rate of growth was around 7 percent, with the national economies consistently increasing their openness and growing interdependence. The


second period was inaugurated by a conjunction of factors that sensibly lowered the trend rate: the spectacular growth of the newly industrializing countries (NICs), the intensification of the debt problem, two oil shocks, and the growth of the “new protectionism.” The conjunction of those factors created the grounds for the fragmentation of the universalist spirit of Bretton Woods. Among the arguments in favor of bilateralism is that BTAs allow governments to manage their agreements more freely because they are able to conclude detailed agreements with specific partners. By the same reasoning, bilateral agreements enable the two parties to design such arrangements in the way that best suits their needs and interests. Multilateral agreements, in contrast, have to target some ambiguous and sometimes elusive (and often lowest) common denominator of the many national interests involved, deriving from the need to reach a political consensus among the participants. Small countries have almost no ability to individually influence the outcome of multilateral negotiations. At most, they can create groupings in order to represent at least some of their interests, a process that also often involves compromises between themselves, even before the actual process of bargaining and compromising with the larger, more powerful countries. A second argument in favor of bilateralism derives from the presumption that in a successful negotiation resulting in an agreement, both parties will bargain to maximize their advantage as a result of it so that both parties are motivated, presumably, to respect the agreement. Keohane (1986) claims that in the international trade context reciprocity is rather common. In opposition to that, as Raustiala (2005) contends, due to the need to accommodate the common values, interests, and preferences of a large number of participants, multilateralism cannot guarantee the compliance to the rules established by all the parties involved in comparison with the enforcing power of a bilateral agreement. Similarly, Simma (1983) criticizes multilateral outcomes because they are constructed around the least common denominator so that there is no strong reciprocal concession that guarantees compliance. Another common argument is that a process of finding agreement between two parties is likely to be easier than finding agreement among over one hundred WTO Members with different economic

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Policy Imperialism, Media and Bilateral Trade needs and objectives, levels of development, and political agendas. Plus, it is suggested that there are more chances of a Pareto optimal outcome as compared to the “least common denominator” of multilateralism. Fourth, multilateral rule-making appears to be unable to respond to the pace of changing needs and problems of the modern international economy. For example, the first rounds of GATT negotiations took between one and two years to conclude, whereas the Tokyo (1973–1979) and the Uruguay Rounds (1986–1994) took six and eight years respectively, which does not even include the time it took to reach an agreement on launching the rounds. The current Doha Round started in 2001, and it is still unclear if and when it will come to some conclusion. Finally, the most controversial argument, which troubles both neoliberals and critics of neoliberalism alike, is the fact that bilateral agreements often are motivated by political and strategic objectives, transcending the immediate subject matter of the agreements in question. The first FTA concluded by the US provides a good example. It was proposed by the US to Israel and Egypt, following the 1978 Camp David Peace Accord. The idea was to reward Israel and Egypt for their courage in concluding this ground-breaking peace agreement and to reinforce the relations between them and the US in the wake of the Accord and throughout its implementation. Another example of ulterior agendas that lack clear connections to trade interests occurred in Southeast Asia. Iftikhar (1990: 285) argues that US policy objectives in South and Southeast Asia, since 1947, can be categorized as follows: filling the power vacuum in the region after the withdrawal of European colonial powers, containment of communism, and regional stability. An interesting juxtaposition is provided by Bloed and Van Dijk (1999), who argue that bilateral negotiations may be employed in order to defend social minorities. Although there are organizations dedicated to monitoring bilateral trade (such as Bilaterals.org), the agreements are not easily monitored because they are not well publicized and, consequently, receive relatively little media attention. And they generally are viewed unfavorably by advocates of multilateral governance bodies. Among the outspoken critics of BTAs is Joseph Stiglitz, former


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Chief Economist at the World Bank. Stiglitz has observed that such agreements often are based on unequal relations between economically powerful and weak states, and that they undermine free market principles by creating unique trade relations between two states (or two trading blocs), while excluding other partners from the same terms of trade (Stiglitz 2004). The fear associated with BTAs and free trade agreements (FTAs) is that they could fragment the previous global system into regional trading blocs. Especially in the case of the US, many perceived the turn of policy associated with the 1988 Omnibus Trade Bill – in particular, the “Super 301” provisions – as the most significant threat to multilateralism. Briefly, “Super 301” refers to a provision in US trade law pertaining to the monitoring of intellectual property rights (IPRs) worldwide. Bhagwati (1991: 48) defines US trade policy as one of “aggressive unilateralism.” Bhagwati also observes that another important departure from multilateralism relates to the position of developing countries – beneficiaries of “special and differential” treatment (S&D) under the GATT for some years. The US is not the only country that has started using bilateral FTAs. The European Union (EU) is another major player that exercises its influence even with small but strong economies such as Switzerland. Vahl and Grolimund (2006: 47) observe that in the recent BTA between Switzerland and the EU, the former played a negligible role in decision-shaping. Swiss representatives only participated as “rule takers” or, at most, as “active observers.” Another example is provided by the growing rivalry between Japan and China for an economic leadership role in Asia, which prompted them to forge a series of bilateral treaties with other countries in the region. The fact that bilateralism has been adopted also by developing countries needs a careful examination against the popular perception of multilateralism being the ideally democratic and respectful environment for international trading: on the one hand, bilateral negotiations may in fact be regarded as potentially imperialist maneuvers; on the other hand, developing countries seem to be willing to engage in bilateral negotiations. Moreover, such countries do not necessarily enjoy greater gains through multilateral trade agreements (MTAs).

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The Symbiosis between Multilateralism and Bilateralism One of the reasons why BTAs are controversial is that, in principle, they lack the transparency and fairness of MTAs, which can be monitored more easily. This is not to imply that MTAs are unproblematic, as already noted. MTAs also tend to favor dominant states or trading blocs (e.g., the US and the EU). One of the principal concerns that has been raised widely about the power of multilateral trade institutions (e.g., the WTO) is that they undermine state sovereignty and the accountability mechanisms that are in place within many national contexts. Worldwide protests against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), and mass abandonment of the Agreement by country after country in 1998, was in large part due to the successful publicity brought to bear on how the MAI would undermine the social, economic, and political protections that existed within Member States who were party to the agreement in draft form. Many governments rejected the MAI in response to domestic pressures, once it became publicly recognized how national governments would be at risk of losing control over domestic labor, human rights, and environmental policies. These same concerns were carried over in the following year during mass mobilizations against multilateral trade policies that were being proposed at the 1999 Summit of the WTO in Seattle. In sum, although MTAs generally are viewed more favorably in terms of the potential they offer for greater transparency and fairness, this is not necessarily so, as careful observers of multilateral governance have reported. However, as this chapter demonstrates, there is even greater cause for concern about the lack of transparency and uneven bargaining power that is found in BTAs. BTAs are understood more widely as illustrations of how political-economic disparities can be formalized into international trade processes. Blum (2008) notes that very frequently multilateralism and bilateralism are mutually implied. First of all, it is important to consider that neither multilateralism nor bilateralism operates in a vacuum. What happens very often is that those two types of negotiation reinforce each other. For instance, FTAs and BTAs often make the outcomes of multilateral


negotiations more binding. In this sense, bilateral and multilateral agreements are intertwined rather than separate. For instance, the outcome of a given tariff negotiation within the GATT/WTO may be the result of bilateral negotiation between two specific countries which, then, according to the MFN principle, extends to third parties. Thus, tariff concessions are in effect given by one state to a multitude of other states but only in return for concessions from the one single state with which it conducted the bilateral negotiations. In 1995, the year the WTO was founded, at a dinner with the “G-7 Business Round Table,” the then WTO Director-General Renato Ruggiero described two incompatible approaches to global trade negotiations: bilateralism and multilateralism. Ruggiero was concerned about the growing tendency to opt for the bilateral solution to trade negotiations: bilateralism and multilateralism are not interchangeable approaches that are alternatively adopted; they are actually different philosophies. Multilateralism provides a negotiating environment characterized by a theoretically enforceable set of rules that impedes discrimination. Bilateralism appears as discriminatory by definition, unstable by nature, and very often extremely expensive in political terms that cannot be solved under WTO ruling. One main question emerges here: Is multilateralism versus bilateralism the best framework of analysis? According to Saggi and Yildiz (2010; 27) the problem of bilateralism resides in the very multilateral charter of the GATT: the schizophrenic nature of today’s multilateral trading system is reflected in the somewhat conflicting rules of the WTO’s key multilateral trade agreement, i.e. the GATT: Article I of the GATT requires member countries to undertake trade liberalization on a most-favored-nation (MFN) or non-discriminatory basis in relation to all its import and export policies. However, there is an important exception: Article XXIV of the agreement permits a subset of WTO members to pursue Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) “under which they can grant various concessions to each other that they do not have to extend to others.”

The ambiguity of the regulatory framework of the GATT is further reflected by the fact that the vast majority of nation-states has now joined the

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Policy Imperialism, Media and Bilateral Trade WTO, which implies global “voluntary” multilateralism for Member countries involved in an average of six preferential trade agreements (World Bank 2005). Thus, although bilateralism may tend to reproduce asymmetric relations between stronger and weaker countries, the decision for a weaker party to enter into bilateral negotiations with an overwhelmingly stronger party may derive from a complex set of economic and political evaluations that include the self-interest of the weaker state. This efficiency framework is frequently coupled with the normative idea mentioned above. Ives (2003) discusses a body of literature (e.g., Zartman and Berman 1982; Saunders and Albin 1991; Rothman 1992; Spector 1995; Kelman 1996) that considers multilateralism, compared to bilateralism, as a process in which “the underlying interests and needs of different parties are considered to formulate a new and shared definition of the issue area, permitting movement toward a mutual gains mind set,” which reflects a vision of a new era of interdependence, wherein states negotiate rules for the future based on the spirit of consensus (Ives 2003: 47). Ethier (1998) argues that Viner’s point of view was not the most useful means of analyzing the new phenomena of bilateralism and regionalism. Rather, Ethier takes the view that regionalism should be assessed in terms of assisting economies in transition to join the international trading system, in entrenching commitments to economic reform, and in distinguishing these countries from other candidates for foreign direct investment. His perspective concentrates mainly on bilateral agreements concluded between countries in the same geographic regions. In his theory, the success of multilateral liberalization will increase trade between neighbors, which, in turn, will create further incentives to regional trade pacts. Thus, bilateral regionalism and multilateralism feed each other. However, Ethier’s perspective does not take into account that one of the characteristics of the more recent surge in trade bilateralism is that much of it relates to countries separated by great distances. Consider, for instance, the FTAs concluded by the US with Australia, Bahrain, Chile, Jordan, Morocco, and Singapore, and its declared intention to sign such agreements with Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.


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To conclude this comparison, our objective is not to rehabilitate bilateralism but to provide an account of the relationship between multilateralism and bilateralism that would oblige us to not construct a binary opposition between the two types of agreements and, instead, to look at both the complexity and the specificity of historical conditions. This reasoning allows us to take the circumstances that currently affect the areas of intellectual property regulation and telecommunication in their specificity. As Shadlen (2008) maintains, the proliferation of bilateral and regional trade agreements contributes to power asymmetries, especially in the case of US trade relations with its neighbors. Such asymmetries do not occur through overt coercion by way of violence and military occupation, but by the subtle and legal means of enforcing apparently “free” negotiations. Based on this comparison, it is possible to focus on the specific features of international trading in the field of telecommunication and IPRs.

Telecommunication and Intellectual Property Bilateral negotiation is not necessarily accidental or always a result of political arm twisting, but an apparent option. This can be shown in cases of BTAs in the fields of telecommunication and intellectual property. However, sometimes bilateral agreements are not an option. The qualitative distinction of bilateralism in this area is that, compared to other fields, there is remarkable asymmetry between the few countries producing goods connected to knowledge and information and most of the world demanding them. Among strong countries that may use bilateralism instrumentally in this field in order to fulfill economic and political goals, we will focus in particular on the US case, not because it is the only one employing it but because it is a particularly emblematic one. The exceptionality of the US case is due to two main reasons. Historically, the US has been the preeminent producer of goods and services in telecommunication and intellectual property. There is then a strong asymmetrical relationship between the countries supplying and demanding such products and services. Since the late 1970s,

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the US gradually lost its supremacy as an economic power due to the recovery of the European economies and the emergence of Asian actors such as Japan, China, and India, leading to intensified concern with the regulation of economic sectors in which it continued to enjoy market advantages. Sell (1998) notes that from the early 1980s the US government became active against piracy and in favor of strong IPRs due to its loss of global market share. The same author notes that US firms since the 1970s have attributed the loss of revenues to faulty protection of copyright and IPRs, and this led the US government to take action by filing cases under Special 301. This led the US to focus on economic fields in which it was still hegemonic, namely, telecommunication and intellectual property. Several scholars (Aronson and Cowhey 1988; Madden and Savage 1998; Zacher and Sutton 1996) have noted that since the 1970s the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was considering the problem of national monopolies in telecommunication services. Developed countries, headed by the US, eagerly started to develop arguments against the idea of “natural monopoly” in telecommunication services. This first affected its own domestic markets, leading to structural policy changes aimed at privatization and liberalization. Then, the US government started a campaign of bilateral trade negotiations in order to gain access to foreign markets. In part as a reaction to the neoliberal arguments emerging from OECD countries and the already perceived asymmetries between developed and developing countries in this field, important debates took place inside UNESCO during the 1970s that generated calls for a NWICO and the research undertaken by the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP) – or MacBride Commission. One of the most important themes during the UNESCO NWICO debates was the recognition of the imbalance in the flow of information and cultural products. Not surprisingly, the target of the critique was mostly the US, which at that time, and in relation to this debate, decided to withdraw from UNESCO. The report produced by the MacBride Commission in 1980 advocated for an information and communication order based on moral and intellectual principles that considered communication and information as a communitarian wealth.


But this reasoning lost out to market principles that favored dominant players, particularly US-based media interests. Evident in the letter from US Secretary of State George Schultz to UNESCO Director-General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow (see Schultz 1984), announcing the decision of the US government to withdraw its membership from UNESCO, is a clear intent to move away from multilateral cooperation and toward unilateral and bilateral methods of pursuing trade interests in media-related industry sectors (Calabrese 2008). The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement demonstrated that the strongest obstacle against an alternative information and communication order was a politicaleconomic one (WTO 1994). The TRIPS Agreement exemplifies the persistence of the imbalance that is reproduced by bilateralism between the few producers and most of the consumers of intellectual property, since those treaties are imposed by industrialized countries upon the rest of the world to privatize areas previously considered public. Ironic is the fact that even though these agreements are made to create or increase monopolies over knowledge, they often are labelled by their backers as “Free Trade Agreements.” As noted above, the US is not the only country to be caught up in a newfound exuberance for regional and BTAs. In a similar way, the EU, which symbolizes the success of regionalism, is pushing ahead with a range of bilateral and regional trade and investment initiatives, notably the comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the 77 African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries. The EU is also trying to counter US market advantages from an eventual Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Latin America by clinching its own deal with the powerful economies of MERCOSUR. Closer to home, the EU is tightening its bilateral economic and political links in the Middle East and North Africa. Furthermore, the focus should be not only on powerful countries but also on powerful private actors that influence powerful governments. In this sense, as Bettig (1996) notes, there has been a decline of public control over communication systems and the ascendance of private actors who represent the interests of large transnational corporations. Two examples that elucidate how US industry allies with the US government are the US– Canada FTA controversy about cable television in

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Policy Imperialism, Media and Bilateral Trade the early 1990s and the US–Japan trade disputes (such as the one between Kodak and Fuji in 1997). Devereaux et al. (2006: 176) report that private actors in the US system can take the initiative in pressuring Washington to bring a case: “in the instance of Kodak, the firm and its lawyers were the principal source of information on which the USTR [Office of the US Trade Representative] relied to pursue the case.” These cases are ones in which bilateralism reproduces asymmetric power relations even among developed countries. Possibly even more pronounced is the case of Australia. Capling (2005) discusses how the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement, signed on February 8, 2004, affects domestic policy in areas such as culture, public health, and copyright, while producing very little gain for Australian exporters: “Thus, in trade matters, Australia needs the United States more than it needs us. This imbalance has been exacerbated by US import restrictions against many of Australia’s most competitive exports” (Capling 2005: 39). Capling (2005: 78) is one of the few who explicitly refers to the subordination of Australia as “imperial preference … imperial preference subordinates trade policies to broad strategic concerns.” According to such a principle, Australia refused to sign a trade agreement with Japan, due to “imperial solidarity” with the US. Unbalanced power relations can be established even between official allies and developed countries. However, even among developed economies, bilateralism works well to expose weaker negotiating countries to power relations. This raises the question of why countries that are aware of being weaker negotiating parties decide to get involved in bilateral negotiations with the US or the EU. Elkins et al. (2004) point out that the diffusion of BTAs is propelled in good part by competition for credible property rights protection which is required by direct investors. BTAs are a credible commitment device because they provide a meaningful signal to investors. To violate or be accused of violating a treaty would risk serious damage to a government’s reputation and its foreign policy interests. US foreign policy on IPRs consists of encouraging foreign nations to amend their domestic IPR laws by offering favorable trading benefits and economic investment to the countries that comply with the USTR agenda on IPRs. However, if the


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country does not comply with the bilateral agreement it can be placed on a “watch list” under the annual “Special 301 Report.” As noted, bilateral agreements have important repercussions in multilateral arenas such as the WTO, since the countries are in fact compelled to accommodate the position of the stronger party in a bilateral agreement in order to not suffer repercussions. Thus, FTAs and BTAs represent effective ways to silence countries in international and multilateral arenas. The short-term political advantages of favorable trade status with the US are difficult to weigh against national long-term interests of a balanced IPR policy and a rich public domain. Eventually, most countries must accede to the IPR policy demands of the US and sign the bilateral agreement. The governments complying agree to renounce the use of a broad range of policy instruments such as taxation, regulation, currency, and capital restrictions. Smith (2008) states that the US is exporting high levels of IPRs protection, and that such levels not only exceed those required by the TRIPS but frequently de facto oblige the weaker parties to rewrite parts of their legal framework. One example of the complexity of the situations in which bilateral negotiations take place is the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) between the US and Central American countries. CAFTA carries significant consequences for the weaker parties, namely, the necessity to de facto rewrite their constitutions in order to accommodate US businesses. On the other hand, the conformance with the external legal environment may be explained in terms of restructuring their system in ways that can attract foreign investments. Roffe (2004: np) argues that the US–Chile Fair Trade Agreement (2004) constituted a blueprint for later FTAs, and included a full chapter on IPRs. One notable feature of bilateral agreements with the US, Roffe suggests, is that countries are under an “obligation to adjust internal IP regimes to new IP standards, prior to the entrance into force of the agreement.” Subsequently, the US concluded treaties throughout Latin America. A concrete example is Costa Rica. Since 2007, due to its participation in CAFTA, Costa Rica dismantled its constitutionally protected state telecommunication monopoly in order to permit market access by private competitors, which illustrates that BTAs are used to impose constitutional

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reforms. In Costa Rica, telecommunication was one of several affected public services, including water, electricity, and education. In those fields, multinational companies maintain the right to sue the state for reasons that may affect their profits, thereby preventing the state from maintaining such services under public dominion. In the cases of CAFTA and NAFTA, one paradox emerges: the settlements are based on the rhetoric of free trade and free markets; however, the guarantee of IPRs necessitates the national enforcement of the property rights of globe-spanning private monopolies. Even beyond its sphere of geographic proximity, the US has been able to gain access through BTAs and FTAs to domestic telecommunication markets, as in the case of Morocco having granted the use of transmission facilities and the wholesaling of transmission capacities. As in most other bilateral agreements, the main aim of the US in FTA negotiations is to gain access to the services sector, especially finance, insurance, and telecommunication. This is also the case in Thailand, where the then Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has been criticized for selling off the communication and information sector to foreign companies. The South Korea–US bilateral treaty also illustrates imposed national reforms in intellectual property law. South Korea has had to adopt the US and EU definitions of copyright, extending it to seventy years after the death of the author. South Korea will also have to change its rules on patents, and may have to change its national healthcare policy of reimbursing patients only for certain drugs. All these changes will give patent and copyright holders stronger protection for longer.

Conclusion Ruggie (1992: 571) suggests that bilateralism and multilateralism stand apart from imperialism, and he bases his argument on the claim that, unlike the former two arrangements, imperialism coordinates relations among states by “denying the sovereignty of subject states.” But this claim is contradicted by the fact that BTAs and MTAs are both used to force states to change their constitutions to accommodate the agreements. In other words, states may, and often are, forced to compro-


mise their claims to sovereignty as a means of conforming to hegemonic trade frameworks. Such relations may be considered a form of imperialism. If we consider that beyond natural borders nation-states are entities contained within a Westphalian framework of sovereignty, then the idea of exporting legal systems from one country to another, unless the result of a particular free arrangement, was one of the important elements that characterized colonialism and empires. A classic example of the past was the British Empire, which, in cases such as India and Singapore, transplanted its own juridical system into those colonies with success. The practice is not new to imperialism, but through BTAs it has assumed a particularly insidious character which raises the question of how states involved in ostensibly “free” negotiations decide and accept subjection to such a practice. Trade agreements are not necessarily the alternative to imperialism; rather, they are formal arrangements that, in fact, enable latter-day impositions of imperial power. Of course, bilateral agreements are far more blatant in the manner in which trade discipline is imposed directly by powerful states upon weaker ones. However, such imbalances can also be found in multilateral accords. As telecommunication and intellectual property continue to represent increasingly vital arenas of economic power struggles between and among states, such resources are likely to continue being correctly understood as fulcrums upon which imperial power pivots.

Note 1

Sometimes, bilateral trade agreements (BTAs) are referred to as free trade agreements (FTAs), especially by the US government. However, FTAs may be distinguished from BTAs in that the former may involve more than two countries. According to this logic, all BTAs are FTAs, but not all FTAs are BTAs.

References Aronson, J. D., and Cowhey, P. F. (1988) When Countries Talk: Trade in Telecommunications Services. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Australia–US Free Trade Agreement (2004) Australia–US Free Trade Agreement, http://www.ustr.gov/tradeagreements/free-trade-agreements/australian-fta/ final-text (accessed 14/04/2010).

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Policy Imperialism, Media and Bilateral Trade Bettig, R. V. (1996) Copyrighting Culture: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Bhagwati, J. (1991) The World Trading System at Risk. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bloed, A., and Van Dijk, P. (eds) (1999) Protection of Minority Rights Through Bilateral Treaties. The Hague: Kluwer Law. Blum, G. (2008) “Bilateralism, multilateralism, and the architecture of international law,” Harvard International Law Journal, 49(2): 323–379. Calabrese, A. (2006) “The symbolism of international summits and declarations: Reflections on the World Summit on the Information Society,” Global Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition, 1(2): 44–54. Calabrese, A. (2008) “UNESCO,” in W. Donsbach (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, http://www.communication e n c yc l o p e d i a . c o m / s u b s c r i b e r / t o c n o d e ? id=g9781405131995_chunk_g978140513199526_ ss7-1 (accessed 01/04/2010). Capling, A. (2005) All the Way with the USA. Sydney, NSW: University of New South Wales Press Ltd. Central American Free Trade Agreement (2004) Central American Free Trade Agreement. http://www.ustr. gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/ cafta-dr-dominican-republic-central-america-fta/ final-text (accessed 14/04/2010). Cooper, R. (2003) “How shall we answer Robert Kagan?” Transatlantic Internationale Politik, 4(2): 19–25. Devereaux, C., Lawrence, R., and Watkins, M. (2006) Case Studies in US Trade Negotiations. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics. Elkins Z., Guzman, A. T., and Simmons, B. A. (2004) “Competing for capital: The diffusion of bilateral investment treaties, 1960–2000,” UC Berkeley Public Law Research Paper No. 578961. Berkeley, CA: UC Berkeley. Ethier, W. J. (1998) “Regionalism in a multilateral world,” Journal of Political Economy, 106(6): 1114–1245. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (1947) General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, http://www. worldtradelaw.net/uragreements/gatt.pdf (accessed 17/04/2010). Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Q. Hoare and G. N. Smith. New York: International Publishers. Greenaway, D. (1990) “Multilateralism and bilateralism in trade policy,” The Economic Journal, 100: 1286–1287. Hardt, M., and Negri, A. (2000) Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harvey, D. (2003) The New Imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press. Hills, J. (2007) Telecommunications and Empire. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.


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ICT Policy-making and International Trade Agreements in the Caribbean Hopeton S. Dunn

Introduction This chapter takes the Caribbean as a point of departure for an analysis of the effects of information and communication technology (ICT) policy-making and international trade agreements in a developing region. While Caribbean economies are typically small, compared with, say, India, South Africa, Brazil, and China, the region is, nevertheless, reflective of the geography of parts of the global South, notably the Pacific, and emblematic of the historical, economic, and social situations seen elsewhere in the developing world, regardless of size. Even where there are differing histories, many of the issues are shared in common. Growth rates for the ICT and telecommunication sectors in developing countries are expanding at a much faster pace than those of the more mature markets of the global North. These trends are attracting heightened investment interest in global South markets, as capital seeks out more lucrative opportunities. It is international trade agreements and related public policy regimes that mediate these inward investments and national development plans. The positive growth trends in the ICT and telecommunication industries in the South are consistent with the patterns of real gross domestic product

(GDP) growth rates for these economies, reflected, for example, in the four-year period spanning 2005–09. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the economies of developing countries grew by an average of 5 percent, compared to average growth of 1.75 percent for developed countries, over the same period (ECLAC 2008). In the Caribbean, growth rates averaged 3.6 percent in that period, with much higher rates in some sections of the region than others. Economies in the African continent grew by an average of 5.9 percent annually between 2001 and 2008. From the perspective of Jim Marsh, chief executive officer at Cable and Wireless Worldwide: Emerging markets represent a wealth of opportunities for multinational companies and should constitute a crucial aspect of any global growth strategy. These economies are in much better shape than the developed markets today, and are likely to lead the world out of the recession. (Marsh 2009: 9)

The introduction of liberalized trade regimes in ICT services has resulted in burgeoning competition and a spike in inward investment in telecommunication and other digital value-added services. This scenario provides a useful basis on which to



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examine the relationship between development policies and international trade obligations. The impact of trade policies and new technology applications is often experienced differentially in the South and the North, and even within these groupings, this impact will depend on such factors as country size, education status, information access, political and industry leadership, and strategic policy-making. It is noteworthy that a similar study of policy trends and trade regimes in Vietnam maps common issues, concerns, and outcomes as those identified with the Caribbean, indicating shared challenges and approaches across even geographically distant communities of the South (see Trung et al. 2007). It will be argued here that the economy of the Anglophone Caribbean historically has been constrained by restrictive colonial trade and corporate arrangements dating back to the mercantilist era. More recent neocolonial impositions such as those from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the failings and mistakes by regional political leaders since the start of independence, also have had debilitating effects on regional economic development and the pace of adoption of new media and emerging technologies. At the same time, parallel or successor trade agreements and multilateral commitments such as those undertaken through the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the more recent Caribbean ForumEconomic Partnership Agreement (CARIFORUMEPA), are seen as creating opportunities for setting a new and different path for regional economies and the newly prioritized services sector. Though not without their challenges, these and other externally generated pacts are regarded in this analysis as having key beneficial effects in opening competition and stimulating the recognition of the need for more coordinated policies and relevant internal strategies for survival. This analysis will suggest that the economic future of the region is bound up with the emergence of new and better-managed ICT sectors that are integrated with the wider economy. Improved public access to digital tools, strengthened media literacy, and the switchover from analog to digital media technologies are also argued as key likely policy outcomes of the existing public policy and trade agreements, despite some contradictory provisions in them, potentially restricting regional development.


This analysis, then, is a contribution to the growing literature on the impact of ICTs and international trade on media and communication policy-making. Its focus and frame of analysis is the Anglophone Caribbean, within the context of the wider geography of the greater Caribbean. The arguments foreground a history of longstanding British political-economic dominance of the region and the still emerging geopolitical interface between the Caribbean and the Americas, especially the United States (US).

Caribbean: Definitions and Demographics While the greater Caribbean forms the wider regional context of our analysis, the focus of this chapter is on the 15 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Member States. These are Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. The CARICOM grouping was originally, and is still, predominantly Anglophone. However, it now includes French-speaking Haiti and Dutchspeaking Suriname as part of an evolving process of inclusion. Within CARICOM Member States, population sizes vary significantly. According to recent population estimates, the five countries with the largest populations in rank order are: Haiti, with a population of 9.5 million, Jamaica (population of 2.7 million), Trinidad and Tobago (1.3 million), Guyana (0.8 million), and Suriname (0.5 million). Together these five countries account for close to 90 percent of the CARICOM population, which was estimated at just over 16 million in 2006.1 References in this chapter to CARIFORUM mean a trade grouping established in 1992 and consisting of all the Member States of CARICOM, plus the Dominican Republic. The most obvious exclusion from both CARICOM and CARIFORUM is the Caribbean’s largest country, Cuba (with a population of approximately 11.5 million people), which continues to be isolated by US policy from the usual hemispheric bodies such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and trade arrangements such as the North America Free

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ICT, International Trade and the Caribbean Trade Agreement (NAFTA; 1994), despite sustained political opposition in the Caribbean and by the United Nations (UN).

The Caribbean: Economy The English-speaking Caribbean consists of a diverse range of developing countries, operating within a traditional tourism and commodities-based regional economy. The vulnerabilities of this economy include high exposure to natural hazards such as frequent hurricanes and other environmental challenges, global economic fluctuations, individualistic and uncoordinated industrial and development policies, continued overreliance on traditional primary agricultural products, and limited intra-regional trade. These factors are frequently reflected in weak economic performance and a burgeoning trade deficit with non-regional partners. Recognizing the importance of improved policy and economic harmonization, a regional pact for creating a CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) was developed, seeking to transform the vulnerabilities of individual countries into the combined strength of the many, through the promotion and adoption of a regional development agenda, including improved policies for ICTs and the services sector. Over the last two decades, ICTs, and especially telecommunication, have emerged as an important facilitator and development option within the context of a dynamic process of technology globalization and ongoing reforms to international trade. While there has been significant economic progress in a few regional countries, the Caribbean as a whole continues to lag behind many of its postcolonial cohort countries from certain other global regions such as Southeast Asia, based on contrasting development strategies and histories. While Singapore and South Korea moved early to adopt appropriate strategies for integration into a new global knowledge economy, CARICOM countries continued to rely on vestiges of past preferential trade arrangements for sugar and bananas, such as those embodied in the former Cotonou Agreement (2000) between African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries and the European Union (EU). As adverse economic conditions dictate new realities, the Caribbean’s reliance on traditional export commodities, which had formed the basis of three


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centuries of trade, has now started to give way to a more pragmatic dialogue concerning the new ICT industries, offshore data and financial services, and tradable digital cultural commodities such as music and specialized audiovisual products. In particular, trade in services has been highlighted as a facilitator of enhanced global competitiveness and a prospective vector for development in all sectors. Addressing a landmark 2009 Regional Symposium on Services, Edwin Carrington, the Secretary General of CARICOM, observed: The Services Sector as the largest sector of the Community accounts for more than sixty-six percent of annual total output of goods and services – the GDP. It also accounts for more than seventy percent of those employed. … In fact, it could be asserted that the regional economy is a services-based economy. And yet the Community has spent the overwhelming share of its time and effort on the goods sector. With the agriculture sector, especially sugar and bananas, having lost their preferential positions in their historical markets, particularly in the European Union and with the manufacturing sector never having fully developed into a major sector in the Region, the reliance on services was inescapable. (Carrington 2009: np)

While regional declarations as well as individual government initiatives have played their role, the driving forces that have determined the pace and nature of ICT integration or development in the Caribbean have been global trade agreements governing the growth of competition, as well as the technological innovations collectively described as ICTs. The 1997 multilateral agreement by the WTO, for the progressive liberalization of international trade in basic telecommunication services, has been the centerpiece of reform that created the foundation for regional and, indeed, global ICT development trends in the period since its promulgation. This WTO pact, involving 55 national commitment agreements, was signed by 69 governments and trade blocs less than a decade ago, when they undertook to open their domestic markets to foreign competition to varying degrees. In the Caribbean, it facilitated the de-monopolization of the leading telecommunication markets, giving rise to dramatic growth in access and use of ICTs over the next ten years.

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Today, the Caribbean economy consists of a mix of traditional and new sectors. Agricultural commodities such as sugar and bananas have been the main source of employment for more than half a century. With these in decline, other income sources such as tourism, remittances, financial services, telecommunication, and cultural products have emerged as the leading means of both income and employment. Growth rates across countries have varied widely, with countries such as Guyana and Jamaica containing their poverty rates to under 20 percent within the last decade. However, the global economic downturn in 2008 has already reduced some of these gains, as demonstrated in higher unemployment rates throughout the region. For instance, in Jamaica, over 20,000 people were made redundant following the fall out due to declining exports in the bauxite sector. The Eastern Caribbean States, as well as Haiti and Belize, rely principally on high concentrations of agricultural crops. Over the years, dependence on preferential agreements has put these countries in a precarious position in the new dispensation of widespread liberalization and service-oriented economies. Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, and Guyana engage in lucrative natural resource extraction, mainly petro-chemicals in Trinidad and Tobago and bauxite in Jamaica, Suriname, and Guyana. Barbados has taken the route of investing in its human capital, as well as tourism, and as a result has topped the UN’s Human Development Index for many years in its income band.

ICTs and Development: Examining the Nexus There has been considerable, albeit not uncontested, support for the idea that planned ICT development and expanded citizen access to digital tools are beneficial to social and economic development. Studies by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, (UNCTAD Secretariat 2006) and the World Bank (1998), as well as scholars such as Hamelink (1997) and Stiglitz (1989), have lent support to this perspective. These and other scholars have argued, like Trung et al. (2007) of Vietnam, that: ICTs may facilitate and speed up the development process by providing cheaper and more effective


ways and tools of information gathering, processing and dissemination. They are helping accelerate productivity gains and access to health, information or educational services, and are modifying the ways people learn and interact and exchange and voice their interests. It is impossible for a developing country to integrate into the “global information society” if that country has not an adequate access to ICTs. (Trung et al. 2007: 1)

At the same time, there is by no means a universal acceptance of a direct relationship between ICT expansion and economic growth in developing or developed economies. The matter is very much the subject of critical analysis and empirical study at present, including in the Caribbean. None of these studies, however, has argued that ICT development is inimical to economic growth. Many argue, instead, that telecommunication and emerging technology applications, including access to the Internet, have differential impacts depending on other underlying structural variables in the economies of the target countries. Stiglitz (1989), for example, advocates a form of “information-theoretic” economics in understanding development outcomes in less developed countries (LDCs) and, in the same vein, seeks to provide a conceptual link between information and development. The primacy of information as a key determinant of public policy development is captured by Leibstein (1968) who notes that economies of many LDCs suffer from what he calls “obstructed” and “incomplete” processes. In that same vein, Geertz (1978: 7) notes that in many of these countries “information is poor, scarce, mal-distributed, inefficiently communicated, and intensely valued.” Given these observations, Bedi (1999) discusses how, as the conduits for information distribution, ICTs can help to transform these economic systems by working through several key institutional changes, including in the functioning of relevant people, organizations, and markets. Other empirical studies, such as those conducted by Norton (1992), have found statistically significant relationships between the density of telecommunication lines and economic growth rates. The idea is that telecommunication services help to reduce transactional and information costs that then exert a positive influence on mean investment ratios, which in turn lead to growth. While there are cogent criticisms of this analysis (for instance, concerning the methodological adequacy of and

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ICT, International Trade and the Caribbean problems with the econometric techniques used), these studies nonetheless begin to guide our understanding about the role that telecommunication and ICTs can play in economic transformation, especially in the global South. Consistent with the trend of argument presented by Norton, other analysts such as Röller and Waverman (1996) have found that there has to be a minimum threshold of telecommunication density before growth can be achieved. They argue that, having achieved this minimum threshold, a 10 percent increase in telecommunication density leads to a 2.8 percent increase in GDP. These results could be realized, it is claimed, if we relax the standard assumptions in neoclassical economics, to facilitate nonlinearity such as network effects and externalities in the provision of telecommunication and ICT services. Fink et al. (2002), using cross-sectional variables for both developing and developed countries, further found that international variations in communication costs are a significant factor in determining bilateral trade flows, both at the aggregate level and for individual sectors. At the microeconomic level, however, there are less positive pronouncements on the impact of ICTs on firm productivity. We can recall Solow’s (1987) productivity paradox, which notes that the computer age is evident everywhere except in statistics on productivity. Morrison and Brendt (1990), Siegel and Griliches (1991), and Loveman (1994) found no evidence of ICT effects on firm-level productivity. Avgerou (2003) is also less optimistic and more critical of models that offer universalist arguments on the positive link or correlation between ICTs and development. She argues, using Granovetter’s idea, that economic models that employ universal rationality are not sufficiently “socialized.” Instead, there should be a relativist conception of the role of ICTs in the process of development. In other words, ICTs will serve different localities differently, depending on the social factors acting upon the technologies. Avgerou (1998) notes that there is a paradox at play as developing countries try to integrate into the global economy: a grand movement toward homogenization. Developing countries have to manage the complexities involved with demands for homogeneous policies at the global level and, at the same time, innovative policies to create “buy-in” at the local level. There are other fundamental objections to the faith that many have reposed in ICTs as transforma-


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tion tools. It is argued that ICTs can further exacerbate inequalities, because ICT adoption is a function of preexisting variables such as income, education, or even gender in some societies. Within this critique, we should also note observations on the distinction between formal and effective access to ICTs (Wilson 2006). The extent to which there is a disconnect between the capabilities of people and the requirements for the operational use of ICTs suggests the degree to which there will be further unequal use and access to these technologies. Conceptually, the models in economics linking technology to economic growth define technology in very broad terms. According to Kenny (2003), “technology,” as depicted by growth accountants, includes not just new products and processes but also “business technology” (management techniques and systems), “political technology” (forms of government and institutions) and “social technology” (modes of human interaction). Indeed, “it includes everything that might affect output that is not physical (and sometimes educational) capital or labour” (Kenny 2003: 100). While there are multiple and nuanced viewpoints on the issue of ICTs and development, there is a consensus that ICTs can be broadly beneficial to economic growth. However, the calculus is more complex for developing countries that are still recovering from centuries of colonialism or currently reentering draconian economic arrangements imposed within IMF-inspired Structural Adjustment Programs. With all these complexities, Avgerou (1998: 21) puts the ICT and development problematic for developing countries squarely: In brief, economic and social theory on the relationship between ICT and socio-economic change suggests that efforts to spread information and communication technologies are necessary in order to participate in the emerging global economy, but not adequate to create economic growth. Consequently, developing countries are faced not only with the problem of mobilizing investment for IT and telecommunications innovation, but also with pressures to work out appropriate economic policy and organization interventions in order to achieve economic benefits from investment in new technology.

As the Caribbean region moves toward the consolidation and implementation of a single economic

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space by 2015, it is recognized that ICTs will be a major driver for this development, both as a service sector and, very importantly, as an enabler to the growth and development of all other aspects of the economy and society. Globally, telecommunication and ICT services provide the cutting edge that empowers growth within knowledge-based societies. In order for developing states to compete effectively in the global economy, there must be adequate preparation of their service-oriented sectors. With the loss of competitiveness and preference agreements in traditional commodity markets, it is imperative that the region explores the vast potential of value-added service industries, adopts a diversified economic portfolio, and does not return to dependence in any one area, such as tourism or agriculture. Caribbean countries joined the global economy as politically independent states rather late (in the 1960s and 1970s), owing to the significant impact of British colonial policy on the region’s latitude to pursue independent domestic economic and external trade regimes, even into the late twentieth century. Caribbean scholars such as Bernal (1988) have noted the tangible ways in which colonial policies have impacted on and shaped Caribbean economic relationships and strategies even in the decades after political independence. Protectionism, preferential trade agreements, and emphases on primary extractive industries were legacies of the colonial period that continued in Caribbean economies well into the twenty-first century. These historical patterns of economic activity are becoming misfits in a global economy that is being increasingly dominated by services and ICTs.

Communication and Regional Trade Agreements The earliest form of intra-regional trade agreement in the English-speaking Caribbean was the Caribbean Free Trade Agreement (CARIFTA) of 1968 which developed into CARICOM under the Treaty of Chaguaramas in 1973. CARICOM and CARIFTA were established originally to facilitate duty-free trade in goods. There were, however, no explicit provisions regarding services. In 1989, 16 years after the signing of the Treaty, the CARICOM heads of government agreed to


expand CARICOM into the CSME, in order to “deepen the integration process and strengthen the Caribbean Community in all its dimensions” (Laurent 2007: 4). A further deepening of this movement was promulgated in 2001 with a revision to the Treaty of Chaguaramas, which aimed to achieve two main objectives: (i) an extension of “the scope of CARICOM to include th`e free movement of capital and of labour and to liberalize the trade in services” and (ii) an enshrining of “the principle of ‘national treatment’ in all areas” (Laurent 2007: 5). The Treaty revision, however, must be supplemented with national regulation and legislative changes in order to achieve a successful launch of the CSME. Notwithstanding the accession of many of the regional countries to the new multilateral CARICOM trade framework, many countries are still dominated by bilateral trade relations with the North. Worrell (2001) observes that, despite the establishment of CARIFTA in 1965 and the subsequent Treaty of Chaguaramas (1973) which established CARICOM, trading links within the Caribbean have remained weak. In spite of the free movement of media workers and broader professional talent within the region, there has been only limited trade in cultural products and media services. The tendency has been to look outwards to the US for trade, investment, ICTs, and content with a consequential negative impact on regional media, lifestyles, and business (Dunn 2004). It was the WTO’s multilateral framework that was the catalyst for the dismantling of the Cable and Wireless monopoly. It helped to usher competition into the Jamaican telecommunication market in 2001. Many other regional countries followed suit. This allowed for the growth of Caribbean-wide competition in telecommunication, the development of Internet and digital cable services, as well as other forms of new media, which depend on telecommunication as a critical input.

Inherited telecommunication policies and the struggle for reform Issues of liberalization and international trade in telecommunication services appeared to have been of secondary importance during the first three

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Table 25.1 Main telecommunication companies operating in selected Caribbean countries Current market status Antigua/Barbuda Bahamas

Main players

Barbados

Competition in mobile and Internet Duopoly in fixed voice, monopoly in mobile and CATV, Internet liberalized Fully liberalized, 2005

Belize Dominica Dominican Rep. Grenada

Fully liberalized, 2002 Fully liberalized, 2003 Fully liberalized, 1992 Fully liberalized, 2003

Guyana Haiti

Domestic mobile liberalized Mobile liberalized

Jamaica St. Kitts & Nevis

Fully liberalized, 2003 Fully liberalized, 2003

St. Lucia St. Vincent/Grenadines Suriname

Fully liberalized, 2003 Fully liberalized, 2003 Monopoly in fixed and broadband; Mobile liberalized, 2008 Fully liberalized, 2004

Trinidad and Tobago

APUA/PCS, LIME, Cingular, Kelcom Int. BTC. Cable Bahamas, Indigo LIME, Digicel, TeleBarbados, Antilles Crossing, Kelcom Int. Belize Telecommunication Ltd, Speednet LIME, Digicel CLARO, Codetel Orange Dominicana LIME Global Network Providers, TWTC, Digicel GT&T, Cel*Star, CTL, Digicel Conatel Teleco, Haitel, Comcel, Digicel, Rectel LIME, Digicel, CLARO, FLOW LIME, Digicel, Caribbean Cable, St. Kitts Cable, Cariglobe LIME, Digicel, Antilles Crossing LIME, Digicel, Kelcom Intl. Telesur, RTBG, Digicel TSTT, Digicel, FLOW

Source: Adapted from Stern (2006).

decades of Caribbean political independence. Attempts by regional governments to nationalize and operate the telecommunication companies were unsuccessful. And in the period 1987–89, Cable and Wireless reacquired control of Telecommunications of Jamaica, and began a monopoly reign on Jamaica’s telecommunication sector up until 2001, when Jamaica began liberalizing the sector (Dunn 1991). It took the WTO’s demand for regional commitments to liberalization, as well as strong internal citizen advocacy (especially in Jamaica) and, eventually, the collective wisdom of the Caribbean heads of government in 1989, before the regional integration movement recognized the need for strategic telecommunication policy reforms. Only then was there agreement for a move toward harmonization of policies and an effort to engender competition and unshackle businesses from the monopoly telecommunication systems that had become a source of economic pressure itself, and the chief impediment to the region’s drive for a “new economy.”


Competition and the fruits of policy reform The Caribbean region has been identified now as having one of the most robust telecommunication markets, with new mobile subscriber growth estimated at 50 percent per year for the five-year period between 2003 and 2007.2 This has been due mainly to the liberalization of the sector and the entrance of overseas foreign investors in response to competition enabled by the phased implementation of new liberalized policies between 2000 and 2003. It is estimated that by 2005 there were 90 licensed operators across the region, with competition existing in most countries. Table 25.1 shows a listing of the various players across the region. The initial competitor and dominant player in the mobile markets in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados is Digicel Limited, an offshoot of the Irish firm Mossel Limited. This company has also been largely responsible for increasing mobile telecommunication access in several other

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Caribbean and Central American countries, including Haiti and Panama. By 2008, Digicel had invested over US$750 million in Jamaica and US$260 million in Haiti, with similar investments in Trinidad and Tobago and throughout the region.3 These investments have contributed significantly to the economies of the various countries through the direct and indirect creation of jobs. Cable and Wireless remains a competitor in the regional market alongside new entrants such as CLARO, which is owned and operated by América Móvil. This Mexican firm is reported to have invested approximately US$300 million in the Jamaican market in 2008 alone4 to acquire and upgrade an existing minority player MiPhone. The key policy-making strategy of government in the region was to concentrate on mobile services as the first base for competition and in the de-monopolization of the sector. Within the Caribbean, mobile penetration has increased significantly since 2000. In some instances, increasing access to mobile telephony has helped to fill service gaps that have been left unserved by fixed line providers. As the countries reach a saturation point with respect to mobile voice telephony, public policy shifts have taken place toward other areas including mobile broadband access, and triple-play services,5 despite the relative low levels of Internet access and connectivity. The Jamaican authorities already have revised universal access policy to place the focus on increasing broadband access. This shift in focus is consistent with global trends. While access to basic telephone service is significant across the region, access to the Internet remains low, with the level of penetration of computers in households ranging from 1.0 per 100 persons in Haiti to 15.4 per 100 persons in Antigua and Barbuda.6 In Jamaica, while mobile tele-density among the poor stands at 97 percent, across all social classes it exceeds 100 percent of the total population. In contrast, a 2007 study showed broadband access in Jamaica to be 21 percent of households, though rising through improved mobile broadband and wireless systems (Dunn 2007). While the Jamaican household penetration level for broadband is almost on a par with the average for the Americas as a whole, it is low compared with estimates for the leading countries, such as Canada (with 30.9 personal computers (PCs) per


one hundred persons); and the US (which has an estimated 23.6 PCs per one hundred persons) (International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 2008). However, for some countries within the region, there is little relationship between the extent of PC penetration and the number of Internet users. Unlike North America, where access to PCs usually implies access to the Internet, in the Caribbean region, the exorbitant cost of accessing the Internet is the usual prohibiting factor for individual access. Therefore, most peoples gained access to the Internet from public access points or businesses where there are multiple users per service. There is still great dependence on dial-up services in many of the smaller regional markets. In terms of Internet usage and broadband penetration, 2007 data from the ITU indicate that Bermuda7 is the highest-ranked Member State in terms of both Internet users and broadband penetration, followed by Barbados. After Bermuda and Barbados, the level of broadband penetration in the region as a whole is quite low, demonstrating the varied levels of underdevelopment which exist across the countries. Broadband take-up has, however, been recognized as one of the areas most poised for growth, particularly given the high mobile penetration rates across the region. Even so, the present (low) levels of penetration also relate to the limited reach of providers into certain rural and inner-city urban areas where usage is restricted to those who can underwrite the high costs and whose competitiveness depends on good connectivity. The rural populations in Guyana and Haiti, both approximately 63 percent of their total population, are underserved by connectivity owing not only to the lack of phone lines but also to the absence of electricity. The remoteness of some of these areas from the network bases in the national capital, as well as the cost of computer equipment, renders connectivity uneconomical and therefore communication access continues to be served by traditional means such as community radio. The Dominican Republic has nonetheless begun offering broadband services in rural communities via television sets, thereby reducing the need for computers. Fixed telephone penetration, an index often used to measure the state of development of telecommunication infrastructure, varies within

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ICT, International Trade and the Caribbean CARIFORUM between about 50 percent in Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis and 1.7 percent in Haiti. Similarly, there is a wide disparity in the penetration rates of cellular mobile, Internet access, and Internet use.

Cable television, broadcasting, and new media In terms of the other forms of communication in the region, the most significant developments have been the breaking of the government monopoly on television, with the emergence and growth of competing private sector television services as well as the cable industry and the more recent growth of new forms of media.8 Traditional radio remains one of the most widespread mass media, with growth in privately owned, niche, and community-based radio stations. This is demonstrated in the case of Jamaica. Here, the number of radio stations has increased significantly, to 20 stations over the years, to the extent that there is pressure on the spectrum resource to facilitate all interested parties. In Trinidad, there were a reported 38 radio stations in 2008.9 The cable television industry has also grown, especially in Jamaica, where the number of subscriber television providers in 2008 stood at 41 limited areas or community services. There were eight such providers in Trinidad and Tobago. The most significant development in this area has been the growth of a plethora of local and regional television channels, producing and distributing mainly Caribbean music or sports content generated at the community or cultural level. The entry into the Caribbean market of the triple-play service provider FLOW in 2008 further opened the market to a fully digital island-wide operating firm, offering subscriber television, Internet, and wired telephone services. The company is a major provider of digital submarine cable connectivity into the region and to the rest of the world through its Fibralink subsidiary. FLOW now operates in the Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Bahamas markets.10 While some smaller operators have been able to incorporate converged services into their operations, many others have been unable to do so due to the capital costs involved, and the absence of the relevant technical skills. There has been some growth of new media built around the Internet and independent television


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content providers, relying on licensed cable providers. The media industry, as well as the telecommunication industry, is overseen by modern industry regulators in the form of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), and the Spectrum Management Authority (SMA). In Trinidad and Tobago, these various regulatory functions are suitably integrated into the single regulator: the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT). It would be useful to have further studies done to show the extent of usage of video streaming, social networking media, blogging, and other unregulated new media forms in the Caribbean. Generally, developments in the region reflect the broader shifts that have been happening globally and locally, from traditional media to new media, from mass to more personalized means of communication, and from local or national to global reach via the Internet and satellites. However, these changes have been slow in evolving due to various factors including low Internet and broadband penetration (Dunn and Minto 2009).

The GATS, TNCs, and Regional Policy-Making Under global trade arrangements, most Caribbean countries are signatories to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS; WTO 1995). The various states have declared market-opening measures, called “Specific Commitments.” Regional policymaking is therefore subject to GATS principles known as General Obligations and Disciplines (GODs.) The GATS principles include country subscription to a Reference Paper on regulatory reform embodying six key principles for the redesign of national regulatory rules and institutions for compatibility with global trade disciplines: ● ● ● ● ● ●

Competition safeguards Interconnection Universal service Public availability of licensing criteria Independent regulators and Allocation and use of scarce resources (e.g., telephone numbers, electro-magnetic spectrum, domain names).

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These elements have started to enter the policy and legislative frameworks of the Caribbean, but without the necessary levels of harmonization and shared planning required for seamless implementation. Under the GATS, the governments of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados were able to liberalize their telecommunication sectors by 2008. This move resulted in a rapid increase in mobile phone access and a downward trend in ICT-related prices. Notwithstanding the levels of success in telecommunication following liberalization, we must still be reminded that the WTO’s mandate is located within the neoliberal framework of the Washington Consensus that emphasized minimal or no government regulation, market liberalization, and privatization. It is these same principles that have helped to shape Caribbean approaches to communication policy in the 1980s. They have not necessarily worked in the interests of Caribbean development as they undermined the region’s attempts at indigenous capital formation and intraregional trade integration by deepening external bilateral trade relations with traditional colonial powers like Britain or via existing industrialized neighbors, such as the US (Nuechterlein and Weiser 2005). Under Ronald Reagan’s presidency, beginning in 1980, a Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) was launched to deepen ties between the US and Caribbean countries. During the period of the CBI, Caribbean communication commentators expressed concern about the level of external transnational penetration of the region. Among these were Cuthbert and Emke (1988), cited in Lent (1991): No significant change in communication policy can occur unless the political will exists. But with increased US involvement in the region, most countries will not risk pushing policies that might damage ties with the US. Hence the possibility of regionally integrated policy is receding as Caribbean governments respond to increasing bilateral aid packages whose ultimate effect is to “divide and rule”. (Cuthbert and Emke 1988: 5, in Lent 1991: 66–102)

Under enhanced bilateral relations between Caribbean countries and the US, there was an influx of transnational corporations (TNCs) not only in telecommunication but also in financial services and data processing. Lent (1991), for instance, notes that by the mid-1980s, there were more than 1,723


branches of TNCs in the Caribbean, with another 2,000 in Puerto Rico. Included in this mix of TNCs were 77 of the top 100 American corporations and three of largest US banks. The CBI had no doubt contributed to more intensive penetration of Caribbean economies by US branch plants and businesses, including those in the technology and information services sector. But it was the multilateral organizations, the IMF and the World Bank, that had long been at work facilitating the entry of these firms as part of negotiated public policies within the Caribbean.

Nationalization and the Bretton Woods Institutions Trends toward nationalization and indigenization of the regional economies in the 1970s suffered severe reversals once these postwar Bretton Woods institutions had been admitted into national policymaking under trade-related and economic agreements. Newly independent Caribbean governments in Jamaica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, in response to the pressure of popular expectation, began to strengthen regional control over national resources. These measures included majority takeover of foreign-owned telecommunication systems, which meant state and local private sector acquisition of a part of the monopoly or dominant shareholdings of companies such as Cable and Wireless and the media group British Rediffusion. Cable and Wireless was entirely nationalized in Guyana. And in Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad, equity acquisitions in the profitable Cable and Wireless overseas carrier subsidiaries ranged from 40 percent in Barbados to 51 percent in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, where regulatory provisions were made for a programmed increase in national ownership. Such acquisitions and provisions were feasible, if ambitious, propositions in the early 1970s when the basic technology of telecommunication was still a relatively stable body of knowledge that could be profitably acquired and managed. These national initiatives encountered major resistance by the IMF and suffered reversals over the succeeding decade in jurisdictions dependent on IMF loan financing. In Jamaica, Cable and Wireless moved from a shareholding of 9 percent in the then holding company Telecommunications of Jamaica (TOJ) in 1987 to 79 percent

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ICT, International Trade and the Caribbean in 1990. The Minister of Telecommunications and Transport offered the following explanation for the successive sell-offs: It had to do with foreign exchange constraints and of course the whole question of these companies being on the budget … that was a consideration … you are trying to give yourself more room to do what you want to do … without having to answer too many questions to the IMF. (Minister Robert Pickersgill11)

In Trinidad and Tobago, a single negotiation in 1989 saw the government transferring 49 percent of the wholly owned government telephone company to Cable and Wireless to complement a similar shareholding already held by the British company in the overseas carrier. Management of the company Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) was also conceded, in the face of mounting national debt, foreign exchange shortage, and pressures for divestment from the IMF (see Dunn 1995). In their analysis of the IMF-imposed austerity measures on the state in Latin America, Petras and Brill (1986) argue that intervention by the Fund and its accompanying incentives and constraints had altered the economic behavior of social actors in favor of local and international financial capital at the expense of local productive classes. As an integral part of the Western capitalism, the IMF has contributed toward re-structuring third world economies, opening them to exports and flows of capital in periods of world expansion; extraction and transfer of surplus from the third worlds to the west in terms of debt crisis; and enforcement of economic obligations in times of declining income and worldwide economic contraction. (Petras and Brill 1986: 425)

It was clear that, both in Jamaica and Trinidad, the policies of the Western multilateral lending agencies, in particular the IMF and the World Bank, imposed loan agreements tied to programs of divestment and privatization. In Caribbean telecommunication, these policies favored existing foreign interests, particularly Cable and Wireless with its long record of involvement in the region. The facilitative function which historically was performed by the imperialist state in the era of colonialism had been assumed, in the modern period, by these Western multilateral agencies, in


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their mediating role on behalf of private capital between the center and periphery. The IMF does not act independently, nor does its symbolic representation as an international body signify anything less than a political economic instrument for western capital. The IMF is a significant actor, but its effectiveness is based on the economic interests it represents and its capacity to fashion a policy which effectively defends those interests. (Petras and Brill 1986: 425)

Caribbean telecommunication, the IMF and its counterpart, the World Bank, have performed exactly this role in securing the interests of foreign capital. The concern about the return of IMF lending to countries like Jamaica is that its dictates may result in the weakening of the regulatory institutions that have developed to manage and monitor the competing foreign investment companies that have grown to dominate the region’s expanding stock of next-generation network providers.

EU–CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement The existing trade agreement between Caribbean governments and the EU is part of what is described diplomatically as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). It is the successor to the ACP–EU Cotonou Trade Agreement that was itself governed by the WTO’s disfavor of the old preferential trade arrangements between the EU and its former colonies. This reformed EPA trade pact seeks to create a reciprocal Free Trade Area between the EU, on the one hand, and the African Caribbean and Pacific group of countries, on the other. However, there have been mounting criticisms about the unequal economic and resource bases (in the EU and the Caribbean, respectively) for such reciprocal agreements to be viable. Unlike past ACP practices, the EPAs are being negotiated region by region, and the CARIFORUM community was the first of the ACP regional groups to conclude, in 2008, an EPA, despite continuing regional disquiet about its terms. While the EU–CARIFORUM EPA contains potential benefits for CARICOM trade in ICT services, implementation and actual trade commitments will be challenging for the region. For example, provisions in the Agreement that

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Table 25.2 Forms of communication services Modes of supply Cross-border supply

Commercial presence Consumption abroad

Movements of natural persons

Example International telephone calls

Significance

Produces the bulk of revenue in the telecommunication services trade Foreign-owned company Offers scope for foreign offering telephone services investment Mobile roaming Development of global mobile network with use of terrestrial and satellite technology Consulting on Growing need for advice on telecommunication activities policy reform and training

Examples of existing trade barriers Bilateral settlement agreements

Foreign investment and license restrictions Incompatible technical standards and lack of roaming agreements Work permit restrictions

Source: ITC (1999); adapted from Cleland and Gomez (2003).

envisage the electronic delivery of cultural and other media content will confront the reality that, while European media markets are interested in digital products, much of the Caribbean region’s production capacity remains analog. Until successful implementation of the pending “digital switchover” process, this provision in the treaty remains largely meaningless. Nevertheless, Article 5 of the EPA outlines an example of the extent and scope of cooperation to which both parties have agreed: The Parties and the signatory CARIFORUM States, in conformity with their respective legislation, shall facilitate the access of co-productions between one or several producers of the EC Party and one or several producers of Signatory CARIFORUM States to their respective markets, including through the granting of preferential treatment and subject to the provisions of Article 7 of this Agreement, including by facilitating support through the organization of festivals, seminars and similar initiatives. (Thiec and Labrada 2009: 49)

The main provision in this clause of the Agreement is that of co-production between an EU entity and a CARIFORUM entity, based on an 80/20 rule.12 This is an important development for the CARIFORUM region, but for maximum gains to be derived from it there has to be a Caribbeanwide harmonization of the cultural industries and policies in order to benefit from economies of scale


and also to reduce regulatory fragmentation that exists in the broadcasting, telecommunication, and information sectors. Leonard (2009) warns that before the Caribbean can meaningfully gain from the EPA Protocol, policy-makers in the Caribbean creative industries sector must collaborate to determine the full extent of the provisions of the Protocol and its full implications and, thereafter, articulate a common strategy to move forward. Each country also has to legislate, or otherwise activate, the arrangements provided for in the EPA. For example, Jamaica has had a co-production arrangement with the United Kingdom (UK) and Northern Ireland since 2007, making it the only Caribbean country to have a co-production agreement with a European country. However, it has yet to realize any projects from the agreement, owing to a range of practical problems, such as UK immigration policy, onerous visa restrictions and impositions on Jamaican nationals, and challenges identifying partners with similar interests who have the financial basis to support the program. So essentially, this bilateral co-production agreement between Jamaica and the UK is threatened with failure because of practical problems in policy implementation. We turn next to EPA conceptual issues at the national and international levels that have a significant impact on Caribbean communication industries, as the sector seeks to gain prominence among the Caribbean’s key public policy and business elites. Table 25.2 outlines a basic scheme by which

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ICT, International Trade and the Caribbean to understand Caribbean communication and cultural trade. One of the most obvious implications arising from the modes of supply in the context of the EU–CARIFORUM agreement is that trade in crossborder international voice telephony between the EU and the Caribbean may increase as nationals in both regions begin to engage in deeper economic trade activity and utilize telecommunication facilities to coordinate their commercial activities. In some markets and for the foreseeable future, this form of enhanced voice service is likely to be provided using Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) channels, now being made popular globally by such US-based companies as Skype and Vonage. Even here, implications arise. Given the highly open nature of CARICOM nations and the highly mobile environment, it is not immediately obvious in which jurisdiction more international calls would terminate and, hence, who would gain more from call termination arrangements. In the context of NAFTA and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), there already were data reflecting heavy outgoing and incoming international calls among the US, Canada, and CARICOM countries (FTAA 1994). This is due mainly to two factors: (1) the US and Canada have unseated the UK as the main trading partners of the CARICOM members in recent decades and (2) both the US and Canada account for the largest number of Caribbean citizens in the diaspora community, and who maintain strong links with family members in the Caribbean. Brown (2003) studied the demand for outbound telephone traffic to Jamaica between the period 1975–99, and found that it was a significant source of revenue for domestic operators. In addition, more calls originated from the US to Jamaica than the other way around. This is understandable given that there was monopoly control in the period and, hence, it may have been cheaper for US outbound calls to Jamaica than for calls originating from Jamaica. The newest regional trade agreement, the EU–CARIFORUM EPA, offers opportunities in the area of cultural and creative industries, which should spur demand for complementary communication services. The special Protocol on Cultural Cooperation embedded within the EPA text is intended: “to improve the conditions governing the exchanges of cultural activities, goods and


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services and redressing the structural imbalances and asymmetrical patterns which may exist in trade in these, between CARIFORUM states and the EU” (Leonard 2009: 8). The special protocol in the EPA is a ratification of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005), which is an agreement that acknowledges the importance of culture and indigenous knowledge and their role in economic and social development. Given the Caribbean’s historical comparative advantage in cultural content production, it is the digitization of cultural artifacts that will propel CARIFORUM in taking advantage of the special protocol. Zhang (2002) notes that cultural practitioners actually can reap gains from this trade provision through ICT applications, arguing: “the advances in the information and communication industry enable virtual transactions to overcome the physical distance between people.” Continuing, he observes that “these faster and more efficient ways of communication enabled economic agents in the global economy to interact directly” (Zhang 2002: 6). The global practice of “disintermediation” or the cutting out of “middlemen” in the entertainment industry is a measure to realize such efficiency gains in music distribution. The Internet in particular has demonstrated great potential in this regard. Zhang (2002) further suggests that: with the help of the Internet, on one hand, the music producers can directly publish the music and potentially increase the audience significantly; on the other hand, the music buyers can have a much larger pool of selection of music works. Relying on fast evolving search capabilities, ever increasing bandwidth, and growing online music discussion boards, the gap between music producers and buyers is getting closer and closer. (Zhang 2002: 6)

These innovations in commercial delivery and new forms of transactions can trace their origins to technology and policy changes in the media and communication sector globally, generated in part by changing international trade agreements. The vibrant cultural industries of the Caribbean, including Jamaica’s renowned reggae music and Trinidad and Tobago’s acclaimed soca, carnival,

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Caribbean Communications, Cultural Industries and International Trade

UNESCO/Convention on the Protection of Cultural Diversity/EPA Protocol on Culture

WTO/GATS/ TRIMS/TRIPS

EPA/Regional Trade Agreements

Trade in Goods

Trade in Services

Internet Treaties

IMF/World Bank

Other National Economic Sectors

Intellectual Property Rights

Electronic Transactions

WIPO

Figure 25.1 Interconnected trade regimes and processes in the Caribbean Source: Adapted from Chaitoo (2007). Note: TRIMS – Trade-Related Investment Measures.

and steel bands, are potentially global products that could provide handsome returns in global trade. Skill and capacities in the marketing and pricing of these products remain important gaps, despite some progress. This is one aspect of the Caribbean communication landscape that has been articulated explicitly within the bilateral free trade agreement with the EU, and to which cultural industries scholars and practitioners are beginning to look for opportunities to complement the region’s industrial development strategy through alternative trade opportunities. Nevertheless, critics such as Norman Girvan (2009) point to inequalities in the “macro structure” of the EPA. The putative main aim of achieving progressive liberalization of trade in goods and services has been panned for a failure to account for varying levels of internal development of the CARIFORUM countries and the level of economic, social, and environmental constraints that they face. While acknowledging these criticisms, supporters seek to probe what opportunities can be salvaged from the existing provisions for CARIFORUM


countries. With the exception of the special protocol on cultural cooperation within the EPA, the earlier identified macro-social deficiency equally can be applied to existing regional trade agreements such as the FTAA and the NAFTA. Figure 25.1 demonstrates that these countries have to balance the demands of regionalism with those of the multilateral trade system. An interesting case study that ties all these strands together is the recent WTO judicial action brought against the US by Antigua and Barbuda. This case is interesting because it was the first time that a Caribbean country challenged the might of a developed country such as the US in the WTO. Further, it was also the first international trade case involving the Internet at the epicenter of the dispute. During the case (United States – Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services; WTO 2003), it was argued that the US had taken measures that made it unlawful for Antigua and Barbuda to supply cross-border gambling services through the Internet to US consumers. The US argued that it did not make cross-border commitments on the

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ICT, International Trade and the Caribbean remote provision of such services, for either domestic or foreign agents, on grounds of morality, public order, and security. The Dispute Settlement Board and the Appellate body in the WTO upheld the argument put forth by the US, but insisted that it amend its Interstate Horseracing Act, which seems to allow domestic electronic delivery of similar gambling services (Wunsch-Vincent 2006). Implicit in this case are some of the complexities of international trade as well as the challenges to the effective delivery of electronic services and cultural goods emerging from the Caribbean and other similar regions. It is in the interest of these countries to study and articulate a common viewpoint on such potentially problematic outcomes of provisions within the tenets of the international trading system.

Crystallizing Strategic Policy and Trade Issues Many of the key policy-making and trade-related issues emerging from this discussion reflect not only Caribbean challenges and opportunities but also global trends in similar regions and countries, of varying sizes and historical backgrounds. In the Caribbean, as elsewhere, many of the challenges will need to be resolved through reforms led by the highest levels of government, but with all stakeholders involved. This consultative approach to policy-making need not be protracted or indecisive, as can be said of the many Caribbean decision-making processes discussed here. The leadership should be extracting those elements of international trade agreements that are beneficial and should seek to advance their collective interests through a transparent, harmonized decision-making process. ICTs and telecommunication have been regarded here and elsewhere not only as industries in their own right but as facilitators of other industries and sectors. Regional leaders should therefore take full advantage of ICT opportunities within existing and upcoming regional trade agreements. CARICOM, as one regional grouping, has enunciated in various forms a connectivity agenda that establishes broad parameters, which should influence the shape of a new policy framework agenda. This agenda calls for countries to:


●

●

●

●

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Individually and collectively move towards expanding access to and integration with the knowledge society. Promote the modernization of the telecommunication sector. Establish conditions (taking into account national legal frameworks) that promote and strengthen free and fair competition in telecommunication services. Seek out innovative ways of facilitating access to and usage of computers and software in learning environments.

In giving force to these commitments, it is important that regional leaders integrate the policy agenda for telecommunication and other services into the wider vision framework for the CSME. This would extend to all areas, including policies related to investment, taxation and incentives, competition, the financial services sector, research and development, human resources, and the environment (Dunn and Thomas 2009). Several additional issues also warrant special attention with respect to policy decision-making at the CARICOM level. The Information Technology Agreement (ITA) (WTO 1996), which is a subsidiary WTO agreement, makes provision for the progressive liberalization of taxes on information technology products and services. No member of CARICOM has fully acceded to this Agreement as yet. One CARIFORUM Member, the Dominican Republic, is an early regional signatory to this pact that seeks to limit the imposition of tariffs on ICT equipment. These forms of taxation are artificial barriers to widespread access to ICTs by citizens within CARICOM Member States. Within a trade bloc such as the proposed FTAA, the subregional grouping CARICOM can least afford to have its citizenry poorly connected to the information superhighways. The group should seek to accede to the ITA or, alternatively, manipulate the common external tariff to help in reducing the cost of acquisition of ICT equipment in building out the regional broadband platform for development. The other key issue that needs immediate attention is the lack of an e-commerce policy across CARICOM and even within many individual Member States. According to Cleland and Gomez (2003: 35):

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from a development perspective e-commerce offers unprecedented opportunities. For example, according to the ITC about 80% of e-commerce growth will be in business-to-business trade. That implies that more companies will locate their services wherever they have access to competitive skills …

There is also the factor that many countries have a full commitment to unbounded trade in crossborder supply of services, under their GATS commitments, while imposing restrictions on modes 3 and 4, commercial presence, and movement of natural persons, respectively. It is therefore clear that a robust e-commerce policy or framework could enable many Caribbean businesses to engage in more ICT-related trade with other existing and non-traditional international business partners. Related to this is the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) as a means of safeguarding intellectual assets in the course of regional trade. Some countries are regarded as fully World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) compatible, as in the case of Trinidad and Tobago. However, there are those that, according to Cleland and Gomez (2003: 38), “have not addressed the issue since 1912, as in the case of Suriname.” Countries hoping to enter the e-commerce platform for trade in services will need to treat IPRs as a priority. Participation in services exports, particularly high end software and services exports demands a well managed, TRIPS compatible IPR legislative and enforcement regime that includes recourse to the judiciary and an assurance of the application of the rule of law. (Cleland and Gomez 2003: 39)

The recently established Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is the judicial institution empowered to hear trade disputes among CARICOM Member States. The Court, based in Trinidad and Tobago, also has an appellate jurisdiction, designed to handle wider appeals from regional High Courts, in substitutions for the British Privy Council for those Caribbean jurisdictions that adopt the Court. Even with several countries still not signing on for this appellate role, the existence of the CCJ is both a symbol of the continuing process of de-colonization in the region and a forum where contentious trade issues affecting the Caribbean may be determined ahead of referrals to the WTO.


Conclusion The Caribbean is a highly trade-dependent region. The average trade to GDP ratio in the region is about 118 percent. This simple ratio means that the sum of imports and exports exceeds GDP or national income, and suggests that the Caribbean region is highly dependent on the international trade community for its economic sustenance and viability. This kind of openness can dissipate incomes or foster enhanced export productivity, thereby enabling higher returns on investments and leading to increasing rates of economic growth. Management of trade arrangements and the importance of strategic and collective policymaking cannot be overemphasized. The Caribbean, as an economic bloc, faces the twin challenges of its small size and geographical fragmentation. One strategy that the Caribbean has relied on is dependence on imports to satisfy domestic consumption of consumer durables and non-durable goods. This strategy has had significant depreciating effects on regional currencies, such as in Jamaica, and has, in essence, increased or worsened external debt. Emerging technologies provide a useful tool for integrated planning and for expanded trade with the wider world in cultural services for which the region has a competitive and comparative advantage. The historical legacies of European colonialism and hegemony within Latin America and the Caribbean region have played an important role in determining patterns of industrial and social development. Both the Caribbean and Latin American regions were at parallel stages of development at the start of World War II. However, it was the Anglophone Caribbean’s continued subservient engagement with British colonial policy that constrained its growth and handicapped its industrial potential. Telecommunication service delivery in the region is undergoing rapid and unrelenting change. The pending move from analog to digital platforms complements global trends in the direction of convergence and so-called “next generation networks.” Premised on more efficient use of broadband technology, even traditional providers are transitioning to VoIP and more sophisticated wireless delivery of information using Wimax and WiFi technologies. Telecommunication business models are emphasizing increasingly revenue

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ICT, International Trade and the Caribbean sources beyond conventional voice, including triple- and quadruple-play services also involving subscriber (cable) television, Internet service delivery, and wired or wireless telephony. The nascent policy approaches to telecommunication and ICTs in the region recognize that geography, technology convergence, and instant communication present many opportunities to renew Caribbean economies and to move the region’s development agenda forward. It is also recognized that there are many benefits of economies of scale and scope to be achieved from adopting a harmonized, integrated policy approach to the development of ICTs and telecommunication services in the region, as exhibited, for example, in the more advanced and integrated economies of the US and the EU. Innovative, strategic plans for ICTs and telecommunication services are required, based on harmonization, cooperation, and coordination, to advance the region beyond individual forays and sporadic policy-making. While diversity and competition are desirable and inescapable attributes, these need not be pursued amid underdeveloped, uncoordinated, and counterproductive individual policies. This is especially the case when the newly burgeoning telecommunication and ICT service providers are pan-regional in nature, global in corporate scope, and fiercely competitive in pursuit of their strategic objectives. These issues are among the dynamic factors shaping and molding Caribbean ICT policy-making and trade. Historical legacies that have weakened the region form part of what Gunder Frank (1978) calls a pattern of “development of underdevelopment” (i.e., a process of systemic creation of layers of dependency and debt through inept policy-making and hostile trade arrangements). It is clear that communication and trade will continue to play an important role in how quickly the Caribbean can consolidate gains already made from regional integration, and how quickly it can readjust to take advantage of new and emerging opportunities within the global economy.

Notes 1 See http://www.caricomstats.org/Files/Databases/ Population/MYP_00-07.pdf (accessed 09/05/2010). 2 See www.budde.com.au (2008) Latin America – Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Mexico and the Caribbean.


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3 See www.digicelgroup.com (various countries, web sites); it is estimated that Digicel’s investment in the Caribbean and Central America exceeded US$2.0 billion as at 2008. 4 The Jamaican Gleaner, October 2008. 5 “Triple play” refers to the combination of voice, data, and video delivered over one communication platform. 6 See International Telecommunication Union Database, 2008. 7 Bermuda is an associate member of CARICOM. 8 “New media” refers to anything that is related to the Internet and covers a wide array of content carriers, including Internet news, entertainment and electronic mailing, electronic/mobile billboards, mobile and digital cameras, gaming devices, global positioning systems, digital high-definition television and satellite radios. 9 See Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (2009). 10 The entry of FLOW into the market in Jamaica has led to some consolidation in the cable sector as FLOW acquired some of the smaller companies. 11 R. Pickersgill, Minister of Public Utilities, Transport and Energy, personal interview with author in 1989. 12 The 80/20 rule means that a co-production agreement on a special project must be jointly financed by an EU and CARIFORUM entity, where up to 80 percent of the cost of production should be financed by the home country in which the project originates or in which the main partner originates, and the collaborating company or lesser partner in the other country or region finances up to 20 percent of the production costs.

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ICT, International Trade and the Caribbean Sloan School of Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 84–110. Marsh, J. (2009) “Overlooked opportunities in emerging markets,” Connect World Magazine, http://www. connect-world.com/articles/recent_article. php?oid=EMEA_2009_02 (accessed 07/10/2009). Morrison, C. J., and Brendt, E. R. (1990) Assessing the Productivity of Information Technology Equipment in the US Manufacturing Industries. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 3582, Cambridge, MA: NBER. Norton, S.W. (1992) “Transaction costs, telecommunications and the microeconomics of macroeconomic growth,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 41(1): 175–196. Nuechterlein, J. E., and Weiser, P. J. (2005) Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. North America Free Trade Agreement (1994) North America Free Trade Agreement. Ottawa, Mexico City and Washington, DC: NAFTA Secretariat, http:// www.nafta-sec-alena.org/en/view.aspx?conID= 590&mtpiID=123 (accessed 01/03/2010). Petras, J., and Brill, H. (1986) “The IMF, austerity and the state in Latin America,” Third World Quarterly, 8(2): 425–448. Röller, L., and Waverman, L. (1996) Telecommunications Infrastructure and Economic Development: A Simultaneous Approach. Competition and Innovation (CIG) Working Papers FS IV 96-16. Berlin: Competition and Innovation, http://skylla.wz-berlin.de/pdf/ 1996/iv96-16.pdf (accessed 20/10/2009). Siegel, D., and Griliches, Z. (1991) Purchased Services, Outsourcing, Computers, and Productivity in Manufacturing. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 3678, Cambridge, MA: NBER. Solow, R. (1987) “We’d better watch out,” The New York Review of Books ( July 12). Stern, P. (2006) Promoting Investment in Infor mation and Communication Technologies in the Caribbean. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank. Stiglitz, J. E. (1989) “Markets, market failures and development,” American Economic Review, 79(2): 197–203. Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (2009) ‘Annual Market Report: Telecommunications and Broadcasting Sectors,’ January– December 2009) at http://www.tatt.org.tt/ LinkClick.aspx?f ileticket=9eEg-wSNtJU% 3d&tabid=265 (accessed 10/02/2011). Thiec, Y., and Labrada, F. (2009) Best Practices re Regulatory Regimes and Incentives to Develop the Audiovisual Sector in the Caribbean. Draft Report on World Best Practices in Legislation, Regulatory


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Regimes and Incentives. Submitted to Altair Asesores S. L. CARIFORUM, Bridgetown: Office of Trade Negotiations (formerly the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, CRNM). Treaty of Chaguaramas (1973) Treaty Establishing the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Georgetown: CARICOM, http://www.caricom.org/jsp/community/ original_treaty-text.pdf (accessed 01/03/2010). Trung, T., Tugm, N., Duc, L., Duc, N., and Tran, H. H. (2007) Trade Liberalization and Development in ICT Sector and Its Impact on Household Welfare in Vietnam, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). Bangkok: UNESCAP, http://www.unescap.org/ tid/artnet/pub/wp3307.pdf (accessed on 01/11/ 2009). UNCTAD Secretariat (2006) Information Economy Report. The Development Perspective. New York and Geneva: United Nations. UNESCO (2005) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Paris: UNESCO, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31038 &URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (accessed 01/03/2010). Wilson III, E. J. (2006) The Information Revolution and Developing Countries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. World Bank (1998) World Development Report: Knowledge for Development. Washington, DC: The World Bank. World Trade Organization (1995) General Agreement on Trade in Services. Geneva: WTO, http://www.wto. org/english/docs_e/legal_e/26-gats_01_e.htm (accessed 01/03/2010). World Trade Organization (1996) Information Technology Agreement (agreed at the 1996 Singapore Ministerial Conference). Geneva: WTO, http://www.wto.org/ english/tratop_E/inftec_e/inftec_e.htm (accessed 01/03/2010). World Trade Organization (2003) United States: Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Supply of Gambling and Betting Services. DISPUTE DS285. Geneva: WTO, http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/ cases_e/ds285_e.htm (accessed 01/03/2010). Worrell, D. (2001) “Economic integration with unequal partners: The Caribbean and North America,” in K. O. Hall (ed.) The Caribbean Community: Beyond Survival. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, pp. 427–472. Wunsch-Vincent, S. (2006) “The Internet, cross-border trade in services, and the GATS: Lessons from US gambling,” World Trade Review, 5(3): 319–355. Zhang, M. (2002) A Review of Economic Properties of Music Distribution. MIT Sloan Working Paper. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, http://ssrn.com/ abstract=351920 or DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.351920 (accessed 20/09/2009).

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26

Legislation, Regulation, and Management in the South African Broadcasting Landscape: A Case Study of the South African Broadcasting Corporation Ruth Teer-Tomaselli

Introduction Broadcasting is a particularly good barometer by which to measure political change in any country. National broadcasting, either in the classic form of public service broadcasting or in the more openly regulated form of commercially based broadcasting, is a daily record of the concerns, obsessions, ethos, and values of the society that produces it. Following a brief consideration of South Africa’s status as a transitional state, the present chapter is divided into two parts and a conclusion. In the first part, the various levels of governance are considered. These are the Parliament and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee; the Ministry of Communications; and the regulator, the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), later the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). The second part provides an introduction to the evolving legislation governing broadcasting and suggests some of the rationales for changes that have occurred. In the conclusion,

I argue that the twenty years between 1990 and 2010 have seen an enormous change in the legislative and regulatory regimen of the broadcasting sector in South Africa. In surveying the legislation and regulation of this sector for the present research, it is my observation that these changes can be attributed directly to four intersecting tendencies: (1) the enactment of and giving a form to the changing vision of the socio-political ethos and ambition within the country; (2) the concomitant opening up of the airwaves to include new competition; (3) the global tendency towards technological convergence; and (4) the phenomenon of “elite continuity,” noted by Colin Sparks (2008), in relation to other “transitional democracies.” None of the above is peculiar to South Africa, and all of these tendencies have been experienced in broadcasting systems worldwide. Each country has dealt with these in their own way, and the similarities and variations that are evident are particularly instructive in obtaining a more generalized overview of broadcasting in the twentieth century. From the research provided in this chapter on the



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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media South African case, these factors provide a set of messy, ambivalent, but essentially convincing frames of evidence to support the idea that broadcasting governance in South Africa conforms, in many ways, to that of the “transitional state,” explored by other contemporary global writers.

South Africa as a Transitional State? National broadcasting in South Africa was inaugurated in 1936, when the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was formed. The Corporation bore a strong imprint of its “mother” institution, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and, indeed, it was set up with the help of a draft constitution penned by Lord John Reith, better known for his formative role in the BBC, as well as other commonwealth broadcasters of the time.1 However, from the outset, the SABC was skewed by peculiarly South African characteristics: racial segregation, and later Apartheid, etched deep marks on the fledging broadcaster. At first, only radio services were provided, organized, and produced reflecting language and racial divisions which reinforced and, in turn, served to draw the contours of the divided society and its social attitudes. Commercial radio was inaugurated in 1955 (just a year after the introduction of the commercial ITV in Britain). Television came much later, in 1976. Again, it began as a whites-only service, with SABC offering a second channel broadcasting in tribal languages, made available in 1982.2 As has been the case with broadcast changes in many “transitional” countries, opening the airwaves and the liberalization that followed have been important elements in the changes wrought by political and social transformation. Colin Sparks’ (2008) groundbreaking work on changing media formations in Poland, Russia, and China, and with respect to South Africa (Sparks 2009), makes a similar point. Sparks provides a salient critique of the dominant paradigm of “transitology,” an explanatory rubric for change within “developing” societies exemplified by the likes of Samuel Huntington (1998), and based, in turn, on earlier conceptions of Joseph Schumpeter’s (1942/1950) “ ‘minimalist’ conception of democracy.” According to Sparks, this “transitology” paradigm was “developed to


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explain the wide spectrum of changes from the end of European fascism in the 1970s through Latin America and Southern Africa to the contemporary problems of post-communism” (Sparks 2008: 8). Within this political science approach, the two most important indicators of “democratization” are seen as full-franchise elections and the introduction of the free market. The role of the media is the least developed indicator of democratic governance and social values and, with a few “honorable exceptions” that take the role of media seriously, most work in this vein tends to downplay or even ignore media as important. When the media are discussed, the democratization of the media is judged solely against predominantly American and WestEuropean – examples. While Sparks does not discuss this, readers with an interest in Third World media systems will recognize a strong continuity between this “transitology” position and that of the “modernization” paradigm, as spearheaded by Daniel Lerner (1964), Siebert et al. (1963), and Lucien Pye (1967), among others. For these commentators, democratization and modernization could be achieved through investment in communication and other technologies, and the education of the “masses,” to bring forth an industrialized way of living and thinking. None of this was very helpful in explaining the actual empirical processes of the changing media systems studied by Sparks. “The problem for this approach is that a gathering body of evidence suggests that the reality of social and political change is much more complicated and indeed contradictory” (Sparks 2008: 9). In its place, Sparks suggests that we return to the “theory of elite continuity” as an “alternative explanation of the dynamics of postcommunist media systems” (Sparks 2008: 19). Sparks’ studies of the “complex and protracted evolution of the media in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the first years after the fall of communism” (Sparks 2008: 9) demonstrated that the changes in these institutions did not follow “the programmes outlined either by the former dissidents who were now in power or by the legion of consultants from western Europe and the United States (US) who were offering them advice as to how to restructure broadcasting and the press” (2008: 9). While these countries might have aimed at imitating the liberal newspapers and public service broadcasters of the West, the results of their reforms, changes, and recompositions

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produced something quite different. “In fact, what emerged were newspapers that were highly partisan in their orientation and broadcasters that remained closely aligned with the state rather than the public sphere” (Sparks 2008: 10). The “modernization” paradigm of communication and change, and the “transitology” paradigm of political science are also unhelpful in understanding either the political or media transitions in South Africa in the past twenty years. Taking broadcasting, and specifically national broadcasting, as a case study, the empirical evidence seems to support Sparks’ view of a “theory of elite continuity.” Certainly, there has been a massive sea change in broadcasting legislation and regulation, but it has not been “revolutionary” in the sense that the continuities are at least as great as the changes; nor has it been an all-out attempt to imitate the commercially regulated systems of the US, or the “public sphere” models of public service broadcasting in Europe. What has happened, instead, is that the state – now controlled by a different party, but one that has adapted the organs and institutions of the previous regime to its purposes – continues to control broadcasting. Indeed, this control has become more pervasive and encompassing in an ongoing fashion. The changes that have been enacted are those that have been driven by the move toward liberalization and competition in the breaking of the previous “natural monopoly” of a single, state-controlled broadcaster, and an attempt to integrate the broadcasting sector into the entire spectrum (no pun intended!) of informational communication technologies and networks. Within South Africa, the transition of political factors influenced the reconceptualization of broadcasting from a narrow vision that took account only of the national broadcaster, the SABC, to a view of broadcasting as an entire ecology, made up of different sectors and players. In the 1980s, the SABC explicitly supported the then government in its efforts to combat what was represented as the “total onslaught of revolutionary forces” supposedly spearheaded by the African National Congress (ANC) in exile.3 The political reform that culminated in the 1990 announcement of the release of, among others, Nelson Mandela – arguably the world’s most famous prisoner at the time – and the “unbanning” of the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP), and a number of other “liberation movements,” also


saw a profound change in the alignment of the national broadcaster. From the late 1980s, a process of restructuring began in which pragmatism, rather than propaganda, became the dominant ethos. The transitional period was driven by forces both internal and external to the SABC. In the early period of the transformation, beginning from the late 1980s through to the mid-1990s, thinking was influenced by many of the pre-liberation think tank events held by civil society, academic, and political coalitions, and various other anti-Apartheid cultural activities, both from within and outside the country, over a period of ten or more years. This sea change within the broadcasting sector has been recorded in detail in the collection edited by Eric Louw (1993). A crucial moment was the meeting in Doorn, Holland in 1990, when a broad coalition of internal dissidents and external political exiles and sympathizers met to discuss the possible contours of a post-Apartheid broadcasting regimen. This meeting produced a slight manifesto, dubbed “Jabulani, Freedom of the Airwaves,” which was to have a disproportionate effect on the shaping of broadcast planning in the first part of the 1990s, and, certainly, on the thinking of the emergent IBA.4 Jabulani divided the broadcasting terrain into three sectors – public, commercial, and community (Louw 1993: 316–328). This segmentation has remained entrenched in the regulatory framework of the IBA and its successor, the ICASA, and is also found in the Broadcasting Act (RSA 1999). The most recent piece of legislation, the draft Public Service Broadcasting Bill (PSBB) (RSA 2009a), was, at the time of writing this chapter (March 2010), still in the discussion and comment stages. It is notable, however, that the draft PSBB specifically addresses only two of these sectoral categories: the public service and the community. A direct result of the popular campaigns against Apartheid was the appointment of the first democratically nominated Board of Directors, after a lengthy process of public hearings. This was rapidly followed by the passing of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act (RSA 1993), and further public nominations and hearings to select the inaugural five Councillors. The installation of the new SABC Board, and the reorganization that it was able to drive, was the beginning rather than the end of the process. The initial “transformation” of broadcasting, from the early period of political

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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media liberation until 1998, saw a period of euphoria in broadcasting circles: policy development was at its zenith, change was implemented in a way that was visible, and programming reflected, for the first time, a real sense of what was possible under the rubric of public broadcasting. This process has been documented elsewhere (Teer-Tomaselli 2004). Ivy Matsepe Casaburri, then Chairperson of the SABC, and later the Minister of Communications, opined that “the old SABC is not yet dead, and … the new broadcaster we want to be, is not yet born.” The SABC has to: “‘re-invent’ itself: it is a vision of the SABC as the national public broadcaster, to deliver services of value to all South Africa’s people in more creative and unique ways than ever before” (IBA 1994: np). It is noteworthy that two of the essential pillars of broadcast governance were in place before the advent of the first democratic elections in 1994. These were the national regulator (the IBA and later the ICASA), and the Board of Directors. Before surveying the changing legislation and regulatory frameworks governing the national broadcaster, it is useful to take a short detour and to provide a bird’s-eye view of the institutions that produce, monitor, and ensure compliance with this legislative framework. Thus, in the next section, I outline the interconnections, relationships, and overlapping responsibilities of the Parliament, the Department of Communications, and the regulator, the ICASA.

Part One: The Players The governance of the national public broadcaster in South Africa is divided into three different levels, all of which interact with one another. At the highest end, there is the legislative process which drafts and passes the laws under which broadcasting may take place. This consists of the National Assembly of Parliament and the Cabinet; the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications; and the Ministry of Communications, headed by the Minister of Communications. Alongside the legislature, there is the regulator, the ICASA, which draws up and monitors compliance with the regulations derived from legislation. Within the broadcaster itself, the Board of Directors and the management of the Corporation are responsible for the day-to-day operations of broad-


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casting in such a way that it complies with the law of the land; the regulations controlling it; and the visions, values, and goals that guide it. In what follows, the workings of each of these levels and the connections between them are outlined.

Parliament As a public body, the SABC answers to the public. This is accomplished through the highest public body in the country: Parliament. Parliament is made up of three bodies: the National Assembly, in which all the Members of Parliament are accommodated; the National Council of Provinces; and the Cabinet, made up of the Ministers and Deputy-Ministers of each government department, and which acts as an executive body to the President. In broadcasting matters, the Council of Provinces plays no part, and is thus excluded from further discussion. The SABC is a “state-owned enterprise” (SOE). Like all other SOEs in South Africa, it falls under the jurisdiction of a particular ministry, in this case the Ministry of Communications. Thus, the Minister of Communications is nominally the “sole shareholder.” The legislation governing broadcasting is driven by the Ministry, which takes comment and advice from a number of different stakeholders in the course of legislative development, before the draft legislation is presented to Parliament. In the first instance, this happens as “discussion papers,” with the first few attempts labeled as “Green Papers,” and the final draft termed the “White Paper.” These documents are circulated within the public domain, and are open to comment by any interested party or individual. Once it goes to Parliament for discussion, it is referred to as a “draft bill.” After those responsible have taken into account all the recommendations proffered, it is voted on as a “Bill.” Thus, the process of drafting and redrafting Bills is an iterative one, and a draft may go through several incarnations before it reaches the Parliamentary National Assembly. A Bill can be introduced into the National Assembly by a Cabinet Minister, a Deputy Minister, or even a private Member of Parliament. In the case of broadcasting, however, historically Bills have only been introduced by the Minister of Communications. Once accepted by the National Assembly, the Minister of Communications takes it to her or his colleagues in the Cabinet and, if

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Post Office

USA

Telkom

ICASA

SABC

SENTECH

Figure 26.1 Communications Portfolio Committee organizations Source: Author.

Parliament House of Assembly Members of Parliament Cabinet Ministers

Executive Management Portfolio Committee

Dept. of Communications

President

Directorate of Broadcasting

Directorate of Telecoms

Directorate of ICTs

Figure 26.2 Interrelationship among legislative bodies within ambit of broadcasting legislation Source: Author.

agreed, the Bill is enacted as an Act of Parliament. After publication in the Government Gazette, the Bill becomes law.

The Ministry of Communications, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, and the connection to Parliament Logistically, the link between the legislature (i.e., Parliament) and the broadcaster is the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, a subcommittee of Parliament which has the responsibility, in turn, of reporting back to the National Assembly. The Portfolio Committee, which would be the equivalent of the British Parliamentary Select Committee, comprises members of all political parties present in government. Each Portfolio Committee covers a particular area of concern, which is closely allied to a particular Ministry. Thus, the Portfolio Committee on Communications (hereafter the Portfolio Committee) is the public liaison between Parliament and those institutions that fall under the Ministry of Communications.


As well as the SABC, the Communications Portfolio Committee acts as the Parliamentary intermediary for the Post Office; the Universal Service and Access Agency (i.e., the agency charged with providing information and communication technology to the entire country); Telkom (i.e., the state-owned company that controls both the only national network of telecommunication landlines as well as all the telecommunication local links); the broadcasting and telecommunication regulator – the ICASA; and SENTECH, the broadcasting signal distributor. The relationships are shown in Figure 26.1. There is a close connection between the Ministry of Communications and the Portfolio Committee. However, the Portfolio Committee reports to Parliament through the House of Assembly, while the Ministry (through the Minister of Communications), reports directly to Cabinet, which is headed by the President. In this regard, there is a carefully crafted “arm’s-length” relationship between the Portfolio Committee and the Ministry, designed to ensure a set of checks and balances in the system of legislation and reporting. The entire set of legislative bodies is represented in Figure 26.2.

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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media

The regulator: the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa The governance of the broadcasting sector as a whole derives its basic framework from the national Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (RSA 1996). The Constitution protects the independence of broadcasting through the establishment of a regulator. The IBA came into being very early in the South African political transition (RSA 1993), soon after the new SABC Board (1994) and before the first democratic elections held in April 1994. The urgency with which this body was established indicates the importance placed on the centrality of the broadcasting medium for the political health of a society, and suggests that only through an arm’s-length mechanism to ensure compliance and impartiality could broadcasting have any success at claiming political legitimacy. Although the Constitution only came into being two years after the establishment of the IBA, Section 192 of the Constitution, retrospectively, acknowledges the regulator by recognizing that an independent authority to regulate broadcasting is a fundamental requirement to the new democracy: “National Legislation must establish an independent authority to regulate broadcasting in the public interest, and to ensure fairness and a diversity of views broadly representing South African society” (Constitution of the Republic of South Africa; see RSA 1996: Chapter Nine). The IBA is one of the “Chapter Nine” institutions noted in the Constitution. These institutions and commissions are entrusted with the monitoring and enforcement of the rights and duties outlined in the Constitution, and were set up to oversee the independence and fair play of wideranging political and social processes. Other examples of such organizations include the Independent Electoral Commission and the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CPPR). All Chapter Nine institutions are “second tier” constitutional bodies, established to protect a specific right, or a group of rights, from infringement. The rights protected by the IBA (and later the ICASA) included not only freedom of expression but also privacy; freedom of religion, belief, and opinion; equality; human dignity; access to information; and language and culture. All of these


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rights are enshrined in the Constitution. Initially, the IBA was also tasked with ensuring the expansion and diversification of broadcasting in South Africa, encouraging the broadcasting of locally produced television and radio content, and ensuring the viability of the public broadcast services. This initial mandate gave rise to the “Triple Inquiry,” discussed further in this chapter. The ICASA was created through the amalgamation of the IBA and the telecommunications body, the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (SATRA), as a result of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa Act (RSA 2000). The thinking behind the integration of these two bodies lay in the realization that, through the convergence of all electronic communication, broadcasting, and telecommunication would soon be a continuum of services, requiring a “seamless regulation of telecommunication and broadcasting and to accommodate the convergence of technologies” (Convergence Bill, RSA 2005). The ICASA is a “delegated authority” in so far as it does not create legislation in its own right. Rather, the Authority is responsible for devising broadcasting policies, and then monitoring broadcasters’ compliance. Its mandate assumes all the expected functions of a regulator anywhere in the world, especially in the areas of spectrum management and allocation through the issuance of licenses. However, the responsibilities go further to include the monitoring and redress of consumer and competitor grievances. In this respect, parts of its delegated duties include a host of functions, most of which are recognizably similar to other regulators across the world. With reference to the SABC, the regulator has very specific obligations. Among these are included the following: the requirement to “conduct public hearings, at least biannually, in respect of the Corporation’s compliance with the SABC Charter”; and the right “to investigate public complaints by the public and summon the Board to a hearing regarding the complaints” (see the ICASA’s web site).5 Under the responsibilities delegated to the ICASA in the new draft PSBB (RSA 2009a), the Authority will be required “to monitor usage of money received from the Public Service Broadcasting Fund from [imposed fines] and penalties”; and “to investigate any matter relevant to the functioning of the Corporation in fulfilling its mandate.” Should the SABC be found not to comply with the conditions

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of its license, the ICASA will have the right to “impose monetary fines imposed on the public broadcaster that shall be paid into the PSB Fund.”6 In addition to the SABC, the regulator has specific functions in relation to community broadcasters, the common carrier signal distributor, SENTECH, the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) and the Post Office and the Public Service Broadcasting Fund (all of which are beyond the scope of this chapter). One of the more controversial aspects of the regulator is the degree to which it can be said to be truly independent of the government. In spite of its constitutional status, critics have alleged that there are a number of ways in which the ICASA’s independence is compromised (Moyo and Hlonogwane 2009). The passing of the Broadcasting Act of 1999, discussed below, has curtailed some of the earlier independence enjoyed by the ICASA’s predecessor, the IBA. Specifically, its financial reliance on the Department of Communications, as well as departmental control over the financial affairs of the ICASA, including its budget-making and financial management, places it in a very vulnerable position. The Authority receives its money in a convoluted manner. After a hearing in the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, the budget appropriation is approved by Parliament, but it is the Department of Communications that administers its allocation on a quarterly basis. This practice was instituted in 1997, with respect to the IBA, after scandals about financial overspending which led to an official investigation. The Freedom of Expression Institute, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that tracks the well-being of the media in South Africa, lists a number of “problems with the current financial arrangements” that may emerge as a result (Lloyd et al. 2010: np). These include the potential for manipulation of the budget-making process of the regulator. Instead of maintaining an arm’s-length distance from the government, the ICASA is funded as a line-item of the Department of Communications budget, and subjected to the same negotiation and haggling that every section endures in order to obtain anything close to the “wish list” it presents at the outset of each financial cycle. The ICASA, unlike other sections within the Department of Communications, does have direct access to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, and is able to argue for an adjustment to its annual budget. The Freedom of Expression Institute argues that, in itself,


this is insufficient to guarantee the financial independence of the regulator. This is entirely contrary to the ICASA’s status as a Chapter Nine Institution, all of which should be funded directly, and without further mediation, from Parliament itself. This is to ensure that it “not be compromised by involvement of the Executive in the budgetary process” (Freedom of Expression Institute 2008: np). Having introduced the players in our drama, the following section, the heart of this chapter, provides a chronological survey of the legislative process from the early 1990s to 2010.

Part Two: Legislative Developments The first legal framework of the SABC was enacted under the Post Master General in 1926 with the Radio Act (SA 1926). To this was added the Broadcasting Act (SA 1936), both of which were amended successively over the years. In 1952, the Radio Act (SA 1952) effectively rewrote the earlier legislation to allow for the introduction of commercial advertisements on radio, while the introduction of television in 1976 necessitated the promulgation of new legislation to accommodate the new medium. The earlier Broadcasting Act was repealed, and replaced with the new Broadcasting Act (SA 1976). These two pieces of legislation, the Radio Act of 1952 and the Broadcasting Act of 1976, as amended, governed both the broadcasting and the telecommunication sectors before 1999. The enactment of the IBA Act in 1993, and the establishment of that body, have been alluded to in the introduction to this chapter. One of the first actions of the new IBA was to undertake a “Triple Inquiry.” The threefold mandate was to cover the financial viability of the public broadcaster, the role and extent of local content on televising, and the issue of cross-media ownership and control. A significant aspect of the Inquiry was that it conceptualized the broadcasting landscape as a whole, rather than looking simply at the SABC.7 A primary purpose was to break the monopoly of the SABC and to open up the airwaves to introduce greater diversity through a multiplicity of voices and economic opportunities. A three-tier system of broadcasting licenses was advocated: public, private, and community.

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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media

Liberalization of broadcasting In order to stimulate the private category and counteract the criticism of unfair advantage of the SABC receiving both license fee monies as well as advertising revenue (a point that will be touched upon again later), the Inquiry Report recommendation to Parliament included the paring down of the SABC to two television channels, the licensing of an independent commercial channel, and selling off eight of the regional commercial stations. In its response, the SABC argued forcefully that all three of its television channels were required in order to fulfill the onerous mandate of serving public interests in all 11 official languages (SABC 1994). The SABC also insisted that two of six commercial channels – Radio Lotus in Natal and Radio Good Hope in Cape Town – were required to remain as part of the SABC stable in order to cater to minority populations. The other six were sold to private enterprises. The competitive environment was further advanced with the licensing of seven “greenfields licenses” (i.e., licenses without existing stations attached to them) by the IBA in late 1997. These were also commercial regional radio stations, often with quite distinct niche audiences. All were set up by independent companies without prior radio interests, but most have since been bought out by the big players in the industry – often in seemingly counterintuitive ways that, arguably, actually promote cross-media ownership and concentration. Finally, the liberalization process included the licensing of approximately 80 community radio stations throughout the country, a figure that has risen to 120 over time, of which more than a quarter were inoperative by 2010. The IBA Act (RSA 1993) failed to make specific provision for satellite broadcasting. The IBA was responsible for the regulation of all terrestrial broadcasting. While aspirant entrants to the satellite sector waited in vain throughout the 1990s, the terrestrial subscription broadcaster MNet used the opportunity and the gap in policy prescription to declare itself exempt from the need to apply for a license for satellite activity, and established a Direct-to-Home digital satellite service on a digital satellite platform. The success of the satellite service came at the expense of MNet, as the holding company of both, MultiChoice, encouraged the migration of its considerable subscriber base


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from MNet to DSTV. In time, the analog MNet was closed. The DSTV–MultiChoice combination appears to have saturated its potential market, since at the very high cost of subscription, it serves only a small, upper-income audience while the middle-income audience, specifically black viewers, are not currently served by pay television. The SABC’s own attempt to establish an analog satellite service initiative, under the project name of Astrasat, failed miserably and was scrapped at great expense. The most significant source of competition has come from the free-to-air terrestrial commercial channel e-TV,8 which, after protracted negotiation and threatened litigation, was licensed in 1998. In 2010, its daily share of the audience varied between 18 and 28 percent.9 After just more than a decade of broadcasting, e-TV is the second-most-watched television channel in South Africa (after SABC1), with a very strong return on investment, given that its infrastructure is far less costly than that of the SABC. Thus, e-TV can deliver a greater return on investment per viewer, as compared to the SABC average across all channels.

Euphoria The years from 1994 to 1996, referred to as “the golden season of public broadcasting in South Africa” (Duncan and Seleoane 1998), saw significant changes to the internal organization of the SABC, as well as the programming fare broadcast. In its submission to the Triple Inquiry, the SABC argued, inter alia, that: “SABC programming can deliver value by nurturing and reflecting cultural identity, meeting basic needs, developing human resources, building the economy and democratizing the state and society” (SABC 1994: Delivering Value). To a large extent, the SABC made good on this promise. Its Charter provides a neat outline of the SABC’s public service mandate. The Corporation is required to provide an extensive range of “quality” services in all official languages while reflecting “the country’s unity, diversity and multilingualism” (RSA 1999a: np). At the same time, the Corporation is required to “strive to offer a broad range of services targeting, particularly, children, women, the youth and the disabled” (RSA 1999a: np). News, current affairs, and documentary programming are seen as the keystones to public service broadcasting

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as a genre and, in this respect, the Corporation is exhorted to “provide significant news and current affairs programming, which is fair, unbiased, impartial and independent from government, commercial and other interests”; and to “enrich South Africa’s cultural heritage” (RSA 1999a: np). In the same vein, there is a requirement to “include national sports programming, including developmental and minority sports” (RSA 1999a: np). Indeed, this proviso comes with a significant schedule, drawn up by the IBA (and later the ICASA) after a series of public consultations on which sports constitute “sports of national interest,” and how much and at what level of play, coverage of each should be broadcast on television and radio, respectively. If that were not enough, the SABC is bound by strict and onerous quotas of “locally produced” television programming which should “include both in-house and commissioned programmes” (RSA 1999a). While this Charter was legislated formally in 1999, many of the provisions included, and alluded to above, had been developed in policy consultations (e.g., through various discussion forums), both within the IBA and the SABC itself. In order to fulfill this highly ambitious set of objectives, during the first half of the 1990s, an enormous amount of money was spent on programming across platforms and in a far greater variety of languages than ever before. Following on the heels of the Triple Inquiry, the Corporation undertook a “relaunch” of all three television stations. SABC1, with the largest footprint, broadcast most of its prime-time programming in the Nguni group of languages – isiZulu and isiXhosa, with some additional Pedi and Ndebele – alternating with English. SABC2, with the second-largest footprint, carried seSotho, Tswana, and Afrikaans during prime time. This policy saw the significant downgrading of Afrikaans from being a co-equal language with English, to a minority language given a greatly reduced allocation of broadcast time, on a par with other African languages. SABC3 was reinvented as an all-English-language channel, designed to meet the needs of the urban, educated audiences from all racial backgrounds. After initial enthusiasm within the broadcast sector, during which time there was an enormous increase in both the production and airing of local, South African-made programming, and the significant rise in broadcasting in a plethora of South


African languages other than English, there was also a realization that such elevated levels of “public service” fare were, ultimately, financially unsustainable. Taken together with the increased competition which followed the deregulation of broadcasting in the wake of the opening of the airwaves in the 1990s, and the fall in revenue resulting from the loss of significant sections of the wellto-do Afrikaans audience, the Corporation faced a major financial crisis in 1996. In 1997, the SABC sought to cut costs in a bid to turn its finances around. This, it did, by undergoing extensive reorganization on the recommendation of international consultants, McKinsey and Associates. As a result of the McKinsey recommendations, approximately one-third of the Corporation’s staff was retrenched, and the local content component in programming was reduced significantly. Local production is relatively costly, and much of this was replaced with cheaper imported programming, chiefly from the US. The severity of these cutbacks gave rise to a new verb in the English language: to be McKinseyed. The McKinsey Report had important legislative repercussions, since its recommendations fed directly into the Green and White Papers of 1997, on broadcasting and, finally, into the 1999 Broadcasting Act (RSA 1999).

The Broadcasting Act of 1999 The 1999 Broadcasting Act (RSA 1999) repealed the earlier Broadcasting Act of 1976 (SA 1976). In the 1976 Act, “broadcasting” referred specifically to the SABC; but the 1999 Act established a broad framework for the entire industry, recognizing the degree of liberalization that had occurred in the interim. This was a result of the selling off of some of the SABC’s commercial radio stations, the establishment of new “greenfields” radio stations, and the burgeoning number of local community radio stations. Thus, the 1999 Act overtly divided broadcasting into three “classes”: public, commercial, and community broadcasting. In this way, the Act came into line with the earlier IBA Act of 1993, and, as pointed out above, with the earlier thinking that began at Doorn in 1990. The importance of this move must be emphasized: prior to this time, no

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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media “community” broadcasters were licensed; and while the 1976 Broadcasting Act did not explicitly preclude it, no competitive commercial broadcasters were permitted within the borders of South Africa. The licensing of the “greenfields” radio stations in the wake of the Triple Inquiry was done in the vacuum of legislation to the contrary, not in response to specific legislation that spoke to the matter. The second important innovation of the 1999 Act was the introduction of a “Charter” for the SABC. The Act outlined the restructuring of the SABC from a statutory body (which was the case under the old 1976 legislation), into a public, limited liability company with share capital, governed in line with the Companies Act (61/1973; RSA 1973). The state was to be the sole “shareholder” (Broadcasting Act 4/1999: Part 2.7.1). Nominally, this shareholder is in the person of the Minister of Communications. The Charter, set out in detail in Section Two of the Act, outlined the “incorporation, objectives and organization of the Corporation.” Much of the Charter spelled out the relationship between the SABC and the “shareholder.” Some of the contents of the Charter have been remarked upon above. Moreover, the Charter’s contents included detailed prescriptions for the SABC covering, among other issues, national objectives, performance, new services, board appointment procedures, lines of accountability, and enforcement of the Charter. These were to be monitored and compliance enforced by the ICASA. However, the Act also amended certain provisions of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act (153/1993) by transferring and clarifying the powers of the Minister in regard to policy formulation, and limiting the Authorities’ powers with respect to the regulation and licensing of the broadcasting system (RSA 1999: Section 1; RSA 1993a). A significant consequence of the 1999 legislation was the shift in the responsibility for oversight of the national broadcaster. Until this point, the SABC had been licensed under the old “grandfathering clause” in the 1993 IBA Act, a clause that recognized the validity of all previous licensing agreements. Under these previous licensing conditions, the SABC had been answerable directly, and only, to Parliament. Now, in compliance with the SABC Charter, many of the Corporation’s license conditions are determined and monitored by the regulator. In the Act, the Minister of Communications is conferred with the ultimate responsibility for the


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development and monitoring of broadcasting policy. The consequence of this provision is to dilute the power of the regulator and to transfer it to the Minister – or, in reality, to the Department of Communications that provides the bureaucratic support for the Ministry. Within the Department, a Directorate was established to assist in this task. This Directorate of Broadcasting monitors and advises the Minister on the implementation of public broadcasting services, in general, but, most specifically, regarding the fulfilment of the mandate of each broadcaster (including the SABC and various “community” broadcasters), funding matters, signal distribution, the development and drafting of policy and regulations, and issues of local content and production (RSA 1999: Section 36). In Figure 26.2, this section is indicated as the “Directorate of Broadcasting” within the Department of Communications. The establishment of the Directorate gave both statutory and bureaucratic capacity to the Department of Communications to take over much of the policy formation that had previously been spearheaded by the regulator. Now, instead of the broadcasting think tanks being initiated by the IBA/ICASA, they were incubated within the Department itself – a very significant move toward greater centralization within broadcasting legislation and policy regulation in South Africa. At the time, fears were raised that as the sole shareholder, the government would be able to control the SABC entirely: “The draft Bill [preceding the Act] reduces the status of the public broadcaster from an independent operation to one subservient to the Minister’s dictates. By having control over the finances, the Minister could gain control of the public broadcaster,” opined the Freedom of Expression Institute at the time.10 However, the Charter between the shareholder and the broadcaster was put in place precisely to stipulate the relationship between the broadcaster and the state and to spell out the roles and responsibilities of each. In all parastatals, the relevant Minister of the Portfolio (into which each falls) is the sole legal shareholder. However, the argument has been made by many, including the political opposition in Parliament, that broadcasting requires special protection, precisely because of its central position within the political and ideological matrix of national interest (Teer-Tomaselli 2006; Ayogu and

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Bayat 2009). The rationale for a restructured SABC lies with the schizophrenic nature of the Corporation as both public and commercial. The then Chairperson of the Board, Professor Paulus Zulu, is quoted as saying at the time: “In principle, it’s about a public broadcaster that has to be commercially viable. You cannot see broadcasting in isolation from the rest of society.”11

The Broadcasting Amendment Act of 2002 The process of legislative reform did not end with the 1999 Broadcasting Act (RSA 1999). Three years later in 2002, the Broadcasting Amendment Act (RSA 2002) was passed (see also RSA 2002a). The Charter was strengthened, and the structure of the Corporation was changed to make a differentiation between “public” and “commercial” programming. This change, at least in part, was a response to the criticisms of commercial broadcasters that complained of unfair competition. The line of argument contended that the SABC was at an unfair advantage by receiving income both from licensing as well as from advertising revenue. Since the funding of the broadcaster had been at the heart of much of the crises facing the Corporation over the previous twenty years (well before the advent of the “New South Africa”), there was little chance the policy-makers were going to relinquish advertising as an importance source of revenue. However, they were prepared to set up independent accounting and control systems for the two sources of income. Thus, under the legislation introduced by the 2002 Amendment Act, the SABC consisted of two separate operational entities: a “public service broadcaster” and a “public service commercial broadcaster” (RSA 2002: Section 10). These provisions came to fruition in June 2005, when the SABC was re-licensed as a public company with two separate operating entities: public broadcasting and commercial broadcasting. The new Corporation was required to provide separate financial and performance reports on each (with the realization that each sector has different obligations), and to indicate where there existed opportunities for cross-subsidization. The “public” arm of the SABC included 11 “full spectrum” national radio stations, one for each of


the country’s official languages. In addition, the portfolio includes four additional radio stations providing for regional community needs and two “full spectrum,” multilingual television channels, SABC1 and SABC2. The commercial arm included two national and one regional radio stations and one television channel, SABC3. The distinction between the commercial and the public services lies in the nature of their content: “full spectrum” in this sense refers to the wide range of content across the trinity of public service requirements of information, education, and entertainment. Both the commercial and the public service are permitted to air paid-for advertisements.

The Electronic Communications Act of 2005 Technological convergence is one of the noted hallmarks of the phenomenon we refer to as “globalization.” Any number of theorists and commentators have remarked on the way in which information streams, once quite discrete, have become so intermingled as to be virtually indistinguishable (Baldwin et al. 1997; van Cuilenburg and McQuail 2003; Castells 2007). The common denominator, of course, has been the process of digitalization that has allowed sound, images, and data to be conveyed through a common network, and often to be delivered from a single device directly to the consumer. Desk-top or handheld computers, cellular telephones, television sets, global positioning satellites, and much more can be connected together to realize, in the phrase made famous by Manuel Castells (1996/2009), the “networked society.” Thus, the boundaries between broadcasting, telecommunication, and data sharing have become, if not obliterated, at least so blurred that it no longer makes any sense to attempt to legislate for one without reference to the others. As a consequence of this, the Department of Communications worked toward introducing legislation that would cover convergence and the concomitant process of digital migration. The outcome of this realization was the Electronic Communications Act (RSA 2005a), which was a large, sprawling and omnibus Act. Introduced initially as the Convergence Bill (RSA 2005), the Electronic Communications Bill (RSA 2005b) and the

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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media ICASA Amendment Bill (RSA 2005c), its purpose was to provide a single legislative framework to cover the entire spectrum of converged communications. In the policy formulation stage of this legislation, it was envisaged that this Act would entail the repeal of existing broadcasting and telecommunication legislation. In the event that both the ICASA Act (RSA 2000) and the Telecommunications Act (RSA 19996a) were repealed, however, the Broadcasting Act (RSA 1999) would remain in place. The ICASA Amendment Bill (RSA 2005c) was seen not only as a means to bring both the broadcasting and telecommunication sectors into a single licensing regimen but also to remove the barriers to an increased flow between them and to strengthen the national electronic network. The move enhanced the regulator’s powers in terms of licensing across modes of delivery and content, and its ability to settle disputes between the different carriers in order to increase competition through the free flow of data and information. The postal regulator, initially set in terms of the Postal Services Amendment Act (RSA 2003), was abolished as a separate entity and absorbed into the remit of the ICASA, which was now, as a result, responsible for the regulation of the postal sector. Thus, the regulator, the ICASA, is responsible for regulation of the entire communication sector, while the Minister of Communications, through the Department of Communications, is responsible for the development of policy. At one level, this streamlines and rationalizes the entire communications portfolio, making the various responsibilities within the sector clearer and the lines of accountability less confused. On another level, it goes a long way toward strengthening the arm of the state, while weakening the independence of the regulator’s oversight and its arbitration capabilities. Previous moves in this direction have already been noted. The nature of the ICASA’s role was changed significantly by this move. The IBA was initially set up as a guardian of broadcasting autonomy and self-determination. Under the Broadcasting Act (RSA 1999), the Amendment to the Act and now under the 2005 Electronic Communications Act (RSA 2005), it was successively redefined as a service organization with little capacity other than to monitor and enforce preexisting regulation. It has no policy-making capacity apart from setting out housekeeping regulations in terms of the Act. Issues such as spectrum allocation, license conditions and allocations, and the resolution of spates involving


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number portability between mobile phone operators have become its daily fare.

The Broadcasting Amendment Act of 2009 Not all legislation arises out of carefully thoughtout long-term policy positions, and occasionally legislation is introduced in order to solve an immediate contingent problem. The result appears to be relatively arbitrary – a short-term solution through a long-term mechanism. Such a case occurred in the period 2007–09, and involved a fracas within the Board of the SABC during that period. The situation is complex, but, briefly stated, it arose from the fallout in the regime change between the political inner circle headed by ex-President Thabo Mbeki, and the contender for the ANC party leadership, and now the President of the country, Jacob Zuma. Despite the apparent safeguards in place, the Board that was installed in 2007 included at least five of 12 members who were hand picked by the Mbeki Presidency. This led to a series of crises with the SABC, with protracted spates between the Board and management. In response, the Minister of Communications instituted a review of the broadcasting law, focussing specifically on the process of appointment of both Board and management, and calling for a clearer expression of the respective functions of both. The upshot of this was the Broadcasting Amendment Bill (RSA 2008). Briefly stated, the Bill allows Parliament to recommend to the President the removal of an SABC Board Member. No sooner was this amendment to the Act passed, than a motion was introduced in the National Assembly to remove the Board (whose term was from 2007 to the end of 2010), and to replace it with an interim board ahead of a new selection process. This action is a very clear indication of the manner in which legislation has moved from being an enabling rubric with the purpose of opening the airwaves to competition, freedom of speech, and protection from commercial and political interference, to a more tightly controlled system in which the state (through Parliament and the hold of the ruling party over Parliament) is able to influence the shape and content of broadcasting in a more direct and purposive manner. The Bill became an Act early in 2009 (RSA 2009).

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Looking to the Future: The Draft Public Service Broadcasting Bill of 2009 By 2008, three key pieces of legislation had a bearing on broadcasting legislation in South Africa: The Broadcasting Act (RSA 1999), amended by the Broadcasting Amendment Act (RSA 2002); the Electronic Communications Act (RSA 2005a); and the ICASA Act (RSA 2000), amended by the ICASA Amendment Act (RSA 2006). These Acts legislated the terrain for community, public, and commercial broadcasting, but as sections overlapped, there was a move to rationalize the legislation further in order to separate out the different responsibilities of each sector. The Broadcasting Act was deemed insufficient to cater to the specificity of the values embodied in the idea of “public service.” The Department of Communications, which by this time was driving the development of broadcasting policy, was determined to bring the content of the national broadcaster more in line with the national imperatives of “developmental goals of the Republic” (RSA 2009a: Preamble). The Department instituted a review on the matter and, in 2009, circulated the draft Public Service Broadcasting Discussion Document, followed by the Public Service Broadcasting Bill (see RSA 2009a). This draft Bill focusses on a continuum of public broadcasting, ranging from community radio through to the SABC’s public radio and television services. Uncontroversially, the draft Bill outlines a Charter for Community Broadcasting Services (a sector that hitherto has not had a Charter in place), introduces a Charter for SENTECH, the common carrier, and updates the existing Charter for the SABC. The Bill also includes provisions that will revise the composition of the Board of the SABC and clarifies the powers of the Minister with respect to public service broadcasting. In terms of content, the Bill suggests further deregulation within the ambit of “public service” broadcasting provisions, making allowances for the setting up of specialist channels carrying children’s and educational programming, documentaries, and the like. One is tempted to suggest, though with little supporting evidence, that this thinking is a result of the popularity and financial sustainabil-


ity of a wide variety of such channels within the protected ambit of direct-to-home satellite television services. More controversially, it sets out a mechanism to establish a Public Service Broadcasting Fund for public service broadcasting in the Republic. The Fund would replace the existing television license fee arrangement with money ring-fenced from income tax. The idea behind this proposal is to be able to fund the “public” programming of the national broadcaster (the SABC), as well as that of community radios, from a purse that is derived neither from commercial advertising sales nor from a direct appropriation from the treasury. One of the ideas put forward to make possible this Fund was to apply a one percent additional personal tax to each citizen. This, it was argued, would be the fairest way of taxing those who could afford to pay, and protecting those who were indigent. This Fund would be administered by a nominally “independent” agency, just as the MDDA presently operates with respect to the community radio sector. The MDDA would be abolished, and all media (community, public, and commercial) would be able to make claims from the Fund for the production of “public broadcasting” programming. Needless to say, this proposal has caused a significant stir from almost all players: consumers are vociferously opposed to yet further taxation; the commercial broadcasters see the proposal as furthering the “double jeopardy” of state financing and commercial enterprise; civil society activists regard it as a poorly disguised mechanism for the extension of control over the content of the broadcast sector; and other state organs, notably the office of the Receiver of Revenue (the Exchequer, in British terms), want nothing to do with facilitating what essentially boils down to a further personal tax on viewers and listeners.

Conclusion At the outset of this chapter, I suggested that the changes in broadcasting legislation and regulation, specifically as applied to the national public broadcaster, the SABC, can be attributed directly to four intersecting tendencies. The first was the enactment of and giving a form to the changing

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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media vision of a socio-political ethos and ambition within the country. During the early years of the transitional period, changes in broadcasting legislation were driven by two intersecting vectors: the need to protect the public sphere from the undue influence of the (then Apartheid) state and the need to ensure a plurality of views and voices within broadcasting. The IBA was set up as an immediate response to these needs, and was tasked with undertaking the Triple Inquiry as a priority action. The response from the SABC was to increase its programming output across a far greater diversity of audiences than hitherto, with an emphasis on financially costly and unprofitable formats such as education, children’s programming, and other “public service” genres in a variety of African languages, all at huge expense. These political imperatives have changed over the years to a stronger emphasis on centralized state control. Concomitantly, the legislation affecting broadcasting also has changed to reflect this move. The second tendency, noted not only across both Western and Eastern Europe but also in Asia and throughout Africa, was that of opening up the airwaves to new competition. One of the terms of reference for the Triple Inquiry was the diversification of broadcasting services, through the selling off of some of the SABC’s existing radio stations, the setting up of “greenfields” radio licenses, the introduction of community radio licenses, and the eventual licensing of a fourth free-to-air television channel. This competition contributed, in turn, to the financial crisis within the public broadcaster, and much of the subsequent legislation and regulation has been aimed at contending with the difficulty of balancing the financial need for sustainability with the ideological need to produce “nationally relevant” programming. The third tendency identified is the global trend toward technological convergence. Here the amalgamation of the broadcasting regulator, the IBA, with the telecommunication regulator, SATRA, to form the ICASA, is a case in point. The Convergence Bill (RSA 2005), which saw its enactment as the Electronic Communications Act (2005a), and the redefinition of the ambit of the remit of the ICASA to include all the institutions within the portfolio of the Ministry of Communications, including that of the MDDA and the Post Office, was the logical progression of this movement.


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The fourth tendency is that of elite continuity. Colin Sparks’ seminal works on the study of the changes wrought in the media systems of transitional societies focus on those political orders moving from a communist to a “democratic” regime. Nonetheless, his insights are pertinent to a range of societies in transition and include, arguably, the South African case as well. Sparks identifies seven key components in support of his approach, five of which can be seen to have strong parallels, if not an exact fit, with the South African situation. The change in the social order from the pre- to the post-Apartheid state was a genuine revolution, albeit a “negotiated settlement” rather than a military coup. It resulted in a “clean break in the organisation of political life,” and the monopoly of the former regime “was broken both formally and substantially and new political parties were formed and contested for power” (Sparks 2008: 10). In South Africa, the complex and protracted series of negotiations, beginning in the late 1980s, culminated in the so-called CODESA (Convention for a Democratic South Africa) talks in the early 1990s. Among the very first measures taken by the order was the installation of a fully representative, transparently elected Board of Directors of the state broadcaster, the SABC, in 1993; and the establishment of the IBA a year later. Initially at least, there was – similar to what Sparks suggest for post-Communist Europe – a good deal of “continuity in both institutions and personnel between the old regime and the new” (Sparks 2008: 10), and the demographics and political affiliations of civil servants in the Department of Communications, the management of the SABC, and other similar bodies changed incrementally, rather than immediately. The overhaul of broadcasting – and, indeed, of the entire communication sector – has been gradual and evolutionary. Despite early talk of privatizing large chunks of the SABC, and introducing full-scale competition, liberalization has been far more gentle than may have been anticipated. Sparks’ (2008) notion that post-transition media institutions have been strongly influenced by political elites resonated throughout South Africa. The increasing centralization of decision-making power to the Department of Communications, and the downgrading of the role of the regulator, the ICASA, to that of a consumer watchdog and spectrum manager (to overstate the point somewhat), is very apparent. The interference of the Mbeki Presidency in the

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appointment of the 2007 SABC Board, and the change of the legislation to enable the Zuma camp to dismiss that Board, is another clear indication of the disintegration of the idealistic arm’s-length relationship envisioned some twenty years ago. In short, the past twenty years of legislation have seen enormous gains toward greater openness, accountability, and sustainability in the broadcasting sector. Broadcasting, telecommunication, and the entire information and communication technology sector have been rationalized in a way that was unthinkable twenty years previously. At the same time, worrying evidence of a more centralized and politicized approach to regulation and control is evident. At the outset of this chapter I suggested that South Africa was not unlike the “transitional” societies of China and Eastern Europe explored by Sparks in his theology of “transitology.” Despite the really significant changes brought about by the end of Apartheid, and the ushering in of a fully democratic system of government, there was not as great a political upheaval as might have been anticipated. In relation to the political schema of things, and specifically media governance, the system of elite control remained, though gradually over time the demographics and political persuasion of that elite has altered. The change then has been evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Moving from an authoritarian ethos under Apartheid, to a more democratic and inclusive system in the period after the installation of an inclusive government, certain specific periodizations within broadcasting legislation can be discerned. In the run-up to the watershed elections of 1994, the broadcasting sector was seen to be of crucial importance and, as such, was one of the first areas to be re-configured. This is a testament to the perceived pivotal role of the sector in persuading, or, alternatively, destabilizing the electorate during the unsettled period ahead of the transition. Thus the first step was to set up a regulator – the IBA – to ensure even-handed news and electoral coverage ahead of the elections. The legislation establishing the IBA was put together rapidly, inspired by think tanks and civil society organizations that had campaigned to “free the airwaves” during the preceding years. This occurred simultaneously with a more immediate and urgent process of establishing a national broadcasting regulator, and instaling a new governing Board of Directors for the national


broadcaster, the SABC, through a negotiated procedure involving all political parties in the country. A period of euphoria followed the ANCs electoral victory in 1994, during which the IBA was retrospectively enshrined in the Constitution, and undertook an ambitious series of public hearings to open up the area of broadcasting legislation and regulation to public scrutiny. This golden era did not last long, as the fiscal reality of more languages, greater local content, and a more open-ended agenda of broadcasting from both the commercial and the community lobbies clashed with the ideals of unfettered “public service broadcasting.” At the same time, the government itself was maturing from a purely transitional state caught between authoritarianism and popular democracy to one where the administrative elite – so clearly outlined in Sparks’ work – began to assert itself with a more legalistic, rational, and enforceable set of laws and regulations. The first of these was the Broadcasting Act of 1999, followed in quick succession by several more Bills and Acts. While the important aspects of what is seen to constitute South Africanness – for instance, the use of local languages and the broadcast of locally produced programming – are protected in the broadcast regulations of a country, much of the change within broadcasting regulation over the past twenty years surveyed in this chapter can be recognized in the trajectories taken by other countries. In this process, the interplay between the local and global, remarked on by Mansell and Raboy in their introduction to this volume, are clear. Similar impetuses have driven the processes of change: liberalization, the recognition of the importance of diversity, the role of civil society campaigns, convergence, and digitalization. The liberalization of broadcasting, which was squashed completely under the Apartheid government that wished to be able to control every aspect of public communication, required a legislative and regulatory regimen that catered for radio, television, and satellite platforms that were not part of the public service network. Increasingly, the work of the IBA (and later the ICASA) was focussed not only on the SABC but also on the needs, aspirations, and expansion of commercial and community stations. Community media, long starved of financial and technical resources, were bolstered by the establishment of the MDDA, overseen by the Media, Development and Diversity Act (RSA 2002b). The common carrier, SENTECH,

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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media was divested from the broadcaster, requiring a new Act to support the move (the SENTECH Act, 1996b). Here, the global concerns of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity are echoed; as are the crucial campaigns by civil society pressures that ensured the elevation of sustainable universal access to information, both via broadcasting and information and communication technologies, evident at the local and national levels. The convergence of communication platforms saw the merger of the IBA and the telecommunications regulator, SATRA, within a single regulator, the ICASA; the repeal of the Radio and the Telecommunications acts as well as aspects of the Broadcasting Act; and the substitution of omnibus legislation, in the form of the Electronic Communications Act (2005a). Nevertheless, this thrust is not without its antithesis, as the specificity of public service broadcasting, particularly in relation to its more “developmental” aspects, are reasserted first in the South African Broadcasting Bill (SA 1952), later redrafted as Public Service Broadcasting Bill (RSA 2009a). Mansell and Raboy (in this volume) point to the centrality of technological advancement in the changing global landscape of media regulation. Here they have in mind not only the enormous surge of information-flow capacity wrought by the information revolution and the Internet but also, more specifically, the inexorable migration of analog platforms to digital. In this respect, South Africa again is part of the paradigm, with the Broadcast Digital Migration Policy, announced in August 2008,12 though it is lagging behind other more advanced countries, and significantly behind its own targets. All these developments, summed up in this chapter in a relatively mechanistic way that moves from the discussion, development, and determination of one to another law, when seen collectively, seem to corroborate Mansell and Raboy’s contention that the field of media and communication regulation, locally, nationally, and globally, is “a multileveled and complex, highly politicized system” (Mansell and Raboy, in this volume).

Notes 1 2

See for instance, Rosenthal (1956). For greater detail on the early history of broadcasting in South Africa, see Hayman and Teer-Tomaselli (1989).


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3 For an account of the role of the SABC during the dying years of Apartheid, see Teer-Tomaselli (1993). 4 The Jabulani! Manifesto is reproduced in full in Louw (1993). 5 The full list of responsibilities of the ICASA is as follows:

• Issue licenses to providers to telecommunication services and broadcasters.

• Plan control and manage the frequency spectrum. • Make regulations and policies that govern broadcasting and telecommunication.

• Monitor the broadcasting and telecommunication environment and enforce compliance with rules, regulations, and policies. • Hear evidence and decide on disputes and complaints brought by industry or members of the public against licensees. • Protect consumers from unfair business practices, poor-quality services, and harmful or inferior products adapted from the ICASA web site; see www.icasa.org.za (accessed 31/03/2010). 6 Adapted from the Discussion Paper on the Public Service Broadcasting Bill, 2009, at www.doc. gov.za (accessed 25/04/2010). Chapter 8, Section 32 at http://www.pmg.org/za/finles/bills.091928/broadcastingbill.pdf. 7 Parts of the discussion on the IBA’s Triple Inquiry are covered in Teer-Tomaselli (2006). 8 e-TV was jointly owned by a local empowerment consortium, dominated by Hoboken community empowerment and trade union interests. Local interests later bought out an initial 20 percent foreign ownership by Time Warner. 9 South African Advertising Research Foundation (2009), various reports on Audience Analysis, see www.saarf.co.za. 10 Quoted in the Mail and Guardian, 20/02/1998. 11 Quoted in the Mail and Guardian, 20/02/1998. 12 Announced in Cabinet on August 7, 2008, see Department of Communications web site (http://www. doc.gov.za/index2.php?option-com_content&do_ pdf ). Full policy published in Government Gazette 31408 Government Gazette 31408, 08/09/2008.

References Ayogu, M. D., and Bayat, F. (2009) “ICT governance: South Africa,” Telecommunications Policy, 34(4): 244–247. Baldwin, T. F., McVoy, D. S., and Steinfield, C. (1997) “Convergence: Integrating media, information and communication,” Journalism and Mass Media Quarterly, 74(1): 174–201. Castells, M. (1996/2009) The Rise of the Networked Society (The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture,

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Volume 1) (second edition). Chichester: John Wiley and Sons Ltd. Castells, M. (2007) “Communication, power and counter-power in the network society,” International Journal of Communication, 1: 238–266. Duncan, J., and Seleoane, M. (eds) (1998) Media and Democracy in South Africa. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council Press. Freedom of Expression Institute (2008) The Broadcasting Independence Handbook: Lessons from the South African Experience. Johannesburg: FXI, http://fxi.org.za/ PDFs/Publications/ElectronicBroadcasting/ BroadcastingHandbook.pdf (accessed 31/03/2010). Hayman, G., and Teer-Tomaselli, R. (1989) “Ideology and technology in the growth of South African broadcasting 1924–1971,” in R. Teer-Tomaselli, K. Tomaselli, and J. Muller (eds) Currents of Power: State Broadcasting in South Africa. Bellville: Anthropos, pp. 28–83. Huntington, S. P. (1998) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. IBA (1994) Hearings Towards the Triple Inquiry. Johannesburg: Independent Broadcasting Authority, unpublished mimeo. Lerner, D. (1964) Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York: Free Press. Lloyd, L., Duncan, J., Minnie, J., and Bussiek, H. (2010) Public Broadcasting in Africa: A Survey. South Africa Country Report. Johannesburg: Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP); Open Society Foundation for South Africa (OSF-SA); and Open Society Institute Media Program (OSIMP), http://www.mediamonitoringafrica.org/images/ uploads/Annexure_D_-_Afrimap_Research.pdf (accessed 09/04/2001). Louw, P. E. (ed.) (1993) South African Media Policy: Debates of the 1990s. Bellville: Anthropos. Moyo, D., and Hlongwane, S. (2009) “Regulatory independence and the public interest: The case of South Africa’s ICASA,” Journal of African Media Studies, 1(2): 279–294. Pye, L. W. (1967) Communication and Political Development. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rosenthal, E. (1956) You Have Been Listening: A History of the Early Days of Radio in South Africa. Cape Town: Purnell. RSA (1973) Companies Act No. 61 of 1973, June 19, http:// w w w. c i p r o . c o . z a / l e g i s l a t i o n % 2 0 f o r m s / companies/Companies%20Act.pdf (accessed 25/04/ 2010). RSA (1993) Independent Broadcasting Authority Act (148/1993). Government Gazette 15182, October 27, http://www. info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=71061 (accessed 24/04/2010). RSA (1993a) Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Act (153/1993). Government Gazette


15157, October 7, http://www.search.gov.za/info/ previewDocument.jsp?dk=%2Fdata%2Fstatic%2 F i n fo % 2 Fa c t s % 2 F 1 9 9 3 % 2 Fa 1 5 3 - 9 3 . t x t % 4 0 Gov&q=(+(AIDS)+)&t=%5BUntitled%5D (accessed 26/04/2010). RSA (1996) Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (108/1996), December 4, http://www.info.gov. za/documents/constitution/index.htm (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (1996a) Telecommunications Act (193/1996) Government Gazette 17581, November 15, http://www. info.gov.za/gazette/acts/1996/a103-96.htm (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (1996b) Sentech Act. (63/1996). Government Gazette 17558, November, http://www.info.gov.za/view/Down loadFileAction?id=71207 (accessed 26/04/2010). RSA (1999) Broadcasting Act (4/1999). Government Gazette 19956, April 23, http://www.doc.gov.za/index. php?option=com_docman&task=doc_ view&gid=3 (accessed 24/04/2010). RSA (1999a) Charter to the SABC, Annexure to the Broadcast Act (04/1999). Government Gazette 19956, April 23, h t t p : // w w w. s a b c e d u c a t i o n . c o . z a / VC M StaticProdStage/CORPORATE/SABC%20 Corporate/Document/Broadcast_Amendement_ Act.pdf (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (2000) Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) Act (13/2000). Government Gazette 21154, May 5, http://www.internet.org.za/icasaact.html (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (2002) Broadcasting Amendment Act (64/2002). Government Gazette 24340. February 4, http:// www.internet.org.za/icasa-act.html (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (2002a) Broadcasting Amendment Bill (B34/2002), August 15, http://www.info.gov.za/view/Down loadFileAction?id=66919 (accessed 26/04/2010). RSA (2002b) Media, Development and Diversity Act (14/2002). Government Gazette 23541. June 24, http://www.gcis.gov.za/resource_centre/public_ entities/mdda_legislation/a14-02.pdf (accessed 26/04/2010). RSA (2003) Postal Services Amendment Act (33/2003). Government Gazette 26569, July 14, http://www. info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=68010 (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (2005) Convergence Bill (B9/2005). March 2, http:// www.info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction? id=66109 (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (2005a) Electronic Communications Act (36/2005). Government Gazette G28602, March 9, http:// w w w. i n f o . g o v. z a / v i e w / D o w n l o a d F i l e Action?id=67890 (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (2005b) Electronic Communications Bill (B9/2005). November 1, http://www.info.gov.za/view/Down loadFileAction?id=66110 (accessed 26/04/2010).

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Legislation, Regulation, and South African Media RSA (2005c) ICASA Amendment Bill (32/2005). Three iterations: December 27, November 18, and December 1, 2005, http://www.info.gov.za/view/ DownloadFileAction?id=66072 and related sites (accessed 26/04/2010). RSA (2006) ICASA Amendment Act (3/2006). Government Gazette 28945, June 15, http://www.polity.org.za/ article/icasa-amendment-act-32006-and- postalservice-amendment-act-222006-draft-south-africapost-office-license-gazette-no30844-notice-329-deadline-april-16-2008-2008-03-17 (accessed 26/04/2010). RSA (2008) Broadcasting Amendment Bill. Government Gazette 31215, July 4, http://www.info.gov. za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=87070 (accessed 26/04/2010). RSA (2009) Broadcasting Amendment Act. Government Gazette, 31999. March 10, http://www.pmg.org.za/ files/bills/090310a4-09.pdf (accessed 25/04/2010). RSA (2009a) Draft Public Service Broadcasting Bill. (PSBB) (no number, 2009) Government Gazette 32663, October 28, http://www.pmg.org.za/files/bills/091 028broadcastingbill.pdf (accessed 25/04/2010). SA (1926) Radio Act (20/1926), see http://www.legalb.co. za/SA/SA-Nat-List-Keyword-infoandotherdatatrfTAGGED.htm. SA (1936) Broadcasting Act (22/1936), see http://www. google.com/search?hl=en&q=Broadcasting+Act+ No+22+1936+South+Africa&aq=f&aqi=&aql=& oq=&gs_rfai=. SA (1952) Radio Act (3/1952), see http://www.legalb. co.za/SA/SA-Nat-List-Keyword-infoandotherdata trf-TAGGED.htm. SA (1976) Broadcasting Act (73/1976), Government South Africa South African Advertising Research Authority (SAARF) (2009) Television Audience Measurement Survey,


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(TAMS) Presentation, October 1 www.SAARF.co.za (accessed 29/04/2010). South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) (1994) Delivering Value (Volume One): Submission to the IBA’s Triple Inquiry. Johannesburg: SABC. Schumpeter, J. (1942/1950) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (third edition). New York: Harper & Row. Siebert, F., Peterson, T., and Schramm, W. (1963) Four Theories of the Press. Champaign, IL: Illinois University Press. Sparks, C. (2008) “Media systems in transition: Poland, Russia, China,” Chinese Journal of Communication, 1(1): 7–24. Sparks, C. (2009) “South African media in transition,” Journal of African Media Studies, 1(2): 195–220. Teer-Tomaselli, R. (1993) “The discourse of politics and the politics of discourse: Images of violence and reform on the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s television news bulletins, July 1985– November 1986”. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. Teer-Tomaselli, R. (2004) “Transforming state owned enterprises in the global age: Lessons from broadcasting and telecommunications in South Africa,” Critical Arts, 18(1): 7–41. Teer-Tomaselli, R. (2006) “Public service broadcasting: The struggles and tribulations of turning a state broadcaster into a public service broadcaster,” in I. Banerjee and K. Seneviratne (eds) Public Service Broadcasting in the Age of Globalization. Singapore: Asian Media and Communication Information Centre, pp. 206–226. van Cuilenburg, J., and McQuail, D. (2003) “Media policy paradigm shifts,” European Journal of Communication 18(2): 181–207.

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27

Regulation as Linguistic Engineering Roberta G. Lentz

Introduction1 This chapter explores how regulatory texts act as carriers of institutional power in constituting telecommunication industries and infrastructures – entities that continue to evolve in environments where voice (sound), video (image), and data (information) are no longer separate technological or even regulatory domains.2 The so-called “convergent” or “new media” that include broadcasting, telephone systems, and internetworking resources, such as the Internet, are essential infrastructures for speech and, as such, remain qualitatively different from other forms of regulated public infrastructures (Horwitz 1989). In the twenty-first century, the ubiquity of these converging electronic networks in many parts of the world suggests that telecommunication regulation has emerged as a new form of governance with vital consequences for freedom of expression.3 This is so whether we are talking about municipal, national, or international instances of such regulation. Thus, the practice of administrative law in which regulatory practice is embedded is an important site for critical communication scholarship. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach to telecommunication policy analysis illuminates how

regulatory texts do constitutive work.4 Norman Fairclough, one of the founders of CDA and an advocate of studying power through the sociology of language, situates texts as communicative events within the discursive practices that produce and interpret those events. In his framework, discourse is the use of language as a social practice, a way of representing and acting. Similar to media theory, discursive practice theory involves analyzing language production, distribution, and consumption (reception) processes. It assumes that discursive practices (the resources and actors involved in the production and interpretation of texts) are constrained and shaped by various types of social practices which Fairclough defines as “the institutional and organizational circumstances of the discursive event and how it shapes the nature of the discursive practice” (Fairclough 1992: 4). In this chapter, I examine rulemaking texts that are situated within the social practice of administrative law which shapes the discursive practice of regulatory docket production.5 This embedded approach to text analysis reveals ways in which rulemaking is a linguistic engineering craft (Lentz 2008). I define linguistic engineering in a de Certeauian sense as both strategy and tactic, involving the intentional use of language to design, architect, plan, alter, manage, or construct meaning using lexical, grammatical,



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Regulation as Linguistic Engineering syntactic and cohesive linguistic devices.6 If engineering involves the ability to “arrange, contrive, plan, superintend … to guide or carry through a measure or enterprise; to maneuver, to shepherd” (Oxford English Dictionary 1989), then telecommunication regulation is a discursive instance of such a process. CDA, which evolves from critical linguistics and post-structuralism, allows us to observe two processes in the exercise of regulation. It helps us to understand that administrative law is not necessarily “rational” but, rather, remarkably pliable to the strategically ambiguous whims of those who build, interpret, and enforce the law.7 CDA also helps us to understand that the conditions of regulatory practice privilege certain actors and exclude others. The production, distribution, and consumption of regulatory dockets (documentary evidence of formal regulatory proceedings in the United States (US)) are highly technologized processes with the potential to marginalize untrained nonexperts. Rulemaking employs linguistic mechanisms such as intertextuality to claim the authority necessary to sustain an appearance of legal coherence. The cases I use to explicate these notions are referred to as the Computer Inquiry proceedings.8 They offer an example of a linguistic engineering practice that continues to affect electronic freedom of expression in the US. The following illustrates this point.

When Telecommunications Policy Breaks Down In September 2007, the New York Times broke a story reporting that the telephone company Verizon had rejected a request from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) to send text alerts on reproductive rights to subscribers of its text alert service (Liptak 2007). Outrage at Verizon’s action to block political speech followed from across the political spectrum (NARAL 2007), in particular, from NARAL’s executive director (Keenan 2007). Verizon subsequently retracted its action (McAdam 2007) even though the telephone company was not acting illegally in blocking transmission of the text alerts. This is because federal communication law considers text messaging an unregulated “enhanced service” and, as such, it is


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not subject to the common carriage principle that guarantees nondiscriminatory electronic transmission of message content. In the US, companies considered common carriers are subject to regulation under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act defines “common carrier” as follows (note the different treatment of telecommunication (communication by wire) and broadcasting): (10) COMMON CARRIER.–The term “common carrier” or “carrier” means any person engaged as a common carrier for hire, in interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio or in interstate or foreign radio transmission of energy, except where reference is made to common carriers not subject to this Act; but a person engaged in radio broadcasting shall not, insofar as such person is so engaged, be deemed a common carrier. (Telecommunications Act 1996: 47 USC 153)

Historically, common carrier regulation has set the preconditions for many media services, as noted by William Ginsberg (1981: 56), former deputy chief of policy in the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Common Carrier Bureau: “I believe the FCC’s decisions in the common carrier field determine to a large extent the availability of program distribution channels for broadcasting and cable and the technological potential for applications in all communications services.” A company is said to be offering a nondiscriminatory common carrier service when it provides a “basic” (i.e., facilities-based telecommunications) service, which is essentially the electronic connection component that facilitates voice, image, and data transmission. Other companies, now known as “information service” providers, can buy this basic transmission capacity from a common carrier in order to offer their own “enhanced” services. Verizon’s enhanced category of telephone service descends from the Computer Inquiry dockets that established rules for the treatment of common carrier companies. What is most important to note related to the NARAL incident, however, is the legacy of the Inquiries with regard to concerns about freedom of expression. As law professor S. P. Crawford (2009: 874) observes: “we have somehow emerged with a model of communication law that is unmoored from the basic structure of non-discriminatory transport

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that gave rise to the communication legal structure in the first place.” Sandoval (2009: 26–27) also draws upon the Computer Inquiry proceedings to emphasize that “at its birth, Internet traffic was protected by common carrier regulations [which] forbade discrimination by the voice network against traffic passing through the telephone network including nascent Internet traffic.” Without common carrier regulation, Sandoval warns: “those who control access to the physical layer that connects to the Internet can and do use those same codes [the Internet’s language or protocol and codes the carriers add] to control Internet traffic” (Sandoval 2009: 36–37). The NARAL incident, along with other recent cases that concern shifting notions of common carriage, have invigorated debate (sometimes referred to as the “network neutrality” debate) in the US about the role that telecommunication resources should play in facilitating the nondiscriminatory transport, transmission, or flow of electronic speech (Wu 2003, 2007; Sandvig 2007). In the contemporary analog-to-digital and globally networked communication environment, communication regulators have an obligation to balance regulatory priorities to ensure that no part of the telecommunication infrastructure blocks or restricts that flow of speech. Yet, despite the First Amendment’s status as a foundational principle for communications policy in the US (Napoli 2001: 29), nothing in the FCC’s enabling legislation, or in the regulatory record provided by the Computer Inquiries, suggests this is either an explicit or implicit goal of telecommunication regulation. The Computer Inquiries came about in an earlier period of technological convergence in which the constitutive power of the FCC was notable: Digital convergence posed a number of difficult questions for inherited forms of regulation in the industries associated with television broadcasting. … With digital convergence blurring boundaries among these industries [content production, broadcasting, telecommunications, computing], it was clear that these separate regulatory systems would have to be rethought. (Hart 2004: 15)

They are prequels for today’s debates about such issues as network neutrality. In fact, a former FCC official involved in Internet policy remarked that decisions made in the Computer Inquiries affected


not just the infrastructure for broadcast programming but also the “necessary precondition for the success of the Internet” (Cannon 2003: 169). Guided by a CDA framework, my examination of the Computer Inquiry proceedings illustrates how, over a twenty-year period, regulators linguistically engineered a successive set of rules that attempted to draw distinctions between content and carriage.9 Each Computer Inquiry docket chronicles a separate episode in that effort which involved differentiating companies that provide content from those that supply the electronic conduits needed to distribute that content.10 As the Verizon example discussed earlier makes exceedingly clear, it matters how regulators categorize companies into specific industry groups. Similar to the postal service in the public sector, common carriers in the private sector cannot discriminate among whose content they are obliged to deliver. Thus, linguistically engineering a company from one category to another has profound implications for speech.

Critical Discourse Analysis: A Tool for Critical Telecommunication Policy Analysis CDA has been used widely in the media and communication studies field to expose the discursive power of films, television programs, newspapers, web sites, magazines, advertising, and even broadcasting policy that criminalize, marginalize, or discriminate against various peoples, communities, and cultures.11 An interdisciplinary research framework, CDA is used by activist-oriented scholars, among others, to guide their study of language – text, talk, and images and the conditions of their production, distribution, and consumption – as a social, not just a linguistic, practice. CDA projects share the premise that language wields power which leads to examining how powerful institutions, or people who hold powerful positions within such institutions, use discourse to achieve various goals. In other words, institutional discourses act as conduits for systems of belief that work to sustain power relations. CDA is also grounded in the understanding that language serves two primary functions. The social

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Historical social/political/economic/technical/cultural context Administrative law

Regulatory proceedings

Social practice dimension

Discursive practice dimension

Rulemaking

Figure 27.1

Textual practice dimension

Critical discourse analysis framework applied to regulation

Source: Adapted from Fairclough (1992: 73).

function relates to how social identities, relationships, and subject positions are shaped, reflected, acted, and negotiated through and with text and talk. The ideational function refers to the ways in which such text and talk signify the world, its processes, entities, and relations into systems of knowledge and belief. CDA analysts observe patterns in language use that serve these functions; they do this by focussing less on what people are talking or writing about (i.e., substance) and more on what people are doing with that talk or writing. What distinguishes CDA from strictly textcentric interpretive and hermeneutic research approaches is how it goes beyond the textual level to expose forces as being intertwined with language use, that is, the extra-textual context of a text’s production as well as its relationship with other texts. As noted earlier, Norman Fairclough is one of the founders of CDA. He has advanced a three-dimensional research framework that is valuable for policy analysis because it goes beyond the identification or critique of discursive power. It also presumes that language can be used as a tool to challenge power relations – a process that I refer to as discursive intervention. Fairclough applies Halliday’s (1985) theory of systemic functional linguistics/grammar (SFL or SFG) to examine implicit and explicit linguistic choices as illustrations of language-in-action and, by extension, the exercise of power. While SFL


evolved from the field of structural linguistics, most of its practitioners consider it closer to sociolinguistics because it privileges the contexts of language over its structural form. From this functional perspective, language use, whether conscious or unconscious, involves making certain lexico-grammatical choices in order to convey meaning or to act in and upon the world. CDA, as informed by SFL, draws explicit attention to these choices. It also illuminates how social contexts act on, and are constrained by, them. Fairclough’s model includes three analytical dimensions, as shown in Figure 27.1: a social practice dimension, a discursive practice dimension, and a textual practice dimension. The left side of the framework depicts how I have adapted these three dimensions of analysis to my study of the Computer Inquiries. Administrative law corresponds to the social practice dimension which enables, constrains, and is recursively shaped by the ritualized discursive practice of conducting regulatory proceedings. Social practice is always already situated within an historical context. For example, the Computer Inquiries began under the Nixon Administration and continued through the Reagan and Carter Administrations. They were in progress during the Vietnam War and were also underway at the same time as the emergence and continuation of the civil rights, women’s rights, and environmental

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movements. They were also engaged in the evolution of the computing industry as well as the early stages of the Internet as the telecommunication environment shifted from one in which large centralized computers transmitted data to “dumb” terminals at remote locations, to one in which computing capacity became embedded in devices at either end of the transmission path, as well as in the network itself. Finally, they were affected by the Reagan Administration’s deregulatory agenda which has had profound effects in the communication sphere, particularly the breakup of the AT&T monopoly in the telecommunication market in the mid-1980s. The discursive practice dimension involves the rules and resources needed for the distribution, consumption, and interpretation of regulatory proceedings. I situate the powerful linguistic craft of rulemaking discussed earlier on the textual practice dimension. Rulemaking is a delegated form of legislative, judicial, and police power (Furlong 1998, 2003, 2005; Kerwin 2003). According to Fairclough, social change takes place, in part, through the discursive production of identities, social norms, and relations. CDA examines the fine-grained discursive and textual practices that democratize, technologize, or commodify these norms or relations. Instances of plain talk by FCC Commissioners in dissent and consent sections of docket texts, instead of the bureaucratic legalese that dominates these texts, might be examples of at least one democratization process at work in telecommunication regulation. Technologizing processes are aspects of discourse technologies, which, Fairclough argues, are highly specialized discursive practices employed to control processes of meaning making. We can understand telecommunication regulation as a technologized discursive practice due to the extensive training required to practice administrative law. Linguistic engineering is a craft known to administrative lawyers; however, what is the likelihood that you and I, as untrained legal experts, can weigh in on telecommunication policy issues such as network neutrality? Commodification processes convert entities that have social value into things that can be bought and sold. We see this in play in the Computer Inquiries in how the FCC refers to persons who are the indirect beneficiaries of industry regulation. The following lists all of the ways that the Inquiry dockets identify people viewed as having some


stake in the availability, price, or structure of communications resources (note the technical and somewhat clinical rendering of these terms): commercial users of data systems, common carrier users, computer respondents, customer of the carrier, customer prospects, data processing customer, data processing respondents, data processing services and their customers, data users, individual customer(s), interested parties, joint users, noncommon carrier entities, respondents, subscribers, computer users, the computer industry and its customers, the customer, and the public.12

In Fairclough’s work, the discursive practice dimension mediates the textual and social practice dimensions by linking texts to their social contexts. This linking is observed by paying close attention to the role of intertextuality. Fairclough invokes Julia Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality as “the insertion of history (society) into a text and of this text into history.” He encourages examining the “productivity of texts” and how they “transform prior texts and restructure existing conventions (genres, discourses) to generate new ones” (Fairclough 1992: 102).13 For example, the Computer Inquiry docket texts frequently reference key segments of the Communications Act of 1934 as a way to obtain authority to issue or promulgate rules. What is important is not simply to describe the presence or absence of these features in text samples but to understand how they contribute to discursive power and the perpetuation of a genre that does constitutive work.14 Speakers and writers sustain genre conventions through their mastery of producing “coherent” texts. Figure 27.2 illustrates the relationships between genre, its “register variables,” the functions that these variables serve, and the linguistic semantic devices upon which these functions depend. Writers and speakers achieve coherence by working within a linguistic genre that implicitly fuses social context into the “texture” of a text. “Field” refers to a type of subject matter (i.e., legal activity). “Tenor” refers to a type of social relation (i.e., delegated legislative authority). “Mode” refers to how communication is rendered (i.e., spoken, written, spoken-as-written, written-as-if-spoken, written-to-be-spoken, spokenas-if-written, and so on). “Mode” also indicates rhetorical purpose (e.g., argumentative, expository, inspirational, or descriptive). The rhetorical

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Social context

Genre Field

Mode Ideational

Duality of structure

Tenor

Interpersonal

Register variables Ideation

Negotiation

Textual

Identification

Language functions

Semantic cohesion devices Text

Figure 27.2 Linguistic choices available to language users Source: Adapted from Martin (2003: 46).

purpose dictates the architecture for a text. In Fairclough’s CDA framework, the identification of discursive practices such as coherence links regulatory texts to extra-textual events, that is, social practices and their contexts, and, by extension, to belief systems that are transmitted through such texts. On the textual practice dimension of CDA, texture involves grammar, phonology, graphology, and cohesive devices that are both lexico-grammatical, having to do with words and syntax, as well as semantic, having to do with meaning (Martin 2003). In this sense, the social begets coherence; they are co-constitutive. As Figure 27.2 illustrates, a Giddens-like (1984) “duality of structure” binds together these aspects of language usage. Genre is constituted through semantic cohesion, the linguistic devices for which are ideation, negotiation, and identification. Ideation mechanisms reinforce the field aspect of register. Negotiation mechanisms express interpersonal relations, which reinforce the tenor variable of register. Identification mechanisms situate the textual function of language within the mode variable of register. These cohesive mechanisms – field, tenor, and mode – in addition to vocabulary, grammar,


and structure, comprise the primary linguistic supports for the ideational outputs that I map later in this chapter. With this as background, the discussion that follows highlights an important feature of regulatory practice: its discursive power.

Linguistic Engineering and the Computer Inquiries I point out in the examples that follow a pattern of definitional changes that illustrates the malleability of regulatory categories in the service of specific policy goals. Strategic ambiguity made it possible for the FCC to erode incrementally the regulatory boundary between content and carriage. Demystifying this highly nuanced discursive practice contributes to democratizing the social practice that controls it. Figure 27.3 provides a conceptual view of the constitutive effects of linguistic engineering in the Computer Inquiries.15 In 1966, common carrier communication was completely separate from data processing. But the newly introduced concept of the “computer” provided the necessary linguistic tool that enabled the

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Regulated common carriage

Regulated “basic” services

Hybrid services

Unregulated data processing

Unregulated “enhanced” services

The “computer” as boundary object

Figure 27.3

Semantic map of definitional shifts 1966–1989

Source: Adapted from Lentz (2008).

FCC, over time to embed “computing” within the very notion of regulated and nonregulated services, leaving a newly porous barrier between the two. This served to technically “associate” regulated and unregulated services such that it became possible, under certain conditions, for communication companies to offer data processing services and vice versa. Through a series of deliberate linguistic moves, we now have a situation where fewer services are defined as regulated, and facilities-based basic telecommunication services and more are grouped into the unregulated category; technically speaking, telephony and computing have become relatively indistinguishable. Companies can opt out of regulation as common carriers by defining their services as “enhanced.” The First Computer Inquiry proceeding (1966–1971) initiated the FCC’s “official story” about how it had decided to address a challenge in its regulatory path at the time: whether or not to extend its jurisdiction to the emerging and unregulated data processing industry and also whether to regulate the data processing offerings of regulated telephone companies. Regulatory transcripts document the incremental process of constructing a concept called “hybrid” services as the foundation for an eventual policy of “maximum industry separation” designed to keep common carriers and data processing companies separate. The Second Computer Inquiry docket (1976–1980) emerged as an unplanned, but important, sequel to


the First Inquiry. Its transcripts detail how the FCC subsequently decided to re-engineer the hybrid concept into regulatory categories it defined as “basic” and “enhanced” services. This definitional shift allowed the FCC to justify liberalizing its previous maximum separation policy into a “modified” policy. The latter enabled a resale structure to replace structural separation. The Third Computer Inquiry docket (1984–1989) details why and how the FCC decided again to further relax its regulatory treatment of common carriers. It achieved this by implementing what it called “accounting controls” as yet another way of distinguishing between regulated common carriers providing the basic telecommunication infrastructure services (carriage) used by unregulated information services (content) companies. It also established critically important interconnection mandates referred to as “comparably efficient services (CEI)” and “open network architecture (ONA).” Further deregulatory moves continued after the Third Computer Inquiry, but issues related to content and carriage were broken up into subissues and routed through different bureaus of the FCC into many subsequent docket proceedings. These comprise thickets that make it difficult to trace further the narrative progeny of the Inquiries until it is picked up again as the narrative for deregulation. An important example is the Brand X case in 2002.16 The result of the Brand X ruling has been that most services have been

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Regulation as Linguistic Engineering Hybrid communications service

Hybrid service

439

Hybrid data processing service

Remote access data processing Message-switching Data processing

Communications facilities

Computer Local access data processing

Circuit-switching

Telephony

Telegraphy

Regulated

Figure 27.4

Unregulated

Semantic map of regulatory definitions in the final decision of 1971 First Computer Inquiry

Source: Adapted from Lentz (2008).

shifted to enhanced services, resulting in the removal of nondiscrimination obligations and the proliferation of restrictions on content as well as refusals to deal with independent companies who want access to facilities. The work of both Crawford and Sandoval suggests that these boundaries lost sight of the ability of those who control access to facilities to create bottlenecks that choke off content and competition. The culmination of much of this regulatory activity was the Telecommunications Act of 1996 – the most comprehensive rewrite of US communication law since the FCC was created in 1934. The 1996 legislation invoked the legacy of the Computer Inquiries to establish two additional categories of services mentioned earlier: telecommunication services and information services.

The First Computer Inquiry In 1966 at the beginning of the First Computer Inquiry, communication and data processing were seen as entirely separate; both used computers but supposedly in very different ways. Five text episodes later in the Final Decision of 1971, the FCC officially promulgated six new regulatory definitions: message-switching, local data processing


service, remote access data processing service, hybrid service, hybrid communication service, and hybrid data processing service. The semantic relationships among these final definitions are illustrated in Figure 27.4. The term “computer” appears in several, but not all, of these definitions. It serves a semantic cohesive function – a necessary “boundary object” between regulated and unregulated services.17 This is illustrated in paragraph 15 of the Tentative Decision that led to the Final Decision in 1971, where the FCC semantically positions the boundary object of the computer, depending upon the role that it plays either in telephony or data processing (emphasis added): the role of the computer in circuit-switching still remains distinct from that of a computer in message-switching. Although it serves as the “control” element in basic functions, in a circuitswitched network, the actual information flow is through a switching matrix – not the computer; in message-switching, any information transmitted from terminal points must necessarily pass through and undergo some processing by the computer mainframe. (See In the Matter of The Western Union Telegraph Company, Tariff FCC No. 251 Applicable to SICOM Service, 11 FCC 2d 1 (1967))

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The computer’s role in circuit-switching and its role in message-switching is rendered slightly differently, however. Yet, from a semantic perspective, all the following seem valid: message-switching requires a computer, computers involve data processing, and data processing activity alters information. Therefore, a hybrid service, whether offered by a regulated or unregulated entity, implicitly alters content in some way. Hence the boundary between common carriage and data processing is at best a tenuous distinction. Furthermore, introducing a spatial dimension with regard to remote and local data processing also enables embedding data processing, from a semantic perspective, as part of a “vehicle” for transmission. Another constitutive linguistic move in the First Computer Inquiry was to develop an ambiguous new service category that invoked the boundary object just described in order to bridge regulated and unregulated services, depending on the extent to which computing was “incidental to” the communication or the data processing aspect of a service deemed to be in that category.18 As shown in Figure 27.4, the FCC called that category a “hybrid service.” Evidence of Fairclough’s notion of manifest intertextuality discussed earlier comes into play here. The FCC plucked from its agency’s enabling legislation a passage that allowed it to usurp the term “incidental” and then use it instrumentally to construct a definition which would elaborate its meaning in a different context: an example of lexical cohesion. The reference example is from the legislation’s definition for “wire communication”: The transmission of writing, signs, signals, pictures, and sounds of all kinds … between the points of origin and reception of such transmission, including all instrumentalities, facilities, apparatus, and services (among other things, the receipt, forwarding, and delivery of communications) incidental to such transmission. (Telecommunications Act 1996: 47 USC s. 153(a)(b)) (emphasis added)

This intertextual reference to the FCC’s governing statute is also an instance of what Blommaert (2005: 186) describes as “textual authority.”19 It appears as if the FCC created the “hybrid” service category using the term “incidental” as a metaphorical Adam’s rib that enabled linking regulated and nonregulated entities at a semantic level. This then served to connect message-switching


(already partially linked to telephony in the semantic map) to remote access data processing (which, assumed to affect “content” in some way, cannot be a common carrier provided service.) Thus, among the six new definitions mentioned earlier, hybrid data processing services became associated with the unregulated side of the diagram while hybrid communications services, by definition, belonged on the regulated side. This reasoning is reflected in the FCC’s definitions for these concepts (emphasis added): ●

●

Hybrid Data Processing Service is a hybrid service offering wherein the message-switching capability is incidental to the data processing function or purpose. Hybrid Communication Service is a hybrid service offering wherein the data processing capability is incidental to the message-switching function or purpose (Computer I, 28 FCC 2d 267 (1971) (Final Decision and Order)).

The FCC’s discursive construction of a “hybrid service” category facilitated the creation of regulatory categories that more closely mirrored marketplace realities while still maintaining a semantic boundary between regulated and unregulated services (Editors 1972).

The Second and Third Computer Inquiries At the beginning of the Second Computer Inquiry that began in 1976, the FCC made several additional definitional moves. The outcome is shown in Figure 27.5, which is drawn primarily from the third text of the Second Computer Inquiry: the 1977 Supplemental Notice. First, the FCC eliminated the hybrid service category it had created in 1971 and took up defining data processing instead. In a proposed revised definition of data processing it also further specified what it meant by the “computer” and what it meant by “processing.” Second, because by 1976 computing had become a distributed, instead of purely centralized, type of service in the marketplace, the FCC no longer needed the terms “remote” or “local,” so it found a way to justify deleting them based on various research studies and industry comments provided as part of the

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Data processing

Communications facilities Computer

From functions to activities: 1) network control and routing: 2) input/output control

441

From functions to activities: arithmetic, word processing, and process control

Regulated

Unregulated

Figure 27.5 Semantic map of regulatory definitions from 1977 Supplemental Notice in Second Computer Inquiry Source: Adapted from Lentz (2008).

Computer processing

Communications facilities

Carrier services: voice, basic non-voice, enhanced non-voice

Data processing

Hybrid data processing service Data processing service

Regulated

Unregulated

Figure 27.6 Semantic map of regulatory definitions from 1979 Tentative Decision in Second Computer Inquiry Source: Adapted from Lentz (2008).

proceedings. Third, the FCC also no longer needed a definition for message-switching because by then it had found a way to definitionally embed that activity within two new categories of communication services, which it called “network control” and “input/output processing.” Also in 1977, the FCC rejected its previous functional approach to definitions (e.g., operations such as storing, retrieving, or merging data or information) and adopted an approach based on processing “activity.” This made it possible to combine and recombine these activities such that some of them would move to


different sides of the regulated or unregulated semantic boundary line. Figure 27.5 illustrates this as well. Two years later, in 1979, the transcript of the fifth document in the Second Computer Inquiry reveals how the FCC shifted its reference to the computer to “computer processing.” Figure 27.6 illustrates how communication facilities and data processing were conjoined by reinstating, and then redefining, the definition for “hybrid data processing service” – a term that the FCC had deleted three years earlier.

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The FCC also added a new category called “carrier services” where the carrier, not the subscriber, was deemed to be in control of the processing activity: these carrier services included voice service, basic non-voice service and enhanced non-voice service. And finally, another new service was defined as a “data processing service” for “hire” where the subscriber, not the carrier, initiated the processing activity. This is the point at which “data processing,” as a legal term of art, moved into the regulatory zone formerly reserved for common carriage. An expert linguistic engineering move in this case was to delineate exactly who controls processing activity as the determining factor for a content or carriage service. If, for example, processing is initiated and controlled by the customer, it is not considered a common carrier activity. The official record contains much discussion about issues such as end-to-end computing and other concerns having to do with devices at the end-user’s location or within the network itself that have to do with the “location” of computing devices. The Second Computer Inquiry ended in 1980 with the FCC replacing all previous definitions with one term, “enhanced services.” This is the definition that endures today, some 30 years later, shown in its original form: the term “enhanced service” shall refer to services, offered over common carrier transmission facilities used in interstate communications, which employ computer processing applications that act on the format, content, code, protocol or similar aspects of the subscriber’s transmitted information, provide the subscriber additional, different, or restructured information; or involve subscriber interaction with stored information. Enhanced services are not regulated under Title II of the Act. (Computer II, 77 FCC 2nd 384 (1980) (Final Decision)

Note that the phrase “data processing” is no longer present; in its place we find “computer processing,” a term that had been introduced a year earlier. Note also the language which has to do with the notion of “acting on” something else. This clause became the basis of the entire Third Computer Inquiry, which focussed on highly technical distinctions having to do with when and where processing protocols are, or are not, part of


content or carriage in a packet-switched communications environment. Also by 1980, the FCC had settled on defining “enhanced service” in a way that would determine the carrier or noncarrier status of industries providing communication or data-processing services. To date, the enhanced service concept serves as a key antecedent to contemporary debate about the survivability of the common carriage principle in the digital communication environment. Returning to the Verizon example mentioned earlier, what are the implications for speech when a common carrier can choose to be regulated as an enhanced service provider? What Verizon did was legal – it censored text messaging, which is an “enhanced” service, and therefore not regulated. What remains classified as regulated common carrier-type services is much more limited than what are defined as unregulated “enhanced” services. In other words, what has become unregulated is anything other than “basic” services. Given that the FCC is only obligated to define that which it actually regulates, an important theme in the Second Computer Inquiry is the vehicle by which certain categories of service became placed on a different side of the regulatory boundary between content and carriage. Crawford (2009: 887) notes: “now, as a result of deregulatory actions by the Commission and the courts, and their exclusive reliance on ‘market power’ arguments as the only possible basis for regulation, basic transport is almost extinct.” From the standpoint of freedom of expression, the NARAL incident is a troubling consequence of the linguistic engineering that occurred in the Computer Inquiries. While opening markets and encouraging competition and innovation, the final Inquiry also effectively succeeded in eroding what Kagan (2004) argues is the mostly “prophylactic” purpose of protective, that is, social regulation. The gradual devolution of common carriage erodes part of the legal infrastructure for freedom of expression, which Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines as follows: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (United Nations 1948: Article 19)

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Conclusion: Words Matter Many social, cultural, economic, political, and financial activities depend on access to telecommunication infrastructure, yet FCC rulemaking, at least in the area of telecommunication policy, linguistically marginalizes the social dimension of its regulatory mandate. Noteworthy is the absence in the Computer Inquiry dockets of terms like “First Amendment,” “democracy,” or “speech.” Were they present in the archival record, it might be possible to associate semantically telecommunication infrastructure policy-making with socially relevant concerns such as those raised in the NARAL incident earlier in this chapter and concerns that will most certainly affect Internet-based communication for decades to come. Sandoval (2009: 651) argues that the Federal Trade Commission and the FCC must protect Internet users, and competition among Internet service providers (ISPs) and Internet applications, to “safeguard the Internet itself as a source for innovation and a wide range of speech.” Yet, putting ISPs into the enhanced services category means they are allowed to censor or limit access to content, free from First Amendment scrutiny. The example of the FCC Computer Inquiries discussed in this chapter demonstrates that telecommunication policy remains a relatively obscure practice where participation in policy debates requires mastery of a certain amount of technical and economic discourse. This is because telecommunication policy traditionally has focussed on issues of infrastructure. Historian Robert Horwitz (1989: 8) rightly notes: most studies of American communication focus on either broadcasting or telephone, rarely both … Yet the interrelation between the telephone and broadcast industries is not only important for an understanding of the process of regulation, but central to how deregulation came about in telecommunications.

It would be interesting to investigate to what extent this US experience has influenced regulatory practices in other jurisdictions. Telecommunication policy rarely features content concerns, given its historical emphasis on “contentneutral” issues related to common carriage. It concerns economic regulation and telecommunication


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industry organization, pricing and cost structures, and has focussed on the political, economic, or technical dynamics of the market’s provision of communication infrastructure to consumers. Public utilities and other infrastructure-related industries like electrical grids, water systems, and transportation systems fall into this category of regulation. Related issues include universal service, which is understood to encompass the accessibility, affordability, and interoperability, primarily, of telephone services. They also include broadband resources deployment and regulation, radio frequency spectrum management, the provision of common carriage services by telephone companies, and policies related to government oversight of these utility-like resources. The Computer Inquiries played a key role in reinforcing the economic, but not the social, importance of telecommunication policy. In his comprehensive review of the literature on regulation, Kagan (2004: 214) renders protective regulation as socially driven, that is, it is “designed to prevent physical harms, dangerous deficiencies, and injustices that are not deterred by competitive pressures and the threat of lawsuits.” Food safety is but one example. In the field of media and communication policy, broadcasting would be another. Unfortunately, much of the discourse about telecommunication policy is considered economic, rather than social, regulation. Intertextuality could be used to import into this regulatory discourse issues having more to do with social regulation. Network neutrality is one of these issues, but the vocabulary surrounding it remains technocratic – a feature of the telecommunication genre more generally. Using CDA as a telecommunication policy analysis tool helps demystify important but inscrutable institutional processes and reveals how flexible and malleable regulatory categories actually are. For example, illustrating the vulnerability of such documents as authoritative instruments of power provides an opening for civil society groups to intervene in the co-construction of regulations that affect their notion of more democratic communication environments. As we have seen, communication infrastructures are constituted in many ways by and through regulation – a linguistic, not a physical, engineering process. Further, the discursive practice of docket production is itself a kind of discursive infrastructure. That is, telecommunication policy discourse is a powerful form of information infrastructure, as described by Bowker and Star (2002: 35):

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Information infrastructure (1) … is rooted within other technological and social structures. (2) It invisibly sustains other tasks. (3) It has “reach” beyond a single location, event, or point in time. (4) It is often taken for granted by those who use it, but seems somewhat foreign to those who do not. (5) It often also both shapes and reflects the values, customs, and practices of those who build and maintain it. (6) It often connects fairly seamlessly to other infrastructures because it shares design standards and conventions, but inherits whatever limitations or benefits are inherent in the base on which it might be installed. Finally, communication policymaking as an information infrastructure often only becomes noticeable when it breaks, as was the case with the NARAL incident.

As a policy analysis tool, CDA reveals the linguistic nature of this infrastructure – an underlying base or foundation for an organization or system; and the basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society. To intervene in telecommunication policy-making, public interest-oriented advocates need to participate in discursive practices by submitting comments that then must be captured somehow in the official codifications of docket proceedings. Advocates must also take up and critique the textual tactics embedded in these proceedings if they want to denaturalize the telecommunication policy genre in support of more socially relevant concerns.

4

5 6

7 8

Notes 1 In addition to the Handbook editors Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy, I would like to thank the following people for their thoughtful feedback and comments during my writing of this chapter: Paul Berk, Stephanie Dixon, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, Cathy Sandoval, Jonathan Sterne, and Tina Piper. 2 Reconciling the convergence of various other distribution platforms with a similarly converged policy framework has been a topic of concern for some time at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), initiated in large part by events that took place during the period of the Computer Inquiries (Frieden 1981, 1987, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2003; Braman 2004; Bar and Sandvig 2008). 3 The World Bank defines governance as “the exercise of political authority and the use of institutional resources to manage society’s problems and affairs” (see World Bank 1991). With this in mind, I use the term governance to focus on processes of governing; the term government refers to those institutions that


9

10

have the power and authority to govern. By extension, regulation (and rulemaking) is a form of governance, which necessarily involves administrative processes. See Locke (2004), van Dijk (2001), and Fairclough (1992) for introductions to CDA. See Fischer (2003) for analytic discourse approaches being used in the policy science field and Administrative Procedure Act (1946). See Warren (2004) on US administrative law from a sociological perspective. Michel de Certeau divides social practices into two categories: strategies and tactics. At a very basic level, strategies structure the world while tactics attempt to subvert that structure by existing in the cracks and edges. At another level, strategies are concerned with spatial relations, with “place,” while tactics deal with time, or with moments. To mobilize these theories a bit, tactics exist within (infiltrated deep inside) the strategies that structure the systems that order our lives. Tactics are lightning flashes of resistance to that system, but are also always defined by the strategies that order them. In the “guerilla warfare of everyday life,” strategies set the structure – the “environment” in which tactics are played out (de Certeau et al. 1980: 8; see also de Certeau (1984)). “Ambiguous” as used here draws on Eisenberg’s (2007) notion of “strategic ambiguity.” The Inquiries comprised three regulatory dockets focussed on problems posed by the convergence, coined as “compunications,” of regulated telephony with unregulated computing services. The 23 texts that make up the three dockets date from the mid1960s to the late 1980s. Together they chronicle the incremental erosion of the principle of common carrier regulation in the US. Certain texts within that set of 23 promulgate rules with regulatory definitions that serve as a legal basis for enhancing or stifling speech in today’s digital communications environment (see also Zarkin 2003). “Carriage” here refers to the instruments (i.e., infrastructures) needed to transmit (i.e., transport, carry) information, whereas “content” refers to the information itself (i.e., data, information). Crawford notes in a recent article (2009: 887): “Policymakers fifty years ago were concerned that common-carriage telephone companies would control access to early computing services. … To avoid this, regulators came up with the idea of categorizing new computing services differently from basic common carriage communications by calling these new services ‘data processing’, ‘enhanced services’, or finally, ‘information services’ (the current form of words used for the same idea). This categorization and its implementation were designed to protect the computing industry from the depredations of the carriers. It was premised on the continued

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11

12

13 14

15

16

17

existence of basic, general-purpose, non-discriminatory access and transport.” The following scholars provide useful overviews of CDA from a variety of perspectives: Fairclough 1989, 1995; 1995a; Mills 1997; Parker 1999; Lee and Poynton 2000; Wood and Kroger 2000; Wetherell, et al. 2001; Wodak and Meyer 2001; Phillips and Jorgensen 2002; Weiss and Wodak 2003; Hardy and Phillips 2004; Blommaert 2005; Johnstone 2008. Terms were identified through a close reading of all three Computer Inquiry docket documents and then cataloged using the text analysis software program called Atlas.ti (Lentz 2008). In some cases these documents are directly referenced in the text. They are all listed in the references and can be found by searching the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) web site. See also Slembrouck (2002) for more detail. Intertextual relations can be both vertical (related in time, or synchronic) and horizontal (related over time, or diachronic). In addition, some forms of intertextuality are “manifest” such as when texts overtly reference other texts. Another form of intertextuality is constitutive, or “interdiscursive.” Interdiscursivity invokes “orders of discourse,” a Foucauldian term that Fairclough understands to mean the semiotic aspects of particular social orders (Fairclough 1992). Crawford (2009: 907) echoes this point in her reference to “regulatory gymnastics” and even the “definitional legerdemain” (2009: 913) evident in the Computer Inquiries. In the Matter of Inquiry Concerning High-Speed Access to the Internet over Cable and Other Facilities, Internet Over Cable Declaratory Ruling, 17 FCCR 4798, 4802, 4819 (2002); National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n vs. Brand X Internet Service, 545 US 967, 982 (2002) (upholding the FCC’s decision to classify Internet services provided by cable as an “information service” instead of a common carrier service as defined by the Computer Inquiry distinctions and codified in the Telecommunications Act of 1996). The concept of a boundary object as expressed by Bowker and Star (2002: 297) is as follows: Boundary objects are those objects that both inhabit several communities of practice and satisfy the informational requirements of each of them. Boundary objects are thus both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. They are weakly structured in common use and become strongly structured in individual–site use. These objects may be abstract or concrete … Such objects have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough


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to more than one world to make them recognizable, a means of translation. The creation and management of boundary objects is a key process in developing and maintaining coherence across intersecting communities. 18

In its 1970 Tentative Decision, the FCC elaborates on its logic for introducing the term “incidental” as it sought to preserve a boundary, albeit a porous one, between types of technology that merely transmit content from those which alter it in some way: It is our position that where message-switching is offered as an integral part of and as an incidental feature of a package offering that is primarily data processing, there will be total regulatory forbearance with respect to the entire service whether offered by common carrier or non-common carrier, except to the extent that common carriers offering such a hybrid service will do so through affiliates and will be subject to regulatory safeguards as discussed above. (Computer I, 28 FCC 2d 291 1970: paragraph 41). If, on the other hand, the package offering is oriented essentially to satisfy the communications or message-switching requirements of the subscriber, and the data processing feature or function is an integral part of and incidental to message-switching, the entire service will be treated as a communications service for hire, whether offered by a common carrier or non-common carrier and will be subject to regulation under the Communications Act. (Computer I, 28 FCC 2d 291 1970: paragraph 42) In the Tentative Decision we also see how, according to the FCC, telegraph transmission does not alter content; it merely stores and forwards it with a slight time delay. At the same time, message-switching is also associated with “remote access data processing,” which is something that supposedly does alter content through its semantic association with “data processing.” While both message-and circuit-switching are defined as using communications facilities, telegraphy’s use of “message-switching” technology is characterized as an indirect form of communication that involves a delay (store and forward) in transmission. In contrast, the FCC describes “circuitswitching” as enabling a direct connection that “establishes a completed transmission path prior to the communication of any information” (Computer I, 28 FCC 2d 291 1970: paragraph 15). These statements are intended to clarify distinctions between the two concepts; however, another statement in the same passage blurs these differences:

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Roberta G. Lentz The computer, because of its great speed, has so reduced time delay with respect to message-switching that historical distinctions in switching have become blurred. (Computer I, 28 FCC 2d 291 1970: paragraph 15)

19

Blommaert argues that there are “a whole set of formulations and reformulations [that are] anchored into an idea of coherence with the fixed text which serves as its source and from which the (re)formulations derive their authority” (Blommaert 2005: 187).

References Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, Pub. L. No. 79-404, 60 Stat. 237 (1946), US. Bar, F., and Sandvig, C. (2008) “US communication policy after convergence,” Media, Culture & Society, 30(4): 531–550. Blommaert, J. (2005) Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bowker, G. C., and Star, S. L. (2002) Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Braman, S. (2004) “Where has media policy gone?” Communication Law and Policy, 9(2): 153–182. Cannon, R. (2003) “The legacy of the Federal Communications Commission’s Computer Inquiries,” Federal Communications Law Journal, 55(2): 167–205. Communications Act of 1934, Pub. L. No. 416, 48 Stat. 1064 (1934), (codified as amended in scattered sections of 47 USC). Computer I, 7 FCC 2d 11 (1966) (Notice of Inquiry). Computer I, 7 FCC 2d 19 (1967) (Supplemental Notice of Inquiry). Computer I, 17 FCC 2d 587 (1969) (Report and Further Notice of Inquiry). Computer I, 28 FCC 2d 291 (1970) (Tentative Decision). Computer I, 28 FCC 2d 267 (1971) (Final Decision and Order). Computer II, 61 FCC 2d 103 (1976) (Notice of Inquiry and Proposed Rulemaking). Computer II, 62 FCC 2d 413 (1976) (Order). Computer II, 64 FCC 2d 771 (1977) (Supplemental Notice of Inquiry and Enlargement of Proposed Rulemaking). Computer II, 65 FCC 2d 808 (1977) (Memorandum Opinion and Order). Computer II, 72 FCC 2d 358 (1979) (Tentative Decision and Further Notice of Inquiry and Rulemaking). Computer II, 77 FCC 2d 384 (1980) (Final Decision). Computer II, 79 FCC 2d 953 (1980) (Memorandum Opinion and Order). Computer II, 84 FCC 2d 50 (1980) (Memorandum Opinion and Order).


Computer II, 88 FCC 2d 512 (1981) (Memorandum Opinion and Order on Further Reconsideration). Computer II, FCC 56 RR 2d 301 (1984) (Memorandum Opinion and Order). Computer III, FCC 85-397 (1985) (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking). Computer III, 104 FCC 2d 958 (1986) (Report and Order). Computer III, FCC 86-253 (1986) (Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking). Computer III, 2 FCC Rcd 3035 (1987) (Memorandum Opinion and Order on Reconsideration). Computer III, 2 FCC Rcd 3072 (1987) (Report and Order). Computer III, 3 FCC Rcd 1135 (1988) (Memorandum Opinion and Order on Further Reconsideration). Computer III, 3 FCC Rcd 1150 (1988) (Memorandum Opinion and Order on Reconsideration). Computer III, 4 FCC Rcd 5927 (1989) (Memorandum Opinion and Order on Further Reconsideration and Second Further Reconsideration). Crawford, S. P. (2009) “Transporting communications,” Boston University Law Review, 89(3): 871–937. de Certeau, M., Jameson, F., and Lovitt, C. (1980) “On the oppositional practices of everyday life,” Social Text, 3(Autumn): 3–43. de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life (trans. S. Randall). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Editors (1972) “Notes: The FCC computer inquiry interfaces of competitive and regulated markets,” Michigan Law Review, 71(1): 172–202. Eisenberg, E. M. (2007) Strategic Ambiguities: Essays on Communication, Organization, and Identity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and Power (second edition). Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London: Edward Arnold. Fairclough, N. (1995a) Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Fischer, F. (2003) Reframing Public Policy: Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frieden, R. M. (1981) “The computer inquiries: Mapping the communication/data processing terrain,” Federal Communications Law Journal, 33(1): 55–115. Frieden, R. M. (1987) “The third computer inquiry: A deregulatory dilemma,” Federal Communications Law Journal, 38(3): 383–410. Frieden, R. M. (1995) “Contamination of the common carrier concept in telecommunications,” Telecommunications Policy, 19(9): 685–697.

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Regulation as Linguistic Engineering Frieden, R. M. (1997) “Schizophrenia among carriers: How common and private carriers trade places,” Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, 19, http://www.mttlr.org/volthree/frieden. html (accessed 24/07/2004). Frieden, R. M. (2001) Revenge of the Bellheads: How the Netheads Lost Control of the Internet. University Park, PA: Penn State University, http://arxiv.org/html/ cs.CY/0109035 (accessed 24/07/2004). Frieden, R. M. (2003) “Adjusting the horizontal and vertical in telecommunications regulation: A comparison of the traditional and a new layered approach,” Federal Communications Law Journal, 55(2): 207–250. Furlong, S. R. (1998) “Political influence on the bureaucracy: The bureaucracy speaks,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 8(1): 39–65. Furlong, S. R. (2003) “Regulatory policy, role and importance of,” in J. Rabin (ed.) Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy. New York: Marcel Dekker, Inc., pp. 1053–1056. Furlong, S. R. (2005) “Interest group participation in rule making: A decade of change,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 15(3): 353–370. Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society: Outline of a Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ginsberg, W. (1981) “Communications in the 80’s: The regulatory context,” IEEE Communications Magazine, September: 56. Halliday, M. A. K. (1985). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. Hardy, C., and Phillips, N. (2004) “Discourse and power,” in D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick, and L. L. Putnam (ed.) The Sage Handbook of Organizational Discourse. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 299–316. Hart, J. A. (2004) Technology, Television, and Competition: The Politics of Digital TV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horwitz, R. B. (1989) The Irony of Regulatory Reform: The Deregulation of American Telecommunications. Oxford: Oxford University Press. In the Matter of Inquiry Concerning High-Speed Access to the Internet over Cable and Other Facilities, Internet Over Cable Declaratory Ruling, 17 FCCR 4798, 4802, 4819 (2002), US. In the Matter of the Western Union Telegraph Company, Tariff FCC No. 251 Applicable to SICOM Service, 11 FCC 2d 1 (1967), US. Johnstone, B. (2008) Discourse Analysis (second edition). Oxford: Blackwell. Kagan, R. A. (2004) “Regulators and regulatory processes,” in A. Sarat (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Law and Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 212–230, http://www.blackwellreference.com/ subscriber/tocnode?id=g9780631228967_chunk_ g978063122896714 (accessed 17/08/2009).


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Keenan, N. (2007) Letter to Lowell McAdam, President & CEO of Verizon (September 25), http://www. prochoiceamerica.org/assets/files/verizon_letterfrom-nancy.pdf (accessed 13/06/2007). Kerwin, C. M. (2003) Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy (third edition). Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. Lee, A., and Poynton, C. (2000) Culture & Text: Discourse and Methodology in Social Research and Cultural Studies. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Lentz, R. G. (2008) “‘Linguistic Engineering’ and the FCC Computer Inquiries, 1966–1989.” Unpublished dissertation, University of Texas at Austin. Liptak, A. (2007) “Verizon blocks messages of abortion rights group” (September 27), http://www.nytimes. com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html (accessed 17/ 06/2008). Locke, T. (2004) Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Continuum Publishing. Martin, J. R. (2003) “Chapter 2: Cohesion and texture,” in D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, and H. E. Hamilton (eds) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 35–53. McAdam, L. C. (2007) Letter to Nancy Keenan, President and CEO of NARAL Pro Choice America (September 27), http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/files/ retraction-letter.pdf (accessed 13/06/2007). Mills, S. (1997) Discourse. London: Routledge. Napoli, P. M. (2001) Foundations of Communications Policy: Principles and Process in the Regulation of Electronic Media. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press. NARAL (2007) “NARAL Pro-Choice America Wins Fight over Corporate Censorship” (September 27), NARAL Press Release, Washington, DC: NARAL, http://www.naral.org/news/press-releases/ 2007/pr09272007_verizonwin.html (accessed 13/ 06/2007). National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Service, 545 US 967, 982 (2002), US. Oxford English Dictionary (1989) The Oxford English Dictionary (second edition). Cambridge: Oxford University Press, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/ entry/50075335 (accessed 21/02/2010). Parker, I. (1999) Critical Textwork. Buckingham: Open University Press. Phillips, L., and Jorgensen, M. W. (2002) Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Sandoval, C. J. K. (2009) “Disclosure, deception and deeppacket inspection: The role of the Federal Trade Commission Act’s deceptive conduct prohibitions in the net neutrality debate,” Fordham Law Review, 78(2): 641–712. Sandvig, C. E. (2007) “Network neutrality is the new common carriage,” Info, 9(2/3): 136–147.

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Slembrouck, S. (2002) “Intertextuality,” in J. Verschueren, J.-O. Ostman, J. Blommaert, and C. Bulcaen (eds) Handbook of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publ. Co., np. Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56 (1996) (codified in scattered sections of 47 USC). United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/ documents/udhr (accessed 22/02/2010). van Dijk, T. A. (2001) “Critical discourse analysis,” in D. Tannen, D. Schiffrin and H. Hamilton (eds) Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 352–371. Warren, K. F. (2004) Administrative Law in the Political System (fourth edition). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Weiss, G., and Wodak, R. (eds) (2003) Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity. New York: Macmillan. Wetherell, M., Taylor, S., and Yates, S. J. (eds) (2001) Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis. Milton Keynes: The Open University.


Wodak, R., and Meyer, M. (eds) (2001) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage Publications. Wood, L. A., and Kroger, R. O. (2000) Doing Discourse Analysis: Methods for Studying Action in Talk and Text. London: Sage Publications. World Bank (1991) Managing Development: The Governance Dimension. Washington, DC: World Bank, http:// www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/ WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2006/03/07/0000 90341_20060307104630/Rendered/PDF/34899.pdf (accessed 04/04/2010). Wu, T. (2003) “Network neutrality, broadband discrimination,” Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law, 2(1): 141–179. Wu, T. (2007) “Wireless Carterfone,” International Journal of Communication, 1: 380. Zarkin, M. J. (2003) “Telecommunications policy learning: The case of the FCC’s Computer Inquiries,” Telecommunications Policy, 27(3–4): 283–299.

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Part V

Governance: New Policy and Research Challenges


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28

Gender and Communication Policy: Struggling for Space Margaret Gallagher

Introduction In late 2009, a heated debate erupted in the pages of the Spanish national daily El País. The controversy centered on an article in the paper’s Opinion section by writer and university professor Enrique Lynch. The article, “Revanchismo de género” (“Gender revenge”), took as its starting point an Iberoamerican campaign to promote “zero tolerance” toward violence against women. Critiquing the campaign and its accompanying slogan, Lynch denounced what he perceived as the Spanish government’s “implicitly feminist” equality policy. By favoring women over men, he argued, this approach contributed to gender violence. In fact, he claimed, women themselves bear responsibility for male violence. First, ignorant and brutal men are raised by women – their mothers. Second, in popular music, women assert their “rights” by taunting and discarding men mercilessly. Citing music videos by three female artists, Lynch concluded his article with the prediction that three new videos like these would result in a threefold increase in the monthly murder rate of women. Following publication of Lynch’s article, El País received several hundred phone calls and letters of complaint. At issue was the question of whether the article – regarded by many as a justification of gender violence and thus a potential incitement

to further violence against women – should have been published. By giving space to Lynch’s views, had the paper’s Opinion editor correctly balanced the principle of freedom of expression against the newspaper’s internal guidelines, the Code of Ethics of Spain’s professional journalism association FAPE, and the Council of Europe’s Resolution on the Ethics of Journalism (which encompasses not just news reporting but also the expression of opinion)? Indeed, was this article in contravention of Spain’s 2004 law on the prevention of gender violence, one of whose goals is to strengthen “preventive awareness” through the media? The questions raised by the controversy in a general sense may seem familiar. They highlight dilemmas that arise from competing and sometimes conflicting aspects of media and communication policy. However, this particular debate – raising fundamental issues of gender power relations, mobilizing not just individual women but women’s associations among its protagonists, employing arguments informed by feminist theorizing and statistics on gender violence, and conducted in a political environment supportive of women’s rights – says much about the contemporary state of play regarding gender issues and media policy. In Spain, such a debate could not have happened 20, or even 10, years earlier.1 In many countries, such a debate would be still unimaginable.



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Historically, feminists have been slow to engage with the domain of media and communication policy. Although the earliest preoccupations of the women’s movement – equal access to media employment and decision-making, fair representation in media content – were clearly dependent on policy determinations, these issues were often presented as micro-level problems, stripped of their relationship to a broader policy context. Equally, policy frameworks have not readily accommodated gender concerns. Schooled in a traditionally “gender-blind” worldview, not just policy-makers themselves but other key actors in the arena of media and communication policy-making – politicians, business and media elites, academics, and, indeed, civil society activists – have been slow to understand or accept that policy-making is seldom gender-neutral, and that policy choices may impact differently on women and on men.2 The arguments in this chapter are inspired by feminist scholarship, one of whose principal goals is to make women’s experience visible. Central in much of this scholarship are the concepts of gender and gender difference, considered as pivotal in the analysis of structures of power, the organization of social and cultural institutions, and systems of ideological authority.3 One of the contributions of feminist theory and activism, particularly over the past 15 years, has been to interrogate the opaque nature of the concepts “people” or “the public” (traditionally and implicitly defined as white, male, elite) that informs much policy-making. By highlighting the many distinct, overlooked groupings – the most fundamental, from a feminist standpoint, being that of women (a grouping which itself is highly differentiated) – that actually inhabit the spaces affected by policy, feminist analysis seeks to identify significant policy gaps and expand policy frameworks. In essence, this approach aims at the development of “gender-sensitive” policy – policy that acknowledges the distinct economic and social positions of women and men, the gender relations that both determine and result from such positions, and the gender-specific priorities that arise from these positions and relations. It is an ambitious goal, far from realization. Yet looking back at the evolution of media and communication and policy debates, we can trace the ways in which gender has moved gradually from the outermost periphery of consideration to a


position which requires acknowledgment – even though it frequently fails to achieve acceptance. This chapter will first examine the extent to which gender has intersected with media and communication at the global level since the 1970s, focussing on three milestones in international policy deliberations – the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), the Fourth World Conference on Women, and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). It will then analyze the difficulties in reconciling policies on gender equality and on media and communication, with reference to the concepts of gender mainstreaming and freedom of expression. Finally, it will highlight the challenges posed by persistent policy gaps, the strategies used to circumvent resistance, and the obstacles that remain in securing a space for gender issues within media and communication policy frameworks.

From NWICO to WSIS, via Beijing In the mid-1970s, two major global issues – the status of women, and the status of communication and information – became focal points of international debate. The World Conference for International Women’s Year, held in Mexico City in 1975, launched the United Nations (UN) Decade for Women. From the outset, there was recognition of the link between women’s status and the role of information and communication. The World Plan of Action adopted at the Mexico City conference characterized women’s lack of control over, or even access to, communication channels as both a symptom and a cause of their disadvantaged status globally. Issues of control and access – at the level of the nation-state, and specifically with reference to the imbalanced flow of information between countries of the North and South – were also at the heart of the debate that initiated calls for a NWICO. The International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (the MacBride Commission), established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to respond to the issues raised by NWICO’s proponents, began its work in December 1977. The UN Decade for Women was

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Gender and Communication Policy two years old. No woman was nominated to serve on the 16-member Commission; but when one of the original members withdrew, he was replaced by Betty Zimmerman, at that time Director of Radio Canada International. At her instigation, a research paper on women and communication (one, out of the 100 or so prepared for the Commission) was requested in the spring of 1979. The Commission met for the last time in November of that year. This last-minute grafting is evident in the MacBride Report (ICSCP 1980), only one of whose 82 recommendations covers women’s communication needs and rights. There is no discussion of the situation of women in relation to transnationalization, advertising, infrastructures, professional communicators, the formation of public opinion – all of which would have benefited from analysis in terms of gender differences and relations. Instead, the “issue” of women is collapsed into two pages on “equal rights for women,” as if these rights were unrelated to the other matters covered in the report. Although rudimentary in its analysis of the topic, the MacBride Report is an early example of the significance of gender in the composition of policy and other decision-making bodies. It was largely due to the efforts of Betty Zimmerman that the issue of women and communication received any attention at all. Other key international policy documents of the time were silent on the matter. For example the Mass Media Declaration, adopted by the 20th UNESCO General Conference in 1978, though explicit on the subject of youth, ignored women.4 In 1980, UNESCO’s 21st General Conference adopted Resolution 4/19 on the NWICO which inter alia called for measures to follow up the MacBride Report. There is no mention of women in the Resolution. Yet by 1980, the UN and UNESCO had published three international studies on women and communication media. The UN system had sponsored or co-sponsored at least 12 regional and international meetings on the theme. Each meeting had published a written report. In many of these there is ample evidence that the issues driving the debate on global information imbalance and information flows – under-representation, misrepresentation, marginalization, pluralism, communication rights, access, and control – featured strongly in deliberations on women and communication. Evidently the two sets of discussions – one on women, the other on


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NWICO – were carried out simultaneously and voiced parallel concerns. Yet they never intersected. Feminist critics were quick to note the irony in the position of NWICO advocates who called for the radical redistribution of communication resources internationally yet remained silent on internal inequalities. As Marilee Karl put it in her 1981 analysis of the NWICO debate: “the one characteristic of present information structures which is rarely mentioned, but which has far-reaching consequences, is that they are male-dominated” (Karl 1981: 27, in Gallagher 1985: 43). It was to be in specifically women-centered international gatherings – particularly the conferences of the UN Decade for Women – that issues of gender bias in media and communication structures were analyzed. But here too there was a problem. Throughout the UN Decade (1975–1985), and, indeed, until the 1990s, communication issues were generally regarded – within both the UN system and also the international women’s movement – as secondary in importance to problems such as poverty, health, and education for women. Although occasional paragraphs and recommendations on the media and communication were included in the policy documents of each of the first three UN conferences on women, it was not until 1995 that the strategic breakthrough came. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), adopted unanimously by 189 Member States of the UN at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, acknowledged the media as one of 12 “critical areas of concern.” No longer regarded as a preoccupation primarily of the urban middle classes in the global North, the media were understood as playing a fundamental role in the perpetuation of unequal gender relations at all levels of society. This part of the BPfA – commonly known as “Section J” – identified two overall strategic objectives: (i) to “increase the participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and through the media and new technologies of communication”; and (ii) to “promote a balanced and non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media” (see BPfA 1995: paragraphs 234–245). To achieve these objectives, the BPfA specified a far-reaching series of actions to be taken by governments, national and international media systems, advertising organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and media professional associations.

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The Beijing Conference marked a turning point in putting the issues around women, media, and communication on the international agenda. It moved away from the concept of women’s “advancement” (within taken-for-granted, existing structures) to that of women’s “empowerment” (implying the potential to transform those structures). It introduced the concept of women as key actors in the field of media and information and communication technologies (ICTs) both at the level of technology and of policy development. The BPfA is still considered by many the comprehensive blueprint for women’s human rights in relation to media and communication, and it continues to be used as a key reference point in national and regional policy-making. Its use goes beyond mere citation – for example, in preambles to texts where it is enumerated as an endorsement for policy. It is also used in a substantive way, to delineate the content of policy actions. For instance, the Council of Europe Recommendation on Gender Equality Standards and Mechanisms, adopted in November 2007, includes an extensive section on media which calls for “full implementation of strategic objectives and actions” contained in the BPfA, “in particular Section J (women and the media).”5 The decade after 1995 brought immense technological transformation in the form of digitalization and the Internet – new ICTs that were barely discussed at the time of Beijing. Issues of ICT access, infrastructure, and content, as well as the role of ICTs in the development of culture, and the impact of all these on women’s rights and gender equality, opened up new questions. When in 2000 a special session of the UN General Assembly conducted a five-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing +5), ICTs were identified as one of the major new issues that needed to be addressed. The WSIS, held in two phases (Geneva 2003, Tunis 2005), promised a global forum for debate on ICTs and development, and might have provided the opportunity to create a new set of policies for women and communication in the twenty-first century – one that applied the women’s human rights perspective of the BPfA to the gamut of issues thrown up by technological development. Thus, in 2003 the Women’s Networking Support Programme of the Association for Progressive Communication (APC WNSP), which had played a key role in women-


centered ICT initiatives since Beijing, called for a WSIS approach acknowledging that gender inequality is central in broader social inequality, builds a broader consensual platform, places people at the centre of development, respects diversity, calls for the use of ICTs for peace and human development, [and] places human rights and women’s human rights as central principles. (APC WNSP 2003: np in Shade 2006: 8–9)

These aspirations would not be met. Although well-organized at the Summit, women’s numerical presence was weak. The truth is that media and communication issues – Beijing’s Section J notwithstanding – still exist somewhat on the margins of the international women’s agenda. Indeed, the inclusion in 1995 of media and communication as one of the “critical areas of concern” occurred at a late stage in the Beijing preparatory process, largely as the result of intensive lobbying by civil society organizations, particularly in Asia and Latin America. While over 30,000 women attended the NGO forum associated with the Beijing Conference, WSIS proved to be one of the major international events in which women were “least engaged,” the main reason being “lack of understanding of the process and appreciation of the relationship between the issues and the overall women’s struggle for gender equality” (Cabrera-Balleza 2005: np). Added to this was the overarching technology-driven and marketled paradigm that framed the WSIS debate, in which references to communication rights or bottom-up media discourse were perceived by some as an attempt to revive the unresolved issues of the NWICO debate – a debate whose spectre haunted all global media agendas since the 1980s when it resulted in the withdrawal of the United States and the United Kingdom from UNESCO.6 Negotiations during the Beijing Conference itself had led to the introduction of the phrase “consistent with freedom of expression” throughout the final text of Section J – a reminder that this is one of the most highly contested areas within international debate. The years after Beijing saw the widespread adoption of a neoliberal economic model and market-driven policies propelled by the World Trade Organization (WTO) – formally established in the same year as the Beijing Conference – which undoubtedly intensified resistance to actions aimed at redressing

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Gender and Communication Policy imbalances in the sphere of media, information, and communication.7 However, the basic problem was the nature of the WSIS process which, despite its claims to be a “multi-stakeholder” forum, privileged governments and corporate interests while limiting the input of civil society. Within this process, the heterogeneity of civil society itself had to be negotiated. Particularly in the second phase of the Summit, civil society positions were “characterized by difference, division, and questions of identity and representation” (Banks 2005: np). Gender equality advocates were not spared these divisions. From the outset, two separate groups – the WSIS Gender Caucus and the NGO Gender Strategies Working Group (GSWG)8 – represented gender interests. Although they worked well enough in tandem during the first phase of the Summit, differences between them were evident. The approach favored by the Gender Caucus, itself a multi-stakeholder grouping whose members included representatives of not just civil society but national governments, the private sector, and the UN system, was problematic for many of those involved in the GSWG. The core members of the GSWG were drawn from long-established women and media NGOs (including ISIS International, the International Women’s Media Tribune Centre, Agencía Latinoamericana de Información – ALAI, African Women’s Development and Communications Network – FEMNET, and APC WNSP) whose advocacy had been important in the Beijing process. For these groups, working in this multi-stakeholder space meant “settling for the lowest common denominator – one that the CEO of Hewlett Packard and an NGO worker from the South could agree to” (George 2004: np). Reflecting the sense of disillusion felt by many civil society activists after the Geneva phase of the Summit, the GWSG stepped back from the WSIS process during phase two, though individual members continued to work with both the Gender and the Civil Society Caucuses. The first phase of the WSIS concluded in Geneva in December 2003. A basic commitment to women’s empowerment and participation in the information society was included in paragraph 12 of the WSIS (2003) Declaration of Principles. However, the struggle for inclusion of this paragraph was laborious. In July 2003, Canada had proposed a paragraph on gender equality. Yet in the draft documents presented at the WSIS


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Preparatory Committee session in September there was no sign of such a text. In what came to be known as the “T-shirt incident,” members of the GWSG entered the negotiating session wearing a T-shirt with the message “Draft WSIS Declaration has a missing paragraph” displayed on the front, and the suggested Canadian wording for this paragraph on the back. The action – reminiscent of the tactics honed and used to increasing effect by NGOs during the UN women’s conferences – caught the attention of WSIS delegates. A “gender” paragraph was eventually agreed, but with wording much weaker than that originally proposed by Canada.9 It was clear that WSIS would not recognize the principle of gender equality as fundamental to a just information society.10 Negotiations on gender issues “were subsequently to be conducted over a sentence here or a paragraph there” (Gurumurthy 2004: 15). WSIS evidently failed to build on the BPfA. When the needs of women and girls were addressed in the Geneva Plan of Action, this was limited to support actions in the traditional ways – education, training, and careers in ICT-related contexts, balanced and diverse media portrayals of men and women, development of gender-sensitive indicators on ICT use and needs. Issues that have typified post-Beijing ICT gender analysis – such as the need for gender-sensitive infrastructure development – were not addressed. It seems that as long as gender equality advocates in the WSIS process confined themselves to “traditional women’s issues” they had some chance of success – perhaps because these issues were considered on the fringes of the overall WSIS agenda. The outcome of the second WSIS phase was perhaps even more disappointing. Paragraph 23 of the Tunis Commitment document (WSIS 2005) does recognize the existence of a gender divide within the digital divide. But apart from this, little was added to what had been achieved in Geneva. Despite its multi-stakeholder tag, WSIS was an intergovernmental conference. Civil society groups depended on government delegations to channel and support their suggestions, if these were to figure in the outcome texts of WSIS. Here there was a special problem for gender equality advocates. The nature of the WSIS agenda meant that government delegates were drawn mainly from telecommunication and finance ministries, where few women are to be found and where consideration of gender

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differences would not be the norm.11 From the outset of the WSIS process, the inclusion of a gender equality perspective proved contentious for government delegations. There were radically different viewpoints on how the issue of “women” should feature, if at all. While countries such as Canada and South Africa favored a “women’s empowerment” perspective in the official documents, others “including China and Syria, took the position that references to women should be in the context of marginalized and vulnerable groups of society” (Hafkin 2004: 56). Governmental authority was decisive to the very end. When it came to negotiating the Tunis Agenda (WSIS 2005a), which sets out follow-up actions to WSIS on financing and Internet governance, “most of the contributions by gender advocates … were erased at the last moment by the Russian delegation” (Huyer 2006: 232).

Gender Mainstreaming and Freedom of Expression The WSIS process proved to be a daunting, though not completely barren, terrain for gender equality advocates. In effect, it was an attempt to pursue, at the global level, one of the BPfA most ambitious goals – gender mainstreaming. The concept is potentially powerful in policy terms, though it is often poorly understood and has sometimes been a smokescreen for inaction.12 The UN Economic and Social Council has defined it as: the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.13

In the years since Beijing, political institutions have struggled not simply with the concept of “gender mainstreaming” but with the concept of “gender” itself. Feminist scholars understand gender as a set of socially constructed attributes and relations that define women and men differently


(Lorber 1994; Risman 2004). Analysis of these differences and their implications is crucial in the development of gender-sensitive policy and in gender mainstreaming. But frequently in policy documents the term “gender” is used simply as a synonym for “women.” Worse, it may be included ritualistically in the belief that mere reference to “gender” amounts to “gender mainstreaming.” For instance, in two Recommendations adopted by the Council of Europe in 2007 – on Media Pluralism, and on Public Service Media – the following sentence appears, in each case at the end of a paragraph: “Due attention should also be paid to gender equality issues.” A similar phrase is included in the Political Declaration adopted at the first Council of Europe Conference of Ministers responsible for Media and New Communication Services (2009): “Gender-related issues should also be mainstreamed with regard to these services.”14 But with no indication of what these issues are, how they could be “mainstreamed” or even how they relate to the substance of the policy documents, it is difficult to imagine how the Member States of the Council of Europe will attend to them. It can be argued that mere allusion to the existence of “gender issues” in such documents is a step forward, something that would not have happened in the pre-Beijing era. Using the BPfA and other international instruments such as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), women’s rights committees and lobby groups have fought hard for even minimal recognition of equality goals in policy instruments. The inclusion of a word or phrase can seem like a major victory. But opposition is formidable.15 Media and communication seem to occupy a protected space, to be defended against claims from policy areas that are perceived as extraneous and threatening. The European Union’s (EU) 2004 Equal Treatment Directive is a case in point. When initially drafted, this was intended to cover discrimination in the media. However, in the final version of the Directive the media and advertising are expressly excluded from the equal treatment provisions.16 Conflict within EU institutions between gender equality policy and media policy is clear. The European Commission’s Roadmap for Equality Between Women and Men 2006–2010 – the operational plan for implementing EU equality policy – contains a section on the elimination of gender stereotypes in the media.

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Gender and Communication Policy The proposed actions are modest, covering “awareness-raising” and “exchange of good practice,” the development of “dialogue with media,” and the promotion of “gender mainstreaming” in other community programs. Although the Roadmap for Equality includes indicators that will be used to measure progress on its other policy areas, no indicators are given for the policy on media. It is difficult to read these proposals as troublesome. Yet the Commission’s internal Media Task Force – which scrutinizes all proposed measures in terms of how they affect media policy – judged that this section of the Roadmap presents “tension with freedom of expression.”17 As one of the most jealously protected values that guide media and communication policy, “freedom” – of expression, the press, the media – is conventionally argued to be at risk in the face of advocacy for diversity, pluralism, or equal rights. This uneasiness is regularly expressed in debates within the Council of Europe which, in recent years, has adopted several Resolutions on aspects of gender equality and media.18 In 2007, the Council’s Committee for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men tried to anticipate the “freedom of expression” argument in its presentation of a Resolution and Recommendation on The Image of Women in Advertising by referring to the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In the view of the Committee, this includes several clauses (Article 10 paragraph 2, Articles 14 and 17) that qualify rights and freedoms – including freedom of expression. However, this reasoning was rejected by the Council’s Committee of Ministers. They reaffirmed the right to freedom of expression, noting that, according to case law of the European Court of Human Rights, freedom of expression is applicable to “information or ideas that offend, shock or disturb. This likewise applies to the images contained in commercial messages and advertising.”19 Advertising – though at the center of an enormous amount of feminist advocacy at every level of policy – is protected not just by the dogma of freedom but by the power of money and the influence of lobbying. Kiran Prasad (2008: 79) argues that the obstacle of “media profitability” impedes enforcement of existing gender equality provisions in India. Within the institutions of the EU, where media and communication have been defined primarily as tradable goods, the market principle is


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immensely influential. The European Commission’s response to the 2008 European Parliament Resolution How marketing and advertising affect equality between women and men20 is revealing in this respect. The Commission first suggests that “freedom of expression arguably provides a basis for tolerance of stereotyping in advertising” because of its “short-form” and “ephemeral” nature. Furthermore, one should take into account the positive role that advertising plays in reducing the cover price of print media and in funding free online media, together with commercial television channels … Heavy-handed interventions to limit stereotyping could be counter-productive in terms of overall media policy priorities, since they would divert promotional expenditure outside the media.21

Here, “freedom of expression” is used to support respect for “overall media policy priorities” of finance and profitability. In this logic, the premise of the Resolution – advertising’s effect on gender equality – is ignored in the interests of policy goals perceived as more important. The apparent impregnability of “freedom of expression” discourse in the gender equality domain gives rise to an inevitable question: Whose freedom, defined by whom? A radical re-balancing of genderdetermined rights and freedoms may seem unrealistic, at least at this point. However, feminists have focussed on the concept of freedom to highlight gender inequities and to argue that women’s right to freedom of expression and information is severely limited by layers of structural, economic, and cultural constraints. This means shifting conventional understanding of freedom of expression away from “freedom from government control” toward a conception that acknowledges the right of women, as well as men, to be informed, and to have their voices heard. Starting with the question “Can free media be only a male domain?” Patricia Made has highlighted the shortcomings of the influential Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press (UNESCO 1991). By ignoring internal gender biases within media systems – biases which mean that “the media do not provide access to expression to more than half of the region’s population: women” (Made 2004: 48) – policies like this have failed to link “democracy, freedom of expression, governance and issues of gender justice to the editorial content of the media” (Made 2004: 49).

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At the institutional level, it was the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) – a Windhoekbased regional body established in 1992 to promote media freedom, pluralism, and diversity – that was to make the breakthrough in acknowledging that the absence of explicit reference to gender in the freedom of expression discourse of the Windhoek Declaration had resulted in a lack of attention to “gross gender disparities in the media.” In its 2002 gender policy, MISA states that “gender equality is intrinsic to a plural and diverse media” (Gender Links, MISA, GEMSA 2005: 16). With chapters in 12 Southern African countries, MISA plays a key role in promoting progressive policies and practices in the media of the region. Together with Gender Links – the organization with whom it developed the gender policy – and the Gender and Media Southern Africa Network (GEMSA), MISA continues to work with media and regulatory bodies to develop policies that recognize the importance of giving equal voice to women and men. Despite its lead on the freedom of expression issue, however, this particular aspect of the MISA vision has yet to gain widespread support. Attempts to include it in the media provisions of the 2008 Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development were unsuccessful.

Policy Gaps and Challenges While the first decade of the twenty-first century saw the emergence of some media and communication policy spaces receptive to gender equality advocacy, resistance remains high. The 2005 review of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (Beijing +10) concluded that “lack of gender-sensitivity in media policies is an ongoing problem.”22 Multi-country studies in Africa (Hafkin 2002; EAJA 2008), Asia (Ramilo 2002) and Latin America and the Caribbean (Bonder 2002) have been unanimous in highlighting the absence of attention to gender equality goals in almost all media and ICT policies. Between 2005 and 2010, compared with the other “critical areas of concern” identified in the BPfA, media and communication continued to be neglected.23 The question of how to fill these policy gaps is likely to dominate international debates on women and communication in future decades.


Education of policy-makers on women’s right to equal participation and on the gender implications of policy design has become a widely advocated strategy, though one that proves difficult to implement in a sustained way. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which established a Task Force on Gender Issues in 1998, did produce a set of guidelines for policy-making and regulatory agencies ( Jorge 2001) intended to illustrate the steps needed to increase women’s participation in decision-making and policy-making. The guidelines cover several key areas – internal mechanisms to promote gender equity, woman-friendly working conditions, human resource and training issues, gender-based criteria for the granting of licenses, as well as monitoring and data collection. Sonia Jorge, who prepared the guidelines, developed an even more ambitious proposal for the ITU Task Force – a workshop curriculum for telecommunication policy-makers and development practitioners on the need for a gender perspective in policymaking ( Jorge 2000). It included a comparison of the difference between a “gender-neutral” and a “gender-sensitive” approach to the formulation, implementation and evaluation of policy, showing how a gender focus changes policy so as to bring greater benefits for women. Though the guidelines and the curriculum were potentially influential in terms both of education and of gender mainstreaming in ICT policy, by 2009 the ITU had turned away from this approach to concentrate on specific projects aimed at increasing use of ICTs by women and girls. In a curious, though perhaps related, development, the ITU Task Force on Gender Issues (later a Working Group) became a fully fledged Gender Unit within the ITU secretariat, before eventually losing its explicit gender identity within a Special Initiatives Division.24 Whether this was an effort at “gender mainstreaming” within the organization, or a sign that “gender, as a variable, [had] fallen off the mainstream research agenda” of the ITU (Crow and Sawchuk 2008: 95), it does signal a retreat from the goal of policy transformation that typified the early work of the Task Force on Gender Issues. Implementing special projects may well benefit some women and some girls, but from a feminist standpoint it is a step backwards – towards a “catch-up” conception of gender relations, in which women simply have to catch up with men and that improved opportunities will allow this to happen. The lack of structural

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Gender and Communication Policy critique inherent in the catch up approach means that underlying patterns of inequality and exclusion are ignored (see Moser 1993). Other international organizations such as UNESCO, which has focussed on communication training for women as a key strategy, have been found similarly wanting for failing to ask the right questions about structural inequities, including gender bias in policymaking, the allocation of resources and so on (Lee 2004; also Leye 2009). Despite international conventions and instruments such as the BPfA and CEDAW, since 1995 there has been little success in securing a place for gender equality concerns within national communication policies. An alternative strategy has been to introduce provisions on media and communication into other types of policy – for example, equality policy or policy on violence against women. Since the 1990s, many countries have adopted or revised legislation on violence against women and, increasingly, the links between violence and the content of media and advertising have been addressed in new legislation. Mexico’s 2007 Ley General de Acceso de las Mujeres a una Vida Libre de Violencia (Law on the Access of Women to a Life Free from Violence), Brazil’s Law 11340/06, known as the Maria da Penha Law of 2006, Spain’s 2004 Ley Orgánica de Medidas de Protección Integral contra la Violencia de Género (Law on Integrated Protection Measures against Gender Violence) and Argentina’s 2009 Ley de Protección Integral para prevenir, sancionar y erradicar la violencia contra las mujeres en los ámbitos en que desarrollen sus relaciones interpersonales (Law on Integrated Protection Measures to Prevent, Sanction and Eradicate Violence Against Women) all include provisions aimed at restraining media content or reporting that encourages or legitimizes violence against women. Gradually, definitions of violence have broadened from physical, psychological, and sexual, to economic and – in the case of Argentina’s 2009 law – “symbolic” violence.25 While laws like these are expanding conventional definitions and policy frameworks in the field of gender equality, it remains to be seen whether future media and communication policy-making will reflect or reference their provisions.26 Making policy and passing legislation is one challenge. Ensuring implementation is another. India’s 2001 National Policy for the Empowerment of Women includes a section on mass media which


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covers women’s access to ICTs, and the development of self-regulatory mechanisms to ensure balanced portrayal of women and men.27 It seems that this policy “has had limited success” (Prasad 2008: 77), possibly because its provisions on media are not sufficiently well-defined. Specificity is essential. Spain’s 2004 Law on Gender Violence actually modified the country’s 1988 Advertising Act (Ley General de Publicidad), which was considered not precise enough in relation to gender. The 2004 Act establishes that those advertisements that “represent women in a humiliating manner, either using their body or parts of it specifically and directly as a mere object unconnected with the product that is to be promoted, or their image associated with stereotyped “behaviours” are unlawful.28 It enables the public authorities – including the Institute for Women’s Issues (Instituto de la Mujer) – to take official action against such advertising and, in fact, successful actions have been mounted (de la Fuente Méndez 2008: 4). The difficulties of ensuring effective implementation of national policy are, of course, greatly compounded at international and even regional levels. One of the most far-sighted regional initiatives to date has been the work to develop the Southern Africa Development Community Protocol on Gender and Development, adopted by SADC Heads of State in 2008. This transformed the non-binding commitments of the 1997 SADC Declaration on Gender and Development into concrete, time-bound, and legally binding actions. Articles 29–31 of the Protocol cover media, information and communication, calling, inter alia, for gender mainstreaming in information, communication, and media policies, equal representation of women and men in media decision-making structures, equal voice for women and men in media content, and policies and targets for equal access to ICTs.29 A research tool (the Gender Protocol Barometer) has been developed to measure progress. Though spearheaded by a team of women’s NGOs (the Gender Protocol Alliance), coalition building with the SADC Secretariat (in particular, its Gender Unit) was one of the keys to success. Admittedly, “there is still a long road to travel in order to make the Protocol a reality in the daily lives of women and men in SADC” (Made and Lowe Morna 2009: 102). However, as a model of an integrated approach to the translation

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of policy into practice, the Gender Protocol does illustrate the potential of partnerships between governments and civil society.

New Spaces, Same Old Worries The Beijing Platform for Action encapsulated the main challenges to gender equality in media and communication in terms of three problem areas: gender stereotyping in media content, professional discrimination in the media industries, and unequal access to new ICTs. While these apparently “straightforward” challenges remain, in some ways they have been overtaken by developments hardly imagined in 1995. The Asia and Pacific document prepared for the 15-year review of Beijing (Beijing +15) in 2010 calls for a re-conceptualization of the BPfA “to encompass issues relating to the rapid changes taking place as the world evolves towards an information and digital society.” Of particular concern is the “increased proliferation of pornography and sexualized, exploitative and violent imagery of women on the Internet … exacerbated by the loose regulation on the use of the Internet and new technologies.”30 Yet the issue of pornography is one of the most divisive for feminists, at least partly because of its (mis)appropriation in governmental “morality” rhetoric to justify control and censorship. The muted response of women’s movements to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) initial approval in 2005 of .xxx as a global top-level domain for sexually explicit materials in the Internet (as yet, in early 2011, not finally approved) is indicative of feminist reluctance to engage in this area of policy debate. Searching for alternatives to the dominant governmental approaches to pornography – viewed either in terms of obscenity or the protection of children – feminist analysis has focussed on the problem as a reflection of structural power relations in society. Such a broad conception does not yield simple policy solutions. For example, Sarikakis and Shaukat (2008: 122) advocate “policies that are transnational … organically coordinated to address the questions of violence, choice, sexuality, and citizenship … and that also provide ways out for those in the [sex] industry.” This might seem


utopian. More pragmatic approaches, for instance, calling for policies that “promote the use of ICTs as an effective tool in distributing information about and advocating against gender-based violence” and that encourage Internet service providers to make “self-regulatory efforts to minimize pornography, trafficking and all forms of gender-based violence on-line,”31 appear to offer fragile strategies in the face of such a massive global industry. What is clear is that the issue of Internet pornography will not fade away, and the development of a coherent policy response grounded in an understanding of gender inequalities and gender relations remains a particular challenge for feminists. Although pornography is a contentious issue, it is a familiar one. Other topics that will affect future communication policy – Internet governance, free and open software, surveillance, privacy, intellectual property rights, financing mechanisms – need to be examined from a gender perspective, though as yet very little feminist analysis has been applied to any of them. Heike Jensen (2006) has identified some of these emerging policy issues from a women’s rights perspective, while Sonia Jorge (2000) and Nancy Hafkin (2002) have applied a gender lens to a wide variety of ICT policy issues. Shirin Rai has explored the gendered aspects of one of the more arcane instruments of ICT policy – the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regime which, she argues, is “reducing, not increasing, the space for women to reap the benefits of their efforts” in the processes of invention and knowledge creation (Rai 2008: 155). Yet even as this body of work grows, it will not necessarily reach the center of policy debate. In the academic sphere, Alison Beale (2008), among others, has argued that feminist scholarship and gender-related analysis are still not integrated into policy studies. In civil society forums, feminists continue to struggle for visibility, voice, and influence. Taking the World Social Forum (WSF) as an example, Janice Conway (2007: 66) describes how the contribution of feminism has been systematically erased “in many origin stories of the anti-globalization movement and the WSF, both activist and scholarly.” The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a good example of this predicament. To follow up the WSIS, the IGF was established as an annual forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue. At the first IGF in 2006, the APC Women’s Networking Support

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Gender and Communication Policy Programme organized a panel discussion on “Content regulations from gender and development perspectives.” It was the only one – out of a total of 46 workshops, panel and plenary discussions – to bring a gender angle into the 2006 IGF discussions. The pattern was to continue. At each annual forum the APC WNSP organized sessions on gender issues and Internet governance – looking at communication rights, the tensions between freedom of information, right to expression, opinion and privacy, and freedom from violence against women. Yet the IGF as a whole failed to engage with gender. In its assessment of the 2009 forum, the APC concluded that, if the IGF is to be a real multi-stakeholder platform, “serious attention needs to be paid to the still very visible gender gap at all levels of access and participation to this forum, including agenda shaping, representation and diversity within each stakeholder group.”32 In the words of writer and activist Jan Moolman (2009), despite all the talk of people-centered democracy, inclusivity, and equal access, the absence of a women’s rights agenda at the IGF is a predictable disappointment. In the struggle for acceptance of gender issues in communication policy debates, it is a case of “new spaces, same old worries.”

Conclusion This chapter has argued that the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action helped to open up some media and communication policy spaces receptive to gender equality advocacy. Nevertheless, analysis of recent policy processes shows strong resistance to calls for frameworks that recognize the significance of gender in the design and implementation of policy. Token or ritualistic references to “gender issues” within policy statements are often presented as gender mainstreaming, though this actually calls for thorough assessment of the gender implications of policy and serious consideration of women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences in policy elaboration. Gender mainstreaming is a distant goal within media and communication policy, where freedom of expression is conventionally upheld as an argument against advocacy for equal rights. But the question is: whose freedom, defined by whom? Feminist efforts to expand the “freedom” discourse from a


simple focus on government control toward a more complex understanding of the social, economic, and cultural controls that limit women’s right to freedom of expression have, as yet, found little support in policy-making circles. To circumvent resistance to gender equality claims within media and communication policy, one strategy has been to introduce provisions on media and communication into equality policy or policy on violence against women. Another has been to tighten definitions and establish mechanisms to strengthen policy implementation. Yet fundamental problems remain. Even as feminists increasingly engage with the policy domain, new centers of policy debate show little sign of engaging with feminist analysis of policy issues. Securing a space for gender in media and communication policy will be a struggle for decades to come.

Notes 1 I am grateful to Pilar López Díez for drawing my attention to the El País controversy, and for subsequent discussion. The campaign slogan, as spoken by women, was “De todos los hombres que haya en mi vida, ninguno será más que yo” (Of all the men in my life, none will be more than me); and when spoken by men “De todas las mujeres que haya en mi vida, ninguna será menos que yo” (Of all the women in my life, none will be less than me). “Revanchismo de género” (Gender revenge) by Enrique Lynch appeared on November 19, 2009; see http://www. elpais.com/articulo/opinion/Revanchismo/gen ero/elpepiopi/20091119elpepiopi_4/Tes. Milagros Pérez Oliva, Defensora del Lector (Ombudsperson) at El País, used two of her weekly columns to address the issues raised by publication of the article: “¿Quién teme al feminismo?” (Who’s afraid of feminism?) on November 22, 2009 http://www.elpais.com/artic ulo/opinion/Quien/teme/feminismo/elpepiopi/ 20091122elpepiopi_5/Tes; and “Informar sobre la violencia machista” (Reporting on male violence) on November 29, 2009, http://www.elpais.com/articulo/ opinion/Informar/violencia/machista/elpepuopi/ 20091129elpepiopi_5/Tes (all accessed 23/01/2010). 2 Published work on this topic is scattered and much of it is available only via the Internet. The APC web site on gender and ICT policy (www.genderIT.org) is an excellent resource with up-to-date articles, research papers, and policy guidance on gender issues in media and ICTs. Documents from two UN expert group meetings held in 2002 – one on women and media, the other on women and ICTs – cover policy-related

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topics and data that are still relevant. For papers on the media, see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ daw/egm/media2002/index.html; for papers on ICTs, see http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/ egm/ict2002/index.html (all accessed 28/11/2010). Chakravartty and Sarikakis (2006) is the only fulllength work to date to integrate feminist scholarship within a general analysis of media policy formation. Several chapters in Sarikakis and Shade (2008) deal with aspects of media and ICT policy from a feminist perspective. Jensen (2009) gives a useful overview of gender equality issues in relation to ICT policy. An introduction to the sociological study of gender is Wharton (2005). Risman (2004) proposes a theory of “gender as social structure,” arguing that this conceptualization situates gender at the same level of social significance as the economy or the polity. Feminist scholarship on gender, media, and ICTs stretches back to the 1970s. Gallagher (2001) and Byerly and Ross (2006) provide internationally grounded critiques of media systems and structures, illustrating some of the relationships between feminist media activism and social change. Since the 1980s, feminists have debated the potential and challenges posed by technologies, seen from the perspective of gender (see Wajcman 2004). A useful entry point to theoretical and empirical approaches to the gender–technology relation is Green and Adam (2001). The Mass Media Declaration (Declaration on Fundamental Principles concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media to Strengthening Peace and International Understanding, to the Promotion of Human Rights and to Countering Racialism, Apartheid and Incitement to War) includes a ritualistic reference to “the rights and dignity of all nations, all peoples and all individuals without distinction of race, sex, language, religion or nationality” (Article III). However, it devotes a full substantive paragraph (Article IV) to the role of the media in the “education of young people” and in “making known the views and aspirations of the younger generation’; see http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt& folder=193&paper=954 (accessed 23/01/2010). Council of Europe, Recommendation CM/Rec (2007) 17 of the Committee of Ministers on Gender Equality Standards and Mechanisms, para. 48 (i); see https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1215219&Site= CM (accessed 28/11/2010). The Republic of Singapore also withdrew from UNESCO at this time. In 2000, during the Beijing +5 review and appraisal, the US delegation stipulated in its reservation statement that nothing in the outcome documents could be considered binding on the media (Burch and Leon 2000: 37).


8 The Gender Caucus was well funded, with technical cooperation grants from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden as well as from the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The NGO Gender Strategies Working Group was largely self-financed (see Hafkin 2004: 55). 9 The final text: “We affirm that development of ICTs provides enormous opportunities for women, who should be an integral part of, and key actors, in the Information Society. We are committed to ensuring that the Information Society enables women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society and in all decision-making processes. To this end, we should mainstream a gender equality perspective and use ICTs as a tool to that end” (see para. 12, WSIS Declaration of Principles, 2003; WSIS-03/GENEVA/ DOC/4-E, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/ official/dop.html (accessed 23/01/2010). The original Canadian text: “A focus on the gender dimensions of ICTs is essential not only for preventing an adverse impact of the digital revolution on gender equality or the perpetuation of existing inequalities and discrimination, but also for enhancing women’s equitable access to the benefits of ICTs and to ensure that they can become a central tool for the empowerment of women and the promotion of gender equality. Policies, programmes and projects need to ensure that gender differences and inequalities in the access to and use of ICT are identified and fully addressed so that such technologies actively promote gender equality and ensure that gender-based disadvantages are not created or perpetuated” (as quoted in Shade 2006: 9). 10 In December 2003 civil society organizations, frustrated by the official Declaration which they perceived as weak and insubstantial, issued their own Declaration Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs (http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/ geneva/civil-society-declaration.pdf (accessed 23/01/2010). Among its core principles (Article 2), this states the need to “address gender concerns and to make a fundamental commitment to gender equality, non-discrimination and women’s empowerment, and recognise these as non-negotiable and essential prerequisites … within information and communication societies.” It also contained detailed substantive paragraphs, contributed by the GSWG, on gender justice (2.1.3) and women’s rights (2.2.6). The Civil Society Declaration was “subsequently endorsed by hundreds of organisations … though the official summit process only grudgingly acknowledged its existence” (Burch 2005: 11). 11 Heike Jensen makes the point that this lack of previous involvement with or commitment to gender equality issues extended to most of the civil

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society organizations working in the WSIS context ( Jensen 2005: 55). Adherence to generalized “gender mainstreaming,” which is difficult to measure, is sometimes preferred to more specific commitments. For example, para. 12 of the WSIS Declaration of Principles opted to “mainstream a gender equality perspective” rather than to pursue “policies, programmes and projects” in which “gender differences and inequalities in the access to and use of ICTs are identified and fully addressed” (see note 9). United Nations General Assembly. Report of the Economic and Social Council for 1997. A/52/3. http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/52/ plenary/a52-3.htm (accessed 23/01/2010). Council of Europe, Council of Ministers Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)2 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on Media Pluralism and Diversity in Media Content, para. 3.2; see https:// wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1089699; Council of Europe, Council of Ministers Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)3 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on the Remit of Public Service Media in the Information Society, para. 8; see https://wcd. coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1089759; Council of Europe A New Notion of Media? Political Declaration and Resolutions adopted by the 1st Council of Europe Conference of Ministers Responsible for Media and New Communication Services. Reykjavik, May 28–29, 2009; MCM (2009) 011, paragraph 7 of the Political Declaration; see http://www.coe.int/t/ dghl/standardsetting/media/MCM(2009)011_en_ final_web.pdf (all accessed 23/01/2010). During the revision of the EU’s Television Without Frontiers Directive (in place since 1989), the European Women’s Lobby worked intensively on advocacy and drafting, focussed on the protection of women’s rights, anti-discrimination, and violence against women in advertising and media content. The revised Directive – known as the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (2007) – simply repeated the general formulations of Television Without Frontiers: avoidance of incitement to hatred (Article 6) or discrimination (Article 9) based on sex (or on race, religion, nationality, and so on); see http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/ LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:332:0027:0045:EN: PDF (accessed 28/11/2010). Council Directive 2004/113/EC of 13 December 2004 implementing the principle of equal treatment between men and women in the access to and supply of goods and services. See Article 3, para. 3: “This Directive shall not apply to the content of media and advertising,” http://eur-lex.europa.eu/ LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:373:0037 :0043:EN:PDF, accessed 23/01/2010.


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European Commission. A Roadmap for Equality Between Women and Men 2006–2010 COM (2006) 92 final, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/ LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2006:0092:FIN:EN:PDF; and European Commission, Media Task Force Inventory of Measures Affecting the Media, May 2009, p. 17, http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/media_taskforce/doc/grid_inventory.pdf (both accessed 23/01/2010). For example, Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly Recommendation 1555 (2002) on The Image of Women in the Media, http://assembly. coe.int/Mainf.asp?link=/Documents/Adopted Text/ta02/EREC1555.htm; Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly Resolution 1557 (2007) on the Image of Women in Advertising, http://assembly. coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ ta07/ERES1557.htm (both accessed 23/01/2010). Council of Europe, Committee for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men. The Image of Women in Advertising. Report, May 21, 2007, http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?Link=/documents/workingdocs/doc07/edoc11286.htm; and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, The Image of Women in Advertising. Recommendation 1557 (2007). Reply from the Committee of Ministers, February 28, 2008, http://assembly.coe. i n t / D o c u m e n t s / Wo r k i n g D o c s / D o c 0 8 / EDOC11530.pdf (both accessed 23/01/2010). European Parliament Resolution of September 3, 2008 on How marketing and advertising affect equality between women and men INI/2008/2038, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?t y p e = TA & l a n g u a g e = E N & r e f e r e n c e = P 6 TA-2008-0401 (accessed 23/01/2010). European Commission (2008) European Parliament Resolution on How marketing and advertising affect equality between women and men. Response to requests and overview of action taken, or intended to be taken, by the Commission, http:// www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/DownloadSP.do? id=15132&num_rep=7576&language=en (accessed 23/01/2010). Paragraph 423: Review of the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of the special session of the General Assembly entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century.” Report of the Secretary-General. E/CN.6/2005/2. New York: United Nations, December 6, 2004, http:// daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/ N04/636/83/PDF/N0463683.pdf ?OpenElement (accessed 28/11/2010). See Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action

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and the outcome of the Twenty-Third Special Session of the General Assembly in Latin American and Caribbean Countries LC/L. 3175; see page 2; http://www.eclac.cl/mujer/noticias/paginas/8/ 36338/ECLACBeijing15.pdf (accessed 23/01/2010). See presentation by Susan Schorr, Special Initiatives Division, ITU “Overview of Special Initiatives Activities on Gender Issues,” September 1, 2009. http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/sis/Gender/ISGI/ Schorr%20Gender%20Information%20Session.ppt (accessed 23/01/2010). Defined as “La que a través de patrones estereotipados, mensajes, valores, íconos o signos transmita y reproduzca dominación, desigualdad y discriminación en las relaciones sociales, naturalizando la subordinación de la mujer en la sociedad” (Which through stereotyped patterns, messages, values, images or signs transmits and reproduces domination, inequality and discrimination in social relations, thus normalizing the subordination of women in society) author’s translation (Article 5.5, Law 26485 on Violence against Women 2009); see Article 6f for specific provisions covering media, http://www. el-observatorio.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/ 04/ley-26485.pdf (accessed 23/01/2010). Argentina’s new law on Audiovisual Communication Services, adopted in October 2009. It does refer to the country’s 2009 Law on Violence against women, and includes clauses on equal treatment for women and men in media and advertising. Article 1 of the draft quotes extensively from the (2003a) Plan of Action (Articles 8, 9, and 10); see Servicios de Comunicación Audiovisual. Ley 26.522 Regúlanse los Servicios de Comunicación Audiovisual en todo el ámbito territorial de la República Argentina, October 10, 2009, http://www.revistarap.com.ar/ Derecho/regulacion_servicios_publicos/servicio_ de_comunicaciones/ley_n_26522__servicios_de_ comu.html (accessed 03/03/2011). Government of India, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Department of Women and Child Development (2001). National Policy for the Empowerment of Women, paragraph 9.1., http:// wcd.nic.in/empwomen.htm (accessed 23/01/2010). Organic Act 1/2004 of December 28, on Integrated Protection Measures against Gender Violence. Sixth additional provision. Amendment of the General Advertising Act, Article 72, http://webapps01.un.org/ vawdatabase/uploads/Spain%20-%20Organic%20 Act%20on%20Integrated%20Measures%20against% 20Gender-Based%20Violence%20(2004)%20(eng). pdf (accessed 23/01/2010). SADC Protocol on Gender and Development (2008), http://www.sadc.int/index/browse/page/465 (accessed 23/01/2010).


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Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (2009) Highlights of Progress and Challenges in Implementing the Beijing Platform for Action: Good Practices, Obstacles and New Challenges. Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in the ESCAP Region E/ESCAP/ BPA/2009/2. Bangkok: ESCAP, paras 61–62, http:// www.genderit.org/catagory/issues-main-catagory/ violence-against-women (accessed 12/01/2011). APC Women’s Networking Support Programme (nd) Violence Against Women, http://www.genderit. org/category/issues-main-category/violenceagainst-women (accessed 12/01/2011). APC’s assessment of the fourth Internet Governance Forum, Sharm el Sheikh, November 15–18, 2009, p. 5. Available at http://www.apc.org/en/ system/f iles/APCIGF4Assessment_EN.pdf (accessed 28/11/2010).

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Karl, M. (1981) “Alternative world communication?” ISIS International Bulletin, 18: 26–29. Lee, M. (2004) “UNESCO’s conceptualization of women and telecommunications 1970–2000,” Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies, 66(6): 533–552. Leye, V. (2009) “UNESCO’s communication policies as discourse: How change, human development and knowledge relate to communication,” Media, Culture and Society, 31(6): 939–956. Lorber, J. (1994) Paradoxes of Gender. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Made, P. A. (2004) “Can free media be only a male domain?” Media Development, 51(4): 47–52. Made, P. A., and Lowe Morna, C. (eds). (2009) Roadmap to Equality: Lessons Learned in the Campaign for a SADC Protocol on Gender and Development. Johannesburg: Gender Links, http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/roadmap-to-equality-lessonslearned-in-the-campaign-for-a-sadc-protocolon-gender-and-development-2009-08-27 (accessed 23/01/2010). Moolman, J. (2009) “New spaces: Same old worries” (November 19). Blog from Internet Governance Forum, November 15–18, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, http:// www.genderit.org/en/index.shtml?apc=f–e–1&x= 96364 (accessed 23/01/2010). Moser, C. (1993) Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. London: Routledge. Prasad, K. (2008) “Gender-sensitive policies for women’s development,” in K. Sarikakis and L. R. Shade (eds) Feminist Interventions in International Communication. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 74–89. Rai, S. M. (2008) The Gender Politics of Development. London: Zed Books. Ramilo, C. (2002) “National ICT policies and gender equality regional perspective: Asia.” Paper prepared for the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on information and communication technologies and their impact on and use as an instrument for the advancement and empowerment of women. Seoul, Republic of Korea, November 11–14, http://www. un.org/womenwatch/daw/egm/ict2002/reports/ Paper-CRamilo.PDF (accessed 23/01/2010). Risman, B. J. (2004) “Gender as a social structure: Theory wrestling with activism,” Gender and Society, 18(4): 429–450.


Sarikakis, K., and Shade, L. R. (eds) (2008) Feminist Interventions in International Communication. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Sarikakis, K., and Shaukat, Z. (2008) “The global structures and culture of pornography: The global brothel,” in K. Sarikakis and L. R. Shade (eds) Feminist Issues in International Communication. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 106–126. Shade, L. R. (2006) “Stirring up the pot? Integrating gender into policy, practice, and evaluation,” CRACIN Working Paper No. 13. Toronto: Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking, http://www3.fis.utoronto.ca/iprp/ cr acin/publications/pdfs/Work ingPapers/ CRACIN%20Working%20Paper%20No%2013.pdf (accessed 23/01/2010). UNESCO (1991) “Declaration of Windhoek on Promoting Independent and Pluralistic Media,” UNESCO General Conference, 26th Session, 3 May at http://www.unesco.org/webworld/fed/temp/ communication_democracy/windhoek.htm (accessed 11/02/2011). Wajcman, J. (2004) TechnoFeminism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Wharton, A. S. (2005) The Sociology of Gender. Malden, MA: Blackwell. World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2003) “Declaration of Principles. Building the Information Society: A Global Challenge in the New Millennium.” Document WSIS-03/Geneva/Doc/4-E. Geneva: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/ official/ dop.html (accessed 28/02/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2003a) “Plan of Action.” Document WSIS-03/ Geneva/Doc/5-E. Geneva: WSIS, http://www. itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/off icial/poa.html (accessed 28/02/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2005) “Tunis Commitment.” Document WSIS-05/Tunis/ Doc/7-E. Tunis: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/ docs2/tunis/off/7.html (accessed 28/02/2010). World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (2005a) “Tunis Agenda for the Information Society.” Document WSIS-05/Tunis/Doc/6(Rev. 1)-E. Tunis: WSIS, http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/ 6rev1.html (accessed 28/02/2010).

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The Environment and Global Media and Communication Policy Richard Maxwell and Toby Miller

We envision a toxic-free future, where each new generation of technical improvements in electronics products includes parallel and proportional advances in social and environmental justice. Our goal is environmental sustainability and clean production, improved health, and democratic decision making for communities and workers most affected by the high-tech revolution. (Vision Statement, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, quoted in Byster and Smith 2006: 111) A major feature of the knowledge-based economy is the impact that ICTs [information and communication technologies] have had on industrial structure, with a rapid growth of services and a relative decline of manufacturing. Services are typically less energy[-]intensive and less polluting, so among those countries with a high and increasing share of services, we often see a declining energy intensity of production … with the emergence of the Knowledge Economy ending the old linear relationship between output and energy use (i.e. partially de-coupling growth and energy use). (Houghton 2009: 1)

One of the newest and most valuable areas of communication research to emerge in the twentyfirst century focusses on how the media frame global awareness of the transnational risks associ-

ated with climate change and other threats to the Earth’s well-being. An Environmental Communication Network specializes in such questions and publishes Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture (http://www.esf. edu/ecn). Most work in this tradition falls in behind the bulk of communications research and public policy. It assumes that the principal role of the media is to inform the public, providing a grand conduit of knowledge and hence consciousness, a universal system of meaning that is now transcending the old broadcast model to make each consumer into a producer. Information has been supplemented, and in some ways supplanted, by participation, and the emerging cacophony is the newest signature of vibrant democratic norms and urges. Communication technologies provide an expanding universe of discourse. In this story of limitless growth, the principal goal of technology is to overcome scarcity and bestow the benefits of plenitude through access on every person, all the time. The planet must be comprehensively wired, every child must have a laptop, cell phones must proliferate, and we must all turn into media producers. Of course, the older media, such as print, film, radio, and television, have long been the object of a similar policy discourse. In each case, there have been dual goals – expanding access and



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use; and ensuring that content behooves the interests of the population. Growth has been the watchword. We challenge such assumptions. The media – and ICTs and consumer electronics (CEs) more generally – are not only means for exchanging awareness and analysis of environmental issues. Just as importantly, they are participants in climate change, pollution, declining biodiversity, and habitat decimation – four constituents of the global ecological crisis. The production and powering of electronic equipment consumes, despoils, and wastes natural resources at ever-increasing rates; ICTs and CEs contain toxic substances that pervade sites and environs of their manufacture, use, and disposal, poisoning people, soil, air, and water; and rapid cycles of innovation and planned obsolescence accelerate both the production of new electronic hardware and the accumulation of obsolete and junk electronics, known as electronic waste (e-waste). Coming to this recognition, comprehending the historic role of media technologies in the ecological crisis casts into serious doubt the notion of ICTs as saviors of the planet, and poses new and intriguing challenges for global communication policy. As a consequence, this chapter merges questions of global environmental governance with global media and communication policy. Major public entities and marketers around the world continue to celebrate the growth of ICTs and our cavalier use of electronic equipment. The UK’s National Grid (2006), for example, proudly promotes its management of peak electricity usage based on television-audience activity during half-time in football matches, when people race to the kettle. Power use surges by as much as 10 percent in what is known as the “TV pick-up.” Is this desirable? What is it telling us? Then there is the relentless marketing of the apparatus itself as a perpetual novelty, simultaneously part of established daily routines and radically upgraded consumption. In 2007, 207.5 million television sets were sold around the globe; 56 percent were old-style, fat-screen analog TVs. The estimated number for 2011 is 245.5 million, with just a third being analog fat screens, and the remainder flatscreen, digital ones. This is very much a problem of the Global North: the Asia-Pacific region continues to buy old-style sets in much greater numbers than consumers elsewhere (Tekrati Inc.


2007). Marketing for flat-screen televisions stresses the pleasures of higher resolution and a slimmer profile, which derive from their intense energy use. And as the cost of the sets drops, their uptake increases, with little regard for electricity consumption (Crosbie 2008). Depending on screen size, flat-screen TVs can use more than three times the electricity required for older cathoderay tube (CRT) sets. In Britain, it is estimated that flat-screen televisions will add 700,000 tons a year to carbon emissions by 2010, an increase of 70 percent on 2006 levels (Russell 2006; Roth and McKenny 2007; International Telecommunication Union 2008). When old and obsolete TVs are junked, they become e-waste, which constitutes the fastestgrowing part of municipal clean-ups around the First World. E-waste salvage yards have generated serious threats to worker health and safety wherever plastics and wires are burnt, monitors smashed and dismantled, and circuit boards grilled or leached with acid, while the toxic chemicals and heavy metals that flow from such practices have perilous implications for local and downstream residents, soil, and water. Most electronic salvage and recycling are done in the Third World by preteen girls, who work with discarded television sets and computers to find precious metals and dump the remains in landfills. The e-waste ends up there after export and import by “recyclers.” They eschew landfills and labor in the First World in order to avoid the higher costs and regulatory oversight of recycling in countries that prohibit such destruction to the environment and workers. And businesses that forbid dumping in local landfills as part of their corporate policies are all too happy to ship their waste elsewhere (Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition 2002; Lee 2002; Tong and Wang 2004; Pelta-Heller 2007; Wong et al. 2007; Medina 2007). None of this is news to the world’s environmental activists, who have long been aware of both the mundane and the spectacular dangers posed by electronic wizardry, as the opening epigraph to this chapter indicates. But activists like those of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) have faced a major political-economic obstacle in their fight to ensure that electronic technology be built on ecologically and sound principles (evident from our second epigraph). Why? Because the microelectronics revolution

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Environment, Global Media and Communication has been a linchpin of global capitalism for three decades. ICTs allegedly overcame the 1970s economic crisis which was supposedly caused, or at least exacerbated, by two energy crises. Those crises might have brought home the reality of industrial capitalism’s unsustainability. Instead, they provided the impetus for capital to reverse the downwards redistribution of wealth in the First World that had come about since 1945 through working-class organization and politics. Neoliberals took the reins of economic restructuring, paying no attention to the environment as they asserted control over the technical capacity and operating materials of ICTs and the New International Division of Cultural Labor (Schiller 1981, 1984; Hamelink 2001; Maxwell 2003: 85–100; Miller et al. 2005). Whatever lethal characteristics SVTC and other environmentalists saw in electronics were also suppressed by a technological sublime. In the 1970s and 1980s, First World pundits, politicians, and academics became entranced by thoughts of a chromeplated electronic wonderland, built on microchips, digital gadgetry, and planetary networks, that would spark unending prosperity throughout the market system. Business professors, coin-operated think tanks, and management gurus said it was feasible; the bourgeois business media concurred; and leaders of the advanced market economies bet their treasuries on it (Maxwell 2003: 88). Knowledge workers were announced as the new core of First World economies, thanks to information-based technologies that promised endless gains in productivity and the purest of competitive markets (Bar with Simard 2006: 351). The supposed byproduct would be a brand-new day of green industries, a post-manufacturing utopia for workers, consumers and residents, where the by-products were code, not smoke. Behind this enchantment with ICTs lie decades of strategic maneuvers by the world’s richest countries. The “information economy” was in full swing when Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981 and replaced welfare-oriented state control and risk management with a militant anti-governmental governance that would, paradoxically, use state power to intervene in the name of the market economy (Foucault 2008: 132). The United States (US) led the way in dismantling domestic and international regulation of media and telecommunications. Under Reagan, who once said that trees


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caused pollution, the government eviscerated public policies and programs that promoted alternative energy and protected the air, water, and soil. Intolerance of green policy was (and remains) a powerful rallying point for the political right, as symbolized by Reagan’s first act after his reelection in 1984: to order the removal of solar panels from the White House where his predecessor had installed them with equally passionate, though quite divergent, hopes for the planet’s future (Shabecoff 1989: 1). The new political economy was shifting smokestack industries to the periphery, both geographically and rhetorically. Polluting industries seemingly no longer represented the dynamic core of industrial capitalism; instead, market dynamism radiated from a networked, intellectual core of creative and informational activities. ICTs catalyzed the new information- and knowledge-based economies that would rescue First World hegemony from an “insurgent world” that lurked within as well as beyond itself (Schiller 1984). The presumption that ICTs would deliver a cleaner, post-industrial, capitalism has been continually reinforced by the “virtual nature of much of the industry’s content” which “tends to obscure their responsibility for a vast proliferation of hardware, all with high levels of built-in obsolescence and decreasing levels of efficiency” (Boyce and Lewis 2009: 5). In the twenty-first century, awareness of climate change made the apparently virtual elements of ICTs even more important; hence, the term “dematerialization” to describe the economic impact of these developments (International Telecommunication Union 2009: 4). The promised “dematerialization of society” (we’re still waiting) will see electronic commerce, teleconferencing, telecommuting, and the electronic administration of health and taxes (Bio Intelligence Service et al. 2008: 257). No wonder the Australian Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences’ (2006: 1) submission to its national Productivity Commission pleads rather winsomely for a place at the table with corporations and governments to discuss this allegedly new “post-smokestack era of industry.” We are writing in the midst of the greatest global economic crisis for seven decades, one that exceeds the 1970s version in its reach and impact. The dual discourse of virtue – that ICTs will save the two ecos (the economy and ecology) – is, if anything, more pervasive than it was in the 1970s and 1980s.

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But there is now a contradictory understanding of ICTs in the technocratic cloisters of diplomacy. For example, the intergovernmental International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has recognized that the proliferation of electronic gadgets for productivity and pleasure also generates some negative externalities in the form of environmental problems (International Telecommunication Union 2008: 67–84, 2009: 2, 5). Hamadoun Touré, SecretaryGeneral of the ITU, tells us that ICTs will connect the 6.5 billion residents of the Earth by 2015. In the near future, then, “everyone can access information, create information, use information and share information” and “the ICT sector will take the world out of financial crisis, because it’s the only industry that’s still growing,” thanks to developing markets (Hibberd 2009: 1). But at the same time, Touré presses for “climate neutrality” and greater efficiency in energy use, and such venues as the 2008 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly in Johannesburg encouraged members to reduce the carbon footprint of communications, in accord with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (United Nations 1992; Touré 2008). In a similar vein, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says that ICTs will play a pivotal role in developing service-based, low-polluting economies in the Global South (offering energy efficiency, adaptation to climate change, mitigation of diminished biodiversity, and decreased pollution), but is quick to caution that such technological advances can produce negative outcomes, such as remote sensing of marine fisheries that enables unsustainable levels of fishing (Houghton 2009). What had engendered this contradictory discourse on ICTs and leavened the cybertarian utopics of ICT boosters was the growth of environmentalism’s influence in policy circles since the 1980s. Prior to the first United Nations (UN) conference on the environment in 1972, only Britain, France, and Canada had cabinet-level environment ministries. By the second UN conference in 1992, there were more than one hundred environment ministries. By 2009, global environmental governance involved at least 198 environmental ministries, agencies, or directorates plus many intergovernmental organizations, as well as such international nongovernmental organizations as Greenpeace, the Basel Action Network, and SVTC. SVTC’s campaign against toxic electronics marked a signal moment in the coming struggle to chal-


lenge the ICT “clean-industry myth.” Activists, public health advocates, workers, and policy-makers have organized to expose the environmental impact of the electronics, electrical, and energy industries in Silicon Valley and elsewhere (Byster and Smith 2006: 109). More and more research on environmental hazards associated with ICTs and CEs has emerged over the last twenty years, along with a significant rise in green citizenship. Between 1980 and 2000, there was a threefold increase in the reported membership of US environmental groups. During the same twenty-year period, membership in environmental groups worldwide had more than doubled. “Today, membership in environmental groups rivals that of political parties, and exceeds the membership levels of other important civil society sectors” (Dalton 2005: 453–454; Maxwell and Miller 2009). These were hopeful signs that the neoliberal era would be a brief, if traumatic and destructive, moment of mismanaging the Earth during a half-century that otherwise had seen an ever-stronger environmentalism (Hopgood 1998: 2; Frank et al. 2000; United Nations Environment Programme 2007). Along with this expansion of environmental activities has come a deepening of green citizenship and governance, expressed in claims for public rights to clean air, soil, and water that supersede the private rights of industry; a responsibility for the environment that transcends national boundaries and state interests; and the espousal of intergenerational caring rather than policies that discount the health and value of future generations (Dobson 2003; Commission of the European Communities 2008: 31). Green governance presses these capabilities into international, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental organizations with an ethico-political commitment to the Earth and its inhabitants. An ideal expression of this is embodied in Articles 71–74 of the 2008 Ecuadorian Constitution, which guarantees the rights of nature, or Pacha Mama, and the rights of citizens to demand that public authorities protect nature’s rights (www.presidencia.gov.ec). As green governance introduces aspirations into the global public sphere to counter the environmental despoliation that threatens human life, it also confronts risks to non-human nature posed by the mounting ecological crisis. This allows mainstream environmentalism to embrace the diversity of environmental politics – from left eco-centrism and eco-feminism

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Environment, Global Media and Communication to technocratic, anthropocentric forms (Groves 1995; Pepper 2000; Maxwell and Miller 2008). Mainstream approaches to green governance of environmental protections are mostly humancentered, in that they focus on saving lives, infrastructure, and heritage from environmental risks. This was the framework for sustainable development established by the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission). It accords relatively equal value to economic growth, social progress, ecological health, and, in more recent interpretations, cultural and informational sustainability. This is a difficult balancing act for policy-making. Whereas the interpretation of economic, social, and cultural needs is fraught with conflict and requires negotiations at multiple scales of global governance, the “scientific prerequisites for ecological sustainability” are not a matter of political agreement or “individual values”: “nature does not conduct consensus talks” (Schauer 2003: 3–6). At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the science was conclusive: “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007: 72), yet the twenty leading economic powers continued to treat climate change and other ecological hazards as one variable of international relations, ignoring decades-old warnings about the fast-closing circle of remedies for environmental ills (for which see Commoner 1971). Environmental sustainability rests on “nonnegotiable planetary preconditions” (Rockstrom et al. 2009: 4) that set limits on how much the Earth can give to and absorb from economic, social, and cultural activities. Human transgression of these limits has led to our ecological crisis, which consists of four interrelated environmental problems: ●

●

●

climate change (global warming) caused by overproduction of greenhouse-gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide); pollution in the over-developed world, including industrial dumping from the Global North to the South, with rising levels of poisons disrupting biological development and immunological, endocrinal, neurological and hormonal systems of “virtually all organisms”; radically reduced biodiversity – the Earth’s “sixth great extinction,” unique for being caused by one species; and


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disappearing habitat – 50 percent of the Earth’s forests are gone, as are 25 percent of sea habitats (Curry 2006: 10–13; Rockstrom et al. 2009).

In the remainder of this chapter, we examine how different media, at different points in their life cycles, have contributed to this ecological crisis. We illustrate some of the environmental consequences that flow from basic technology, energy, and natural-resource consumption, and the corporate ownership of media. To the extent that we can identify an ecological context for media governance, we suggest ways that ecologically sound media policy might set sustainable boundaries on media production, consumption, and technological end-of-life management. While our main focus will be on ICTs and CEs, we begin with the print media as our point of departure for an ecological approach to media and communication policy.

Print Media Paper-based media contribute massively to climate change and pollution. Pulp and paper manufacturers are “the single largest consumer of water used in industrial activities in the wealthy democracies”; “the second largest consumer of energy” in the US; and “the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, after the chemical and steel industries” in OECD countries (Independent Press Association et al. 2001: 6; OECD 2001: 218; Burke 1979: 180–181). Greenhouse gases from paper- and pulp-makers have included carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds at significantly higher levels than electronics and computer manufacturing, and in some categories higher than mining and petroleum (Environmental Protection Agency 1995). Contemporary paper-mill effluents have introduced large quantities of sulfite salts, sulfur dioxide, caustic soda, sodium sulfate, and bleaching chemicals into the environment. Each refinement in chemical pulping has deepened the environmental impact of paper by amplifying the tree species that can be cut down for paper-making and multiplying the “waste liquor” emitted into waterways. Modern chemical processes have produced synthetic by-products, including dioxin, a carcinogen that settles without decaying in the ground, waterways,

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and the human food supply (making it bio-accumulative). Dioxin is the most dangerous humanmade substance that is emitted through pollution. Print-shop working conditions also pose environmental risks. Early-twenty-first-century pressrooms expose workers and environs to toxic smog, heavy metals, solvents (containing toluene, methyl ethyl ketone, xylene, and trichloroethane), silver (film development), film and paper scraps, and wastewater (Tripsas 1997: 124, 142). And as printing has become an everyday part of household and office work, the implications for pollution through domestic, bureaucratic, and scholastic plastics, ink dust, and flame retardants have grown serious: each year, 575 million printer cartridges are thrown away in North America alone (PeltaHeller 2007). Along with toxic pollution, deforestation to make paper has posed grave risks to animal and plant diversity and habitat. Since 2000, high-end magazine publishing has been eating up forests at a higher rate than any other print medium – the glossier the magazine, the more new or virgin wood is needed. In the US, 18,000 magazine titles comprise an estimated annual print run of 12 billion copies, cutting down 35 million trees and emitting tons of waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Two-thirds of all magazines remain unsold, leaving 90 percent to be trashed within a year of publication, creating waste – only 19 percent of which is recycled. The rest (about two million tons) ends up in landfills or is incinerated (Independent Press Association et al. 2001: 5–10). Media policy has not directly addressed the environmental impact of paper-based texts. Nevertheless, omnibus and specific industrial agreements, laws, and court decisions related to climate change, biodiversity, and the protection of air and soil, as well as national and regional legislation, pressure pulp, paper, and print businesses to clean up their acts. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formed a “pulp and paper cluster group” in the 1980s, and has enforced Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act updates since the 1990s to address toxic effluents. Recycling regulations impose limits on the way the industry collects, produces, and markets recycled paper. Meanwhile, per capita paper consumption has declined, especially in the European Union (EU), causing some boosters to predict the passing of paper-based media, a vision that discounts the rapid growth of paper consump-


tion in China and other developing countries, and ignores new risks associated with digital technologies replacing paper (Fairfield 2008). One area where policy might intervene would be to connect environmental protection more closely to the expansion of non-commercial, ecologically friendly print media. This could include a deforestation tax on advertisers similar to one proposed in the US in 1920 by a Republican congressman who sought (unsuccessfully) to stem deforestation by taxing advertisers 10 percent of the cost of column inches they purchased in periodicals, thereby encouraging them to “tell their stories in less space and thus conserve the use of paper and curtail enormous waste now quite evident and admitted” (quoted in Burke 1979: 194). Such a tax could be used to fund non-commercial periodicals printed on recycled toxin-free paper or made from alternative fibers.

Electronic Media By 2008, global ICTs were contributing between 2.0 and 2.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. This is about the same as aviation, if the indirect energy used in manufacturing communications technologies is combined with the energy consumed by personal computers, data monitors, printers, fixed and mobile telecommunications devices, local-area networks, and server farms (data centers with servers, storage machines, network gadgetry, power supplies, and cooling technology), but excludes energy used in transporting ICTs (Corbett and Turco 2006; Gartner, Inc. 2007; International Telecommunication Union 2009: 4). Again, this is one of the few sectors of the world economy that is growing everywhere. The manufacturing of ICT and CE is a major source of toxic waste and pollution. The most important component of electronic equipment is the microchip. According to SVTC, the semiconductor industry uses over a thousand hazardous substances to make chips. A single semiconductor facility may require 832 million cubic feet of bulk gases, 5.72 million cubic feet of hazardous gases, 591 million gallons of deionized water, 5.2 million pounds of chemicals, including acids and solvents, and 8.8 million kilowatt hours of electrical power (Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition nd). Plastic is a

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Environment, Global Media and Communication standard component of circuit boards, wiring, and casing that poses environmental risks in its production. Workers in the electronics industry are exposed to skin irritants, dangerous solvents and acids that harm mucous and pulmonary tissue, and chemicals that can cause cancer, reproductive complications, and debilitating illnesses. Workers and consumers alike face risks of radiation exposure from TVs, computer monitors, cell phones, laptops, telecommunication and electrical towers, electronic games, and power lines (Brigden et al. 2008; Lean 2008; Environmental Working Group 2009). Between 2004 and 2009, small electrical and electronic devices increased their global consumption of residential electricity faster than other household appliances. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), ownership of ICTs and CEs accounted for about 15 percent of global residential electricity consumption in 2009. Over 5.5 billion devices need external power supplies, including two billion TV sets and a billion personal computers, in addition to mobile phone services, which are utilized by half the world’s population (up from 145 million in 1996 to around four billion in 2009, with 3G phones necessitating higher frequencies and greater power use than their predecessors). About 40 percent of US homes had video-gaming consoles, leading to electricity consumption at the same annual rate as the city of San Diego, the ninth largest in the country (International Telecommunication Union 2009: 5; Mouawad and Galbraith 2009: 1). Residential energy consumption by electronic equipment in non-OECD countries is growing at twice the rate of consumption inside the OECD. If these trends continue without governments and manufacturers taking action to improve ICT and CE energy efficiency, the IEA estimates that electricity consumption by electronic equipment will rise to 30 percent of global demand by 2022, and 45 percent by 2030 (International Energy Agency 2009: 21; cf. The Climate Group 2008: 18–23). Global electricity consumption by commercial server farms doubled between 2000 and 2005. By 2006, servers consumed 1.5 percent of the US electrical supply, about US$4.5 billion worth. Google’s server farm in Oregon uses the same amount of power as a city of 200,000 people. If server farms and their power usage continue to grow in line with these trends, their electricity consumption in


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the US and the EU will double every five years (Koomey 2007: i; Wald 2007; Schäppi et al. 2007: 9; Bio Intelligence Service et al. 2008; International Telecommunication Union 2009: 10). The ICT and CE industries’ business strategy of planned obsolescence is directly responsible for the volume and pace of e-waste dumped into the environment. For example, the short lifespan deliberately constructed for computer systems (drives, interfaces, operating systems, and so on) by making tiny improvements that are designed to be incompatible with existing hardware has fostered high levels of electronic garbage and energy usage, with related waste, pollution, and hazardous working conditions (Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 2007: 33–50; Boyce and Lewis 2009). Greenpeace estimates that annually between twenty and fifty million tons of discarded electronic and electrical equipment is generated globally, 75 percent of which is “disappeared” via inadequate or illegal salvage. The EU is expected to generate upwards of 12 million tons annually by 2020 (Commission of the European Communities 2008a: 17). While refrigerators account for the bulk of EU e-waste by weight and dangerous refrigerants, about 44 percent of the most toxic e-waste measured in 2005 came from medium-to-small ICTs and CEs: liquid crystal display (LCD) and CRT computer monitors, fat- and flat-screen TVs, telecommunications equipment, toys, tools, and anything with a circuit board (Commission of the European Communities 2008a: 31–34). In the US, the EPA estimates that in 2007: “of the 2.25 million tons of TVs, cell phones and computer products ready for end-of-life management, 18% (414,000 tons) was collected for recycling and 82% (1.84 million tons) was disposed of, primarily in landfills” (Environmental Protection Agency 2008: 1). The EPA (2007) acknowledges that twenty million computers fell obsolete across the US in 1998, and the rate was 130,000 a day by 2005. SVTC estimates that the 500 million personal computers discarded in the US between 1997 and 2007 contained 6.32 billion pounds of plastics, 1.58 billion pounds of lead, 3 million pounds of cadmium, 1.9 million pounds of chromium, and 632,000 pounds of mercury (Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition 2002: 6). US consumers trash between 130 and 140 million cell phones each year and purchase replacements in

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cycles of 12 months and counting down (Mooallem 2008: 40–41; Environmental Protection Agency 2008). Like most microelectronic devices, cell phones contain lead, mercury, and other heavy metals through circuit boards; their chemical chip production needs toxic detergents and etchants; they use tantalum, the mining of which has caused social and environmental harm in Africa; most have flame retardants made of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (bioaccumulative synthetic chemical compounds thought to cause neurological problems); and all require batteries (Grossman 2006). The compounds in storage batteries are toxic (among the substances they house are nickel-cadmium, lead-acid, nickel metal-hydride, and lithium-ion and lithium-polymer components) (Rydh 2003). E-waste salvage yards have generated serious concerns with regard to worker health and safety risks, including bone disease, brain damage, headaches, vertigo, nausea, birth defects, diseases of the stomach, lungs, and vital organs, and disrupted biological development in children because of exposure to heavy metals (lead, cadmium, and mercury, among others). Poisonous fumes, including deadly dioxin, are emitted during the melting of electronic parts for precious metals such as copper and gold, and also while burning wires insulated with polyvinylchloride and cooking circuit boards and plastic casings containing polychlorinated biphenyls or newer brominated compounds (Ray et al. 2004; Wong et al. 2007; Leung et al. 2008). It is no surprise, then, that corporations and governments in the Global North want to dispatch these hazards to other countries, globalizing a problem that is already transterritorial given the impact on air, water, and land that transcends the origins of despoliation. There are international protocols to govern these matters. The 1992 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (United Nations Environment Programme 1992) prohibits the transport of hazardous material from nonMembers of the accord (like the US) to Members (like Mexico and South Korea), though the latter make side deals to exempt US shipments. Several powerful polluters, such as Japan, Canada, and the US, seek to undermine the 1995 Basel Ban Amendment, which prohibits such exports. They engage in “venue shopping,” seeking out dumping


grounds wherever feasible and justifying such actions on a neoliberal basis, even as they exploit extremely poor countries by invoking the doctrines of comparative advantage and the notion that every nation has a certain amount of e-waste that they can bear. California alone shipped about twenty million pounds of e-waste in 2006 to Malaysia, Brazil, South Korea, China, Mexico, Vietnam, and India (Lee 2007: A1). Some of this trade is legitimized through the dogma of comparative advantage. Other parts are regarded as beyond the pale: Canada’s Criminal Intelligence Service (2008) is seeking to control a thriving illegal trade disposing of e-waste alongside the country’s other global organized crime. There are many willing recipients of e-waste detritus. Consumers International and its partners (2008: 2) have conducted research that indicates “around half a million second-hand computers are dumped on Nigeria every month,” of which threequarters are unusable and land in toxic waste dumps. Ghana reports similar numbers and proportions (also see Schluep et al. 2008).1 Thousands of small firms clustered along the Chinese coast specialize in this illegal trade, notably in the deltas of the Pearl and Yangtze rivers. The latter imported perhaps 700,000 tons of e-waste in 2001, hidden as scrap metal and other like items. As with so many environmental problems that are still emergent and not characterized by spectacular incidents, it features only infrequently in the news headlines. One incident that did attract media attention occurred in the République de Côte d’Ivoire in 2006. A toxic waste spill cost ten people their lives and made another 70,000 ill, at the very time that Kenya was hosting a meeting to address e-waste elements of the Basel Convention at which the UN Environment Programme estimated that 50 million tons of e-waste was being created each year (Basel Action Network and Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition 2002; Tong and Wang 2004; BBC News 2006, 2006a; Pynn 2006; Basel Action Network 2007). In addition to the Basel Convention, two EU policies provide a framework for eliminating e-waste: the Directive on Restrictions on the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS) and the Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) (European Parliament 2003, 2003a). The WEEE Directive is meant to eliminate e-waste,

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Environment, Global Media and Communication or at least ensure that whatever cannot be eliminated is recycled in a manner that reduces environmental harm. RoHS limits the use of carcinogenic metals and compounds (lead, mercury, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium), and fire retardants that endanger humans and wildlife (polybrominated byphenyls and polybrominated diphenyl ethers). While some costs of e-waste collection are paid by municipalities, e-waste management under WEEE is largely financed by electric and electronic equipment producers, including EU-based manufacturers and resellers of imported and own-brand equipment (Commission of the European Communities 2008a: 18). This is an aspect of “extended producer responsibility” (EPR) that requires producers to take responsibility for end-of-life management of their products, thus internalizing the environmental costs of inefficient and wasteful design that were once treated as “negative externalities” in the electronics sector. Although costs paid by producers are initially transferred to consumers in the price of electronic equipment, EPR encourages new designs that cost less to collect, treat, and recycle (Raphael and Smith 2006: 247–259). The WEEE directive involves national and local authorities; producers, and distributors; consumers; treatment operators, recyclers, and collectors; the transport sector; and “producer responsibility organizations” that make sure producers meet their obligations (Commission of the European Communities 2008a: 26). It is also important to note how electronic media networks affect the environment. In addition to chemical and heavy metal pollution from electronics production and disposal, communication infrastructures pose risks to wildlife and humans. Artificially created electro-magnetic fields (EMF) introduced by electronics into the Earth’s natural EMF create radiation exposure that has “no counterpart in man’s evolutionary background” (Massey 1979: 149). The electromagnetic spectrum comprises ionizing radiation (ultraviolet rays, X-rays, and gamma rays) and non-ionizing radiation (extralow and very-low frequencies (electrical power lines), radio waves, and microwaves). Non-ionizing radiation occurs at the atomic level, when sufficient energy excites electrons and molecules without knocking the electrons loose as ionizing radiation does (Massey 1979: 109–111). By 1980, research led to policies that set parameters of exposure, including the energy level of signal generation, proximity


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to signal source, radio wave frequency resonance with affected bodies (EMF absorption rates vary among species and body sizes and ages), pulsed versus continuous wave forms, and duration of exposure. The consensus was that transmission towers and signal generators (and some CEs) posed biothermal risks to media workers continuously exposed to radio, TV, and telecommunication equipment, as well as office workers on the top floors of buildings within range of high-power transmission antennae (Massey 1979: 121–125; National Research Council 2005: 133–137). By 2009, radiation from CEs became the focus of increasing concern, in particular EMFs emitted by cell phones and other wireless electronic equipment. Scientific studies of long-term exposure to cell-phone radiation have been linked to two types of brain cancer (glioma and acoustic neuroma), salivary gland tumors, migraines, and vertigo, and to behavioral problems in children. This research has led health agencies throughout Europe to issue warnings about cell-phone radiation exposure, and has prompted EU law-makers to discuss new legislation that would require lower radiation limits for cell phones. Regulators in a number of European countries have recommended caution to adult users and, in most cases, extreme caution for children while they await results from ongoing research. Taking this precautionary principle further, the French Senate has proposed legislation to ban cell-phone use by children under six as well as related advertising directed to kids under the age of 12 (Sénat français 2009). In 2009, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on “Health concerns associated with electromagnetic fields” (INI/2008/2211), which affirmed potential risks of EMFs from a range of wireless electronic devices (Wi-Fi/WiMAX, Bluetooth and landline cordless phones). This resolution also called for government oversight of scientific research and campaigns to educate citizens on precautions, including safe techniques for using electronics and how to avoid exposure to EMFs (e.g., using maps to avoid transmission towers and high-voltage power lines). The International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection has appealed for public policy to set limits on the “simultaneous exposure” from multiple EMF-emitting devices (Environmental Working Group 2009: 18–22, 28). Meanwhile, in the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has “all but ignored evidence that long term

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cell phone use may be risky” (Environmental Working Group 2009: 3–4). Communication towers and wires also contribute to environmental damage, affecting biodiversity and habitat. These structures kill an estimated forty to fifty million birds annually in North America, affecting over two hundred species (the data are old because the FCC no longer requires annual reports on this problem) (Ornithological Council 1999; Federal Communications Commission 2004). There are national guidelines regulating placement and size of communication structures, many of which overlap with zoning rules that prohibit communication towers from being built in protected habitats, wildlife refuges, historic or heritage locations, or near where children play or attend school. Such ecologically sound policy rarely arises from a green consensus where broadcasters and cell-phone operators willingly embrace the principle of a bird’s right to exist (which is guaranteed by a number of international agreements that protect migratory birds and endangered species). When they want to erect communication towers with connecting cables (guy wires) and aerial power and communication lines, experienced media companies know the criteria set out in national environmental policy and routinely press ahead with little friction from regulatory agencies. The problem for the birds is that these agencies may not be on their side. For example, the US Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandated the acceleration of tower construction as part of its communication infrastructure expansion. That Act’s free market framework embodied all the theoretical gullibility matched with corporate duplicity that we have come to expect from neoliberalism. It barred “states and local governments, explicitly or effectively, from imposing unreasonable” regulation on the growth of cellular and other mobile services (Krasnow and Solomon 2008: 50). Between 1990 and 2000, the number of cell towers and antennae in the US grew to 130,000; 40,000 towers were 200 feet tall and many reached a thousand feet (Ornithological Council 1999; US Fish and Wildlife Service 1999; Wikle 2002: 46). The American Bird Conservancy and the Forest Conservation Council took the Commission to court over the way it authorized these communication towers. The DC Court of Appeals found that the FCC had failed to abide by


key environmental laws. The decision enhanced the capacity to challenge the FCC on the basis of environmental law and procedure (Krasnow and Solomon 2008: 62–63). This may look like a domestic US matter, until one realizes that birds are the most experienced and determined of globalizers, with boundaries set by geography rather than sovereignty.

Limits of Eco-Policy in the Global Political Economy Since the 1930s there have been more than a hundred global and 145 regional environmental agreements. Many of these modify earlier accords. They protect workers, waterways, plant and animal life, fisheries, archeological and other cultural-environmental heritage, and atmospheric and ground air quality; they regulate waste management, transborder flows of heavy metals, airborne and waterborne pollutants, forests, nuclear energy; and they ban exports of hazardous waste. Scores of these global policies intersect with the ecological context of media and communication technology in the areas of climate change, pollution, biodiversity and habitat, outlined here. For instance, in the case of storage batteries that power electronics, both large and small, hundreds of national and regional laws regulate production, contents, disposal, and transportation. Many overlap with court decisions and international agreements, notably the previously mentioned Basel Convention (1992) and RoHS and WEEE Directives (2003), the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (United Nations 2001) and the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (United Nations 1997). In this section, we focus on the problems of implementing such policies, using the examples of the WEEE and RoHS protocols to illustrate how political-economic structures limit their effectiveness. The WEEE and RoHS directives promise to reshape e-waste management within the EU and in countries where manufacturers are producing electronic equipment for the European market. They envision implementation benefiting the EU as a whole, as well as non-residents affected by e-waste flowing illegally from the Union. A number of

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Environment, Global Media and Communication practical problems emerged during the initial years of the WEEE directive. One difficulty has been how to measure waste that disappeared because it was either tossed into bins with the garbage, or resold illegally in the growing global e-waste salvage market. Raising consumer awareness might improve e-waste recycling at home. But to confront the rising pollution levels caused by the global e-waste business, major changes in the political-economic system would be needed to make the illegal global e-waste trade unprofitable, starting with the biggest source of revenue. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) notes that the US does virtually nothing to impede illegal and harmful exports. The US has few relevant regulations apart from bans on exporting CRTs, and lax enforcement of those that exist. In 2008, GAO operatives “posed as foreign buyers” in search of CRTs. Forty-three US corporations offered to sell them, and just one bothered to submit the forms required of such recyclers. The Office monitored two e-commerce trading sites for three months and found 1.3 million CRTs exchanged between the US and the rest of the world. Experts say that a vastly bigger trade is enacted in secret (United States Government Accountability Office 2008: 23–27, 24 n. 22). Other problems have occurred as ironic results of the very success of the RoHS Directive. Consider batteries again. RoHS bars the use of cadmium in battery production, and prohibits the transport of cadmium outside the EU. These policies caused a rise in production of other battery types, provoking a shift of most nickel-cadmium battery production to China. In Wuxi, Jiangsu province in 2007, twenty battery workers were diagnosed with cadmium poisoning in a factory contracted by a US company to make nickel-cadmium batteries for the Japanese multinational Panasonic. The manufacturer had used the New International Division of Cultural Labor because “no one in the United States wanted to deal with the waste from cadmium,” which Japan also prohibits (cited in Juan 2008: 1; Basel Action Network 2007). As this example demonstrates, important advances in environmental protection can be hindered by failures to address inequities in the existing arrangements in the global political economy and the international division of labor that supports it. In such cases, policies must embrace principles of environmental justice and human rights on a global scale in order


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to transform the structural conditions of battery manufacture and other electronics production. While workplace and environmental hazards abound in electronic equipment production, the need for a global media policy based on principles of environmental justice is most evident in e-waste. The experience of China, a major player in the entire life cycle of electronic technologies, is illustrative. A typical trajectory is for computers made in China to be sold, used, and discarded in Australia; disassembled in the Philippines; sent back to China for partial reassembly; then returned to Australia for the extraction of valuable metals (Tong and Wang 2004). Because imports of e-waste have been illegal in China since 1996, there are no official figures on the amount being smuggled into the country’s “informal” e-waste recycling economy, but estimates range from one to fifteen million tons annually (Manhart 2007: 18; Human Rights Advocates 2008: 5). The number of people involved in e-waste recycling is also hard to pin down. There may be over 700,000 people collecting and disassembling e-waste, with an estimated 98 percent working in the informal sector. The nation’s two major recycling centers are at Luquiao in Zhejiang Province and Guiyu in Guangdong Province. Guiyu was once a farming town. That changed in the 1990s with the arrival of e-waste from the “creative industries” of the West. E-waste has transformed Guiyu in three ways: 80 percent of local families have left farming for recycling jobs, soil and water contaminants from recycling saturate the human food chain, and the pollution of land and water with persistent organic pollutants has prohibited the safe return of affected agricultural lands to future generations (Manhart 2007; Wong et al. 2007). Dioxin has been found at levels 56 times higher than World Health Organization standards (Human Rights Advocates 2008: 5). Approximately 20 percent of recycling workers are estimated to have no basic protection against toxic metals, and exposure to fifty times the “safe” level of lead has been reported, while many others carry toxic dust residue on their clothing and into their homes. Contaminants from incineration and landfill of residual waste saturate local dust, soil, river sediment, surface and ground water, and air (Manhart 2007; Leung et al. 2008). Banning the illegal e-waste salvage business will require multilateral policy and enforcement, with costs for administration, enforcement, healthcare, and other forms of remediation

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paid by the responsible corporations. No single nation can ensure effective ripostes to this trade in disease.

Private Sector Policy and Innovation Of course, not all policy is made by governmental and intergovernmental organizations. Civil society, too, adopts and adapts policies, and the business sector has pursued strategies and design innovations in response to the crisis we have outlined, rather than denying its existence. Britain’s BT plc has diminished carbon emissions by 58 percent in the decade since it began measuring such things. Telefónica, the dominant telecommunications force across much of Latin America, Africa, and Europe, has a Climate Change Office charged with reducing workplace electricity use by 10 percent, and network use by 30 percent, by 2015. NTT in Japan and Britain’s Vodafone have similar goals (International Telecommunication Union 2009: 10–11). And consider film and television drama production. News Corporation is vigorously reexamining its disastrous environmental record, thanks to an unlikely source of progressive thought Rupert Murdoch. In 2007, Murdoch convened a meeting of his entire global workforce. The sole agenda item was his goal of making the company carbon-neutral by 2010, despite its annual usage of almost 650,000 tons of such fuels. Murdoch told his employees that “if we are to connect with our audiences on this issue, we must first get our own house in order,” and “climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats” (News Corporation 2007). Even Fox’s far-right vigilante television show 24 got involved. It became the first carbon-neutral US TV drama in 2009, with offsets calculated against the impact of car chases, air travel, and coal-generated electricity, and the use of wind and solar power from India where feasible (Glaister 2009; Kaufman 2009). For its part, Time Warner’s (2008) Corporate Social Responsibility Report proclaimed “Energy Efficiency at the Studio Lot Since 2002,” announcing that it had saved “over 8 million kilowatthours of energy and approximately $1 million annually” via efficient lighting, heating, and air-


conditioning, occupancy sensors and timers, and so on. The corporation even undertook a carbonfootprint analysis in 2007 to determine the greenhouse gas impacts of DVD manufacture and distribution (Warner Brothers Studio 2007). Other major studios have initiated programs that include: installing low-energy light-emitting diodes to illuminate buildings and outdoor signage; reducing paper utilization; composting organic waste; retrofitting buildings with computer-controlled air and heating systems and environmentally friendly materials; paying for reforestation out of production budgets to account for a film’s overall pollution; teleconferencing; recycling wood, paper, recording media, metals, film stock, electronics, and printer and toner cartridges; managing chemical use and disposal; reducing or eliminating hazardous materials; eliminating and recycling wastewater; installing solar and other renewable energy sources; and networking with green suppliers and organizations like the Greencode Project (funded by the National Film Board of Canada) (Gardner 2007). Many corporations have joined founders Google and Intel in climatesaverscomputing.org. Various governmental and professional trade initiatives support such private sector activities. For instance, the UK Film Council has created an “Environmental Strategy” to help “trade bodies and individual companies” reduce the environmental impact of the UK film industry, where so many nominally Hollywood products are made (Gardner 2007; UKfilmcouncil.org nd: 1). Similar film-commission initiatives exist in Canada, New Zealand/ Aotearoa, and the US.2 And the Science and Technology Council of the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is pressing for industrywide models to deal with aspects of the digital transition that could alter Hollywood’s relation to the environment in positive ways. Though their recommendations do not explicitly mention the environment, they are indirectly linked to environmental risks posed by Hollywood. They reject the current “store and ignore” and “save everything” attitudes of producers and studio managers and plan to reduce wasteful practices through betterorganized responses to technical obsolescence (for instance, standardization and non-proprietary technical collaborations, using open-source systems to extend the utility of digital platforms) (Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences 2007).

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Environment, Global Media and Communication At the same time, there are various greenwashing, AstroTurf initiatives such as the “Global Sustainability Initiative Supply Chain Working Group” and the “Electronic Industry Code of Conduct” that seek to ward off international legislation and enforcement by proclaiming the industry’s capacity to regulate itself through the “good governance” mantra that proved so successful as a business rhetoric until the recent financial crisis. The limiting factor to these business strategies is their proponents’ profit motive and desire to avoid the democratic controls of public policy and regulation, plus the fact that national legislation is difficult to coordinate across jurisdictions. We expressed our concerns with TV sets earlier in this chapter: in 2009, Sony announced new liquid-display sets that would require much less power than others, in part by going to sleep when they were not being watched, thanks to motion-sensor surveillance of viewers. The plan was to play environmental politics against economies of scale – to charge a premium for green consumers and hence counter the tendency for high-definition TV prices to fall ( Jiji Press 2009). This is simultaneously a business plan, an element of the company’s environmental policy as part of marketing its sense of corporate responsibility, and an attempt to elude democratic regulation. Innovation in the ICT world is shifting to integrated networks that combine telephony, data, mobility, and media into unified systems that will have important implications for energy use. We are normally told about this in terms of our role as customers who will be using one device anywhere and everywhere to record and watch movies, sports, child-care centers, and “happy-family” snap shots. The new era should see fewer switching centers, without the need for air conditioning, and with low-power and sleep functions. But Very High-Speed Digital Subscriber Lines and Gigabit Passive Optical Networks will massively increase the capacity for transmission – and associated power consumption. And as more and more corporations and governments draw on cloud computing, data centers will become even bigger emitters of pollutants. At the same time, that may also result in office buildings with smaller footprints. We are also seeing a switch from desktop to laptop computers, which means 40 percent less electricity used per appliance; the proliferation of multi-core processors, which diminish energy use;


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increased power-saving applications; the emergence of light-emitting diode monitors over CRT monitors; and the popularity of flash drives versus hard disks. Some of these developments (the bad ones) are driven by rapidly rising energy consumption; some (the good) by regulations in the wealthiest world market – the EU – via mandated eco-policies (Bio Intelligence Service et al. 2008; International Telecommunication Union 2009: 9–11). Policy studies must also identify and analyze the ecological bona fides of ICT innovations aimed at “helping” the environment, such as gadgets that are promoted as the key solution to global warming in the Smart2020 Report. Produced by a front organization for corporations like Deutsche Telekom, Cisco, T-Mobile, Intel, Vodafone, and other firms keen to influence and create inter national policy, the seemingly ubiquitous Smart2020 Report has been endorsed by Infosys, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the UN Environment Programme, the China Development Research Foundation, and the China Mobile Communications Corporation. Travel, work, electricity, all will diminish their carbon activity, thanks to the benign businesses that paid for and backed the report (The Climate Group 2008: 3). Further to the left, the Institute for Sustainable Development outlines strategies for using ICTs to create sustainable development and ameliorate poverty levels in South Africa, Kenya, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Egypt (Willard and Andjelkovic 2005). Since 1994, the ITU has also called for an “increasing role” in environmental protection by ICTs monitoring climate change and natural disasters, communicating information to those affected via collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization’s World Weather Watch, and reducing business travel through teleconferencing (International Telecommunication Union 2009: 1, 5–6). While some of the innovations we have discussed aid environmental monitoring and research, all of them contribute to environmental decline in their current form – sometimes these are one and the same technologies. For instance, satellites monitor environmental changes (deforestation, desertification, earthquakes, volcanoes and climate modeling, and so on), help fisheries and species migrations research, and inform marine ecosystem protections. But space junk from satellites is a growing problem, with over 330 million pieces orbiting the

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Earth, potentially discharging toxic chemicals and compounds and nuclear waste, and threatening damage to operational satellites (Broad 2007). Other technologies that require careful study include so-called smart technologies that use radio controls and Internet protocols to reduce consumption of natural resources and shrink greenhousegas emission and conventional pollutants: examples of these communication systems now operate irrigation systems and smart electricity grids.

Conclusion The ecological context of electronic and electrical equipment, networks, and systems poses unique challenges to global media and communication policy. In this chapter we have identified specific policies that help to limit harms, improve designs, and raise awareness of the environmental impact of ICTs and CEs. While important, these efforts are only part of a much broader policy strategy that will be needed if we want to advance global governance aimed at eliminating the negative environmental impact of media technologies while also increasing the contributions that these technologies make to ending the ecological crisis. In the most general sense, we need to determine how much media technology can be developed and used within the fixed limits of environmental sustainability. In setting these parameters we would also need to ask whether existing media and communication institutions should be sustained in their present size and reach or shrunk to ecologically sound dimensions. In order to address these general questions, green global governance must develop a set of strategies to match the scale and variation of environmental problems caused by media technologies within and across the ecosystems that make up the Earth’s biosphere. At the global scale, for example, this will entail the greening of the old tripartite model wherein peak councils of capital, labor, and states set policy. A green model must involve advocates for our fellow animals and other life forms that have significance in people’s lives, and make room for environmental scientists, leaders of disenfranchised minorities and indigenous communities fighting for environmental justice, and representatives of workers whose expertise resides


outside the rule of law (from worldwide assembly and recycling lines which are especially important given the low density of unionization in the global factory). Without this transterritorial concern for the biosphere and the participation of those conventionally excluded from the policy calculus of media and communication, we shall simply burn one more page in an unsustainable playbook. At this scale of governance, policies such as EPR become truly global, rather than being applied spottily and only within the Global North (Babu et al. 2007; Nnorom and Osibanjo 2008). To succeed, this global effort depends on nationstates continuing to adopt omnibus and specialized laws to ban harmful practices of the ICT and CE sectors within their nationally bound ecosystems. The interdependence of supra-state, inter-state, and state governance over environmental matters can already be found in numerous policies, laws, and agreements; the EU represents the most evolved instance in which states successfully move to harmonize governance to meet transterritorial aspirations. But the state has a further role to play. It must create conditions for green governance to be decentralized so that small-scale institutions can autonomously design and monitor sustainable practices, in particular where government oversight and management is unfeasible and/or inefficient. For example, a national government could lay out a legal framework that funds the establishment of local recycling associations that are self-organized to monitor best practices and sanction violations by their members as they pursue both efficiency and livelihood now lacking in large-scale recycling programs; and this could result in greater compliance with national and international laws. Such self-organized enterprises could be developed in almost all the lower tiers of the supply chain (from mining and transport to low-value, high-volume component production) where national regulation is difficult to implement and where green compliance audits by manufacturers like Apple, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard, have little influence. There would be a number of benefits for government and ICT and CE businesses if they supported and financed enterprises at this scale of governance, at least in locales where such enterprises could flourish.3 As a complement to the transterritorial and state levels of green governance, this model of autonomous, self-organized resource management moves

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Environment, Global Media and Communication away from the spaceless, subject-free fantasies of universalist policy and draws on the principle of a common cause of solidarity in place of monadic selfishness envisioned in such defining works as Hardin’s The Tragedy of the Commons (1968; cf. Ostrom 2000). Ostrom (2000) shows that wellorganized local institutions have a higher rate of success in resource management if external laws provide for their autonomy (“involving users in their choice of regulations so that these are perceived to be legitimate”) and if political and economic arrangements encourage organizational relationships between such enterprises and communities sharing an ecosystem. Relationships focussed on ecologically sound resource management could be extended up the ladder of a supply chain to involve resource users across many ecosystems to monitor what works and fails, to eliminate harmful waste, to modify methods of resource acquisition, and to share information that increases “the benefit flow to be derived from a sustainable use of local resources” (Ostrom 2000: 47). Research by Karpowitz et al. (2009) on “enclave deliberation among the disempowered” provides further evidence that decentralized, participatory governance can play a vital role in policy-making, in particular by generating wide agreement on key policy recommendations by means of a “consensus conference” involving community members, resource users, experts, and elites (Karpowitz et al. 2009: 584). Such models transcend the now-discredited Anglo-Saxon policy framework that has dominated for three decades, favoring instead the recognition that rational outcomes may derive from a stakeholder approach to managing the commons. Any attempt to generate new media policies to advance green governance has to be mindful of the ethical dilemma that accompanies environmental sustainability. Fifty years ago, Stuart Hall wrote about the spread of CEs among the poor as part of “a legitimate materialism, born out of centuries of physical deprivation and want” (1958: 26). Yet the value and significance that these technologies hold for many crash headlong into the material limits imposed on their production and consumption by the ecological crisis. The latter challenges precious doctrines of liberal democracy that valorize a voice for all at all times and promote the growth of cultural and communication technologies as everexpanding universes of tolerance and merriment. The watchword must be sustainability, not growth.


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To get there, a new policy calculus must derive from the most careful popular and expert contributions in epidemiological, environmental, and biological research working with regulators of ICT and CE sectors, but also an ethnographic evaluation of the formal and informal sectors, from Delhi rag-pickers to Bangalore magnates, from US Federal Prison inmates to DC mavens, in order to establish the dimensions of the problems we face and to counter the untrammeled information society ideology that we and the public otherwise receive.

Notes 1

2

3

Some facilities in the First World recycle safely, but they are expensive. So in addition to sending the problem overseas, the US uses cheap, indentured labor in unsafe conditions in the form of its Federal Prisons population. See, for example, http://www.bcfilmcommission. com/community/reel_green_bc.htm; www.gree ningthescreen.co.nz; http://www.filminflorida.com/ prl/gpp.asp; http://www.nmfilm.com/filming/ green-filming; and http://www. oregonfilm.org/ resources/greenproduction. Many factors determine the viability of this model, peace being a precondition, as is evident in eastern Congo where armed conflict and despotism are funded by “conflict minerals” mined to feed the rapid expansion of electronics manufacturing (Global Witness 2009).

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Environment, Global Media and Communication Schauer, T. (2003) The Sustainable Information Society: Vision and Risks. Vienna: European Support Centre of the Club of Rome, http://clubofrome.at/ archive/sustainable-information- society.html (accessed 02/08/2009). Schiller, H. I. (1981) Who Knows: Information in the Age of the Fortune 500. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Schiller, H. I. (1984) Information and the Crisis Economy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing. Schluep, M., Rochat, D., Munyua, A. W., Laissaoui, S. E., Wone, S., Kane, C., and Hieronym, K. (2008) “Assessing the e-waste situation in Africa,” Electronics Goes Green 2008+, Berlin, pp. 1–6. Science and Technology Council of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (2007) The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues in Archiving and Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials. Los Angeles, CA: Academy Imprints. Sénat français (2009) Projet de Loi Portant Engagement National pour L’Environnement. Paris: Sénat français, http://www.senat.fr/dossierleg/pjl08-155.html (accessed 02/11/2009). Shabecoff, P. (1989) “Reagan and environment: To many, a stalemate” ( January 2), The New York Times, New York: The New York Times, p. 1. Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (nd) Electronic Industry Overview. San Jose: SVTC, http://www.svtc.org/ site/PageServer?pagename=svtc_electronic_ industry_overview (accessed 25/10/2009). Smith, T., Sonnenfeld, D. A., and Pellow, D. N. (eds) (2006) Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Tekrati Inc. (2007) “Samsung holds lead in global television market in Q2 2007, says iSuppli” (25 September), Tekrati.com, http://ce.tekrati.com/research/9371 (accessed 24/09/2009). The Climate Group (2008) Smart2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age. London: Global Sustainability Initiative. Time Warner (2008) Corporate Social Responsibility Report. New York: Time Warner Inc., http://www. timewarner.com/corp/citizenship/index.page/ tw_csr_report08.pdf (accessed 09/11/2008). Tong, X., and Wang, J. (2004) “Transnational flows of e-waste and spatial patterns of recycling in China,” Eurasian Geography and Economics, 45(8): 608–621. Touré, H. I. (2008) ITU Secretary-General’s Declaration on Cybersecurity and Climate Change (November 12–13), High-Level Segment of Council, Geneva: ITU, http:// www.itu.int/council/C2008/hls/statements/closing/sg-declaration.html (accessed 24/09/2009). Tripsas, M. (1997) “Unraveling the process of creative destruction: Complementary assets and incumbent


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survival in the typesetter industry,” Strategic Management Journal, 18: 119–142. UKfilmcouncil.org.uk (nd) Environmental Strategy. London: UK Film Council, http://www.ukfilmcouncil.org. uk/environmental (accessed 24/07/2009). United Nations (1992) United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Bonn: UN Climate Change Secretariat, http://unfccc.int/resource/ docs/convkp/conveng.pdf (accessed 25/01/2010). United Nations (1997) Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Bonn: UN Climate Change Secretariat, http://unfccc. int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf (accessed 25/01/2010). United Nations (2001) Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Geneva: Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention, http://chm.pops.int/ Portals/0/download.aspx?d=UNEP-POPS-COPCONVTEXT.English.pdf (accessed 25/01/2010). United Nations Environment Programme (1992) Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. Geneva: The Secretariat of the Basel Convention, http://www. basel.int/text/con-e-rev.pdf (accessed 25/01/2010). United Nations Environment Programme (2007) UNEP 2006 Annual Report. Nairobi: UNEP. United States (US) Fish and Wildlife Service (1999) Bird Kills at Towers and Other Human-Made Structures: An Annotated Partial Bibliography (1960–1998). Washington, DC: Office of Migratory Bird Management. United States Government Accountability Office (2008) Electronic Waste: EPA Needs to Better Control Harmful US Exports Through Stronger Enforcement and More Comprehensive Regulation. Report to the Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives. GAO-08-1044. Washington, DC: GAO. Wald, M. L. (2007) “Taming the guzzlers that power the world wide web” (November 7), The New York Times, New York: The New York Times, H7. Warner Brothers Studio (2007) Warner Home Video Product Packaging to Go Green, Warner Brothers Studio, http://www.wbenvironmental.warnerbros.com (accessed 24/09/2009). Wikle, T. A. (2002) “Cellular tower proliferation in the United States,” Geographical Review, (92)1: 45–62. Willard, T., and Andjelkovic, M. (eds) (2005) A Developing Connection: Bridging the Policy Gap Between the Information Society and Sustainable Development. Winnipeg: Institute for Sustainable Development. Wong, C. S. C., Wu, S. C., Duzgoren-Aydin, N. S., Aydin, A., and Wong, M. H. (2007) “Trace metal contamination of sediments in an e-waste processing village in China,” Environmental Pollution, 145(2): 434–442.

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Anti-terrorism and the Harmonization of Media and Communication Policy Sandra Braman

Introduction One of the least discussed, but most influential, processes by which media and communication policy have become “global” is legal harmonization, the establishment of laws and regulations that are like each other across states irrespective of differences in legal and political systems. Harmonization, also known as policy convergence, policy transfer, and legal globalization, is not new (Braman 1993), but it has been growing in importance for the past several decades. A review of the literature across the terrain of the law (Braman 2009) shows that harmonization processes involve not only the formal processes of government but also the formal and informal processes of both private and public sector entities involved in governance, and the cultural habits and predispositions of governmentality. Legal historians consider this period of legal harmonization to be equivalent in importance to the period during which the international system of geopolitically recognized states first formed several hundred years ago (Kirby 2006). Nowhere is this fundamental transformation of law–state– society relations more clear than in anti-terrorism as both motive for, and the content of, legal

harmonization in areas critical to media and communication policy.1 Elements of the emerging configuration include a strengthening of the executive at the cost of legislative and judicial functions, practice-driven law and legal principles, flows of globalizing laws from “lesser”developing countries with relatively tenuous habits of rule of law toward those Western democracies that have provided the inspirations for laws becoming harmonized in other areas, and treatment of terrorism as a universal crime that justifies abrogation of national constitutions and international human rights agreements. Anti-terrorism laws also mark a new stage of legal globalization itself, involving harmonization across transnational organizations as well as states and a strengthened international executive power issuing mandates top-down. In the course of harmonizing laws, these developments affect media and communication policy, as broadly defined (Braman 2004), in several ways. At the level of policy principles, anti-terrorism laws undermine the arguments for protecting communication rights and related civil liberties that provide the foundation for national laws and regulations. Those who produce and consume2 the news have become newly endangered. Public discourse about political matters has been chilled.3



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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication Operationalization of anti-terrorism laws requires specific changes in policies for telecommunication and technology transfer. Linking matters such as copyright to anti-terrorism brings the security apparatus into play in areas of the law that would otherwise seem to be unrelated. The combined and cumulative effect of these trends is a form of harmonization that is actually a turning away from the law. This chapter opens with a brief introduction to harmonization as a form of global media and communication policy that, to date, has received relatively little attention in the media studies literature. It goes on to provide a brief history of the development of contemporary anti-terrorism laws, with attention both to commonalities across states and to the limits of effective convergence. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the impact of the harmonization of anti-terrorism laws on the content and nature of media and communication policy globalization. This is a particularly difficult topic about which to write in 2010. The subject matter remains dynamic; making, annulling, amending, and reinterpreting the law are still actively underway in most countries of the world. There are limits to what an academic can learn about the operations of intelligence and security forces and the rules that guide them. English-language secondary literature reviewing the nature of anti-terrorism laws in specific countries is slowly becoming more abundant but is still sparse. Still, with 192 Member States in the United Nations (UN) at the time of writing, the pertinent literature is far larger than can be given its full due in a single chapter. What is offered here is a picture of the forest that has been built out of a far more extensive walk through the bibliographic trees.

Globalizing Media and Communication Policy through Harmonization Legal globalization comes about through a variety of processes that range from imitation and learning through imposition and force. A much more detailed discussion of the processes of legal globalization and their limits can be found


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elsewhere (Braman 2009), but a very brief overview is useful here. Because of the communicative dimensions of terrorism and the transnational nature of terrorist networks, anti-terrorism laws have stimulated harmonization processes in ways that are of profound importance for media and communication policy.

Harmonization processes The traditional subject of policy analysis, government, is key, but legal globalization also comes about through governance and governmentality. All three of these are apparent in the harmonization of anti-terrorism laws. The combination of the three contributes powerfully to the transformation of law–state–society relations. Government. Globalization of media law and policy is a matter of government when it takes place through the practices, programs, institutions, and decision-making procedures of geopolitically recognized entities. This occurs in the course of foreign policy, through the formation of epistemic communities within the judiciary, and via transformations of the state as an organizational form. Examples of governmental efforts to harmonize media policy include efforts to bring communication laws and regulations into alignment with each other within the European Union (EU), China, and elsewhere, either for their own sake or because it is deemed necessary to “haul”4 media policy in order to serve developments in other areas such as finance, research, and technological innovation and policing. Internet law, of course, regularly involves the use of precedent across jurisdictional borders as well as jurisdiction shopping across states. When it comes to anti-terrorism, it is governments that must comply with mandates to alter their laws in conformance with UN requirements and that must put in place the practices required in order to implement those laws. Governance. Globalization of media law and policy is a matter of governance when it takes place through the formal and informal practices, programs, institutions, and decision-making procedures of both public and private sector entities. Transnational civil society activities, law-making through contracts, globalization of legal support services, and the design of technological systems

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are all means of legal globalization through governance that affect communication. In the area of anti-terrorism, examples of governance can be found in the legal and practice inputs of technology and service vendors who supply communication systems and databases, and in the reliance on private entities to evade legal restrictions on invasions of privacy. Governmentality. Globalization of media law and policy is a matter of governmentality when it is driven by cultural habits and predispositions that enable and sustain both governance and government. Harmonization processes involve governmentality when popular culture, education, and both emerging online developments and syncretism with traditional cultural forms affect legal consciousness, facilitate perceptions of citizenship in cultural terms, and provide political socialization and venues for political activity. Among the ways in which governmentality comes into play in anti-terrorism efforts are media campaigns to generate sufficient fear that support will follow, and, among practitioners, the habit of and predisposition toward designing programs oriented around the affordances of technologies and that “follow the crime” instead of legal principle.

Terrorism and communication It should not be surprising that the laws and regulations put in place to counter terrorism have had such an impact on media and communication policy: terrorists use communication as a weapon as well as for organizational purposes. Because of the linkage with information warfare and the transition from the bureaucratic state to the informational state (Braman 2007), it is difficult to find an area of anti-terrorism laws and regulations that does not involve and affect communication. The practice of using weapons for communicative purposes – and communication as a weapon – is ancient, going back to the battle yells and dress of the earliest peoples. The modern concept of psychological warfare as a communication practice that includes but goes beyond propaganda arose during World War II. By the 1970s, media coverage of terrorist actions had become an explicit part of the strategy; Nerone (1994) interprets this development as a distinct stage in the history of violence against the press itself.


Students of international and development communication, sensitive to the frustrations experienced by those seeking to free themselves of colonialism under conditions in which the imperial powers continued to control all forms of mediated communication, began to understand terrorism as a form of communication in the 1980s. Individuals and groups turned to physical action, it was believed, when other efforts to achieve an effective voice in the public sphere and as inputs into decision-making failed (Weimann 2008). Terrorism came to be understood as “black” propaganda, stressing trouble and confusion in contrast to the simplicity and clarity of propaganda that is “white” (Simpson 1994). Anti-terrorism programs, on the other hand, can be considered white propaganda because of the rhetorical reliance on familiar phrases in the deliberate attempt to increase legitimacy and acceptability (Stiles and Thaynes 2006). Contemporary anti-terrorism developments are models of the communicative use of criminal law in which narrative features, rather than actual deterrence, are the source of effectiveness (Roach 2005). Twenty-first-century terrorism is very much a creature of the digital network environment. It is no coincidence that research units such as the RAND Corporation that have been studying terrorism since the 1970s were also the first to explore the new forms of information, or network, warfare. The Anti-Terrorism Law of Malaysia specifically mentions terrorist network formation as a justification for the law ( Juwana 2005). Roque (2005) goes so far as to describe terrorist groups as participants in a marketing franchise, suggesting both that there is a marketing dimension to the persuasive tactics used to bring new people into terrorist activities and that marketing should thus be considered for use in counter-terrorism efforts as well.

Anti-Terrorism and the Law It is common in public discourse and policy analysis to focus on anti-terrorism laws as they have come into being since 9/11, but twenty-first-century anti-terrorism laws have much longer, and multiple, histories. Failure to historically contextualize contemporary developments, as in the 9/11

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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication Commission report to the United States (US) government, results in analyses devoid of any understanding of how existing laws, programs, and institutions for countering terrorism have come about (Stuart 2008). Credit for introducing terror as a modern political strategy is generally given to those involved in the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. Within just a few decades after the revolutions of 1848, counter-terrorism activities had their origins when police forces of different countries began to work together to gather intelligence and engage in covert operations. These efforts became more formal in 1923 when the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) was created. Anomalously, but deliberately, Interpol was formed as an international organization that retained its independence from governments, a status it has succeeded in retaining in various permutations throughout its history (Barnett and Coleman 2005). Interpol activities were thus driven by professional practice rather than by legal requirements. Initial justifications for this stance emphasized the need to sustain police action irrespective of shifting levels of government interest in international crime, interest in achieving a consensus regarding what is to be treated as criminal when there are cultural and political differences, and the belief among police professionals that political leaders and policy-makers do not always understand their needs. By the 1980s, with legal globalization processes underway, Interpol also argued that harmonization of practice is easier to achieve than effective harmonization of the law (Brossard 1988) – a point that significantly informed the development of anti-terrorism programs around the world after 9/11. The role of Interpol in the development of twenty-first-century anti-terrorism laws has been wide-ranging and deep. Interpol experts have provided input into the texts of laws (government); put in place information and communication systems that are designed, provided, and supported by corporations (governance); and developed longstanding relationships that continue to reinforce expectations of and attitudes toward anti-terrorism campaigns (governmentality). Terrorism achieved a presence in international discussions among governments when the League of Nations struggled with the problem during the late 1930s. Following World War II, national governments as well as regional and international organizations responded to waves of terrorist


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activity driven by a variety of intertwined motivations. Tran (1987), a Vietnamese diplomat turned communication scholar, noted that the diplomatic world had become obsessed with national liberation movement terrorism by the early 1980s.5 Postwar geopolitical partitions launched conflicts enacted in part with terrorist tactics, yielding seeming contradictions such as initiation of the use of preventive detention in India in 1950, the year that country’s new, democratic, constitution came into force (Vijayakumar 2005). Communism also provided a common thread. Malaysian concern about communism following the end of the Japanese wartime occupation led to Singaporean claims that anti-terrorism laws were needed to pursue Catholic social workers as communists in the late 1980s (Hor 2005), for example, and El Salvador justified using its anti-terrorism laws against students protesting the rising cost of bus tickets in 2006 by labeling those involved leftists (Cardona 2009). The Communist Party was included on the US and EU lists of terrorist groups in response to lobbying from the Philippine government (Roque 2005). What Shughart (2006) describes as the third wave of post-World War II terrorism, Islamic terrorism, became evident in the 1970s (Esposito 2003). An invisible college of terrorism researchers began to form during the 1970s (Reid and Chen 2006) led by the RAND Corporation, a think tank with close ties to the US government that started documenting terrorist events in 1972 (Lesser et al. 1999). Covert communication campaigns became a part of the tool kit of those fighting “low-intensity wars” (Frederick 1989) and the desire to detect those involved in such warfare fueled the development of surveillance techniques aimed at the civilian population and society as a whole, rather than focussing on overtly military elements. The first “concept war,” the War on Drugs (Bewley-Taylor 2005), strengthened Interpol and other collaborative policing and security practices on the ground. The War on Drugs stimulated the development of innovations in surveillance techniques and anticrime tools for use in the world of finance (Shields 2005) that are now key to anti-terrorism campaigns. A rider attached to the US Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, for example, put in place a Freedom of Information Reform Act that allows the US intelligence agency (the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI) to exclude records touching upon terrorism from coverage by the Freedom of Information Act.

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This relieves the agency from the requirement to admit the information exists even if exempted and, at the same time, from the requirement to explain what harm would come from releasing the information if challenged in court. Interest in expanding the legal tool kit for fighting terrorism was further fueled in the 1990s by the growing moral panic over immigration (Welch 2003) and the ostensible close of the Cold War. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) countries concerned about how to redefine the “enemy” specifically identified terrorists as one of the categories to be treated in this way. Intelligence and defense analysts thinking about how to operationalize new security theory came up with a number of recommendations about information sharing, comprehensive communication and information surveillance practices, and knowledge dimensions of the protection of domestic infrastructure (see, e.g., Steele 1990, 1991). These were all believed necessary for survival under new security conditions, but security analysts and politicians were also aware that it was unlikely that either citizens or legislative bodies would find such moves acceptable. These well-developed packages of legal recommendations, therefore, were shelved until they resurfaced in UN mandates and national laws such as the US PATRIOT6 Act following 9/11.

The United Nations and the Harmonization of Anti-Terrorism Laws The UN has been the most effective and comprehensive mechanism for the global harmonization of anti-terrorism laws. There is no denying the relative importance of the US in shaping the UN response to the events of 9/11. But just as the US was working with other NATO countries in the early 1990s to develop post-Cold War security theory, including the re-conceptualization of the enemy discussed above, so the US was not acting alone in 2001 in shaping pertinent international agreements. The process through which the UN took on this role, the substance of the legal mandates for countering terrorism put in place by the UN, and the diffusion methods used to encourage legal harmonization are all pertinent to understanding the impact of the


globalization of anti-terrorism laws on media and communication policy.

The process In 1963, the UN began to develop anti-terrorism treaties, an effort heightened in 1972 following the Munich attacks on Israeli Olympic competitors and a spate of actions by the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany. Prior to 9/11, however, few states had signed on to agreements such as the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombing or the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. In 1999, the UN passed a resolution condemning international terrorism and set up a Security Council-level committee focussed specifically on Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and “associated individuals and entities.” All of these are now among the Conventions to which becoming a signatory is now mandatory for all UN Member States. Within hours of the attack on 9/11, both the UN Security Council and the General Assembly passed almost identical resolutions condemning the attacks and expressing support for the US. The US began capital-to-capital diplomacy to build an anti-terrorism coalition and, once evidence pointed to Al-Qaeda, began to approach the Security Council for approval of a military response. On September 27, 2001, the US and the United Kingdom (UK) together presented a draft resolution to improve international efforts to combat terrorism, asking that the rules be made mandatory. This draft, with almost no alterations, was adopted almost immediately by a unanimous vote, producing UN Resolution 1373 (R 1373). Member States were given 90 days to establish national laws in compliance; the first to do so was the US, less than a month later, with the US PATRIOT Act. Member States were also told to ratify a set of international legal instruments intended to counter terrorism, most of which existed prior to 9/11. A committee of the whole, designated the CounterTerrorism Committee (CTC), administered by the British, was put in place to ensure compliance (Rosand 2003).7 Resolution 1373 is being treated as a global counter-terrorism code (Gehr 2007). It marked an extraordinary strengthening of the executive functions of the UN relative to Member States and,

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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication within the UN, of the Security Council relative to the General Assembly. It was unprecedented for the Security Council to require compliance by all Member States to new rules without permitting participation in the drafting of those rules, and it was the first time the UN used language focussing on non-state actors. The level of assistance provided to Member States was also unprecedented, beginning with the provision and training of experts to write reports about existing laws and regulations dealing with terrorism, and continuing through support for the development of new laws and regulations, the establishment of implementation programs, and other forms of capacity-building (Heupel 2008). As has been the case within most of the Member States, the UN did not stop with a single new legal instrument. The entire package includes Resolution 1540 (2004) on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Resolution 1735 (2006) expanding cooperation between the UN and Interpol, numerous other resolutions expanding on specific elements of the anti-terrorism package, and a set of treaties – 16 as of November 20098 – as the universal legal framework against terrorism with which all countries must comply. By November 2009, about two-thirds of all Member States had either ratified or acceded to at least 10 of the 16 instruments, and there is no country that has neither signed nor become a party to at least one of them. Responding to the concerns of civil libertarians, UN Resolution 1624 (R 1624) of 2006 instructed all countries to comply with R 1373 mandates in a way that also conforms with the requirements of treaties pertaining to human rights, specifically highlighting civil liberties dimensions of communication (UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee 2006). National reports submitted in response to R 1624 requests for information on this point, discussed in more detail below, have not fully allayed the concerns of the human rights community (Flynn 2007).

The substance The specific elements of R 1373 will sound familiar to anyone who has been following legal developments in their own countries. There are four substantive sections of the resolution, in addition to those dealing with administrative matters and


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expressions of will. Those four, in this order, deal with the financing of terrorism, state support of terrorism, information exchange, and connections between terrorism and criminal activity. An overview of legal requirements in each of these areas, with some discussion of intersections between these mandates and media policy, follows. A great deal of further detail in each of these substantive areas is provided in the resolution itself; in related resolutions, conventions, and policy guidance texts; and in the model laws and regulations of a best practices directory. Taken together, these legal details significantly multiply the types of linkages that can be made between media and communication policy issues and anti-terrorism. Financing. National governments are required to put in place a wide variety of laws and regulations in order to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism. The willful provision or collection of funds by their citizens, whether directly or indirectly, with the intention or knowledge that the funds will be used to carry out terrorist acts should be criminalized. Financial and other assets of those who commit, attempt to commit, or participate in or facilitate the commission of terrorist acts should be frozen. Citizens and any other individuals within a country’s territory must be prohibited from making any financial or other assets available for the benefit of individuals who commit, attempt to commit, participate in, or facilitate the commission of terrorist acts. Implementation of these requirements in the area of finance involves data matching across databases, increases the amount of information collected about individuals, and provides a justification for the surveillance of communication. These developments affect media policy because of their effects on privacy, the possibility that surveillance may chill communication, and the requirement to look for associations and for intentionality. State support of terrorism. This far-reaching set of provisions covers a quite diverse set of requirements for national governments in order to demonstrate that they are not supporting terrorism. The non-exhaustive list of areas covered includes requiring states to prevent the recruitment of terrorists, prevent terrorist acts through the exchange of information, collaboration and cooperation regarding obtaining evidence, ensuring that the criminal justice system succeeds in prosecuting and punishing those identified as terrorists, border controls,

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and the prevention of fraud and forgery of identity papers and travel documents. In addition to the effects on media and communication policy generated by the mandates in the area of financing, those generated in the area of state support of terrorism add border controls, attention to facticity, constraints on travel, and an undermining of fair trials. Information exchange. Information and communication are of such concern that they received additional elaboration in a set of provisions focussed on this area. National governments are required to “intensify” and accelerate the exchange of operational information, particularly regarding actions or movements of individuals – or networks of individuals – associated with terrorism. Knowledge of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by terrorist groups is singled out for specific attention. Cooperation with other countries and with international organizations in the exchange of information is stressed. These mandates further expand the effects of anti-terrorism laws on media policy by requiring attention to the acquisition and use of ICTs themselves. The language of the mandates is such that damage to the communication network can be defined as terrorist; in the US, for example, causing a total of $5,000 damage across incidents to the network, software, or hardware – whether or not there was any actual harm, and whether or not there was any intention to harm – is now criminalized as terrorism. Connections between terrorism and crime. The fourth substantive section of R 1373 addresses connections between terrorism and crime. A close connection between international terrorism and transnational organized crime is asserted to exist in general as well as in specific listed areas that include drugs and money-laundering. There are several subsets of media law and policy that have been associated with terrorism as a result of this set of mandates, including intellectual property rights, libel law, and mobile telephone network architecture, pricing, and regulation.

Diffusion To facilitate the legal harmonization process, the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (2004/2009) produced a code of best practices9 that provides links to model laws and regulations that are each associated with a specific paragraph


Table 30.1 UN legal assistance on anti-terrorism laws Area of the law Aviation Border control Counter-terrorism Law Extradition Arms Traffic Financial Immigration Military Maritime National security Policing Judiciary Transportation

Number of countries assisted 87 114 128 14 47 145 47 45 116 45 135 59 20

Source: Author. Note: The titles and sequencing of the categories used in this table, and the use of the phrase “counter-terrorism” rather than “anti-terrorism,” replicate usages and practices of the UN Committee on Counter-Terrorism.

of R 1373’s text. All of these models are drawn from international organizations or associations; some of these are intergovernmental in nature, but many are industry-based. Strikingly, Interpol is by far the most frequently cited source. The Counter-Terrorism Committee administers the provision of active assistance to countries that have asked for help in formulating and implementing anti-terrorism laws in conformance with the requirements of R 1373. Far from all requests for assistance had been met by the time of the most recent report on the UN web site in December 2007, but hundreds of assistance programs had been documented by that time in 14 different areas (see Table 30.1).

Limits to the Harmonization of Anti-Terrorism Laws All of the cultural, political, and logistical barriers to the full harmonization of legal texts and practices found in other areas of the law affect the globalization of anti-terrorism laws as well. Social and structural factors that arise when making systems interoperable have impeded anti-terrorism efforts (O’Connell 2008), for example, and cross-national

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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication differences in perceptions of privacy affect surveillance statutes and practice (Dinev et al. 2006). The particular nature of terrorism, however, brings into play additional limits to full harmonization. These become apparent at the gateway (the definition of terrorism), in the texture of compliance with UN mandates (laws and implementation practices), and in reactions to compliance programs (pushback). Political scientists see R 1373 as a piece of legislation that should permit precise evaluation and relatively easy monitoring, but in actuality the UN has declined to establish formal performance standards and monitoring mechanisms. An academic study of compliance in 2006 found significant variation, with only eight countries having fulfilled all criteria, and 14 failing to satisfy even one (Stiles and Thaynes 2006).

The texture of compliance: Regional and national variations Historically, governments have been most likely to pass anti-terrorism laws in the aftermath of specific events. Providing material support for terrorists was initially criminalized in the US, for example, after the Oklahoma City bombing of the mid1990s; and Egypt has been in a legal state of emergency that justifies extraordinary anti-terrorist measures since Sadat’s assassination in 1981 (Welchman 2005). The same pattern held after 9/11. Many countries were able to resolve intense internal disputes over proposed changes in the law to comply with R 1373 only after a domestic terrorist event. The shared histories and cultures of regions also contribute to variations in compliance (Ramraj et al. 2005; Whitaker 2007). There is room here to provide only a flavor of the regional and national variations in compliance with anti-terrorism mandates. Those regions for which Englishlanguage analyses were not available by 2009, such as Eastern Europe and Russia, are not included in this discussion. European Union. Countries in what is now the EU began discussing cooperation to counterterrorism in the early 1970s, leading to the 12-country Trevi agreement of 1976. This was followed by a number of efforts such as the formation of the trans-European police force Europol to take up terrorist-related issues Interpol deemed – until the mid-1980s – to be outside its remit, and the


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Tampere Program, which folded a number of antiterrorism efforts into its approach to asylum and emphasized judicial collaboration. The EU moved extremely fast after 9/11, issuing a statement on September 12, and a common declaration by heads of state and EU leaders two days later. On September 21, an action plan was announced that strengthened the legal foundations for forms of cooperation first launched by the Trevi group, including Europol, judicial cooperation, collaborations at the ministerial level, police training, and minimal standards for national antiterrorism rules and penalties. Institutional support for operationalizing this program was enhanced after the 2004 Madrid bombing. The 2004 Hague Program expanded exchanges of information, border control, and financing for the police and judiciary. This program also put in place specific measures dealing with terrorist financing, civil protection policy, prevention of the recruitment of new terrorists, critical infrastructure protection, and external security policy. Following the London attacks the following year, urgency increased regarding European warrants, strengthening the Schengen and visa information systems, greater controls over trade in explosives, and data retention. All of these efforts, together, have made the EU increasingly influential in the realm of antiterrorism, both internally and internationally. Despite these EU-level efforts, differences in approaches to anti-terrorism remain among countries in the region because of differences in national experience, national capabilities, the impact of other relationships (informal, bilateral, and multilateral), and diverging political and legal positions. Italy, for example, almost stopped the European Arrest Warrant because it wanted corruption excluded (Monar 2005). For Germany, development of an anti-terrorism response had more to do with political struggles over competing visions of a democratic state after World War II than it did with terrorism itself (Boyne 2004). British Commonwealth. Although it is a political, rather than a geographic, formation, the British Commonwealth is treated as a region for the purposes of this chapter because of the intensity of efforts within the Commonwealth to harmonize anti-terrorism laws among its nations. The current round of anti-terrorism efforts in the UK began before 9/11 with the 2000 Anti-Terrorism Act, but has since been expanded into an overarching

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strategy that involves units from across government known as CONTEST – the Strategy for Countering International Terrorism (Walker 2005). This “armory” of anti-terrorism legislation is widely recognized as the most rigorous in Europe (Fenwick and Phillipson 2005). The combination of the UK’s political and economic interests has made the country both a policy “importer” from supranational and regional organizations and a policy “exporter” (Pantazis and Pemberton 2009). Export takes place through the British Commonwealth program to support development of antiterrorism laws in its 54 member countries. The center of the program is a model bill that includes options drawn from existing laws in certain member countries covering everything from defining terrorism to trying a suspect under the act. Legal syncretism is often evident when Commonwealth approaches interact with local histories and laws. In New Zealand, for example, anti-terrorism legislation put in place in 1932 to fight the Maori, and revived in 1987 in response to Rainbow Warrior environmental activism, combined with Commonwealth input to shape the law post-9/11 (Pearson and Busst 2006). Asia. Two sets of arrangements have been particularly important in Southeast Asia. A centralized regional approach has been developed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with anti-terrorism declarations in 2001 and 2002, a 2007 ASEAN Convention on Counter-Terrorism undergoing ratification, and formation of an ASEAN “political-security” community in 2009. The second set of arrangements is hub and spoke in nature; Member States of ASEAN each have a more influential relationship with the US on security matters than they do with other countries in the region (Tay and Li 2005). National differences within the region reflect the relative importance of the Muslim presence. Malaysians greeted antiterrorism laws with ambivalence, suspicious of a resurgence of authoritarianism, and military control. In Indonesia, there was fear that the government had joined a US-led war against Islam despite recognition of very real threats to the stability of the government and economy. In the Philippines, some analysts believe that government officials are prolonging the terrorism problem because it serves their own agendas ( Juwana 2005; Roque 2005; Lee 2009).


In Asia, as elsewhere, anti-terrorism has provided national governments with an opportunity to reframe goals or problems. Japan has used the antiterrorism moment to substantially reinterpret the post-World War II constitutional prohibition against the maintenance of armed forces with an international presence. Within two months of 9/11, emergency legislation to counter terrorism described the attack on the World Trade Center as a Japanese security issue. The transition from emergency legislation to a permanent legal framework followed shortly thereafter, allowing Japan to use force anywhere in the world as long as a connection to terrorism can be claimed (Fenwick 2005; Shinoda, 2007). The US has put the anti-terrorism campaign to use in old battles against North Korea (Kihl 2002). For China, the aftermath of 9/11 has provided an opportunity to internationalize its internal efforts to control its Muslim Uighur population (Evron 2007). China has also adopted the stance that it will not participate in any agreements that do not exclude the possibility that terrorist activities might involve China itself. This has made the situation complex for the Hong Kong government, the executive branch of which can act only in accord with the central Chinese government. In order to comply with UN R 1373, Hong Kong’s work-around has been to go the legislative route, but this effort has been problematized by an inability to create a public consensus on the nature of the security issue (Young 2005). Countries that are currently sites of conflict with Al-Qaeda, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, are treated by the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee as part of the West Asian region. As an example of how such countries are dealing with UN R 1373 anti-terrorism mandates, Afghanistan’s 2003 report to the UN – its most recent – opens with a history of the country’s fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, identifies elements of the penal code involving crimes that could be conducted by terrorists, and describes these laws as insufficient. Noting that the country was still engaged in armed combat and had only a transition government, Afghanistan then requested assistance from the UN in order to meet R 1373 requirements (see Afghanistan 2003). Arab League. The Counter-Terrorism Committee divides Arab countries between those of North Africa (e.g., Morocco and Egypt) and those of

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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication Western Asia (e.g., Saudia Arabia and Syria). The governments themselves, however, orient their anti-terrorism activities around their Arab identity, acting through the Arab League. The 1998 Arab Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism was signed by 22 countries. Arab government compliance with R 1373 requirements is affected by the fear of being “next on the list” for US sanctions or military attack. Special grievances of Arab countries regarding approaches to anti-terrorism include what are believed to be human rights violations by Israel in the course of the Israeli–Palestinian struggle and by the US against citizens of Arab countries in the Guantanamo Bay prison. Most significant from the perspective of legal globalization, however, is the undeniable fact that the very practices for which governments of the region have long been criticized on human rights grounds are now being actively promoted by their former critics (Welchman 2005). Africa. Beyond the Arab states of northern Africa, most anti-terrorism efforts on that continent occur at the national rather than the regional level, often under pressure from the US. Whitaker’s (2007) study of these developments found that in some countries adoption of anti-terrorism laws provided leaders with additional tools for suppressing critics. In others, the passage of anti-terrorism laws positively stimulated public debate and civil society activism – much of it directed against the US. In Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya, for example, it is widely believed that post-9/11 anti-terrorism efforts are the result of foreign pressure, largely from the US (Powell 2005). The South African case is particularly important because of its influence throughout southern Africa and the leadership role of South Africa among developing countries. The South African government introduced a comprehensive bill in 2002 that created omnibus legislation out of multiple existing laws and regulations. While these look much like what has become law in other countries, the tone of the debate over these bills has been uniquely colored by the resonance of the new laws with the much-despised internal security laws put in place during the Apartheid era (1948–1990) when anti-Apartheid fighters were labeled terrorists and the world responded by placing the country under sanctions (Schonteich 2002). As is the case with Arab countries, practices for which the South African government was formerly condemned are


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now being promoted by the very countries that were earlier critics. The US PATRIOT Act approach to the criminalization of interference with property and services was presaged, for example, by the 1962 South African formulation of the crime of sabotage. The Americas. Western hemisphere governments committed to fighting terrorism in a series of meetings in the mid-1990s, forming an InterAmerican Committee against Terrorism and specific recommendations for national governments by the close of the decade. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries – the US, Canada, and Mexico – crafted an additional Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America in 2005. Popularly referred to as “NAFTA 2,” this is an informal agreement rather than a treaty. Decision-making for the security component of the partnership, directed against terrorism, is the responsibility of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) but most of the members of the partnership are corporations collaborating in the areas of border and shipping controls as well as flows of information. The Canadian case has several unique features. The Québécois separatist movement has provided most of the experience with terrorism in Canada, but the government’s response to R 1373 has been colored by the fact that that country is specifically singled out for inclusion in the US PATRIOT Act (in provisions about protecting the northern border); there are fears that the country would be seen as a haven for terrorists, and so many pertinent operational systems function continent-wide. While Canada did put new legislation in place to comply with R 1373, that legislation has been used only rarely; the government prefers to rely on immigration and asylum law for terrorist-related matters (Fenwick and Phillipson 2005; Roy 2005). There is less cooperation, whether voluntary or forced, among the countries of Central and Latin America. In El Salvador, civil liberties violations were so common that implementation of new anti-terrorism laws did not change much even though they are being used against those engaged in peaceful political protests (Ladutke 2008). Argentina is an interesting case because its judiciary supported state-sponsored terrorism directed against leftists beginning in the late 1960s. While elsewhere members of the judiciary have provided important resistance against infringements upon

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civil liberties through anti-terrorism laws, in Argentina the legacy of the “Dirty War” still dominates (Banks and Carri 2005).

The gateway: Defining terrorism However national laws translate R 1373 mandates into domestic legal terms, and however those laws are then implemented, the definition of terrorism determines when and how those laws are applied. Though, as Powell (2005) notes, the ultimate success of the attempt to create a uniform global system for countering terrorism depends on the development of an internationally recognized determinate definition of terrorism – something that has yet to be accomplished. The UN Security Council resolutions do not even try to assert a definition, instead listing covered activities. Governments have three options for grounding a response to terrorism that are not mutually exclusive. Terrorism can be approached as a military matter, to be treated as a form of warfare. The response can be police-based, treating terrorism as criminal activity to be detected and defeated using the criminal justice system. And terrorism can be viewed as political, a form of armed rebellion to be resolved through negotiations and the political process (Whitty et al. 2001). Under the George W. Bush Administration in the US, all three approaches were in use simultaneously. During the Obama Administration, the language about a war on terror has been dropped in favor of a military focus on Al-Qaeda, though the anti-terrorism effort itself retains a wider remit. The problem of distinguishing among the military, the criminal, and the political when dealing with terrorism has a long history. When Interpol was created, it avoided dealing with terrorists because they were considered political and therefore outside the organization’s mission. Interpol changed this position only in the mid-1980s, when the formation of Europol provided a competitive logic for redefining the organizational scope if Interpol wanted to survive as an institution (Barnett and Coleman 2005). The League of Nations similarly treated terrorism as political in its 1937 definition of terrorism as a criminal act directed against a state. The sheer complexity and diversity of terrorist activities problematized the effort to mark a bright line between criminal activity and terrorism based


only on the variable of the state as a target. When forced to find a way of responding to terrorist activities despite an organizational prohibition against becoming involved with political issues, Interpol thus took the position that identifying terrorism is so complex that determinations can only be made on a case-by-case basis (Brossard 1988). The same individualized approach to determining who should be treated as a terrorist was subsequently taken up by the RAND Corporation as justification for its list of 160 indicators about individuals and communities that governments should collect in the fight against terrorism (Libicki et al. 2007). The digital environment exacerbates the need for individualized determinations, since for network-based attacks it can be impossible to determine whether the source of an attack is internal or external to a given jurisdiction, who launched the attack, and whether a given attack should be considered criminal, terrorist, or warfare (Brenner 2007). At its extreme, though, the case-by-case approach can yield purely idiosyncratic executive discretion regarding who should be treated as a terrorist. Far shy of the extreme, definitional ambiguity allows anti-terrorism laws to be turned to any desired purpose. Empirical research has shown that criminalizing specific activities as terrorist does not prevent terrorism but, rather, simply stimulates a change in tactics; some find in such data support for treating the concept of terrorism as an amorphous label usable for a wide range of purposes (Enders and Sandler 1993). Since 9/11, as discussed further below, many countries have explicitly backed away from politically oriented definitions of terrorism in order to protect what they believe should continue to be legitimate and protected forms of political speech. At the broadest conceptual level, Leweling and Nissen (2007) think in terms of a terrorism field that involves interactions among the terrorism, counter-terrorism, and political governance industries. The RAND Corporation definition of terrorism from the 1970s remains influential. It treats terrorism as a crime with specific features: (1) political motives, (2) a psychological component, and (3) separation between the victims of violence and the targets of the intended psychological effect. RAND then defined “international terrorism” as acts in which terrorists crossed national borders to carry out attacks or attack foreign targets at home, arguing that this approach was necessary in order

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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication to use international law to counter terrorism (Lesser et al. 1999). Post 9/11, the definition of international terrorism expanded to include activities involving citizens of more than one nationality. Several elements, including those of the RAND Corporation approach, now commonly appear in most, if not all, definitions of terrorism in national laws in one form or another. * Terrorization of non-victims: Since the League of Nations, effort in 1937, one key element in definitions of terrorism has been treating the terrorization of those who are not the subjects of the attacks themselves as a central defining feature. This is also a defining feature of anti-terrorism efforts which impose violence and fear throughout the population without regard to guilt or innocence. This is the most consensually accepted element of the definition, and the least critiqued by those concerned about civil liberties. * Motivation: The question of whether motivation can be specified has been one of the most contested elements of the UN’s definition of terrorism. Despite the long history of equating terrorism with political activity, challenges to this motivational criterion come from two directions. Those who believe that freedom of political speech needs protection, and/or who are convinced of the legitimacy of movements of national liberation, fear that inclusion of political motivation in the definition of terrorism can lead to the repression of legitimate political activity. Canada and Australia, for example, exempt advocacy, protest, dissent, and work stoppages; the Arab League specifically excludes liberation movements such as that of Palestine; and South Africa includes both types of exemptions. Meanwhile, the appearance of a number of terrorists who either self-identify with Islam or are associated by others with Islam has turned attention away from political and toward religious motivations. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime took a path out of this dilemma by broadening the criterion. In its presentation of national models of terrorism definitions, it includes not only political but also religious and ideological motivations. * Intention as action: For civil libertarians, one of the most disturbing features of twenty-first century anti-terrorism laws is criminalization of intention. Other than those relatively few instances in which intention is explicitly stated, claims of the detection of intention can only be assertions of alleged intention. The result can be criminalization of opinion,


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or – through analysis of what are now being described as “inference attacks” (Strickland 2005) – criminalization of access to and use of various kinds of information. In the US, intention is specifically criminalized. The same effect can be accomplished indirectly: the Arab Convention does not require an act to be physical in nature in order to be defined as terrorist. South Africa’s definition of any systematic, repeated, or arbitrary use of violence as terrorist could be applied to any violence and thus makes intention and motivation all-important. * Accomplice liability: A significant proportion of the UN anti-terrorism mandates of R 1373 focussed on those who provide terrorists with financial and other forms of support. Laws in compliance with this requirement affect an extremely broad range of economic activity, legitimate as well as illegitimate, and often have an impact on third parties such as bankers and landlords (and those who bank and rent) who are neither terrorists nor their supporters. In the UK, for example, failure – whether or not intentional – to report information to police that comes to one’s attention in the course of one’s trade, profession, business, or employment which may be of material assistance in preventing an act of terrorism or arresting someone carrying it out is criminalized. The result of statutes such as these is to significantly expand the realm of what is meant by “association” for the purposes of media and communication policy. * Evidentiary requirements: Those concerned about the rule of law itself, as well as civil liberties, find the undermining of evidentiary requirements in purported service to countering terrorism particularly problematic. In the US, evidence acquired under the provisions of the US PATRIOT Act does not have to be provided to those charged with crimes on the basis of that evidence. In Hong Kong, prosecution of terrorists needs only reasonable grounds to believe there may have been illegal activity – actual belief that the evidence shows that there was such activity is not required. In the UK, a reverse burden of proof was put in place; one was considered to be guilty if one had an article in possession in circumstances giving rise to a reasonable suspicion that it is in possession for a purpose linked to terrorism, a claim that could only be rebutted by proving it was not in one’s possession for such a purpose. As Walker (2005) notes, those who support this reduction in evidentiary requirements find the notion of a “war” on terror useful

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because there is long-standing precedent for lowering evidentiary standards when dealing with matters that arise during wartime. The 1992 Egyptian definition of terrorism that became the foundation for the definition used by the Arab League in its anti-terrorism Convention was harshly criticized by Amnesty International as being too broad and vague to be legal. (Under US law, e.g., if courts find a statute or regulation overbroad or vague, it is declared unconstitutional.) Civil libertarians levy the same charge against many of the other definitions currently in use.

Reactions to compliance: Pushback It is not that the provisions considered repressive by those concerned about civil liberties have gone unresisted. In the UK, there has been pushback on evidentiary requirements because of concerns about fair trials. Canada still requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a prohibited act has actually taken place. In the US, some elements that deal with accomplice liability have been deemed unconstitutional because of vagueness. Over 150 municipalities in the US have decided that their policing units should not follow provisions of the US PATRIOT Act, which are believed to be unconstitutional by those city governments. Courts have had some successes in limiting the executive in Malaysia and Singapore. In India, the 2002 Prevention of Terrorism Act was repealed even before its sunset provisions were triggered. In countries around the world struggles over the acceptability of many provisions of post-9/11 anti-terrorism laws and the practices they protect continue. It is too early to tell either how these conflicts will be resolved or the extent to which those resolutions will vary from country to country.

policy have also been affected. The greatest and most enduring impact is likely to be changes at the level of fundamental policy principles.

Free speech Criminalization of content and of association, reductions in access to information, invasions of privacy, and abandonment of practices considered necessary for fair trials all affect free speech. The effects have been so widespread that Reporters Sans Frontières in 2002 described the impact on the Internet as “collateral damage” in the war against terror (Gomez 2004). Fear has chilled or disrupted communication altogether, particularly within Arab and Muslim communities (Staeheli and Nagel 2008; McNamara 2009). Relatively little research to date has been done on the impact of anti-terrorism laws on organizations and media institutions. Pearson and Busst (2006), however, offer a daunting and detailed description of the effects of antiterrorism laws on journalists in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands that is a checklist for what those in the media – and citizens wishing to engage in public discourse about shared matters of public concern – are also experiencing elsewhere: ●

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Media and Communication Policy Effects of Anti-Terrorism Laws The free speech consequences of anti-terrorism laws are the most apparent effects on media and communication policy of the developments discussed here, but numerous other areas of such


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Reporters are subjected to new detention and questioning programs. Journalists are under new types of surveillance. Journalists’ confidential sources are being exposed, or threatened with exposure. Some court proceedings are being closed, making them unreportable.10 Some information about terrorism has been placed off-limits, exposing journalists to fines and jail if the information is reported. Restrictions are being placed on the movement of journalists in areas where news is breaking. Journalists are exposing themselves to the risk of being identified as terrorists simply because they associate or communicate with some sources. Criminal charges can be pressed against journalists if they publish statements deemed by the government to be inciting or encouraging terrorism. Limits on access to scientific, technical, and government information makes it impossible to pursue certain investigative stories.

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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication Essentially, all restrictions on the ability of governments to engage in surveillance of their own citizens as well as foreign nationals have been lifted. Because terrorism has been designated a universal crime and terrorists may be located anywhere, the surveillance scope of national governments is now transnational as well. Just who accesses which information, and how that information is used, are now matters of ongoing audits. Different types of restrictions on the communicative activities of individuals, from restrictions on the use of certain communications technologies to the required use of monitoring tags, can be grouped together under the label “control orders.” Familiar forms of content regulation in areas such as pornography, gambling, hate speech, and spam have been revised to cover online political content and communications with a mobilization potential. Data protection principles, an area in which the EU was providing global leadership, are being watered down in the name of anti-terrorism. The combined effects of identifying terrorists through alleged intention and a focus on accomplice liability have affected all types of prosocial (and often politically necessary) forms of association, including charities. Even postal law has been the subject of recommendations for anti-terrorism purposes.

Other communication law and policy issues Within the first year after passage of the US PATRIOT Act, President George W. Bush admitted that its provisions were being used against many types of non-terrorist criminal activity, including matters as far away from terrorism as defrauding the elderly. The effects of anti-terrorism laws on media and communication policy beyond free speech issues derive not only from such “unintended” uses but also from explicit attention to cognate requirements. In an area worthy of chapter-length treatment in its own right, there are interventions into funding priorities for research and development, impediments to public discourse about the possible uses of the findings from scientific research and technological developments, and pre-publication review of scholarly research findings in the US. Anti-terrorism laws are accelerating the development of e-government. To put antiterrorism laws into practice, governments around


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the world as organizational forms are following the lead of private sector organizations to become more flat, focussing on long-term projects that cut across pre-existing bureaucratic boundaries. Fears that technologies may fall into the wrong hands have generated new laws and regulations in the areas of industrial espionage and technology transfer. (On the other hand, anti-terrorism has been a boon to technology manufacturers, vendors, and providers in some ways through increased liability protection when particular technologies are used for anti-terrorism purposes. Demand is also increasing not only directly, for security purposes, but also indirectly, as a result of the need to redesign international supply chains.) Two examples of the impact of anti-terrorism laws on areas of media and communication policy that, on the surface, seem quite distant may be useful. In a fascinating example of the use of terrorism by stakeholders with other interests, the Motion Picture Association of America funded a RAND Corporation study on the link between film piracy and terrorism (Treverton et al. 2009). The researchers’ in-depth analyses of 17 cases of film piracy included three in which there were, arguably, links to terrorism. Since film piracy is relatively high profit and low risk – and terrorist acts in themselves are not considered to be particularly expensive to fund – analysts argue that film piracy is being used to generate resources for terrorist groups. On the basis of this analysis, the entire arsenal of the US DHS has now been added to other weapons being used to protect the intellectual property rights and profits of film producers. Two RAND Corporation reports include recommendations for telecommunication policy (Helmus et al. 2007; Libicki et al. 2007). This influential security think tank argues that promoting mobile phone use globally serves anti-terrorism efforts by making it easier to surveil and locate individuals and to analyze social networks. Interventions into the design of hardware and software are advised, along with price cap regulation and attention to network architecture. The US$100 laptop presented to the public as an educational project is also viewed as a necessity from a security perspective. Jay Leno’s 2009 joke that he had found an application for the iPhone that was difficult to use but available – making a voice phone call – appeared in an earlier version as the side comment

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in the Libicki et al. (2007) report that it should also be possible to design cell phones in such a way that they could be used to talk about political matters.

Policy principles The ambiguities, complexities, and impact on law– state–society relations wrought by anti-terrorism laws have generated what some refer to as a legal “black hole” (Roach 2005: 130). In order to put in place anti-terrorism laws that conform with the mandates of UN R 1373, new constitutional paradigms are appearing that affect the separation of powers, scope of rights, the procedures through which fundamental rights can be restricted, and the extent to which such restrictions can take place (Sajo 2006). The first move, driving all others, is strengthening the executive at the cost of legislative and judicial functions (Harvey 2005). Derogation from constitutional principles and international human rights law – whether de facto or de jure – is justified by the labeling of terrorism as a universal crime (Colangelo 2007) and by claims to a state of emergency (Roach 2008). These practice-driven changes undermine the epistemological and ontological foundations of policy-making and analysis (Witt and deHaven-Smith 2008). This change in legal culture is experienced by the ordinary citizen as a government expectation that one’s neighbors, friends, and co-workers should be treated as potential enemies (Walker 2008). The UN’s R 1373, and the laws through which those mandates have been translated into national laws and implemented, received such an outcry from those concerned about civil liberties that the international organization felt a response was required. Resolution 1624 (R 1624), passed in 2006, specified that governments must continue to adhere to international human rights in their antiterrorism efforts. The need to ensure continued civil liberties for communication was highlighted. As it had with R 1373, the UN demanded reports from Member States regarding compliance with R 1624; less than half had been submitted by December of 2007, when the Counter-Terrorism Committee’s webpage that houses the reports was last updated. A sampling of these reports provides a window into the impact of anti-terrorism laws on media and communication policy around the world at the


level of fundamental policy principles. Almost every report includes the statement that the issuing government continues to adhere to international human rights law. In a context within which the concept of terrorism itself is so overbroad, vague, and mutable that its use is highly discretionary, these reports then go on to discuss criminalization of inciting, advocating, encouraging, preaching, or engaging in political communication about terrorism; hate speech; disseminating or reproducing information about terrorism; using ICTs, or the Internet, or committing cybercrime in support of terrorism; and associating with, forming, or recruiting individuals for terrorist groups. An examination of US law may be instructive for elucidating the constitutional ramifications of such developments. As is common across states, treason is criminalized in the US at the constitutional level. Draft resistance during World War I forced courts to consider when political speech crossed the line from acceptable critique of the government into unacceptable undermining of the government. Over time, a “clear and present danger” test developed as a means of determining whether or not any given instance of speech should be constitutionally protected. To meet the requirements of the test, positive answers must be given to all four of these questions: * Did the communication advocate illegal violence? This element of the test protects general discussions of theory and other political conversations that do not explicitly advocate immediate illegal action. Illegality is emphasized to distinguish legal military or police action from those activities being prohibited. * Did the speaker intend to incite illegal violence? The issue of intention is considered critical. Intention is evaluated, however, not in terms of motivation which is so much an issue with anti-terrorism law. Instead, investigation looks only at the intention to stimulate immediate participation in illegal violence. * Was the illegal violence likely to actually occur? Recognizing that the ability to convince others to engage in illegal violence requires a great deal of social capital and other types of capacity in addition to mere speech, US courts historically distinguished between those speakers whose leadership positions generated a reasonable expectation that action would follow speech, and those whose marginality and lack of resources did not. Now that it

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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication has become clear that lone wolves can successfully disrupt large technological systems, it is likely that this element of the clear and present danger test would have been revisited by the courts whether or not the events of 9/11 had taken place. * Is the illegal violence imminent? Under the clear and present danger test, speech can be restricted only if the illegal violence being deliberately incited is likely to happen immediately. Calls for violent action “come the revolution” were not considered to be serious threats. In the absence of new statutory activity, the clear and present danger test held its place as an interpretive guideline. Court-developed interpretations of the law frequently become the content of new statutes and regulations. In the case of the US PATRIOT Act, the deliberate exclusion of these evaluative elements was an explicit rejection of a century of legal thought regarding fundamental constitutional protections for free speech. In the case of the US, this particular rejection of judicial thought was accompanied by numerous other efforts to undermine the influence of lawyers and courts. Here, several factors involved in transformations of law–state–society relations come together. A strengthened executive ignores the judiciary to put in place practice-derived laws. In the single area of protections for political speech, the US approach undermined constitutional principles in at least three ways: weakening the system of separation of powers, reinterpreting First Amendment speech protections in ways that run counter to the history of interpretation of those principles, and use of a legal concept – terrorism – that is so overbroad and vague as to be unconstitutional itself in the US legal system.

Conclusions The legal globalization of anti-terrorism laws has been marked by several inversions. Globalization of specific information and communication systems has become the focus, and harmonization of the law has become a production input for this process. The flows of law now run from developing countries with fragile histories regarding the rule of law toward Western democracies; both Arab and non-Arab countries, for example, are well aware that practices long criticized for their


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repression of human rights and civil liberties are now being actively promoted as global models. Practitioners dictate the content of statutes and regulations and demand reinterpretations of constitutional law to suit rather than evaluating proposed laws and practices from the perspective of fundamental legal principles. In the realm of media and communication policy, anti-terrorism laws have altered the context for political speech and restricted the domain within which full speech freedoms can be exercised. Seemingly unrelated matters such as mobile phone pricing and copyright have been linked to terrorism in ways that not only intervene in laws and regulations but also serve numerous corporate manufacturers and vendors. The greatest danger to media and communication policy in the long run, however, lies in the distortion of fundamental legal principles and their replacement with practice-based decision-making irrespective of source. Those who produce and consume the news, and all of those who participate in public discourse about shared matters of public concern, will enhance their efficacy and deepen their analyses by gaining a deeper understanding of these radical inversions of the basics of democratic legal systems. Because trends discussed here have so altered law–state–society relations, both political activists and researchers may find it useful to reevaluate the targets of their attempted interventions. The legal globalization of anti-terrorism laws discussed here, though, is not a decade old at the time of writing. Whether or not the extreme transformation of law–state–society relations put in play by anti-terrorism efforts will continue to their conclusion or, instead, be reversed is not yet known. Here, too, the actions of lone wolves, small groups, communities, and large social movements within civil society still have the opportunity to make a difference.

Notes 1

2

The word “policy” is defined quite differently in various parts of the world. Here it is used as an umbrella term for all types of laws and regulations, as well as the principles upon which those laws and regulations depend. News consumers have become the subject of surveillance by intelligence agencies seeking library records and surveilling visits to particular web sites and even specific online news stories.

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3 Communication is “chilled” when discussion of particular topics has not been made illegal but an environment has been created that makes participating in such discussion so uncomfortable and threatening that people fear to bring up certain topics. Such chilling took place in the US, for example, in response to repeated statements from the George W. Bush Administration that anyone concerned about civil liberties under terrorism laws and the homeland security programs was aiding and abetting terrorists. 4 Harmonization is said to be hauled when changes take place in one area of the law in order to effect desired convergence in another issue area (Margheritis and Maldonado 2007). 5 Preceding Zygmunt Bauman (2002) by two decades, Tran (1987) also described the entire world as a border zone by the early 1980s. 6 The letters in the acronym for this famous piece of legislation stand for the full name of the Act, which is the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. 7 Country reports regarding compliance submitted through 2006 can be read online at http://www.un. org/sc/ctc/countr yrepor ts/Crepor ts.shtml (accessed 24/01/2010). 8 A list of these Conventions with links to their full texts can be found at http://www.un.org/sc/ctc/ laws.html (accessed 24/01/2010). 9 This interactive directory is found online at http://www.un.org/sc/ctc/practices.html (accessed 28/02/2010). 10 This is also happening in the US, where some court cases are even being removed from the dockets that document all trials taking place.

References Afghanistan (2003) Follow-up Report: Transitional Government of Afghanistan. S/2003/353. Submitted to the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee. New York: United Nations. Banks, W. C., and Carri, A. D. (2005) “Terrorism in Argentina: Government as its own worst enemy,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 609–624. Barnett, M., and Coleman, L. (2005) “Designing police: Interpol and the study of change in international organizations,” International Studies Quarterly, 49(4): 593–619. Bauman, Z. (2002) “Reconnaissance wars of the planetary frontierland,” Theory, Culture & Society, 19(4): 81–90.


Bewley-Taylor, D. (2005) “US concept wars, civil liberties and the technologies of fortification,” Crime Law and Social Change, 43(1): 81–111. Boyne, S. (2004) “Law, terrorism, and social movements: The tension between politics and security in Germany’s anti-terrorism legislation,” Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law, 12: 41–82. Braman, S. (1993) “Harmonization of systems: The third stage of the information society,” Journal of Communication, 43(3): 133–140. Braman, S. (2004) “Where has media policy gone? Defining the field in the twenty-first century,” Communication Law and Policy, 9(2): 153–182. Braman, S. (2007) Change of State: Information, Policy, and Power, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Braman, S. (2009) “Globalizing media law and policy,” in D. Thussu (ed.) Internationalizing Media Studies. London: Routledge, pp. 93–115. Brenner, S. W. (2007) “‘At light speed’: Attribution and response to cybercrime/terrorism/warfare,” Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 97(2): 379–475. Brossard, A. (1988) “Interpol and law enforcement: Response to transnational crime,” Police Studies, 11: 177–182. Cardona, M. (2009) “El Salvador: Repression in the name of anti-terrorism,” Cornell International Law Journal, 42(1): 129–155. Colangelo, A. J. (2007) “Constitutional limits on extraterritorial jurisdiction: Terrorism and the intersection of national and international law,” Harvard International Law Journal, 48(1): 121–201. Dinev, T., Bellotto, M., Hart, P., Russo, V., Serra, I., and Colautti, C. (2006) “Internet users’ privacy concerns and beliefs about government surveillance: An exploratory study of differences between Italy and the United States,” Journal of Global Information Management, 14(4): 57–93. Enders, W., and Sandler, T. (1993) “The effectiveness of anti-terrorism policies: A vector-autoregressionintervention analysis,” American Political Science Review, 87(4): 829–844. Esposito, J. L. (2003) Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evron, Y. (2007) “China’s antiterrorism policy,” Strategic Assessment, 10(3): 7683. Fenwick, H., and Phillipson, G. (2005) “Legislative over-breadth, democratic failure and the judicial response: Fundamental rights and the UK’s antiterrorist legal policy,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 455–489. Fenwick, M. (2005) “Japan’s response to terrorism post9/11,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds)

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Anti-terrorism, Media and Communication Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 327–350. Flynn, E. J. (2007) “The Security Council’s CounterTerrorism Committee and human rights,” Human Rights Law Review, 7(2): 371–384. Frederick, H. H. (1989) “Development sabotage communication’ in low intensity warfare: Media strategies against democracy in Central America,” in M. Raboy and P. A. Bruck (eds) The Challenge of Democratic Communication. Montreal: Black Rose Books, pp. 19–35. Gehr, W. (2007) “The universal legal framework against nuclear terrorism,” Nuclear Law Bulletin, 1: 5–15. Gomez, J. (2004) “Dumbing down democracy: Trends in Internet regulation, surveillance and control in Asia,” Pacific Journalism Review, 10(2): 130–150. Harvey, C. (2005) “And fairness for all? Asylum, national security and the rule of law,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 152–178. Helmus, T. C., Paul, C., and Glenn, R. W. (2007) Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Heupel, M. (2008) “Combining hierarchical and soft modes of governance: The UN Security Council’s approach to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction proliferation after 9/11,” Cooperation and Conflict, 43(1): 7–29. Hor, M. (2005) “Law and terror: Singapore stories and Malaysian dilemmas,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 273–294. Juwana, H. (2005) “Indonesia’s anti-terrorism law,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 295–306. Kihl, Y. W. (2002) “Security on the Korean peninsula: Continuity and change,” Security Dialogue, 33(1): 59–72. Kirby, M. (2006) “International law: The impact on national constitutions,” American University Law Review, 21(2): 327–364. Ladutke, L. M. (2008) “Understanding terrorism charges against protesters in the context of Salvadoran history,” Latin American Perspectives, 35(6): 137–150. Lee, D.Y. (2009) “Politics of antiterrorism policy in Southeast Asia: A comparative study of the Philippines and Indonesia,” Pacific Focus, 24(2): 247–269. Lesser, I. O., Hoffman, B., Arquila, J., Ronfeldt, D., Zanini, M., and Jenkins, B. M. (1999) Countering the New Terrorism. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.


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Leweling, T. A., and Nissen, M. E. (2007) “Defining and exploring the terrorism field: Toward an intertheoretic, agent-based approach,” Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 74(2): 165–192. Libicki, M. C., Gompert, D. C., Frelinger, D. R., and Smith, R. (2007) Byting Back: Regaining Information Superiority against 21st Century Insurgents. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation/National Defense Research Institute. Margheritis, A., and Maldonado, M. (2007) “Regional integration and (hauled) migration policy: What does the European experience teach us?” Journal of European Public Policy, 14(1): 152–166. McNamara, L. (2009) “Counter-terrorism laws: How they affect media freedom and news reporting,” Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 6(1): 27–44. Monar, J. (2005) “Anti-terrorism law and policy: The case of the European Union,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 425–452. Nerone, J. (1994) Violence against the Press. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Connell, P. E. (2008) “The chess master’s game: A model for incorporating local police agencies in the fight against global terrorism,” Policing, 31(3): 456–465. Pantazis, C., and Pemberton, S. (2009) “Policy transfer and the UK’s ‘war on terror’: A political economy approach,” Policy and Politics, 37(3): 363–387. Pearson, M., and Busst, N. (2006) “Anti-terror laws and the media after 9/11: Three models in Australia, NZ and the Pacific,” Pacific Journalism Review, 12(2): 9–27. Powell, C. H. (2005) “Terrorism and governance in South Africa and Eastern Africa,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 555–580. Ramraj, V. V., Hor, M., and Roach, K. (eds) (2005) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reid, E. F., and Chen, H. (2006) “Mapping the contemporary terrorism research domain,” International Journal of Human–Computer Studies, 65(1): 42–56. Roach, K. (2005) “Canada’s response to terrorism,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 511–533. Roach, K. (2008) “Ordinary laws for emergencies and democratic derogation from rights,” in V. V. Ramraj (ed.) Emergencies and the Limits of Legality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 229–257.

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Roque, H. H. L., Jr. (2005) “The Philippines: The weakest link in the fight against terrorism?” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 307–326. Rosand, E. (2003) “Security Council Resolution 1373, the Counter-Terrorism Committee, and the fight against terrorism,” American Journal of International Law, 97(2), 333–341. Roy, J. (2005) “Security, sovereignty and continental interoperability,” Social Science Computer Review, 23(4): 463–479. Sajo, A. (2006) “Terrorism, globalization and the rule of law: From militant democracy to the preventive state?” Cardozo Law Review, 27(March): 2255–2294. Schonteich, M. (2002) “Back to the future? New South African anti-terror law,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 14(2): 1–22. Shields, P. (2005) “When the ‘information revolution’ and the US security state collide: Money laundering and the proliferation of surveillance,” New Media & Society, 7(4): 483–512. Shinoda, T. (2007) “Becoming more realistic in the postCold War: Japan’s changing media and public opinion on national security,” Japanese Journal of Political Science, 8(2): 171–190. Shughart, W. F. II (2006) “An analytical history of terrorism, 1945–2000,” Public Choice, 128(1–2): 7–39. Simpson, C. (1994) Science of Coercion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Staeheli, L. A., and Nagel, C. R. (2008) “Rethinking security: Perspectives from Arab-American and British Arab activists,” Antipode, 40(5): 780–801. Steele, R. D. (1990) “Intelligence in the 1990’s: Recasting national security in a changing world,” American Intelligence Journal, 11(3): 29–36. Steele, R. D. (1991) “Applying the ‘new paradigm’: How to avoid strategic intelligence failures in the future,” American Intelligence Journal, 12(3): 43–46. Stiles, K. W., and Thayne, A. (2006) “Compliance with international law: International law on terrorism at the United Nations,” Cooperation and Conflict, 41(2): 153–176. Strickland, L. S. (2005) “The information gulag: Rethinking openness in times of national danger,” Government Information Quarterly, 22(4): 546–572. Stuart, D. T. (2008) Creating the National Security State: A History of the Law that Transformed America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tay, S. S. C., and Li, T. H. (2005) “Southeast Asian cooperation on anti-terrorism: The dynamics and limits of regional responses,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and


Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 399–424. Tran, V. D. (1987) Communication and Diplomacy in a Changing World. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Treverton, G. F., Matthies, C., Cunningham, K. J., Boulka, J., Ridgeway, G., and Wong, A. (2009) Film Piracy, Organized Crime, and Terrorism. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (2004/2009) “Directory of International Best Practices, Codes, and Standards.” New York: United Nations, http://www.un.org/sc/ctc/ practices.html (accessed 18/01/2010). United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee (2006) Conclusions for Policy Guidance Regarding Human Rights and the CTC. New York: United Nations, May 25, S/AC.40/2006/PG.2. United Nations Resolution 1373 (2001) Resolution 1373. S/RES/1373. New York: United Nations. Vijayakumar, V. (2005) “Legal and institutional responses to terrorism in India,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 351–367. Walker, C. (2005) “Intelligence and anti-terrorism legislation in the United Kingdom,” Crime, Law & Social Change, 44(4–5): 387–422. Walker, C. (2008) “‘Know thine enemy as thyself ’: Discerning friend from foe under antiterrorism laws,” Melbourne University Law Review, 32(1): 275–301. Weimann, G. (2008) “The psychology of mass-mediated terrorism,” American Behavioral Scientist, 52(1): 69–86. Welch, M. (2003) “Ironies of social control and the criminalization of immigrants,” Crime Law and Social Change, 39(4): 319–337. Welchman, L. (2005) “Rocks, hard places and human rights: Anti-terrorism law and policy in Arab states,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 581–608. Whitaker, B. E. (2007) “Exporting the PATRIOT Act? Democracy and the ‘war on terror’ in the Third World,” Third World Quarterly, 28(5): 1017–1032. Whitty, N., Murphy, T., and Livingstone, S. (2001) Civil Liberties Law: The Human Rights Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Witt, M. T., and deHaven-Smith, L. (2008) “Conjuring the holographic state: Scripting security doctrine for a (new) world of disorder,” Administration & Society, 40(6): 547–585. Young, S. N. M. (2005) “Enacting security laws in Hong Kong,” in V. V. Ramraj, M. Hor, and K. Roach (eds) Global Anti-terrorism Law and Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 368–396.

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Regulating the Internet in the Interests of Children: Emerging European and International Approaches Sonia Livingstone

Introduction1 Online privacy, child safety, free speech and anonymity are on a collision course. (Szoka and Thierer 2009: 1)

Governments around the world are actively promoting Internet infrastructure, diffusion, and use in the workplace, schools, communities, and households. There is growing consensus that if this is to serve the interests of the public, including – my concern here – children and young people, policy-makers must determine how best to facilitate online opportunities while also reducing or managing the associated risks. Although there remain difficulties in identifying just what opportunities and risks the Internet might afford, many initiatives are underway nationally and internationally to establish a regulatory regime for the online environment, partially though not wholly paralleling the regulation of the offline environment. Drawing mainly on an account of emerging governance practices in the United Kingdom (UK) and continental Europe, though noting the strong influence on these of United States (US) industry, regulator, and child welfare advocacy, I ask how

competing interests can be, and are being, managed in practice. My aim is to capture recent debates and practice regarding the protection and empowerment of children online, although my broader rationale in favor of (careful and proportionate) regulation may apply to other “vulnerable” or minority groups or even to the protection and empowerment of the public at large. I begin not with matters of regulation but with children’s experiences of the Internet. There is increasing evidence that the Internet amplifies and intensifies the nature of childhood (and adult) experiences. On the one hand, children’s avenues for participation, their resources for education, and their circles of connection for friendship and intimacy are all expanded and more accessible (boyd 2008; Dahlgren and Olsson 2008; Ito et al. 2008; Willett 2008). It is evident that, given minimal conditions of access and literacy, children relish the opportunities afforded by the Internet, often responding to these in creative, diverse, and highly literate ways. However, empirical analysis of children’s online experiences qualifies the popular rhetoric regarding “digital natives” (Bennett et al. 2008), suggesting that society must be realistic about their skills and look beyond children’s



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enthusiasm when formulating policies to ensure fairness of opportunity, ambitious expectations for participation and digital literacies and, not least, reasonable expectations of safety for all (Livingstone 2009). At the same time, evidence is also growing that the Internet amplifies and intensifies the risk of harm to children (Muir 2005). For a child victim, an image of abuse may now be distributed anywhere worldwide in a matter of seconds and never eradicated (Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) 2008). For the bullied child, a hostile site morphing their image or inviting ridicule may harm them anywhere, anytime, hostility even reaching into their bedroom (Nightingale et al. 2000). For a teenager in despair, a community of suicidal others advocating the means of self-harm may be reached at the click of a mouse with a convenience that is historically unprecedented (Alao et al. 2006). And for the young bully or racist, the Internet affords new and convenient means of harming others that are not easily detectable (Barak 2005; Shariff and Churchill 2010). It is not that online risks are necessarily unfamiliar in and of themselves. Rather, the ways and possibly the extent to which children now encounter these familiar risks are distinctively new – faster, more privatized, and more permanent, with the most inclusive access to tools for image production and distribution ever known, thereby enabling both extensive circles of influence and many unanticipated consequences. Children’s everyday contexts of Internet use combine experiences of both opportunities and risks, forcing the belated recognition that these often go hand in hand, the former tending to increase rather than decrease the chances of encountering the latter. This poses difficult questions of balance in managing children’s online experiences, for policy relating to opportunities must be integrated with, rather than remain entirely separate from, that relating to risk and safety (Livingstone 2009). Celebrating young people’s enterprise and enthusiasm while failing to engage with or support their online activities or their experience of online harms will surely fail to bring to fruition the great expectations society holds not only for the Internet but also for children. How far, then, should policymakers facilitate the provision of resources – to promote such positive goals as online education, participation, creativity and so forth?2 How far can the (young) people’s digital literacy be relied upon


for judicious navigation of the Internet or is regulation required to ensure sufficient protection (Livingstone 2008)? Are online risks best addressed by particular agencies, and at international, national, or community levels? Although we still lack robust answers to these questions, the emerging consensus is that maximizing opportunities while minimizing risks is a task for multiple stakeholders, requiring not only financial investment but also adaptation to rapid change, apportioning responsibility flexibly among relevant parties, applying local or national experience to confront a global phenomenon and learning new forms of expertise. But is this the optimal approach, and how is it working in practice?

Positive and Negative Internet Regulation in the Interests of Children Early in the Internet’s history, two problematic claims were much reiterated: first, that the Internet should not be regulated at all and, second, that even arguments that regulation would protect children must be rejected since these may have the consequence, deliberate or otherwise, of restricting (adult) freedom of expression online. Echoes of both claims persist in current multi-stakeholder dialogues, especially when matters become fraught. Although few would make such bald assertions today, their legacy is discernable in the tendency of policy discourses to pit child protection against adult freedom of expression. Most simply, this results in a rhetoric which puts children’s needs in conflict with those of adults; and in such a balancing act of the weak versus the powerful, children will surely lose out. Even in more complex debates, there is frustration when protectionist voices from child and family welfare constituencies seem to legitimize a brake on either personal or commercial freedoms. Consider Castells’ (2002: 169–170) comment on the overturning of the 1996 Communications Decency Act: Control of information has been the essence of state power throughout history … This is why one of the exemplary values of the American Constitution is precisely to place the right to free speech as the First Amendment of the Constitution.

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Regulating the Internet and Children’s Interests In their attempt to exercise control over the Internet, the US Congress and the US Justice Department used the argument that strikes a chord in every one of us: the protection of children from the sexual evils roaming the Internet.

Or, as Raboy and Shtern (2010: 219) observed more recently, “at the 2008 IGF [Internet Governance Forum] for example, the push for online child protection was perceived to be a threat to privacy and freedom of expression rights.”3 Policy efforts may even seem to minimize attention to children’s interests in order to promote adult freedoms. However, as I note below, the early arguments against Internet regulation have been strongly rebutted first by legal theory regarding cyberspace and second by advocates of children’s rights online as well as offline. As Lessig (1999) observes, since the Internet is and must be regulated, the key questions focus on regulatory choices – what, how, why, and with what benefits and costs? Attempts over the past decade or so to answer these questions have generated an array of regulatory experiments nationally and internationally. There is a further reason why any simple opposition of adult freedom and child protection must be transcended, and that is that it undermines recognition of both children’s positive rights (including freedom of expression) and adults’ rights to privacy and protection of harm. Indeed, one may identify four distinct regulatory goals at issue here – support for children’s rights to freedom and to protection, and support for adults’ rights to freedom and to protection. In calling for a balanced approach to regulating the Internet in the interests of children, therefore, I hope to avoid pitting a weaker constituency against a stronger by reframing the regulatory challenge for each constituency separately. Thus, I focus primarily on the task of maximizing children’s online freedoms while minimizing their exposure to online risks (a balance required also by the 1989 United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child; Hamelink 2008). Some of the arguments that follow have wider implications for the parallel balance to be achieved between adult freedoms and adult protection (witness recent concerns about privacy, data protection, copyright infringement, bullying, spam, phishing and other scams, and so on). It should be noted that I use the term “regulation” in the broadest sense, referring to the relation


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between power and the ordering of social behavior, at any and all levels of society from the transnational organization, the nation-state, the subnational organization or community and/or the individual. I then follow the contemporary theorists of the state (see Jessop 2002) who argue that Western advanced industrial democracies are undergoing a profound shift in regulatory regimes from a government-led “command and control” model to a mixed model of governance encompassing state, co-, and self-regulation, thereby dispersing power away from the state, often to newly powerful transnational bodies. For academic and policy observers, this shift raises significant questions about the legitimacy, authority, accountability, and effectiveness of different forms of regulation, as well as about the increasing complexity of their interrelations. But before addressing today’s complex situation, let us consider a simple and, at the time, popularly endorsed claim, below.

“We Do Not Intend to Regulate the Internet” In 2002, the UK’s then Secretary for State, Media, Culture and Sport, Tessa Jowell, announced, “we do not intend to regulate the Internet” (Commons Hansard 2002: np). Accordingly, the 2003 Communications Act established Ofcom, the UK’s new, converged regulator for a newly convergent media environment, with no requirements regarding the Internet in its remit. Nonetheless, spurred on by rapid advances in technological innovation combined with an unstable economy, the possible rationale for Internet regulation has been much debated during the last decade, in the UK and elsewhere (Tambini et al. 2008). Particularly, multiple justifications for Internet regulation have, increasingly if sometimes reluctantly, become widely accepted following the publication (notably predating Jowell’s speech) of Lessig’s (1999) Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Some reflect a concern for the interests of children or other vulnerable or minority groups, though they also reflect the concerns of the private sector (especially in relation to market freedoms, intellectual property, and copyright) and the state (especially in relation to privacy, data protection and threats to national security). Undoubtedly, Internet regulation is fast rising up

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the policy agenda. For example, the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Communications Group released a report in October 2009 entitled Can We Keep our Hands off the Net?4 which gathered together many and diverse calls for regulation, echoing those on the agenda of the fourth annual meeting of the UN Internet Governance Forum held in Egypt in November 2009. So, what did the Secretary of State mean when she declared that “we do not intend to regulate the Internet”? Many libertarians hoped this meant we should not regulate the Internet for reasons of freedom of speech and against any policies of censorship. Concern over the slippery slope argument – that advocacy for the protection of children opens the door to censorship of content for adults and even the state surveillance of citizens – has been expressed by many critics (Brown 2008; Petley 2009), especially those concerned with the US’s First Amendment and the legitimacy of any qualifications to this (e.g., the “right” to hostile or hate speech in the US in schools is not protected, raising interesting questions regarding the regulation of cyberbullying).5 A well-known illustration of this clash of interests was the successful attack (in defense of civil liberties) by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on the US’s Communications Decency Act, 1996 (designed, among other things, to prevent online pornography reaching children; Murray 2007). A second reading of Jowell’s claim is that we can’t regulate the Internet – because it is a vast and global technology, horizontal more than vertical in its management structures, and as impractical to monitor (as for postal and telecommunications services) – hence the early provision of mere conduit6 restrictions on Internet service provider liability (Brown 2010). As Negroponte famously stated in 1996, “the Internet cannot be regulated. It’s not that laws aren’t relevant, it’s that the nation-state is not relevant” (cited in Drezner 2004: 481). The Internet, it is held, evades the jurisdiction of any one government, and attempts to impose regulatory restrictions will not only be undermined by network architecture but also suffer the unintended consequence of encouraging evasion and subterfuge of ever more ingenious kinds (Murray 2007; Tambini et al. 2008). Moreover, international bodies find it near impossible to sustain consensus, and they lack the power of nation-states to enforce compliance or punish transgression.


Two further readings are also possible. One is that “we” do not intend to regulate the Internet because there is no need to regulate it – in short, because there is no problem. It is here that the range of child welfare professionals – children’s charities, teachers and educationalists, clinicians, parenting organizations, social workers, and law enforcement – have focussed their arguments, marshaling evidence to scope the nature, incidence, and severity of online harm. A series of comprehensive evidence reviews undermine any claim that the Internet poses no risk to children (Muir 2005; O’Connell and Bryce 2006; Byron 2008; Internet Safety Technical Task Force 2008). Having reviewed the evidence available in Europe, the EU (European Union) Kids Online network, which I direct for the European Commission (EC) Safer Internet Programme, classified online risks (and opportunities) so as to clarify future directions for public policy interventions and, especially, to transcend the over-simple rhetoric of both child-asvictim and child-as-digital-native (or, indeed, child-as-villain). First, we distinguished content risks in which the child encounters unwelcome or inappropriate content, from contact risks in which the child becomes a participant in risky personal communication (Hasebrink et al. 2009). Content risks arise because little regulation restricts the distribution of harmful web sites (compared with the commonplace regulation of television, film, and print). Thus children encounter more diverse and extreme content online than from other/older media. Surveys in Europe suggest one in four teenagers has encountered online pornography (though little is known of the nature of this material) and one in three has encountered online hate or violent content (Livingstone and Haddon 2009). Contact risks arise because little regulation restricts who can be in touch with anyone else online, and they are exacerbated by the ease with which age can be disguised online and the difficulty of ensuring privacy for personal information. While evidence is growing that risky contacts may expose children to harmful online experiences (e.g., sexual harassment through (ab)use of webcams; National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy 2008),7 public concern focusses on the likelihood that online communication with new contacts (whether labeled “strangers” or “friends”) results in abusive meetings offline. EU Kids Online

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Regulating the Internet and Children’s Interests found that one in ten European teenagers has gone to a meeting with a contact s/he first met online, though very few of these result in harm. Some British (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, CEOP 2009) and American (Wolak et al. 2008) research suggests that the incidence of online grooming resulting in offline crimes against minors is rising.8 With the explosion of user-generated content, some hosted on professional, commercial web sites (such as social networking, gaming, or blogging sites) and some circulated peer-to-peer (e.g., via email, instant messaging or newsgroups), the distinction between content and contact is blurring. Thus a third category of risk is proposed, that of conduct among peers: to understand these risks we must position the child as an actor who contributes to online risk, deliberately or unwittingly, as part of his or her peer-to-peer engagement. Attention has especially focussed here on cyberbullying (Smith et al. 2006; Shariff and Churchill 2010), estimated by EU Kids Online to affect one in five teenagers (as victims, and fewer as perpetrators although – challenging for policy-makers – both roles may be taken by the same child; Wolak et al. 2008). Despite a fast-growing evidence base regarding online risk to children, the evidence remains contested and the methodologies available are imperfect, this impeding the judgments of scale, reach, and severity necessary if policy is to be proportionate in balancing competing demands (Lobe et al. 2007). Nonetheless, the evidence is no less robust than for many other areas of risk for children (Madge and Barker 2007), where regulatory protections are taken for granted. Recently, the evidence for content, contact, and conduct risks to children on the Internet led the EU to endorse the ministerial Prague Declaration in April 2009, setting out “a new European approach for a safer Internet for children.” This advocates a “holistic” cooperation across countries, including the promotion of “a safer online environment by fostering and assessing private sector self-regulatory initiatives, and by supporting initiatives providing parental control tools as well as positive content for children” (Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU 2009: 7). A range of existing and new policy initiatives are thereby brought together, albeit mainly reliant on the cooperation of individual Member States and/or European-level


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self-regulatory activities (notably, as coordinated by the Directorate-General Information Society’s Safer Internet Programme; see Reid 2009). Of course, it is the fourth reading that is most plausible – not that we shouldn’t or can’t or see no need to regulate the Internet but that we will not regulate it, because the commercial interests at stake are substantial and, while international in scale, profits largely accrue to certain dominant nation-states. In 2005, Jowell (Department for Culture, Media and Sport 2005: np) gave a speech to the industry that exemplified this reading: We don’t want to use a sledge-hammer to crack a nut … Creativity and enterprise can’t flourish if they are beset by reams of red tape. … Regulation has to be proportionate, and take into account the opinions and needs of the businesses it is trying to regulate. … And we should also remember that the international community can only do so much.

So, while the first reading treats the Internet as a particular case of speech, the second treats it as too elusive for national regulation, and the third as offering only a dubious case for intervention, this fourth argument treats the Internet as any other business, a source of both innovation and revenue that demands a liberalized market not to be hampered by “red tape.” Just as the British government resisted the more restrictive proposals of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (so as to liberalize communication markets), in relation to the Internet too, Britain and America appear to lead the Western argument against regulation. On the other hand, the recent establishment of a UK Council for Child Internet Safety reveals British Government support for compensatory efforts toward concerted and effective self-regulation. The Family Online Safety Institute, a multi-stakeholder alliance of mainly industry players, primarily but not only based in the US, is seeking similar support. Also noteworthy of coming changes are the Department of Commerce’s Online Safety and Technical Working Group, whose subcommittees on pornography, data retention, parental controls, and consumer online safety education are due to report in June 2010,9 and the Federal Communications Commission’s notice of inquiry issued in October 2009 on “empowering parents and protecting children in an evolving media landscape” (Federal Communications Commission 2009: np).

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“Of course, the Internet has always been regulated” (Tambini et al. 2008: 5), in recognition of the limitations of the above readings (see Lessig 1999). First, there have always been legitimate restrictions on freedom of speech (even in the US – for example, the dissemination of child sexual abuse images), these attracting more attention with the expansion in hostile and harmful speech in peer-topeer networks. Second, there is growing optimism that international organizations can cooperate to good effect in shaping the Internet’s global infrastructure (witness the increasing interest in and support for the Internet Governance Forum, or the 2009 shift of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from American to international management). Third, there is growing evidence that online experiences may harm the vulnerable, including but not confined to children, this requiring greater care over the interests of ordinary users. Fourth, there are growing calls for regulation from business as well as third-sector and state actors to impose greater obligations on online service providers so as to ensure online transactions are secure, copyright infringements are enforced, personal data is well managed and brands have their reputations protected.

Children’s Rights Offline and Online The child/media relationship is an entry point into the wide and multifaceted world of children and their rights – to education, freedom of expression, play, identity, health, dignity and selfrespect, protection … in every aspect of child rights, in every element of the life of a child, the relationship between children and the media plays a role. (United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 1999: np)

Principled arguments against regulatory interference in relation to either or both of the global market and adult freedom of speech have been met with equally principled arguments in support of children’s rights, concerning both their rights online and the implications of the Internet for their rights offline. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations 1989), ratified by all countries but Somalia and the US, asserts the rights of all those under 18 years of age across all


dimensions of children’s lives, including both positive (enabling) and negative (protective) communication-related rights (Hamelink 2008). Ten years on, UNICEF (1999) asserted the specific relevance of this rights agenda to the media in its “Oslo Challenge” above. In a digital age, these rights – of freedom of expression and association, to beneficial material in one’s own language, to privacy, and to protection from harmful material – undoubtedly extend online as well as offline.10 One way forward would be to establish a Children’s Internet Charter (Livingstone 2009a) to mirror the earlier Children’s Television Charter. Relatedly, in 2007 the Council of Europe advocated, as an extension of the notion of public service from broadcasting to the Internet:11 The concept of public service value of the Internet, understood as people’s significant reliance on the Internet as an essential tool for their everyday activities (communication, information, knowledge, commercial transactions) and the resulting legitimate expectation that Internet services are accessible and affordable, secure, reliable and ongoing. (Council of Europe 2007: np)

Tangible initiatives in support of media or digital literacies (Livingstone 2008; Frau-Meigs and Torrent 2009) also advance positive communication rights online, as would increased provision resulting from the EC Safer Internet Programme’s call for more “positive content” online (European Commission 2009).12 Without being po-faced about what’s good for children, and noting that children may disagree with adults when evaluating online opportunities, it is both important and timely to call for content, contact, and conduct that benefits children – whether this is specifically online public service content (i.e., provided by a public service institution and evaluated for being diverse, indigenous, high quality, and stimulating) or the more mixed provision of opportunities for content, contact, and conduct that enable children’s online interaction and communication. How children’s digital rights and opportunities may be implemented remains unclear, though an audit of what is available to and accessible by children in different countries and life contexts would be a useful step. An important feature of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is that it brings together children’s positive and negative rights. Empirically, as noted earlier, opportunities and risks tend to be

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Regulating the Internet and Children’s Interests positively associated, although it also seems that the more children are provided with “positive content” the less they surf randomly and so encounter online risks (Bauwens et al. 2009).13 Theoretically, the linking of opportunities and risks is central to what Beck (1986/2005) terms “the risk society.” On the Internet, this linkage is particularly difficult to manage. Not only do children engage in both “approved” and “disapproved” activities, but often these are the same activities – to take up an opportunity, one may encounter a risk; as in the offline world, ’twas ever thus. This may be exacerbated or ameliorated by the environment in which children grow up: both urban and online environments are largely designed for and populated by adults – their affordances are never neutral and rarely childfriendly (after all, the early founders of the Internet arguably never imagined that children would become users, and in substantial numbers). On an individual level, the close relation between opportunities and risks is significant, for, as child psychologists observe, children learn by extending themselves, stretching their capacities, and encountering both the unexpectedly beneficial and the problematic in order to gain resilience (Vygotsky 1934/1986). The more children are to learn online, the more they must gain resilience in managing the online environment.

Internet Regulation: Emerging Principles and Practices Because the UK’s media sector and other creative industries are the jewel in our economic crown … the best approach is to rely as far as possible on self-regulation. ( Jowell 2006: np)

Especially but not only in Western advanced industrial democracies, the widely favored solution to the challenges of Internet regulation is selfregulation, this requiring cooperation across a heterogeneous array of hardware, software, and content providers, largely from the private sector but including significant public sector elements. This is consistent with the wider shift in regulatory regimes from (direct or top-down) government to dispersed and often indirect governance characteristic of neoliberalism (Freedman 2008). As Donges (2007: 326) observes, “governance refers to the


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dynamic structure of rules between actors that are linked in different networks and permanently forced to negotiate, without a center that has the power to command and control.” While such a dynamic process of regulation has some advantages, as noted below, it does make for piecemeal policy-making across a heterogeneous array of organizations and alliances.14 In the case of Internet regulation, this renders it hard to assess whether, as critical accounts of the struggles between industry and educators/ third sector would question, self-regulation is serving the long-term interests of children as much as it does those of the private sector. Usefully, self-regulation avoids the problematic “we” that so easily undermines the rationale for Internet regulation – for who are “we” to decide to restrict online activities, especially when the “we” who decides may not equate to the “we” in whose interests such decisions are made? In an age when public trust seems to elude governments, it seems expedient to pass the regulatory task to the Internet industry itself, with slippery matters of offense, values, and conduct to be managed through company policy, customer care relations, and/or technological means. The “we” who regulates, therefore, is the industry acting, as it may be trusted so to do, out of self-interest (to protect the integrity of its service, the confidence of its customer base, and the reputation of its brand) rather than in the public (or children’s) interest, though such interests need not be incompatible. Provided such self-regulation is effective or, failing that, transparent in its efforts (i.e., provided the customer can detect and evaluate the regulatory tools and procedures implemented by the provider), then “we” the public are (supposedly) free to choose the services that best support our desired balance of opportunities and risks. But if the effectiveness and/or transparency of self-regulation are not established, regulatory alternatives could and, arguably, should be sought. Scott (2001: 3) defines the relation between regulation and social control as encompassing: (1) some sort of standard, goal, or set of values against which perceptions of what is happening within the environment to be controlled are compared through (2) some mechanism of monitoring or feedback which in turn triggers (3) some form of action which attempts to align the controlled variables, as they are perceived by the monitoring component with the goal component.

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Traditionally, these goals are set by the state, to advance the interests of public or market or both, while monitoring and compliance roles have been undertaken by a command-and-control style regulator. Hence: For classical regulation the goal component is represented typically by some legal rule or standard, the feedback component by monitoring by a regulatory agency, government department or self-regulatory organisation and the realignment component by the application of sanctions for breach of standards. (Scott 2001: 3)

As consensus grows that top-down supervisory regulation (usually by governments or their appointed agents) is no longer optimal, especially in the fast-globalizing media and communication sector, the jury is out over the relative merits of co- and self-regulation, the two main alternatives. While the US favors a mix of legislation and self-regulation (Montgomery 2007) and Europe favors co-regulation (or what Christou and Simpson (2006) term “public–private transnational governance”), the UK prefers a strategy of self-regulation (Tambini et al. 2008). Held (2007: 357) defines co-regulation in terms of the following criteria, emphasizing the vital role of the state in ensuring the legitimacy and effectiveness of regulatory bodies: (1) The system is established to achieve public policy goals targeted at social processes. (2) There is a legal connection between the non-state regulatory system and the state regulation. (3) The state leaves discretionary power to a non-state regulatory system. (4) The state uses regulatory resources to influence the outcome of the regulatory process (to guarantee the fulfilment of the regulatory goals).

By implication, self-regulation occurs when only the first and third criteria are in place. The second and fourth criteria afford pressure points for the state, in addition to the threat (often discursively salient in today’s governance regimes) that legislation will be introduced should self- or coregulation prove insufficient to achieve desired public policy goals. But even the first and third points are not straightforward: who is to set the goals for self-regulation and how it is to be managed and evaluated remain the subject of both explicit and behind-the-scenes contestation. This is unsurprising given conflicting interests across public and private sectors and given that coopera-


tion is required across national and international levels of organization. Since self-regulation offers a means of dispersing power from the centralized state to a host of institutions with governance responsibilities at all levels from local to global ( Jessop 2002), one crucial consequence is that “it is increasingly difficult to uphold a clear distinction between public and private governance arrangements” (Zürn and KoenigArchibugi 2006: 251, emphasis in original). It is achieved in part by the shift from government through explicit laws to discursive (self-)governance by multiple stakeholders through the operation of codes, norms, standards, guidelines, and the like (Lunt and Livingstone 2007). The value of a “talking shop,” which some (non-binding) organizations – both international (such as the Council of Europe) or multi-stakeholder (e.g., the Internet Governance Forum) and with or without self-regulatory responsibilities – are sometimes denigrated for being, can be recognized better once it is understood that as governments step back from state control the self-regulation that takes its place must be achieved through discursive means (rather than enforced compliance). Consider the task of building a consensus if norms are to be voluntarily adhered to, as in the EU’s Guidance on Social Networking Sites or the UK’s Home Secretary’s Task Force for Child Protection on the Internet15 or the Internet Watch Foundation’s positive promotion of organizations that implement the Clean Feed blocking of illegal child sexual abuse images (IWF 2009). One much-cited argument in favor of self-regulation is that industry can keep pace with technological developments more effectively than governments (which face a “knowledge gap,” as Schulz and Held (2006) put it, in the information sector, including regulator ignorance of the full array of entities to be regulated). The chief executive officer of the Family Online Safety Institute in the US observes that: “as we catch up with and provide solutions to technologies and content that could prove harmful to kids, new devices, new strange meeting places spring up and thwart our earlier efforts” (Balkam 2008: 4). One example of the need for constant updating of regulation, recently raised by the European non governmental organization Alliance for Child Safety Online,16 is how quickly the 2007 European Framework for Safer Mobile Use by Younger

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Regulating the Internet and Children’s Interests Teenagers and Children, albeit now implemented across 81 operators in 26 Member States (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009), became outdated, failing to anticipate the risk of children being tracked using new-generation location services (currently) outside the control of mobile operators (via Global Positioning System, or GPS, WiFi hotspots, or Open Cell ID). Another is the continuing struggles between Facebook and its users over the appropriate management of privacy settings, illustrating the tension between making personal information public (to enable connections), as favored by Facebook and many of its adult users, and the contrary desire to keep personal information private (to enable intimacy), as favored by some adults, most parents, and those concerned to protect children. Here it is generally deemed more effective for the industry and users to negotiate an appropriate balance rather than require regulators to intervene, though the digital literacy and social coordination skills required for this should not be underestimated.17 A second claim made by advocates of self-regulation is that the potential for multi-stakeholder self-determination and public participation are commensurately enhanced (although Schulz and Held (2006) argue the contrary). The discursive tone (if not necessarily the actual practice) of the emerging regulatory regime is illustrated by the United States’ Department of Commerce in relation to the “multi-stakeholder, private sector led, bottom-up policy development model” represented by ICANN.18 As Künzler (2007: 354) observes, self-regulation works best if the following are in place: (1) independence of self-regulation organizations from the regulated industry; (2) acceptance of self-regulation by the regulated companies and professionals; (3) sufficient funding and personnel resources; (4) clear definition of the procedures and goals of the self-regulation organisation and its transparency to the public.

Regarding this last point, national and international organizations increasingly, it seems, conduct public consultations on their remit, codes, and achievements, also facilitating public attitude research, stakeholder meetings, and public events. Although there are both principled and practical benefits to transparency and public deliberation, it is often observed that take-up from diverse and new voices can be disappointing, with a group of


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“usual suspects” attending each event to express views that reflect and promote rather than revise their original position, and with few cases of change resulting from wider public participation. Doubts occur regarding the former points also, with the requirement for independence of the regulator from its sector seemingly elusive in the domain of children’s online safety. This may be because the next two points (acceptance and funding) mitigate against such independence: an industry that provides the resources and the legitimacy for a regulator generally wishes to shape its work. Take the case of the UK’s Internet Watch Foundation, described as “an independent, selfregulatory organisation” (IWF 2009a)19 which provides a hotline and notice-and-take-down service for potentially illegal online content (generally, child sexual abuse images), part-funded by the EC Safer Internet Programme and part of an international network of similar hotlines. Although the IWF is generally seen as a successful regulator, it is arguable that public legitimacy was not achieved, indeed was much contested internally and externally, until the Sexual Offences Act 2003 established a “memorandum of understanding”20 which officially recognized the organization’s public policy goals (i.e., for child protection, thereby also precluding “remit creep” into other kinds of speech, including that which is harmful but legal). Also important was the potential liability to prosecution of companies not operating the take-down service or, later, not centrally blocking sites listed by the IWF as potentially illegal.21 In other words, an organization that proclaims itself self-regulatory nonetheless requires, in Held’s (2007: 357) terms, “a legal connection between the non-state regulatory system and the state regulation”; further, “the state uses regulatory resources to influence the outcome of the regulatory process” – a case of co-regulation, in short. Without a co-regulatory framework, it appears that not only legitimacy but also independent monitoring and compliance/enforcement are weakened in the move from government to governance. The industry’s reluctance to subject itself to independent monitoring or evaluation of the effectiveness of its regulatory initiatives is a persistent feature of deliberation in this field. As Brown (2010) observes, “while these [self-regulatory] schemes are more flexible and less burdensome than statutory regulation, they commonly lack the

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procedural fairness and protection for fundamental rights that are encouraged by independent judicial and parliamentary scrutiny.” Nonetheless, the EC is undertaking some independent evaluation and monitoring – examples include the European mobile framework (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2009) and the effectiveness of domestic filtering tools (DeLoitte and European Commission 2008). Monitoring the 2009 Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU (European Commission 2009a), to which most social networking services are signatories, proved more controversial – perhaps because many of the global players (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, Bebo) have their headquarters in the US. The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) has found reaching agreement on the independent monitoring of codes of conduct or guidance difficult, although its strategy statement of December 2009 does promise that: “we will make sure that a review of how we are using each set of guidance is carried out periodically … reviews will be carried out by someone impartial with the right understanding and experience” (UKCCIS 2009: 11). It adds that this is a matter of “effective selfregulation,” though it remains uncertain how effective such reviews will be. Thus, although the UK claims to lead in European and even wider international deliberations, having demonstrated the merits of multi-stakeholder cooperation to achieve self-regulation, there are signs that the EC and other international bodies may take the lead in pressuring national governments and, indeed, major companies (Reid 2009).

Regulating Contact, Content, and Conduct Risks Online How, in practice, are online risks to children being regulated? Recalling EU Kids Online’s threefold classification of online risks to children, as adopted by the UK’s Byron Review (“Safer Children in a Digital World,” commissioned by the Prime Minister; Byron 2008), it seems that contact risks, especially online grooming and paedophile activity, concern phenomena for which society has little or no tolerance and which are widely addressed by criminal law (Palmer and Stacey 2004; Quayle and


Taylor 2005; Finkelhor 2008). Distributing photographs of child sexual abuse or grooming a child online in order to abuse him or her sexually is internationally regarded as unacceptable, though these are not illegal – and certainly not effectively prevented – everywhere. However, legislative solutions are generally sought only for high-risk circumstances, for their effect is to constrain freedoms by making a wider set of actions illegal than would inevitably result in harm if permitted: for instance, children make many contacts online and only a few result in harmful encounters, albeit these may be disastrous for their victims.22 Indeed, most online contacts afford positive experiences for children, valuable as part of their “freedom of assembly.” It is this, over and above the challenges of international law enforcement, which complicates the regulatory task of minimizing contact risks to children, for it cannot easily be ascertained in advance which contacts are benign and which are harmful. Nor does research as yet pinpoint the particularly vulnerable children from among the many sufficiently resilient to avoid and/or cope with potential contact risks. Nor finally, are the available solutions unproblematic: is it best to scare parents into checking on their child’s personal contacts, or to try to teach children complicated technical means of protecting their privacy, or to ensure the location of “report abuse” buttons on every social networking and instant messaging service, or to require online providers to pre- or post-moderate all chat involving children, or … the list of possibilities could be continued, and few have yet been evaluated. By contrast with contact risks, “content is by far the most contentious area of media policy” (Freedman 2008: 122). Difficult questions of community standards and cultural values are vastly exacerbated in a transnational context (Millwood Hargrave and Livingstone 2009; Preston 2009). Yet there is widespread public concern that, for example, explicit images of heterosexual, homosexual, teenage, violent, or bestial sexual acts are readily accessible via a simple Google search (Waskul 2004). Although traditionally tolerated in print or film, children’s access to such content has traditionally been restricted, whether through regulatory or social means. Already in the short history of the Internet, regulators and industry have experimented with diverse initiatives for managing the conditions of access to inappropriate

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Regulating the Internet and Children’s Interests content, searching for the online equivalent of these familiar (and largely uncontroversial) means of managing content offline. Yet whether white lists, black lists, walled gardens, international content rating systems, more or less subtle filters applied at different points in the distribution chain, or, last but not least, outright censorship, most initiatives have failed. An early failure was the attempt to establish a Dot Kids domain (under the US domain – .kids.us),23 although some countries’ attempts to build children’s walled gardens or portals have been more successful, especially among younger children (e.g., the German portal fragFinn connects to 4,000 sites and is widely used by children). To be effective, such initiatives depend on considerable resources (to pre-moderate and update linked sites, and to mount public awareness campaigns so that parents and children know about them). Resources are more readily forthcoming in large language communities and when provision is commercially rather than publicly funded, this tending to trade personal safety (from sexual or violent content) against children’s freedom from commercial messages. Given ever-present resistance to censorship, content regulation is increasingly focussed on the end user, notably through the provision of parental tools. Although, as Thierer (2009) observes, these depend both on effective design (neither over- nor under-blocking) and on “good” parenting (the assumption that parents are not incompetent, overburdened, negligent, nor illintentioned) (see also Oswell 2008). A particular and persistent problem is that of age verification: paraphrasing the widely cited New Yorker cartoon that nobody would know from your online activities if you were a dog, it is also the case that nobody knows if you are a child (notwithstanding various failed attempts, technical or regulatory, to enforce one to make such a distinction; Thierer 2009). Since children’s preference is to spend time on generalist sites24 where their presence is not generally detectable, their online experiences (including possible harm) are shaped by the commercial practices of major global players who are not easily subjected to the jurisdiction of individual nationstates. “Sticks and stones may break your bones…” Is it the case that, as the playground rhyme would have it, “words can never hurt you”? As the risk agenda is broadened to encompass not only how adult


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society may harm children but also how children may attack each other (and, on occasion, victimize themselves), conduct risks raise exactly this question. For example, bullying has long been understood as including physical as well as verbal harassment among peers – what does this mean for cyberbullying? Beyond the important point that online bullying is often continuous with offline bullying (i.e., the bully pursues his or her victim across contexts both on- and offline), it is increasingly acknowledged that cyberbullying differs from offline bullying insofar as it simultaneously affords anonymity to the bully and publicity to the humiliation of the victim (Smith et al. 2006). Cyberbullying is exacerbated by the ease of manipulating visual images, the extraordinary rapidity by which these may be spread, and the reach of such messages into the victim’s private and supposedly safe places (his or her bedroom, on the phone, at home; boyd 2008). Add to this young people’s reliance on the Internet to conduct their social relations, and the facility with which social networking sites bring together multiple forms of online communication, enabling all forms of contact from the most intimate to the widest of friendship circles, including hostile and abusive peer communication as part of the wider picture. In regulatory terms, conduct risks are the least amenable, for they occur peer-to-peer, not necessarily evident to observing (or supervising) adults. Thus, most regulatory efforts focus on raising awareness (among parents), encouraging considerate codes of conduct (among children), facilitating peer support (via mentoring), and providing sources of support (helplines). In relation to conduct risks, the main effort is thus directed at making young people themselves, rather than industry, self-regulating, albeit with support from the state (and, acting on its behalf, schools).

Integrating Diverse Policy Initiatives How might these currently piecemeal initiatives come together? And how might they tread the fraught path between the Scylla and Charybdis of top-down intervention by governments and laissezfaire reliance on the wisdom of users, the general public? One way is to conceive of improving safety

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less through the imposition of rules and regulations as by building safety considerations into the design and construction of the online environment (as already occurs in the offline environment, where this approach is established in engineering, urban planning, health and safety at work, and other domains). This seeks to anticipate the risks likely to be encountered (or even occasioned) by users and so incorporates risk and safety considerations into the design stages of innovation, planning, and manufacture. Applied to the Internet, what we might then call a policy of “safety by design” recognizes that the public (including parents, children, and those whose activities might harm children, intentionally or otherwise) is engaged with an environment that has been substantially planned for, designed, paid for, and institutionally supported in particular ways, according to particular anticipated uses, and in order to further particular interests (Mansell and Silverstone 1996). In other words, the online environment could have been and could yet be arranged otherwise, possibly reducing risk without disproportionate cost to the freedoms and opportunities of either children or adults. In Internet safety policy for children, this is to go beyond the widespread analogy of road safety (e.g., Criddle 2006; UKCCIS 2009), namely that just as society teaches children to cross roads safely it could teach them to use the Internet safely. Rather, safety depends on a more fundamental interdependence of users and environments: children can only learn to cross roads designed with safety embedded into their physical design (traffic lights, width restrictions, road bumps, marked crossing points) and social rules (consider the public’s familiarity with the rules of the road and society’s enforcement of those rules). We do not teach children to cross a four-lane highway or an unlit road at night or a road on which the cars have no vehicle testing, insurance, or drink/drive laws. Thus, one must extend the road safety analogy to encompass that of town planning (Livingstone 2009). Only in the context of a planned environment, where children’s playgrounds do not open onto major roads, sex shops are not sited next to schools, and commercial areas are regulated differently from residential ones, do we teach children how to treat strangers or travel where they need to go or with whom they can play freely. Interestingly, this balance of regulation and education is not


generally resisted as a restriction on adult freedoms or as sacrificing the market to child protection – perhaps, because offline the planning system evolved over generations, its principles and practices being gradually embedded in everyday “common sense.” Online, the regulatory regime is being developed much faster, permitting little time to attend to competing views, let practices settle down, or wait for unintended consequences to unfold. Yet many of the regulatory practices referred to in this chapter are, as for town planning, attempts to manage conditions of accessibility – in this case, designing into web sites and services enablers and constraints on what (or who) children (and others) can access and how. Examples, as noted throughout this chapter, include provision of filters, specification of child-friendly default settings, age verification systems, content rating and labeling, design standards, opt-in/opt-out points (e.g., for “adult” content), and many more. Another aspect of the town planning analogy is important: when planning regulations are contested, there is recourse to an independent, transparent, and public process of management and arbitration, including published codes of practice and a clear appeals process, whereby competing interests are fought out. Online, equivalent citizen protections are not yet widely in place. And even though large companies invest heavily in “customer care” procedures, there is little public accountability with respect to their complaint handling, filtering decisions, or moderation processes. Skeptics will note further that, offline, planning processes are far from infallible – road accidents still happen, and crime, including crimes against children, are widespread. Nonetheless, such processes are vital to the infrastructure of society and, where lacking online, most countries hope or plan to introduce them.25

Conclusion The Internet promises wonderful opportunities for education, communication, participation, and creativity. Yet the very same medium represents the means of bringing into the privacy of the home the very worst of society. This chapter has traced some of the debates, decisions, and dilemmas encountered by diverse stakeholders across state,

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Regulating the Internet and Children’s Interests business, and third sector as they acknowledge that children’s experience of the Internet and, therefore, for this reason (among others), the Internet itself is being and must be regulated, in one way or another, albeit often with new problems arising just as old ones are resolved.26 As we have seen, in these debates “children” figure in several ways. Some arguments are traditional: throughout the history of media technologies, children’s distinctive vulnerabilities and consequent need for protection against media harms have always been prominent, though the impulse to regulate has often mutated into efforts to educate (i.e., to promote media literacy; Drotner 1992). Some arguments are new: with the advent of interactive media, the user’s agency is better recognized – though, as a result, children’s competence may be exaggerated (so-called “digital natives”) or seen as dangerous (“hooligans” online as, supposedly, offline).27 Some arguments are largely rhetorical: “children” may be introduced into the public fray not so much to represent their interests as to provide a morally acceptable face for censorship (for restrictions on freedom of expression introduced to protect children may subsequently be used to restrict other forms of speech). Although child protection is still sometimes framed as a limitation on adult rights to expression, legitimate or otherwise, it is a matter of children’s rights, and when the rights of one segment of society conflict with the rights of another, some qualification of absolute rights is the inevitable outcome. The policy dilemma, then, concerns the appropriate balance among competing rights. I have argued against any simple confrontation between adult freedoms and child protection, a confrontation in which children’s rights – for both empowerment and protection – are unlikely to be supported. In refocussing instead on the more difficult balance between empowerment and protection in advancing children’s interests specifically (though potentially wider public interests too), I have suggested that a more nuanced and proportionate approach to complex and competing rights and interests may emerge. Nonetheless, in certain regards it may be that conflicts between adult freedoms and child protection will remain, and in such cases it must be acknowledged there are as yet no ready answers. As we also have seen, regulatory regimes are moving toward a “softer,” more indirect approach


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that disperses the role of the state by establishing more accountable national and transnational regulatory bodies, by engaging civil society in processes of governance and by encouraging in the “responsible” or “empowered” citizen the new task of personal risk assessment – “the need to adopt a calculative prudent personal relation to fate now conceived in terms of calculable dangers and avertable risks” (Rose 1996: 58). But, countering enthusiasm for self-regulation, we have observed good reasons to support co-regulation even though, as Schulz and Held (2006: 63) caution, “the effectiveness of the approach has to be examined in each case.” Nor is legislation always avoided: in the case of efforts to eradicate paid-for and peer-to-peer transactions in images of child sexual abuse, for instance, several countries have implemented specific legislation over and above the generic principle that, since those perpetrating crimes and those harmed by them live within national jurisdictions, “what is illegal offline is illegal online” (Van Dijk 2006).28 Each of these regulatory solutions has been much debated, for “not only have media and culture industries become increasingly central in the economies of European countries, they have also become the terrain of contestation and consensus regarding self-governance and cultural identity” (Sarikakis 2007: 14). In concluding this chapter, I must acknowledge the dangers of telling history from the midst of events, without the benefit of hindsight. Still, it is tempting to do so now that child online safety appears finally, though hardly centrally or uncontroversially, on the agenda of the Internet Governance Forum, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the International Telecommunication Union, the EC, and the Council of Europe, as well as many national governments around the world.29 A recent survey of policies in place suggests considerable diversity in governance regimes worldwide, although more work is required to reach conclusions about whether or not regulation is effective in meeting public policy goals.30 It seems, at least in developed countries, there may come a time when international models of regulation will influence, rather than merely recognize, coordinate and/or respond to, the regulatory regimes of individual nation-states. For researchers tracking children’s experiences, both beneficial and harmful, for children’s welfare and rights activists,

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and for parents and children themselves, these shifts pose new challenges regarding participation, transparency and accountability of the regulatory process as they – we – seek to understand the emerging mediated landscape and to identify the possible pressure points for change.

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Notes 1

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Parts of this chapter are adapted from material published in Children and the Internet (Livingstone 2009); other parts draw on conclusions from the EU Kids Online project (see www.eukidsonline.net). In writing this chapter, I was stimulated by a seminar held at the Oxford Internet Institute on Child Protection, Free Speech and the Internet: Mapping the Territory and Limitations of Common Ground (October 2010). I also draw on my experience in directing the pan-European research network, EU Kids Online, funded by the EC (DG Information Society) Safer Internet Programme, and advising Ofcom (the Office of Communications) during the UK Prime Minister’s Byron Review for Safer Children in a Digital World, as well as my roles on the Ministerial Home Access Initiative, the Board of the Internet Watch Foundation, and as Evidence Champion for the newly formed UK Council for Child Internet Safety. By reflecting on insights derived from the academy, from advising government, and from working with a self-regulatory body, I hope to combine contextualized interpretation (in which the researcher draws on insider knowledge) and rational interpretation (in which the researcher draws on outsider knowledge), as advocated by Bohman (1991). I warmly thank those associated with the above organizations who have, in recent years, discussed with me the ideas expressed within this chapter and even checked some of the claims I make here – especially Stephen Balkam, John Carr, Anne Collier, Richard Collins, Jason De Bono, Leslie Haddon, Zoe Hilton, Peter Robbins, Elisabeth Staksrud, and Damian Tambini; I also thank the editors of this volume for their comments on an earlier version. Consider analogous policies in the realm of mass media. These include the US’s Children’s Television Act 1990, which mandated three hours of educational television broadcasting for children per week on each channel; see also Federal Communications Commission (2008). In the UK, the considerable investment of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in children’s resources online (http://www. bbc.co.uk/cbbc/) is widely envied in Europe and elsewhere, although cross-media ownership rules to


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prevent so-called market distortion limit what public service broadcasters may provide for children online. For information about the Internet Governance Forum, see http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/. Specifically, the report called for a Privacy Bill, for measures to address illegal file sharing, for opt-in (rather than opt-out) procedures for behavioral advertizing especially for children, for e-safety teaching in the core school curriculum, for point-of-sale e-safety messages for mobile phones, for child protection filters to be “on” by default on new mobile handsets, for the Internet Watch Foundation’s “notice and take-down” mechanisms for illegal child sexual abuse images to be extended worldwide, for legislation to ensure all UK Internet service providers operate service-level blocking of such illegal images, for continued support for network neutrality, for a minimum guaranteed speed for domestic broadband connections, for a voluntary code for Internet service providers to detect and deal with malware – to be followed by an imposed code if the voluntary system fails, and for a new law to encourage Internet service providers to detect and remove inappropriate content without losing their “mere conduit” legal immunity (see All Party Parliamentary Communications Group 2009). Similar calls come from the Communications Consumer Panel, affiliated to Ofcom – see, for example, its recent recommendation that legislation should require Ofcom to facilitate or, failing voluntary compliance, impose a Code of Conduct to protect consumer rights against stringent penalties (such as broadband disconnection) against illegal downloading; see Communications Consumer Panel (2009). This is currently being debated in the US House of Representatives (Kotler 2009). See Willard’s (2009) analysis of the recent J.C. vs. Beverly Hills Unified School District case. For a recent case to the contrary, see Collier (2009), and for a wider discussion see Raboy and Shtern (2010). According to the EU E-Commerce Regulations 2002, a network operator is not legally liable for the consequences of traffic delivered via its networks. See also the Pew Internet & American Life Project survey (Lenhart 2009) finding that only 4 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds in the US had sent a sexually suggestive nude or semi-nude photo or video of themselves via cell phone; 15 percent had received one on their mobile from someone they know personally. The term online “grooming” refers to the practice of befriending a child online with the intention of sexually abusing them. In 2008–9, the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP 2009: 38) which addresses the relation between online activities and child victims, reported that it

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Regulating the Internet and Children’s Interests had rescued 139 children from sexual abuse, produced intelligence reports which led to 334 arrests, and disrupted or dismantled 82 high-risk sex offender networks. It also reported receiving 50–100 youth reports/month, most of them relating to sexual abuse/harassment (CEOP 2009: 18). 9 See Title 2, Sect. 214 of the Broadband Data Improvement Act 2008 (Govtrack.us 2008). 10 As asserted, ten years on again, by British MP Derek Wyatt, co-chair of the All Party Communications Group, in calling on the UN “to work in cooperation with legislators and civil society to examine and assess whether the Convention on the Rights of the Child fully addresses the needs of children around the world in this digital age” (Wyatt 2009: np). 11 See Council of Europe (2007, 2009). 12 See also Viviene Reding’s claim that “we need to stimulate the production, visibility and take-up of positive content online” (Reding 2009: np). 13 To those from the US, the UK, Germany, or other wealthy countries with large language communities, this may seem unnecessary. But to children who speak Czech or Greek or Macedonian, very little indeed is available for them on the Internet (Livingstone 2009a). Again, political-economic arguments about public service broadcasting, distorting the market if extended online, have been prioritized over meeting children’s right to engage with material in their own language, without advertising or undue persuasion, and using the medium of their choice, as stated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 14 In this regard, Internet regulation contrasts with longer communication policy struggles. The public service broadcasting provision, for example, or the universal service obligation – where a relatively coherent policy domain has traditionally been shaped by overarching (though still contested) principles (public value, universal service and universal access, the regulation of harmful and offensive content, restrictions on commercial messaging) – was managed, at least in the UK, by a broadly trusted regulatory body. In the UK, this has generally been the BBC, Ofcom, and before that Oftel and the Independent Television Commission, all overseen by a distinct government ministry (again in the UK, the Department of Media, Culture and Sport, although with substantial input from the Department for Trade and Industry, renamed Department for Business and Regulatory Reform, and now Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (Collins and Murroni 1996; Freedman 2008). 15 In the UK, the Home Secretary’s Task Force for Child Protection on the Internet was set up in March 2001 following a report by the Internet Crime Forum (2000). It has produced widely imple-


16 17

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mented guidance – both in the UK and emulated elsewhere – regarding safety messages, searching, moderation of chat rooms and instant messaging, reporting of abuse, and social networking services. This successfully sustained a multi-stakeholder dialogue sufficient to produce industry-accepted guidance on moderating interactive services, on the provision of chat, instant messaging, and other webbased services used by children, and on safe search procedures and parental tools, much of it later implemented on a European and international level (e.g., Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU, European Commission 2009a). These and diverse other initiatives (such as a Kitemark for end-user filtering software, guidance for social networking sites, Internet safety materials for teachers, and public-awareness-raising campaigns for parents) are now being coordinated by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, established by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2008 to implement the recommendations of The Byron Review (Byron 2008). See http://www.chis.org.uk/uploads/01.pdf. This is not to say existing legislation does not apply here – the US’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act 1998 (United States Federal Trade Commission 1998), which precludes the collection of personal information from children younger than 13 years of age without parental permission, has resulted in Facebook setting 13 as the lower age limit for registration. A 2009 statement saw ICANN commit “to maintain and improve robust mechanisms for public input, accountability, and transparency so as to ensure that the outcomes of its decision-making will reflect the public interest and be accountable to all stakeholders” (ICANN 2009: np). Lest one doubt the severity of this material, the organization (IWF 2008) reports that some 80 percent of Internet sites hosting child sexual abuse images are commercial operations, and that 10 percent of the child victims being sexually abused – this including scenes of rape, in photographs or videos on these sites – appear to be under two years old; 33 percent appear between three and six years of age; and 80 percent appear to be under the age of ten (IWF 2008). IWF data show a trend toward increasing severity of the abuse portrayed, supporting the IWF’s claim that “behind every statistic is a child who has been sexually abused and exploited and, whilst images of the abuse are in circulation on the internet, that abuse is perpetuated” (IWF 2008: 8). See memorandum of understanding between Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) concerning Section 46 Sexual Offences Act 2003 (IWF 2007).

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21

Indeed, there were suggestions in some quarters that failure to utilize the IWF list could potentially render a non-compliant ISP liable for hosting illegal content or even precipitate legislation to make such blocking compulsory (Brown 2010). 22 One challenging consequence of widespread Internet use is the extent to which youthful activities may be newly rendered illegal – from downloading music from peer-to-peer networks to circulating hate messages or producing indecent images of one’s boy/girlfriend on a mobile phone. 23 In 2002, this children’s “walled garden” appeared successful. When President Bush signed the DotKids Implementation and Efficiency Act in the US, he said: “This bill is a wise and necessary step to safeguard our children while they use computers and discover the great possibilities of the Internet. Every site designated .kids will be a safe zone for children” (White House Office of the Press Secretary 2002: np). However, since dot.kids sites could not connect to any sites outside the domain (NeuStar Inc. 2003), few organizations invested in populating the domain and it is effectively inactive. 24 For example, in the UK, the top ten sites visited by 6- to 11-year-olds include Google, eBay, MSN, YouTube, and Facebook (Ofcom 2009). 25 As revealed by a survey conducted by the ITU’s Child Online Protection initiative of the 191 Member States of the ITU in late 2009 (ITU 2009). 26 For a balanced overview, see “Online Safety 3.0: Empowering & Protecting Youth” (ConnectSafely 2009). 27 Pearson (1983) develops a critique of the moral panic thesis in relation to the sociological emergence of hooligans, while Staksrud (2009) identifies the evidence that children and young people act as hooligans online – charting their activities in relation to cyberbullying, hacking, illegal downloading, plagiarism, and so forth. 28 Norway’s law, as well as that of the UK, against online grooming are examples of this: in the UK, this is Section 46 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003; in Norway, it is Norwegian Criminal Code Section 201. Other examples include the Australian Cyber Stalking Law (1999) and the US’s Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (1998); see also Montgomery (2007). 29 See, for example, the Internet Governance Forum’s Dynamic Coalition on Child Online Safety, which aims “to create a permanent, open platform for discussion on fundamental and practical issues related to child online safety within the agenda of the Internet Governance Forum, ensuring dialogue among representatives from children’s organizations, government, industry, academia, and other


30

civil society groups” (IGF nd: np). See also the ITU’s Child Online Protection initiative (ITU 2009), the Council of Europe’s Recommendation 1882 (Council of Europe 2009), and also the current work of the OECD Working Party on Information Security and Privacy on the protection of children online. See “Answers to APEC Children Protection Project Questionnaire,” APEC–OECD Joint Symposium on Initiatives Among Member Economies Promoting Safer Internet Environment for Children, Singapore April 15, 2009, http://aimp.apec.org/ Documents/2009/TEL/TEL39-SPSG-SYM/09_ tel39_spsg_sym_018.pdf (accessed 11/01/2010).

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Van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2006) “Law,” in J. A. G. M. Van Dijk (ed.) The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media. London: Sage Publications, pp. 127–155. Vygotsky, L. (1934/1986) Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Waskul, D. D. (2004) Net.seXXX: Readings on Sex, Pornography, and the Internet. New York: Peter Lang. White House Office of the Press Secretary (2002) “President Bush signs child Internet safety legislation,” http://www.cms.kids.us/press/dotkids_ news_12.04.02.pdf (accessed 11/01/2010). Willard, N. (2009) There is No Constitutional Right to be a Cyberbully: Analysis of J. C. v Beverly Hills Unified School District. Eugene: Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, http://webhost.brid gew.edu/marc/JCcyberbullyingcase.pdf (accessed 03/01/2010). Willett, R. (2008) “Consumer citizens online: Structure, agency, and gender in online participation,” in D. Buckingham (ed.) Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 49–69. Wolak, J., Finkelhor, D., Mitchell, K. J., and Ybarra, M. L. (2008) “Online ‘predators’ and their victims”, American Psychologist, 63(2): 111–128. Wyatt, D. (2009) Digital Rights for Children and the 20th Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, http://www.derekwyatt.co.uk/ news_item.aspx?i_PageID=117916 (accessed 03/01/2010). Zürn, M., and Koenig-Archibugi, M. (2006) “Conclusion II: The modes and dynamics of global governance,” in M. Koernig-Archibugi and M. Zürn (eds) New Modes of Governance in the Global System: Exploring Publicness, Delegation and Inclusiveness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 236–255.

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From Television without Frontiers to the Digital Big Bang: The EU’s Continuous Efforts to Create a Future-proof Internal Media Market Caroline Pauwels and Karen Donders

Introduction On December 11, 2007 the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) directive was approved. It was intended that the directive would be implemented in national legislation by Member States within two years (i.e., by the end of 2009 at the latest). This approach is fully in line with the concept of subsidiarity that drives European unification, and is especially relevant in culturally sensitive sectors such as the media. Specifically, directives set out the aims of legislative activity at the European level, provide for a minimum level of harmonization with this, and then give Member States choice and space to translate these objectives into national legislation. In other words, directives leave room for individual national emphasis. In the media sector this can be highly important, specifically for reasons related to cultural policy. Through the AVMS directive, the European regulatory authorities are completing and renewing the legal framework to build a unified media market. The new directive was the second and also the most fundamental amendment of the previous Television

Without Frontiers (TWF) directive. This older directive, revised for the first time in 1997, long served as the cornerstone of audiovisual policy in the European Union (EU), together with competition policy.1 When the TWF directive was adopted in 1989, it gave impetus for the liberalization and commercialization of the European television sector and the elimination of public service broadcasting monopolies. At the time, many people spoke of a paradigm shift in the European broadcasting landscape and said that the transformation would have far-reaching consequences (Dyson and Humphreys 1988: 96) (see also MacLean, ch. 3). The new AVMS directive is credited with having a comparable and radical impact on the media market and media policy. It has ushered in a new regulatory era and constitutes an adaptation of the old directive in line with the rapid technological and economic changes in the media market (and hence, also explains the change of name). Rather than a narrow focus on television and linear or push television flows, the new directive aims to widen its scope to all media services, including nonlinear or pull media services such as video-on-demand



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(VOD), mobile television, Internet Protocol television (IPTV), and more. The announced break with the trend is illustrated by the repeated use of terms like graduated approach to linear and nonlinear services, technological neutrality, platform independence, and so on. Like its predecessor, this directive strives to achieve a difficult but subtle balance: with a minimum level of harmonization it aims to offer legal security to all (existing and future) market players to maximize the economic potential of the media sector and improve its competitiveness, but without undermining the cultural policy and wider societal principles which are dear to virtually all Member States. These include, among others, cultural and linguistic diversity, the public interest, protection of minors, and consumer protection. The directive also seeks to achieve this balance in a media sector which is undergoing particularly rapid and often unpredictable technological and other changes. That is why even the first TWF directive provided for a revision every five years. The rapid and unpredictable nature of technological change makes harmonization in the media sector a fraught question: legal harmonization may happen too quickly, or may impose the wrong choices, so that promising economic, technological, or sociocultural prospects are prematurely nipped in the bud. That is why the negotiation and adoption process of the AVMS directive – partly because of the sector it seeks to regulate – did not only receive a lot of media attention but was also highly polemicized. As in the first TWF directive, a number of years elapsed between the initial proposal and its actual adoption. This was precisely because the subject (i.e., the media) is delicate and the economic and technical contexts are quite unpredictable, while the expanding multitude of players involved – broadcasters, network operators, producers, cable distributors, advertisers – is large and diverse. In a context of convergence and digitization, there is also growing interference from print media, new Internet players like Google, or the impact of user-generated content initiatives which have, hitherto, not been taken into account. The longannounced media convergence, which is now becoming a reality, consequently means long and arduous negotiations, incorporating a number of areas of tension that (will) characterize the old, the new, and, most probably, also future directives. It should not be surprising that, amid this complexity,


it is difficult to achieve the predefined economic and cultural objectives. The EU construction will, in any case, continue to be a never-ending “work in progress.” The story is yet “to be continued” indeed. This chapter follows the chronology of events in the development of European regulation for the broadcasting sector and seeks to contextualize them. It consists of five parts. The first part discusses the tensions that are inherent in the creation of European Community (EC) policies in the field of broadcasting. Second, there is an assessment of the TWF directive. There then follows a concise description and evaluation of the 1997 update of the TWF directive. The fourth part elaborates on the 2007 AVMS directive. Finally, and by way of conclusion, the outcome and impact of the EC’s harmonization initiatives on media policy are analyzed. The aim is to assess whether the AVMS directive is future-proof. The economic and cultural relevance of the directives is also addressed, as well as the position of public broadcasting organizations in the light of European strategies to establish an internal and competitive broadcasting market. Throughout the chapter two arguments are made. First, although the TWF and AVMS directives aim to further the internal market in an economically sustainable and culturally diverse way, combining both cultural and economic objectives proves to be a difficult exercise, often resulting in the subordination of culture to economics. Due to its legal rationale, the EU is first and foremost committed to the realization of the internal market objectives. Member States are responsible for the realization of cultural policy goals. Attempts to redress the balance are made but may not suffice to guarantee cultural objectives in the long term, despite the lip service paid to these objectives. Second, globalization, multi-level governance, and convergence lead to the growing interference of an ever-increasing number of stakeholders. This in turn adds to the complexity of policy-making and hence to possible contradictory outcomes and frustrations. EU policy initiatives so far have not resulted in a clear and coherent European strategy in the field of broadcasting. Because of a permanent lack of consensus between all stakeholders concerning broadcasting regulation, legislative initiatives rarely live up to the initial intentions of the different stakeholders involved.

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EU Legislation and the Internal Media Market

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Intractable Areas of Tension Several tensions can be identified in the background that are influencing the evolution of the EU’s media policy-making and legal harmonization activities. First of all, the twofold economic and cultural character of cultural goods and services has always been a defining element for policymaking in the media sector. The audiovisual sector is a source of competitiveness, growth, exports, and job opportunities. As such, it has been placed on the policy agenda of both the United States (US) and the EU in particular, in an information society context. The economic rationale is also the main reason why the EU and the World Trade Organization (WTO) increasingly interfere in the audiovisual domain. Due to the particular characteristics of the content industries, a purely economic logic cannot be applied. Content has a distinct cultural value, an aspect that is continuously underlined by institutions as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), ultimately leading to the adoption of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in 2005. This Convention is mainly meant to counterbalance the WTO and EU liberalization logic (Pauwels and Loisen 2008). The classic laws of economics are not always applicable to the media sector either. Several forms of market failure entail possible negative consequences for the cultural and economic importance of the sector. Any regulation of the media industries therefore has to search for a balance between their cultural and economic aspects (Collins et al. 1988; Wheeler 2004: 350). There is a second tension that is related to the local, national, transnational, and global dynamics of EU policy-making. The EU is but one of the actors in a complex multi-level governance setting, with different “players,” including national governments, the different EU institutions, but also and increasingly so, international organizations such as WTO and UNESCO. The inter-institutional dynamic, whether on a global level (e.g., the interaction between WTO, the EU, and UNESCO), or within the EC (e.g., the interaction between the Council of


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Ministers, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Court of Justice, DirectoratesGeneral, and others), often develops along the lines of either “dirigiste” (read interventionist or even protectionist policies) or liberal policy. This immediately creates a third area of tension. These dirigiste or more liberal narratives, in turn, resonate and take root within the Member States themselves which are either more interventionist (for instance, France, Belgium, and Germany) or less interventionist (e.g., the United Kingdom (UK), and The Netherlands). All this means that policy decisions and compromises are not only difficult to bring about but, ultimately, are not always coherent and may even be internally selfcontradictory.

Once Upon a Time … In Western Europe: The Television Without Frontiers Directive of 1989 In its 1984 “Green Paper on the Establishment of the Common Market for Broadcasting, Especially by Satellite and Cable,” the EC launched the idea of a single European broadcasting market (European Commission 1984). Whereas earlier, rather loose policy initiatives in the audiovisual sector were mainly taken by the Directorate General (DG) of Audiovisual and Media Policies, the initiative-taker and drafter of the 1984 Green Paper was the DG Internal Market. As a result, a liberal-economic style of argumentation prevailed (Collins 1990). The main idea of the Green Paper, as Michalis (2007) points out, was that the fragmentation of broadcasting policies in the EU inhibited the emergence of a truly competitive European broadcasting market, mainly vis-à-vis the US. Along the lines of the Green Paper, and its subsequent consultation round, a proposal for a directive followed in 1986. It was argued that the proposed TWF directive could harmonize – even if only in a minimalist way – Member States’ broadcasting policies, and would empower the European broadcasting sector to increase revenues and take advantage of technological progress. In addition to this, it should not be overlooked that the harmonization initiatives for audiovisual policy had, and still have, a strong political

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and cultural motivation. The early attempts of the EC (in cooperation with the European Broadcasting Union, EBU) to create pan-European broadcast channels illustrate a strong belief in the unifying forces of television in particular. The fact that this initial narrative was internally contradictory did not escape the notice of academics. At the time, Wolton made the following critical observations on unfolding European media policy: In reality, European television projects are designed according to two aims which are ultimately conflicting and go back to the contradiction in which Europe currently finds itself. On the one hand they are conceived as a communication tool to bring together the various European peoples, and on the other as a means of reflecting the different cultures. But a choice must be made. Either television is a force for social and cultural integration, as it has almost always been in all countries in the world, or it is a force for expressing differences. It takes all the casuistry of Eurocrats and politicians to say that the two are complementary. This complementarity is an ideal in the sense that these two dimensions of European integration and cultural identity are completely separate. (Wolton 1990: 92; translation by authors)2

And although this particular idea of television evolved into a “unity in diversity” discourse, the ideal of the European audiovisual sector contributing to fundamental European values and citizenship still lives on. It is often reflected in academic publications that refer to the words of Jacques Delors and exemplifies a determination to develop community-level instruments affecting the audiovisual sector: the culture industry will tomorrow be one of the biggest industries, a creator of wealth and jobs. Under the terms of the Treaty we do not have the resources to implement a cultural policy: but we are going to try to tackle it along economic lines. It is not simply a question of television programmes. We have to build a powerful European culture industry that will enable us to be in control of both the medium and its content, maintaining our standards of civilization, and encouraging the creative people amongst us. (Collins 1994: 90 quoting Delors)

The initiative was not applauded by everyone, however. The sensitivities related to audiovisual policies, on the one hand, and the limited competencies of the European Commission to


take the lead in this area of policy, on the other, prevented the TWF directive from being adopted on several occasions. On October 3, 1989, the TWF directive was finally agreed upon. Starting from the “country-of-origin” principle, the TWF directive harmonized a number of content-related matters such as advertising, protection of minors, broadcasting of European and independent programs, and others. From the start, the TWF directive was caught between dirigiste Member States and those which were more liberally minded. Even if only two Member States finally voted against the directive (i.e., Belgium and Denmark), there are a number of aspects that still divide the parties to this day. These continued to permeate the debates surrounding the AVMS directive and were not definitively resolved even with the adoption of the new directive. Since they originated in the TWF directive, we discuss them here. A first issue concerns the underlying “countryof-origin” and “mutual recognition” principles of the directive. In accordance with the basic principles of freedom of movement and freedom of establishment, the essence of both the TWF and the AVMS directives is that Member States cannot object to receiving programs from other Member States if these programs, broadcast from abroad, comply with the (minimum) stipulations of the directive. This also means that each Member State must ensure that the programs broadcast from its territory are in accordance with the stipulations of the directive. From that moment, the principle of mutual recognition applies: whatever is permitted in one Member State cannot be subject to additional requirements for permission to be granted in another Member State. The only legislation that applies is that of the broadcasting country. Only in exceptional cases, specifically to protect minors, and which are subject to a number of strict but vaguely specified conditions, can a Member State suspend the transmission of programs from another Member State. It quickly became obvious that the countryof-origin principle was revolutionary as it withdraws the possibility for a receiving country to object to incoming signals, even if the content concerned is not in line with national regulatory provisions. It thus infringes the ideal of national sovereignty in the broadcasting field. The countryof-origin principle gave rise to several other political and judicial problems. Most importantly, it was not

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EU Legislation and the Internal Media Market always clear which country had authority, or, in legal terms, held jurisdiction. The principle also led to forum shopping: broadcasters tried to establish themselves in states with the lightest set of rules. A number of Member States tried to maintain the receiving country’s right to control. To this day, some of them still insist on a weakening of the country-of-origin principle. This attempt arguably is in vain, however. A strengthening of Member States’ own right to control (other than their own domestic broadcasters) would infringe upon the basic principle of free movement and the creation of an internal media market would become a “dead letter” in consequence (Valcke and Lievens 2009). As Katsirea (2008: 190) suggests, subsidiarity is difficult to implement in the media sector, now characterized by multi-level governance practice. Observers of the media policies of the European Union have even contended that the countryof-origin principle, by ruling out the restriction of transfrontier broadcasts, which are in compliance with the laws of the originating state, has signified the end of the broadcasting sovereignty of the Member States. (Katsirea 2008: 190)

A second point of contention is the quota regime. Once again, dirigiste and more liberal perspectives have come into conflict. On the one side, there is the belief that the quota regime should be framed and controlled much more strictly than was originally stipulated in the TWF directive through a majority programming system for European productions “where practicable and by appropriate means” (Article 4), together with a quota regime of 10 percent for independent productions (Article 5), and with a restrictively defined remit. For others, quota regimes ought to be abolished because they have no effect other than what the market itself already delivers, and also because they cannot be maintained in a nonlinear context. Precisely for this reason, the new AVMS directive will require a different, more flexible, and, above all, graduated approach to nonlinear media services. Once again, it becomes clear how fundamentally opinions can diverge on how to reconcile cultural and economic aims, the means by which these then have to be realized (i.e., quotas, incentive regimes, subsidies, and so on) and on which specific level (local, national, or regional). Within the EC, these diverging opinions ultimately resulted in the quota regime being transformed


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into essentially a symbolic policy; that is, it was not legally enforceable and was characterized by very vague terminology (e.g., What is a European production? Which genres are covered? When is a producer independent?). This in turn has added to (legal) confusion and (ideological) disagreement. In practice, however, the quota regime has resulted in the broadcasting of domestic rather than nondomestic European works (De Vinck and Pauwels 2008; Herold 2009). This was advantageous for both the dirigistes and the liberals. It was clear to the latter that broadcasters, and hence the market, delivered national and European content without quotas, simply because their viewers demanded it. For those of a more dirigiste bent, however, the predominance of national European content demonstrated that the demand for European nondomestic content, and hence cultural diversity, was a long way off. A third point of contention that often resurfaces concerns the rules on advertising. One side feels that these cannot be framed strictly enough. Another side considers that it must be possible to explore and exploit opportunities for commercial revenues to the fullest extent possible, particularly in times of (uncertain or initial) market development and economic recession. Strict rules on advertising render this impossible. The market argument has clearly gained the upper hand in the debate on advertising over the years. Most observers agree that the advertising regime has become increasingly liberal (Valcke and Lievens 2009). Other criticisms that are expressed in this context concern the fragmentation of advertising regulations, the use of ambiguous terms and, more fundamentally, the dubious assumption that there can be no real tension between the interests of producers and advertisers and consumers (Porter 1993). Over the years, the Member States and other parties have also espoused very divergent opinions on advertising related to children’s programming. Finally, the trend toward systems of co-regulation and self-regulation, and the accompanying belief that co-regulation and selfregulation are better approaches because they are more efficient, have become established, first of all, in advertising regulation. In summary, the adoption of the first TWF directive, and the debates and litigation that followed it, resulted in multiple frustrations for both dirigiste and more liberal players. The situation of legal

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uncertainty and new developments in the broadcasting market called for a revision after five years, as foreseen in the original directive.

The Sequel: Television Without Frontiers – 1997 The 1997 update of the TWF directive was preceded by vigorous discussion among Member States, the European Commission, and other stakeholders. The contents of the directive were, as was the case with the former directive, highly disputed (Drijber 1999). Liberal and dirigiste approaches were again opposed. A first point of disagreement concerned the quota regime. Some stakeholders, most notably France – in an attempt to protect its own production companies – and the European Parliament, felt that the quota regime was too loosely formulated. There was a need to clarify the wording of the quota articles, drop the words “where practicable” and legally enforce a majority of European content (i.e., 51 percent). In addition to the flexible formulation of the quota rules, there was limited or no enforcement by the EC of the quota regime. The importation of content from the US into Europe increased given the explosion of available channels in the EU. Even American content could be designated as European content under various interpretations of the criteria set out in European legislation, thereby contributing to the majority of European content required on broadcasting channels ( Jones 2004: 165–167). More liberal Member States like the UK and Luxembourg, as well as commercial broadcasters, heavily opposed a strengthening of the quota regime. In the end, the quota regulation remained the same (Curwen 1999; Drijber 1999: 89). A second point of discussion dealt with the scope of the directive. Most actors, except the European Parliament, did not favor an extension to point-to-point services. Although new (on-demand) services were already a market reality, “the question whether TWFD should apply to broadcasting over the Internet was left without any explicit answer” (Scheuer 2006: 73). Regulatory and technological uncertainties discouraged an update of the TWF directive in this respect.


Opinions also differed about the rules for the protection of minors. Sweden, a country that does not allow children’s advertising, was the only country to vote against the 1997 update of the TWF directive, while Belgium abstained. Both countries felt the directive was too flexible with regard to children’s advertising and teleshopping. Although the opposition of some countries did not prevent the EC from adopting a common position on the 1997 update, it did show the unease of some countries with the TWF directive’s minimum standards. Countries like Sweden or regions like Flanders have always been strict in their broadcasting legislation vis-à-vis the protection of minors. Because of the country-of-origin principle, their position has become hard to sustain. An influx of other Member States’ broadcasters of children’s television (e.g., the rise of Nickelodeon) put more protective regimes under serious pressure. As a consequence of the declining shares of its main broadcasters in the children’s television market, Flanders, for example, relaxed its rules on children’s advertising. In 1991, Flanders introduced a rule that prohibited advertising aimed at children five minutes before and after children’s programs. In 2007, in response to the situation in which the two most important commercial broadcasters in the Flemish market (i.e., VMMa and SBS) were confronted with declining shares in the children’s market and, hence, decreasing investments of both channels in children’s television, the Flemish government decided to eliminate the five-minute rule and develop an ethical code together with the private sector. As a consequence both VMMa and SBS significantly increased their investments in the children’s segment of the broadcasting market, although a news magazine program specifically aimed at children on VTM (the main channel of VMMa) only saw the light of day thanks to government subsidies. A last point of discussion was related to what was known as the events list. The events list was introduced in the revised TWF directive of 1997, in response to fears that most popular sports events would disappear behind pay television walls. Whereas the European Parliament favored an approach such that all Member States would be under an obligation to make up a list of free-to-air

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EU Legislation and the Internal Media Market television events, the Member States and the EC opposed this. The EC saw a strict events list approach as an economic disadvantage, claiming that “while fewer viewers may watch an event on pay TV than on in-the-clear TV, the revenues can be significantly higher” (EC quoted in Jones 2004: 168–169). Member States like Germany felt the development of an events list was strictly national business and should therefore not be subject to EC supervision. In the end, it was decided that Member States could draw up a list only if they wished to do so. In summary, the 1997 update did not bring about huge changes. In fact, as Drijber says, “very little has changed” (1999: 170). The clarification of the country-of-origin principle was important indeed. It entrenched the revolutionary idea of freedom of reception in broadcasting law and confirmed as such the intentional evolution to an integrated European market in broadcasting. In spite of this important observation, the 1997 update failed to strengthen content requirements and, in general, policy objectives oriented to the public interest.

Revolutionary Road? The Audiovisual Media Services Directive-2007 Whereas the 1997 update of the TWF directive contained only minor changes, the 2007 AVMS directive led to more substantial alterations of the 1989 TWF regulations. Above all, it extended the scope of the TWF directive to so-called “audiovisual media services.” The AVMS directive’s regulatory framework for audiovisual media services aims to ensure “optimal conditions of competitiveness and legal certainty for Europe’s information technologies” while it continues to take into account that “audiovisual media services are as much cultural services as they are economic services” (European Council 2007: Recital 3). Its primary objective is to encourage a level playing field for companies active in the media market. The former Commissioner of Directorate-General for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, emphasized this in a number of speeches and stressed that:


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this Commission proposal is not about new restrictive provisions but about giving effect to the freedoms of the EC Treaty and about paving the way for a better exercise of the fundamental right of freedom of expression across the borders in the EU. (Reding 2006: np)

The update was due in 2002. It emerged following a lot of negotiation by the European Commission, the European Parliament, and various EU Member States (Valcke and Lievens 2009). Questions about the scope of the directive and the need for regulation of new media markets were central to discussions about the AVMS directive and reflected, once again, the persistent and pervasive tensions between liberal and dirigiste (or between cultural and economic) approaches toward regulation in the media and telecommunication markets. The consultations on an update of the TWF directive began in 2002. Rapid technological changes, the need for and development of new business models, as well as fragmented regulation of new media sectors in different Member States convinced most stakeholders of the need for a revision of the TWF directive. Commissioner Reding proposed three scenarios to move forward: (1) a fundamental revision, (2) a fine-tuning of the TWF directive, or (3) the start-up of a working process underlying an eventual update of the TWF directive. The AVMS directive was developed on the basis of the last option. In January 2003 the EC published its fourth communication on the application of the TWF directive. This document started a consultation process, the results of which were published in December 2003. On the basis of several issue papers, the Commission made a first official proposal for a revised directive in 2005. The update of the TWF directive, subject to a co-decision procedure, was then subject to discussions with the European Council and European Parliament (Scheuer 2006).

The scope of AVMS: Linear vs. nonlinear services The AVMS directive extends the scope of the TWF directive to all audiovisual media services. There are six concepts in the definition of audiovisual media services and all of them need some additional clarification.

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1. Editorial responsibility: This concept implies a level of effective control being exercised over programs and program schedules. This means that mere distributors of content, who supposedly do not have control over the content of programs nor their aggregation, are not responsible to the obligations of the directive. Editorial responsibility is a contested concept, however, that comes to the forefront in diverse areas of European media policy and regulation. It is often considered to take regulatory pressures away from the distribution side of the media value chain, to the detriment of the producers and broadcasting channels (European Audiovisual Observatory 2008). 2. Media service provider: The AVMS directive defines a media service provider as “the natural or legal person who has editorial responsibility for the choice of the audiovisual content of the audiovisual media service and determines the manner in which it is organised” (European Council 2007: Article 1d). 3. The principal purpose of providing programs: This concept introduces two sub-categories of programs. There are linear programs or “normal” television broadcasting services that are provided for simultaneous viewing on the basis of a program schedule. This is characterized as so-called “push” content. “Pull” content refers to nonlinear content. This is content that is on-demand and requested by individuals, for example, on the basis of a catalog of different on-demand services. The distinction between linear and nonlinear content is fundamental for an understanding of this directive. Along with it, different regulatory regimes are aligned; there exists a more severe tier of rules for linear services and a “lighter” tier for nonlinear services. This regulatory regime is dubbed the graduated or two-tiered approach. As pull services require active consumer behaviour, a “light” version is deemed acceptable and desirable (Herold 2009). All services that have the “principal purpose” of providing linear or nonlinear “programs” fall within the scope of the directive. For example, this implies that online content (that contains audiovisual fragments) of newspaper publishers is not covered by the directive. Recital


21 explicitly states: “The scope of this Directive should not cover electronic versions of newspapers and magazines” (European Council 2007: Recital 21). The idea underlying this differentiation is that newspapers do not have the principal purpose of providing audiovisual media services. 4. To inform, to educate, and to entertain: This Reithian adage underlies the remit of most Western European public broadcasters. It is unclear how it adds to the clarity of the definition of audiovisual media services, as some observers argue that all services, to some extent, fall within this definition. This could result in problems in the future. 5. The general public: This concept refers to the idea of a mass audience in the communications industry. It is not defined further in the directive, but it means that private forms of communication (like email or chat services) are not covered. 6. By electronic communication networks: As Valcke and Lievens (2009) point out, this last criterion means that the transmission mode used for the delivery of service is irrelevant as long as the service is delivered via an electronic communications network. In other words, following the principle of platform or technology neutrality, a service fits the definition irrespective of its technological means of transportation. It is apparent that the concepts that aim to clarify what an audiovisual media service is are themselves far from clear. Lack of conceptual clarity was already a problem for the TWF directive, and remains a problem for the AVMS directive. Media services provider is defined with reference to “programs” and “editorial responsibility.” Editorial responsibility means the exercise of “effective control.” The latter principle remains undefined, however. Also, the difference between linear and nonlinear services is vague. Recital 17 of the AVMS directive says that: it is characteristic of on-demand audiovisual media services that they are “television-like”, i.e. that they compete for the same audience as television broadcasts, and the nature and the means of access to the service would lead the user reasonably to expect regulatory protection within the scope of this Directive. (European Council 2007: Recital 17)

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EU Legislation and the Internal Media Market In the light of the fast technological and economic changes in the media and communications markets, the use of a word such as “television-like” and the observation of direct competition between linear and on-demand services seems to be rather presumptuous. The second part of the AVMS directive deals with the contested country-of-origin principle. Recital 27 stresses that the country-of-origin principle remains the cornerstone of European audiovisual regulation and deems it essential for the creation of an internal market. This is a strong commitment by the Member States to the often-contested concepts of mutual recognition and freedom of reception. The provisions on the country-of-origin principle have been extended and are more detailed. Three additional chapters, containing minimal rules on the country-oforigin principle for all audiovisual media services for on-demand services and the exclusive rights to events, were added to the TWF directive’s Article 2. In addition to this, an article was introduced providing for a conciliation procedure (not elaborated upon) between a Member State of reception and a Member State holding jurisdiction whenever the first Member State feels a broadcaster is circumventing its national legislation (European Council 2007: Article 3(2)). In this case, the EC strongly encourages bilateral negotiations between two Member States, involving talks between the national regulators of both countries. This should enable an “amicable settlement” of potential problems before Member States turn to legal procedures or unilateral decisions (against the mutual recognition principle). A third aspect of the revised directive deals with another contested issue: advertising regulation. Based on the assumption that technological developments give rise to more channels, more channels lead to more choice, and choice leads to the empowerment of consumers, a relaxation of existing rules on commercial communications was considered necessary (Woods 2008: 63). Technological developments are also a two-edged sword: they fragment the audience and make it possible for viewers to skip advertisements. This tends to reduce advertising income. As a solution, new advertising options such as split screens and product placement were addressed. A number of private broadcasters


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explored these new possibilities for advertising even within regulatory frameworks that did not allow them to do so. The minimum rules on advertising have therefore been relaxed significantly in the AVMS directive. Product placement has been introduced as an acceptable form of commercial communications and the quantitative restrictions on advertising have been limited. The rules surrounding tele-shopping have also been refined. Another aspect that comes to the fore in the directive is the desire for more co- and self-regulation in the media and communications sectors. The AVMS directive says that Member States should recognise the role that effective self-regulation can play and, according to Recital 36 of the AVMS, the directive “encourages the use of coregulation and self-regulation” (European Council 2007: Recital 36). In particular, with regard to children’s advertising and programming, there is/ should be an increasing reliance on ethical codes developed by the sector itself. The emphasis placed on co- and self-regulation derives from a fear of exaggerated Internet regulation. In 2005 Commissioner Reding explicitly declared that a strengthening of regulation was not the objective of the update: I have heard and read here and there, that Brussels intends to regulate the Internet, to introduce new red tape. Frankly, this is nonsense! Never ever has the Commission had such a foolish idea! But let me ask you some questions: who in this room is in favour of child-pornography on the new media? Who stands for the freedom to spread incitement to racial hatred on the new media? If one of the service providers present here in this room considers that these abuses are just business-as-usual, he should stand up and take the floor. It is the duty of the Commission to propose a framework under which these shared European values are protected. But I have no intention to “regulate the Internet!” (Reding 2005: np)

A final novelty of the AVMS directive is the distinction between linear and nonlinear content. A basic tier of light touch regulation applies to all audiovisual media services (so all services covered by the directive). An additional tier of stricter rules applies to linear content only. This approach is dubbed the graduated or two-tier approach (see Table 32.1).

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Table 32.1 Two-tier regulation of linear and nonlinear services Basic tier

Additional tier for linear content

Public availability of information on companies (e.g., in the case of product placement)

Promotion of distribution and production of European works and independent works (whereas only encouragement to promote European works for nonlinear services)

Minimum standards for the protection of minors

More detailed (also quantitative) rules for advertising, tele-shopping, and product placement

Prohibition of content that contains incitement to hatred (sex, race, religion, or nationality)

Stricter rules for the protection of minors

Obligation to ensure production and access to European works

Right of reply

Some qualitative obligations for advertising, tele-shopping, and product placement

Access to minor news events

Ensuring access for people with disabilities Source: Adapted from Valcke and Lievens (2009: 147–151).

Battlefield Galactica? The Issues at Stake Burri-Nenova (2007: 1700) notes that “despite the wide agreement on the need for a change, the revision of the TWF has not been a smooth but rather a rough ride.” Several criticisms emerged during the process of adoption. With regard to the scope of the directive, the UK, Internet service providers, online media service providers, and the printing press opposed an extension of the scope of the TWF directive. They feared “Internet regulation” hampering economic growth and innovation and insisted that the scope of the AVMS directive would be limited to services with a “mass media” appeal. Television regulation should not be applied to other media (Sabbagh 2005: np). A so-called “content directive,” encompassing broadcasting, e-commerce, and the printing press, was thus deemed to be out of the question (Scheuer 2006). In this respect, the European Publishers Council, for example, insisted that the press should be kept free from media-specific regulation and, moreover, that ondemand services should not be subject to the strict advertising rules of the TWF directive (EPC 2006). The AVMS directive, although having a more extensive scope than the TWF directive, embodies these sensitivities and recognises the idea that “services” should feel like “programs.” In other words, the directive implicitly suggests that “anything that looks like TV should be regulated like television” (Espiner


2006: np). New services are thus subject to harmonized regulation but, at the same time, a less stringent tier of rules is applicable to them. As regards the concepts, the division between linear and nonlinear services and a clarification (or not) of the notions “European works” and “independent productions” fueled debate. First, the division between linear services – simultaneous viewing of programs on the basis of a program schedule – and nonlinear services – viewing of programs at a moment that is chosen by the consumer at individual request – provoked diverse criticisms (Valcke 2008). What about the grey zone? The distinction between linear and nonlinear services, it was suggested, is unclear as it is largely based on vague notions such as “television-like,” “pull” content, “push” services, and so on (Espiner 2006). Moreover, it is doubtful whether it is sustainable in the light of further developments in the media sector. Technological convergence, in combination with changing consumer patterns and new business models, might squeeze the scope of linear services and hence the scope of regulation of the audiovisual sector. One can also question whether a differentiation of regulation on the basis of this distinction is valid. The ideas that nonlinear services alter viewers’ expectations of government intervention, require more dependence on consumers’ responsibility, and have a smaller impact on society are often used as legitimization for a more relaxed tier of regulation for non linear services (see Figure 32.1). The assumptions of increasing consumer choice (Pauwels and Bauwens 2007) and

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EU Legislation and the Internal Media Market Cross platform regulation and responsibilities

FREE TO AIR TV

PAY TV

VIDEO ON DEMAND

OTHER AV CONTENT

Content regulation in context (e.g., watershed)

Navigation standards (EPGs, rating, watershed)

Navigation standards and access controls (PINs)

Choice of control tools (filtering, blocking, safe search)

Consumer responsibility

Regulatory controls MEDIA LITERACY

Figure 32.1 Ofcom’s view of the future regulation of the audiovisual sector Source: Arino (2008: 12).

having a presumably smaller impact on society for on-demand services remain questionable. The concepts of “European works” and “independent productions” were also discussed. We have already noted that these concepts were, from the start, rather loosely defined. In spite of ample criticism of the effectiveness of the quota regulation, for which the loose definitions of “European works” and “independent works” and the introduction of “where practicable” in Articles 4 and 5 of the TWF directive were responsible, Articles 4 and 5 remained unchanged in the AVMS directive (Herold 2009). The revision process of the AVMS directive also became mired in some specific issues such as the country-of-origin principle, product placement and commercial communications, universal access to events of societal importance and access to minor news events, and co- and self-regulation. The country-of-origin principle was put under pressure once again as some Member States felt that they have insufficient means to react against circumvention of their national broadcasting regulation. The “group of 13,” including Belgium and Sweden, pleaded in favor of a more extensive framework for exceptions in cases of circumvention and a right to act against circumvention of national regulation in the market for nonlinear services as well. Other countries like Germany, Luxembourg, and the UK disagreed and


emphasized the importance of the country-of-origin principle. In addition, the EC (see Herold 2009) strongly advocated in favor of the country-of-origin principle. The private sector was its most fierce proponent arguing: if the AVMS directive allows for any derogation to the country-of-origin principle, a media service provider will never know until the day he launches a service which laws he will be subject to … without the principle of mutual recognition based on home country control, media service providers will be subject to content control from outside their jurisdiction. (EPC 2006: np)

In the end, the country-of-origin principle was maintained and explicitly recognized as the cornerstone of the AVMS directive. Another discussion dealt with commercial communications. Both advertising and product placement rules were relaxed. The debate on the acceptability of product placement was polarized profoundly. Most consumer organizations were against any relaxation of the advertising rules at large. The European Consumers’ Organization (BEUC) stressed the unacceptability of product placement for consumers and said in a position paper: “Surreptitious advertising in television, as well as product placement of an advertising nature must remain banned. The ban needs to

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be extended to other audiovisual media, in so far as TV services are offered there” (BEUC 2005: 2). The private sector lobbied in favor of it, claiming the whole debate on product placement was (and still is) exaggerated. Product placement is considered an additional source of commercial revenues. Yet, it is not the goose with golden eggs. Whereas the TWF directive prohibited product placement, the AVMS directive allows it in certain circumstances. The directive recognized an economic reality and gave in to pleas by the commercial sector to protect it from declining advertising revenues (Woods 2008; Herold 2009). A final point concerns the access to events of societal importance and short news coverage. The 1997 update of the TWF directive introduced the possibility for Member States to list so-called events of societal importance. These events, so it was agreed, should be available through free-to-air television. The EBU (2003) suggested enhancing this approach to make up a European minimum list of events for all EU Member States. The Olympic Games, and European and World Championship Football would be included in such a list. The proposal was not supported by most Member States, or by other stakeholders, however. Nevertheless, the idea that some events should be accessible to all citizens gained ground. While the events list provision was not strengthened, Member States agreed that news events should be accessible to all citizens. Taking into account copyright problems, this in practice means that short news extracts should be made accessible to media services providers (fair compensation should be awarded in exchange for this) (Valcke and Lievens 2009).

Conclusion: Back to the Future? In this concluding section it is important to assess critically the AVMS directive as it is doubtful whether this directive will live up to its objectives and create a future-proof environment for the development of audiovisual media services that is coherent from legal, economic, and cultural points of view. The AVMS directive’s goals were fourfold: (i) the introduction of a harmonized framework for “old” and “new” media (television-like) services, (ii) a level playing field in the media sector, (iii) a


sustainable framework for the regulation of television-like services, and (iv) a competitive and culturally diverse European audiovisual landscape. This all sounds fine in theory, but in practice some critical issues arise. From legal and technological points of view, it is uncertain that the AVMS directive is future-proof or that it actually will lead to a single market with a level playing field for all (old and new) actors. Second, it is highly questionable that a balance between cultural and economic objectives has been attained. Third, from a societal and public interest point of view, it is important to sketch the fuzzy environment in which public service broadcasters, once the cornerstone of European media policy, now have to evolve.

The best intentions? Will the AVMS Directive create legal certainty leading to a single European market for audiovisual media services? The Commission’s proposal aims to create a single market framework for all types of television and television-like services irrespective of the technology used to transmit or receive them. This common framework provides the legal certainty necessary for the new audiovisual service providers to offer their services on a pan-European basis. Indeed, we cannot expect the European audiovisual industry to lead the way in developing new services if it is confronted with 25 or more different regulatory regimes. (Reding 2006: np)

To some extent, the AVMS directive does harmonize the rules (e.g., extension of protection of minors to nonlinear services). It remains to be seen, however, whether harmonization, rather than legal fragmentation, will effectively take place. As was the case with the TWF directive, the AVMS directive contains several vague concepts that are to be interpreted by the Member States in their national law. Take, for example, the concept “audiovisual media services.” This concept is defined by referring to six other concepts (editorial responsibility, media service provider, principal purpose programs, to inform, to educate and to entertain the general public, and via electronic communication networks) – all of which lack clarity in both scope and substance. Once Member States start implementing diverging definitions of these concepts and

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EU Legislation and the Internal Media Market the overarching concept “audiovisual media services,” the scope of the AVMS directive will differ from one Member State to another. This in turn can lead to increasing, instead of decreasing, problems of jurisdiction. As a result, the directive is a political compromise that may prevent the development of harmonized regulation of nonlinear services in the internal market instead of enabling it. Valcke and Stevens (2007: 290) conclude that there should be a single framework for content services covering all media services, not only broadcasting. In addition to fragmentation resulting from diverging interpretations of the AVMS directive itself, fragmentation can occur because other regulations apply to the European media sector alongside the AVMS directive. Most minimum standards in the AVMS directive are often already foreseen in the criminal law systems of the Member States (Valcke and Lievens 2009). There are also other regulations, including, among others, misleading advertisements and tobacco advertising. It is doubtful whether this kind of inflationary regulation will give rise to a coordinated, harmonized legal framework or to coherent implementation at the national and European levels. Practical experience has shown that the everyday reality of Europe consists as much of fragmentation as it does of harmonization. An internal media market is a long way from becoming a reality. Convergence, unpredictable technological evolution, and an increasing number of actors involved in the provision of audiovisual media services may add to this legal uncertainty and hamper, rather than support, the creation of a level playing field. This was not the initial purpose: Legal uncertainty and a non-level playing-field exist for European companies delivering audiovisual media services as regards the legal regime governing emerging on-demand audiovisual media services. It is therefore necessary, in order to avoid distortions of competition, to improve legal certainty, to help complete the internal market and to facilitate the emergence of a single information area, that at least a basic tier of coordinated rules apply to all audiovisual media services, both television broadcasting (i.e. linear audiovisual media services) and on-demand audiovisual media services (i.e. non-linear audiovisual media services). (European Council 2007: Recital 7)

The AVMS directive does not contain any obligations for content carriers (mainly the telecommu-


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nication sector), or for the printing and publishing sectors. While the broadcasting market faces structural under-financing and bears the most legal obligations, the telecommunication companies that are increasingly involved in the broadcasting sector are not bound by any obligations under the AVMS directive. Moreover, and even more arbitrarily, the printing and publishing firms are not subject to the directive. This means that a priori the online news information of newspapers is much more free of regulation than is the online news of television broadcasters. Both, however, are competing for overlapping audiences and the same advertising revenues. Leaving aside whether it is feasible to regulate the online activities of these players, as well as the newer and exclusively Internet-based companies, the impression is that the “old” players in the broadcasting market face much heavier regulation than their competitors. This is unlikely to stimulate the emergence of a level playing field. Thus, Van Eijk has considered whether the new AVMS directive is future proof in its content: The entire proposed regulatory framework is to a large extent determined by the difference between “linear media services” and “non-linear media services” (or the difference between “television broadcasts” and “on-demand services”). A linear audiovisual media service is understood to be a service where a media service provider decides upon the moment in time when a specific programme is transmitted and establishes the programme schedule … as “television broadcasting” or “television broadcast” … . A non-linear audiovisual media service, on the other hand, is a service where the user decides upon the moment in time when a specific programme is transmitted. The draft includes this in the definition of “on-demand service” … : “on-demand service” … means an audiovisual media service provided by a media service provider for the viewing of programmes at the moment chosen by the user and at his/her individual request on the basis of a catalogue of programmes selected by the media service provider. A technical (supply side related) criterion is made decisive, rather than how the service is experienced by the end-user. (Van Eijk 2007: 9)

We conclude on the basis of this discussion that it is doubtful whether the distinction between linear and nonlinear services is sustainable in the long or even the medium term. The AVMS directive makes an artificial distinction between new and older modes of service delivery. The difference between

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push and pull content might seem reasonably clearcut. It is, however, unclear how sustainable it is now that the lines between radio, television, the Internet, and mobile platforms are blurring. As a result of this process, the lines between linear and nonlinear, on-demand and nearly-on-demand, and push and pull content will eventually disappear. In addition, the graduated or two-tiered regulations for linear and nonlinear content seem arbitrary. It is questionable whether the commercial communications rules are stricter for the soap opera programs that are watched in a linear way, as compared to those that are “bought” on-demand. The AVMS directive is also obsolete in other ways: YouTube-like providers and search engines such as Google fall outside the scope of the directive. This may be defensible. When a revision of the directive was discussed in 2002, YouTube had barely been heard of. Now, however, the platform has come to occupy a crucial place in the media environment. The diverse roles of YouTube-like providers may transform them into the key media providers for future generations (Valcke and Lievens 2009). On balance, it seems that the AVMS directive is not future-proof (and, assuming it reflects present-day realities, it is already at risk). As Hettich rightly points out: Unfortunately, these new rules seem still inspired by an old media environment. They hardly try to address phenomena like YouTube or Tudou, YouTube’s larger Shanghai clone, and their consequences on the future provision of TV-like services. (Hettich 2008: 1449)

Trouble in paradise? Economically competitive and culturally diverse? Although the aims of the EC’s audiovisual policy are essentially economic, cultural considerations are never completely absent. Sometimes rhetoric spills over into policy action. Like its predecessor, the TWF directive, the AVMS directive gives Member States some scope to introduce divergent rules for reasons of cultural diversity. Some also welcome the fact that quota rules continue to exist and are mainly aimed at stock programs as a general cultural policy commitment (Herold 2009). The fact that the quota rules do not impose obliga-


tions and that problems of interpretation continue to emerge with respect to concepts like “European works” and specific genres (film and television fiction), issues get swept under the carpet, often citing the excuse of “realpolitik.” The fact that the quota regime mainly results in European national content and that circulation of non-domestic European content is still limited is blamed on viewer preferences. This is an attractive but disputable assumption (Pauwels and Bauwens 2007). In the multi-level governance system, the balancing of cultural and economic objectives remains a difficult exercise. The AVMS directive refers several times to the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005). The AVMS directive asks the Member States to invite the providers of on-demand audiovisual services to (solely) promote production and access to European works, adding the words “where practicable and by appropriate means.” Thus, the limits of the current cultural policy commitment quickly become evident. By giving Member States the opportunity to define strict or divergent rules in the name of cultural or social policy interests, these interests arguably do not enjoy the same level of protection as the economic and commercial ones. The latter are covered by a statutory obligation, while the former are only mentioned as a legal option or possibility. Under the principle of subsidiarity, EC institutions certainly cannot be expected to adopt a clear, or even a convincing, stance on cultural policy issues. The Member States would not allow this in any case. The legal fragmentation that already results from these options creates the prospect of a downward spiral of increasingly lax cultural policy legislation, perhaps leading to the complete undermining of cultural policy and social engagement. Can it be reasonably expected, for example, that national governments will handicap their own citizens engaged in EU and international competition “solely” for reasons of cultural policy or the public interest? The economic cost of doing so might outweigh the cultural or social policy benefits. The example of the Flemish legislature which abolished some of the rules on advertising aimed at children provides one example of where the economic cost considerations have taken precedence. Some argue that the abolition of some children’s advertising rules has, in fact, resulted in the Flemish private

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EU Legislation and the Internal Media Market sector increasing its investment in children’s programming (yet without determining in which children’s programs). Finally, the question is this: is subsidiarity, which is so dear to European institutions and its Member States, impairing cultural policy interests rather than serving them? Transferring responsibility for cultural policy to Member States appears, for example, in the light of WTO developments, to be a questionable policy option. This is because there is a high risk that cultural policy considerations in a single Member State, or in several, will be drowned out by the liberal-economic credo of the global trade community. It is, after all, far from certain whether a tool like the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions pays more than lip service to cultural diversity. Conversely, its importance must not be underestimated (Pauwels and Loisen 2008). The future will reveal its (relative) importance (see Grant, ch. 21).

Public broadcasters in turmoil? It must be asked finally whether public broadcasters, once the bastions of the European media landscape, can withstand the storm of all these media developments and policy shifts. Considering the market share of some public broadcasters, after twenty years of liberalization brought about by the TWF directive, one has to answer with a resounding yes. It is important, however, not to be misled by the market shares of the German, British, and even Flemish public broadcasters. These are not only exceptional, but they measure only market success. The actual fulfilment of their public service role receives scant, if any, attention. Over the years, and particularly since 1992, private broadcasters have been accusing public broadcasters of distorting the market. This has driven public broadcasters into the scope of application of EU competition policy. The TWF directive may have created the context in which the public broadcasters have lost their monopoly and commercialization has become a major policy trend, but the real impact of the TWF directive and its successor, the AVMS directive, on public broadcasters can be evaluated only if they are considered alongside the implementation of competition policy vis-à-vis public broadcasters (and in particu-


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lar the rules on state subsidies). The two are linked; they limit and correct, as well as reinforce, each other. Two important observations should be made here. First, public broadcasters, according to the principle of subsidiarity, are locked into a “give and take” game between the Member States and European institutions such as the EC and the European Courts (in this case the Court of Justice of the European Union and the General Court of First Instance). When the TWF directive began the liberalization of the European broadcasting sector amid fears of the marginalization of public broadcasters and at a time when public broadcasters became embroiled in the troubled waters of EU State Aid policy control, the Member States demanded their authority back and negotiated the Amsterdam Protocol, which was intended to offer guarantees of the continued existence and development of public broadcasters (Coppieters 2003). They are the only institution whose exceptional status is set out so expressly in the official EU Treaty. It is right, however, to question whether this should be seen as a lifetime insurance policy for public broadcasters. As well as the multi-level governance give and take game, public broadcasters are also trapped within market developments and underlying ideological perspectives on the way in which specific principles of public law can be expressed in the future. After the liberalization of the broadcasting market at the end of the 1980s and the technological advancements in the 1990s, the idea has taken root within EC institutions that the market is capable of fulfilling certain public functions. This affects the status of public broadcasting organizations. The EC cannot be seen to be showing prejudice against public broadcasters, and, indeed, the opposite has happened (Levy 1999: 95; Smith 2001: 230). The refinement of State Aid procedures and the constant pressure from the Court of Justice for sound economic analyses in this area mean that public broadcasters have to demonstrate more than ever before that certain functions can only be carried out effectively by a public institution. This is evidenced by the growing importance of EU State Aid policy, as applied to public broadcasters. The EC asks Member States to use public value tests and market impact assessments (by analogy with the British system for testing new British Broadcasting Corporation services) to determine

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the scope of activities of public broadcasters. Although this encourages EU Member States and public broadcasters to reflect on the latter’s public service remit and on ways of discharging and controlling it (this should be seen as a valuable consequence of EU state subsidy policy) (Donders and Pauwels 2008), there is also the opposite danger that public broadcasters will be reduced to specific niche functions ( Jakubowicz 2004; Bardoel and Vochteloo 2008) (see Jakubowicz, ch. 13). In other words, the holistic remit of public broadcasters as set out in Reith’s “to educate, to inform and to entertain,” is truly in jeopardy as a result of the attempts to impose EU State Aid policy perspectives. Translating this into the scope of the new AVMS directive, it is not certain that all the online activities of public broadcasters will survive the increasing importance of the need for compliance with the European State Aid rules. The question, however, is whether the Member States will allow this to happen. In many countries public broadcasters are bastions of national public policy, major employers, and inextricably interwoven with the political classes. After twenty years of liberalization, the test of strength among public broadcasters, Member States, and EU institutions is still a long way from being settled.

Notes 1

2

And with hardware and software support programs such as Vision 1250 – the standard for the sound system for high-definition television or media, the program aimed at strengthening the audiovisual sector. “En réalité, les projets de télévision Européenne sont conçus dans deux perspectives finalement antagonistes et qui renvoient bien à la contradiction dans laquelle se trouve actuellement l’Europe. Ils sont d’une part pensés comme un outil de communication pour rapprocher les différents peuples d’Europe et d’autre part comme le moyen de refléter les différentes cultures. Mais il faut choisir. Ou la télévision est plutôt un facteur d’intégration sociale et culturelle comme elle l’a presque toujours été dans tous les pays du monde ou elle est un facteur d’expression de différences. Mais il faut toute la casuistique des eurocrates et des hommes politiques pour dire que les deux sont complémentaires. Cette complémentarité est idéaliste au sens ou tout sépare ces deux dimensions, l’intégration européenne et l’identité culturelle.” (Wolton 1990: 92)


References Arino, M. (2008) AVMS Implementation in the UK. Presentation at the IES Lecture Series, Rethinking European Media and Communications Policy, March 19, Brussels. Bardoel, J., and Vochteloo, M. (2008) Squeezing Public Service Broadcasting from the Mainstream to the Margin? EU State Aid Policy vis-à-vis Public Service Broadcasting. Paper presented at the RIPE Conference, Public Service Media in the 21st Century: Participation, Partnership and Media Development, October 8–11, Mainz. BEUC (2005) Television Without Frontiers Directive: BEUC Submission on Issue Papers. (September 5). Brussels: The European Consumers’ Organisation. Burri-Nenova, M. (2007) “The new audiovisual media services directive: Television without frontiers, television without cultural diversity,” Common Market Law Review, 44(6): 1689–1725. Collins, R. (1990) “Broadcasting policy: Competition and public service,” in S. Thomas and W.A. Evans (eds) Communication and Culture: Language, Performance, Technology and Media, vol. 4, Studies in Communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, Studies in Communication, pp. 305–317. Collins, R. (1994) “Unity in diversity? The European single market in broadcasting and the audiovisual, 1982–92,” Journal of Common Market Studies, 32(1): 89–102. Collins, R., Garnham, N., and Locksley, G. (1988) The Economics of Television: The UK Case. London: Sage Publications. Coppieters, S. (2003) “The financing of public service broadcasting,” in A. Biondi, P. Eeckhout, and J. Flynn (eds) The Law of State Aid in the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 265–279. Curwen, P. (1999) “Television without Frontiers: Can culture be harmonized?” European Business Review, 99(6): 368–375. De Vinck, S., and Pauwels, C. (2008) “Cultural diversity as the final outcome of EU policymaking in the audiovisual sector: A critical analysis,” in H. Schneider and P. Van den Bossche (eds) Protection of Cultural Diversity from a European and International Perspective. Antwerp/Oxford/Portland: Inter sentia, pp. 263–316. Donders, K., and Pauwels, C. (2008) “Does EU policy challenge the digital future of public service broadcasting? An analysis of the Commission’s State Aid approach to digitization and the public service remit of public broadcasting organizations,” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 14(3): 295–311. Drijber, B. J. (1999) “The revised Television without Frontiers Directive: Is it fit for the next century?” Common Market Law Review, 36(1): 87–122.

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EU Legislation and the Internal Media Market Dyson, K., and Humphreys, P. (1988) “Regulatory change in Western Europe: From national cultural regulation to international economic statecraft,” in K. Dyson and P. Humphreys (eds) Broadcasting and New Media Policies in Western Europe. London: Routledge, pp. 92–160. EBU (2003) Public Consultation by the European Commission on the Review of the Television without Frontiers Directive: EBU Contribution. Geneva: EBU. EPC (2006) EPC Calls on MEPS to Stop Members States Interfering in Free Circulation of Media Content (December 4). Brussels: EPC. Espiner, T. (2006) “TV without Frontiers,” Lawmakers in Tears, London: ZDNet, http://news.zdnet.co. uk/inter net/0,1000000097,39278500,00.htm (accessed 01/09/2007). European Audiovisual Observatory (2008) IRIS Special: Editorial Responsibility. Strasbourg: European Audiovisual Observatory. European Commission (1984) Green Paper, Television without Frontiers: The Establishment of a European Single Market for Broadcasting, especially by Satellite and Cable ( June 14). Brussels: European Commission. European Council (1989) Directive 89/552/EEC on the Coordination of Certain Provisions Laid Down by Law, Regulation or Administrative Action in Member States Concerning the Pursuit of Television Broadcasting Activities (October). Brussels: European Council. European Council (1997) Directive 97/36/EC Amending Council Directive 89/552/EEC on the Coordination of Certain Provisions Laid Down by Law, Regulation or Administrative Action in Member States Concerning the Pursuit of Television Broadcasting Activities ( June 30). Brussels: European Council. European Council (2007) Directive 2007/65/EC Amending Council Directive 89/552/EEC on the Coordination of Certain Provisions Laid Down by Law, Regulation or Administrative Action in Member States Concerning the Pursuit of Television Broadcasting Activities (December 11). Brussels: European Council. Herold, A. (2009) “The new audiovisual media services directive,” in C. Pauwels, H. Kalimo, K. Donders, and B. Van Rompuy (eds) Rethinking European Media and Communications Policy. Brussels: VUBPress, pp. 99–126. Hettich, P. (2008) “YouTube to be regulated? The FCC sits tight, while European broadcast regulators make the grab for the Internet,” St. John’s Law Review, 82(4): 1395–1456. Jakubowicz, K. (2004) “A square peg in a round hole: The EU’s policy on public service broadcasting,” in I. Bondebjerg and P. Golding (eds) European Culture and the Media. Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 277–302. Jones, C. A. (2004) “Transfrontier media: Law and cultural policy in the European Union,” in M. Semati (ed.) New Frontiers in International Communication


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Theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 157–178. Katsirea, I. (2008) Public Broadcasting and European Law: A Comparative Examination of Public Service Obligations in Six Member States. New York: Wolters Kluwer. Levy, D. (1999) Europe’s Digital Revolution: Broadcasting Revolution, the EU and the Nation State. London: Routledge. Michalis, M. (2007) Governing European Communications: From Unification to Coordination. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Pauwels, C., and Bauwens, J. (2007) “Power to the people? The myth of television consumer sovereignty revisited,” The International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics, 3(2): 149–165. Pauwels, C., and Loisen, J. (2008) “Naar een nieuwe globale communicatieorde: audiovisueel beleid binnen de WTO” (Toward a new global communications order), in J. Delwaide and G. Geeraerts (eds) Globalisering: Interdisciplinair Bekeken (An interdisciplinary view on globalisation). Brussels: VUBPress, pp. 287–312. Porter, V. (1993) “The consumer and transfrontier television,” Consumer Policy Review, 3(3): 132–138. Reding, V. (2005) Better Regulation for Europe’s Media Industry: The Commission’s Approach. Speech delivered at the Audiovisual Conference between Culture and Commerce, (September 22), Liverpool. Reding, V. (2006) Audiovisual Media Services Directive: The Right Instrument to Provide Legal Certainty for Europe’s Media Business in the Next Decade. Speech delivered at the seminar Regulating the New Landscape, ( June 7), Brussels. Sabbagh, D. (2005) “EU seeks to regulate television on the Net” ( July 12), The Times, London: Times Newspapers Ltd. Scheuer, A. (2006) “Traditional paradigms for new services? The Commission proposal for a ‘Audiovisual Media Services Directive’,” Communications & Strategies, 62(2): 71–91. Smith, M. P. (2001) “How adaptable is the European Commission? The case of State Aid regulation,” Journal of Public Policy, 21(3): 219–238. UNESCO (2005) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (October 20). Paris: UNESCO. Valcke, P. (2008) The New AVMS Directive. Presentation at the IES Lecture Series, Rethinking European Media and Communications Policy, (March 19), Brussels. Valcke, P., and Lievens, E. (2009) “Rethinking European broadcasting regulation,” in C. Pauwels, H. Kalimo, K. Donders, and B. Van Rompuy (eds) Rethinking European Media and Communications Policy. Brussels: VUBPress, pp. 127–164. Valcke, P., and Stevens, D. (2007) “Graduated regulation of ‘regulatable’ content and the European

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Audiovisual Media Services Directive: One small step for the industry and one giant leap for the legislator?” Telematics & Informatics, 24(2): 285–302. Van Eijk, N. (2007) The Modernisation of the European Television without Frontiers Directive: Unnecessary Regulation and the Introduction of Internet Governance. Paper presented at the International Telecommunication Society’s 19th European Regional Conference, September 2–5, Istanbul.


Wheeler, M. (2004) “Supranational regulation: Television and the European Union,” European Journal of Communication, 19(3): 349–370. Wolton, D. (1990) “La télévision européenne en question” (European television questioned), Médiaspouvours, 20: 87–95. Woods, L. (2008) “The consumer and advertising regulation in the Television without Frontiers and Audiovisual Media Services Directive,” Journal of Consumer Policy, 31(1): 63–77.

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33

Actors and Interactions in Global Communication Governance: The Heuristic Potential of a Network Approach Claudia Padovani and Elena Pavan Introduction1 Contemporary developments in the areas of media, communication, information, and culture present multifaceted policy challenges. We can think of the extraordinary pace of technological evolution, the transnational outreach of economic interests and financial investments, the complexity of issues to be dealt with, and the tension between the democratic potential of ubiquitous technologies and the risk of broadening divides. All of these aspects pose problematic questions concerning the role and relevance of arrangements that contribute to and define the normative foundations and the governance structures of knowledge societies and of media and communication as a policy domain. There are several reasons to investigate how media and communication governance is being structured. In the first place, “information policy creates the communicative space within which all public and decision making discourses take place” (Braman 2006: 78). We therefore need to appreciate the relevance of this field to other policy domains as well as decision-making processes,

outputs, and outcomes. Some authors have also outlined how information and communication are increasingly recognized as gaining relevance in the broader context of global governance, thus becoming “one of the newest and most internationalized areas of public policy and institutional change” (Mueller 2004: 186). Finally, it should be noted that the supranational governance of information technologies seems to introduce innovative features in the actual conduct of policy processes: “International governance of information technologies, particularly telecommunications, may epitomize the new forms of governance arising in global politics” (Singh 2002: 18–19). If we are to fully understand governance developments in a constantly globalizing world, a focus on communication processes and technologies may therefore prove to be a useful exercise. Yet systematic efforts to develop adequate analytical frameworks, as well as the methodological tools to conduct empirical investigation in the field, are still needed. A first difficulty in pursuing the task presents itself in the different terminologies used in the literature to refer to the complex interactions that make up the domain. Some authors refer to



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“global media policy” (Raboy 2002), recognizing the globalizing challenge, adopting media as a comprehensive category to indicate technologies as well as their content, but stressing the formalities of state-based decision-making processes. Others prefer to write about “information policies” (Braman 2006), focussing on formalized policy processes and stressing how cycles of information production, in fact, include infrastructural as well as substantive matters addressed by policy actors. Others still refer to the “governing of global electronic networks” (Drake and Wilson III 2008) or to “negotiation in the global information economy” (Singh 2008). This definitional heterogeneity testifies to the level of uncertainty characterizing the media, information, and communication policy domain and thus contributes to the difficulty in identifying its boundaries and translating theoretical approaches into empirical agendas for analysis. Switching from one definition to another results in units of analysis changing from institutional actors to media infrastructures and content to decision-making processes; in all cases, complexity is only partly recognized and addressed. We prefer to use the label “global communication governance” (GCG) to indicate the multiplicity of networks of interdependent but operationally autonomous actors that are involved with different degrees of autonomy and power, in processes of formal or informal character, through which they pursue different goals, produce relevant knowledge and cultural practices, and engage in political negotiation while trying to influence the outcome of decision-making in the domain of media and communication in a transnational context. Through interactions, actors may (re)define their identities and interests, contribute to framing policy-relevant issues, and promote the evolution of norms, standards, and rules that inform statebased policy-making, as well as non-state-based standard-setting and self-governing arrangements, potentially contributing to a restructuring of world politics.2 Talking about GCG allows us to include the relevant components of the domain in a comprehensive framework: the global refers to the multi-level and multidimensional features of world politics, communication includes not just technologies and content production but also processes of human interaction and meaning creation, and governance is the sum of formal and informal


arrangements, including the involvement of different actors, as well as the relevance of expert knowledge and communication-related practices in everyday life that may become cognitive resources used to address complex governance issues and define the boundaries of GCG as a domain. This chapter addresses the policy implications of this complexity and suggests a specific viewpoint through which it can be examined, theorized, and empirically explored. We start by briefly addressing the theoretical and empirical shortcomings of a concept that has recently characterized much of the discourse surrounding media and communication policies: multi-stakeholderism. We contend that this concept is inadequate in that it does not enable us to grasp the essence of GCG as a domain. We do this by offering examples from the GCG field to show how a diversity of actors, combined with the dynamics of processes, produce uncertainty, and complexity at different levels that must be properly investigated. We then discuss why a network approach to the study of GCG may prove fruitful in moving toward a better understanding of how GCG is structured. Based on a short review of earlier applications of a network approach to governing mechanisms, we outline the heuristic potential of this approach. Finally, we take our theoretical reflection one step further and propose that, in order to empirically investigate the global networked governance of communication it may be useful to look at different kinds of (complementary) networks through appropriate methodologies. In our concluding remarks, we explore directions in which the proposed theoretical-methodological framework could be applied.

Moving Beyond the Concept of Multi-Stakeholderism Much public debate and scholarly work has focussed on one specific feature of the GCG environment, namely, what is often referred to as “multi-stakeholderism.” This term stresses the growing diversification of the actors involved in framing issues and problems, defining priorities, negotiating possible solutions, and taking relevant decisions in relation to any policy area.

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Global Communication Governance It is a recognized fact that politics in the global context is no longer the sole space for inter-state relations and diplomatic practices. As demonstrated by the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, state actors still have very crucial functions to perform and yet, with different degrees of autonomy and relevance in different sectors, non-state actors are also playing important roles. Several authors have noted the growing number of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the second half of the twentieth century, as a sign of transformation in world politics. Some have stressed the growing relevance of private actors in the global context as both a challenge and an opportunity for more transparent and legitimate governing arrangements (Baylis and Smith 1997; Held et al. 1999; Hewson and Sinclair 1999; Held and McGrew 2003; Art and Jervis 2009). Others have focussed specifically on the democratizing potential of such a plurality of actors or the role and function of the growing number of civil society organizations (Smith et al. 1997; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Dodds 2002; Art 2003; Kaldor 2003; Dryzek 2005; Keane 2006). Efforts have been made to identify the structures through which such diversified actors intervene: from hierarchically structured NGOs, to formal coalitions and loose network configurations (Reinicke 1998; Sorensen and Torfing 2008; Stone 2008).3 This plurality of actors and their configuration are evident when we map the GCG domain. National governments have long since realized that communication issues require supranational arrangements (Hamelink 1994; Raboy 2002; Chakravartty and Sarikakis 2006). United Nations (UN) organizations and agencies, such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), perform their mandates by promoting universal values and normative visions concerning infrastructure and culture. Transnational NGOs and civic constituencies have become aware of the challenges posed by supranational policy arrangements; while private corporations and technical standardization organizations contribute to governing the global information infrastructure by developing technological applications and defining codes.


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Scholarly accounts of this plurality are offered, for instance, in the attempt to map the environment where the governance of the Internet takes place.4 Drake and Wilson (2008) map the Governance of Global Electronic Networks, naming the many organizations that contribute to the “distributed architecture of network global governance” (e.g., the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Intelsat carrier, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Union (EU), and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). (See also MacLean, ch. 3). This identification of actors provides a meaningful first step in the definition of the domain’s boundaries. Yet we should conceive of such a “mapping” not just as a listing of actors and institutions but rather as a method through which we can collect and organize relevant data in order to generate a higher level of interpretive elaboration.5 The question then is as follows: is the multi-stakeholder concept useful to this end? Interestingly, a strong focus on this concept was present in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)6. In this highlevel intergovernmental setting, where issues concerning technologies, infrastructure, and communication processes were dealt with,7 the multi-stakeholder approach became a catchphrase. It was put forward by governments to legitimize the WSIS process,8 adopted by NGOs and civil society organizations to support their requests for fuller participation in the process,9 and addressed critically by activists and scholars. In spite of the success of the term, we see a number of problems in adopting it as a preferred entry point to a better understanding of GCG. In the first place, multi-stakeholderism embraces implicit normative assumptions about the democratic potential of multi-actor practices, as made explicit in the following definition. Multistakeholder processes are those “which aim to bring together all major stakeholders in a new form of communication, decision-finding (and possibly decision-making) on a particular issue”; processes wherein democratic principles of “equity and accountability, as well as transparency and participation, constitute basic considerations” (Hemmati 2002: 2).

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Not only are these normative assumptions too often implicit, posing problems concerning the underlying models of democracy to which actors refer (Cammaerts and Padovani 2006), but the normative values and democratic aspirations also tend to be lost easily in the translation of the concept into concrete governance practices. Thus, the multi-stakeholder concept runs the risk of concealing more than it reveals: who is included and why? What resources do actors need in order effectively to participate? Who manages and controls access to information and processes, and according to which principles and goals? In the light of these questions, we do not see any heuristic potential in a concept that is mainly descriptive and can, at best, only be used to identify actors involved in a process by dividing them into categories that often tend to oversimplify highly differentiated realities. We therefore prefer to investigate actors’ plurality by focussing on their (inter)actions and meaning production on the global scale. In order to do this, we need better articulated approaches to understand how the different normative assumptions of actors translate into practice. This is a much more difficult task than descriptive mapping. It is, instead, a task that acknowledges at the same time the different interests being brought into the process (Hemmati 2002), the discourses actors develop (Dryzek 2005), and the possibility to observe patterns of norm consolidation through actors’ interactions (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998).

Global Communication Governance as a Complex Domain Building on Braman (2006) and Raboy and Padovani (2008, 2010), we suggest that the difficulty in defining the boundaries of the GCG domain stems from a set of complementary trends: the rapid evolution and convergence in technology, the different practices of use, the multiplicity of actors and policy processes, the different levels at which authority is exercised, and the variety and articulation of issues. A helpful way to articulate all these features is the sociopolitical analytical approach to the study


of governance processes elaborated by Kooiman (1993, 2003).10 He suggests that governance in contemporary societies should be conceived of as being essentially interactive: “a mix of all kinds of efforts by all manners of socio-political actors, public as well as private” (2003: 3), through which actors with governing roles assume shared responsibilities. He underlines the fact that governing mechanisms are societal responses to demands that emerge in a context characterized by diversity, dynamics, and complexity, a situation that renders conventional arrangements, centered on stateactors, no longer capable of responding effectively. Such mechanisms differ from the local to the global, and from one policy domain to another, while the necessary technical and political knowledge is dispersed. In this situation, governance objectives are difficult to define and challenging to realize. We suggest that these features are particularly evident in the fast-evolving domain of GCG where clearly: no single actor, public or private, has the knowledge and information required to solve complex, dynamic and diversified societal challenges; no governing actor has an overview sufficient to make the necessary instrument effective; no single actor has sufficient action potential to dominate unilaterally. (Kooiman 2003: 11)

Diversity, in Kooiman’s terms, refers to the plurality of actors involved. This focus on diversity implies a multi-stakeholder dimension, and yet actors are not conceived as stakeholders with fixed identities and interests. These identities and interests are shaped in the interaction while, at the same time, they contribute to defining political agendas, framing issues, identifying problems and solutions, and reaching out for consensus. If we translate this into the GCG domain, diversity may be understood as the shift from an exclusive presence of state actors to the interplay of a plurality of entities: state-based independent agencies (such as regulatory bodies or independent authorities on privacy or telecommunication); intergovernmental institutionalized fora (e.g., ITU, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), or, at the regional level, the European Commission and its Information Society and Media Directorate); nongovernmental actors (e.g., private entities including Microsoft or the International Chamber of

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Global Communication Governance Commerce, as well as civic-oriented organizations such as ARTICLE 19 or the Association for Progressive Communications); and global networks (such as the Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development or the partnership behind the Global Communication Initiative). All these actors are engaged in exchanges (more or less formal) to produce governance outputs. What Kooiman calls dynamics refers to the dynamic quality of governing processes characterized by a centrality of information exchange and communicative interaction which informs choices about change and conservation in policy discourses and action (Padovani and Pavan 2009: 156). In relation to GCG, we can think of the shift from a state-centered logic grounded in traditional diplomatic codes of secrecy and exclusivity to an approach that is characterized not only by a diversity of actors but also by societal requests for transparency, public scrutiny, and institutional accountability. As an example, consider the WSIS follow-up process, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).11 The IGF was set up as a multi-actor space for dialogue to further test the potential of the multistakeholder approach.12 A dynamic, therefore, relates to the plurality of differently shaped processes which intersect in the global governance of communication. Finally, complexity includes the above-mentioned features but also points to the multitude of interactions that take place in different forms, at different levels, with different outputs. The history of international policies related to communication, as traced by authors such as Schiller (1976, 1984), Hamelink (1994), and Ó Siochrú and Girard (2002), shows that different rationales have driven international and global regulations of communication over time, from the need to coordinate national policies in response to expanded technological capacities of outreach, to controversies surrounding the centrality of information and communication in redefining the post-1945 world order.13 Some technological developments (e.g., access to satellite communication) have been addressed through coordinated international efforts, while others (e.g., media ownership concentration and related threats to media pluralism) are still very much domestic (and highly sensitive) areas. 14 Still other com-


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munication resources (for instance, the Internet domain name system) are regulated through private or semi-private mechanisms and interventions directly at the transnational level.15 Finally, more and more national governing arrangements affect those at the transnational level.16 And vice versa, regulatory mechanisms adopted at the supranational level can condition and constrain state autonomy, sometimes creating conflicting systems of jurisdiction. Thinking of the GCG in terms of diversity, dynamics, and complexity allows us to focus on procedural and structural elements, as well as on the challenges they pose. Realizing that “we are still in a period of creative disorder concerning governance” (Kooiman 2003: 5), we need to address the following questions: how are we to make sense of such complexity? Can these different governance practices be included in a comprehensive framework that allows us to speak about GCG as a field of research and action? In other words: how can we define the boundaries of GCG as a domain? Also, we need to investigate what configurations of power emerge from this complex picture: how can power be re-conceptualized when immaterial sources, such as information and knowledge, are both the very object of governance interactions and the resources on which involved actors rely? And on what basis is it possible to assess the influence of different actors in governing arrangements? We suggest that a relational reading, and, more specifically, a network approach that focusses less on actors’ attributes and more on their interactions, can enhance our understanding of the interplay among technologies, actors, and governance processes in GCG.17 Table 33.1 summarizes the open issues that our reading of GCG has raised and introduces aspects that are discussed in the remainder of this chapter: column one outlines the features of GCG as a policy domain building on Kooiman’s framework, column two synthesizes the theoretical challenges of conducting research on such a complex reality, column three introduces the heuristic potential of a network approach in addressing such challenges, and column four outlines the directions in which a network approach to the study of GCG invites us to rethink power relations in the world politics of communication.

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Table 33.1 The potential of a network approach in investigating GCG Features

Theoretical challenges

Network approach: heuristic potential

Rethinking power relations

Diversity/ Uncertainty

Defining boundaries of the field

Setting network boundaries by clarifying context, policy demands, network goals, and expected results

Background to the exercise of power: • the power of naming • inclusion of nodes • establishment of ties • definition of network goals and scope

Related questions: What kinds of networks? Why do networks emerge?

Dynamics/ Uncertainty

Analyzing emerging trends

Complexity

Developing adequate and comprehensive conceptual frameworks

Representations of dynamic processes: • building or removing ties • bridging actors and processes • actors/networks’ goals and effectiveness

Social power, power of exit, power of ideas

Related question: Are networks effective? Focus on relations among actors and not (only) on their attributes Related question: What is the power of/in networks?

Power in networks considering: • social and semantic networks • interplay of offline and online

Source: Authors.

Do Networks Matter? A network is a powerful image for portraying the growing complexity in contemporary societies where policy outcomes can be seen as the result of interactions among a plurality of agents “generated within multiple-actor-sets in which individual actors are interrelated in a more or less systematic way” (Kenis and Schneider 1991: 32). Scholarly works investigating structure and agency in global governance increasingly refer to networks of interaction among states, and between state and non-state actors (Rosenau 1995; Keck and Sikkink 1998; Reinicke and Deng 2000; Held 2004; Slaughter 2004; Kahler 2009). Similarly, scholars who specifically examine communication governance identify networks as configurations that more adequately reflect the complexities of the domain. Singh (2002) develops his analysis of the nexus between technological evolution and transformations in governance by looking at transnational “information network structures.” Braman (2006: 64) writes about “information policy made at different levels of the social structure” which reflects “the emergence of networked forms of organization … [and] the interpenetration of political struc-


tures.” Hansen and Hoff (2006) have collected a number of contributions concerning the digital shaping of global authorities through networking, communication, and related policies. In spite of its widespread adoption, in most cases we are confronted with a prevailing metaphorical use of the term “network” (Wellman 2002/1971; Diani 2003), adopted to indicate loose organizational structures. Such generic reference risks assuming, at least implicitly, homogeneity among network components (nodes), alongside horizontality and reciprocity in their interactions and a tendency towards easy consensus-building. Thus, generic references do not help to uncover some of the most relevant aspects of networked politics. Starting from a more critical perspective, we make a case for a network approach to the study of GCG. Such an approach recognizes the richness of disciplinary contributions but focusses specifically on the transnational dynamics that govern communication systems in order to address the theoretical challenge of clarifying the boundaries and relational features of the field, as well as the challenges concerning power distribution and effectiveness in network dynamics. According to Knoke and Kuklinski (1982: 12), networks are “a specific kind of relation linking a

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Global Communication Governance defined set of persons, objects or events.” As organizational forms, they can be conceived as distinctive regulatory mechanisms that provide alternatives to state and market arrangements (Powell 1990; Rhodes 1997) on the basis of three elements. First, there is the structure of the relationship between actors, which can be pluri-centric and stands in contrast to an undisputed centrality of the state or the main industries. The second element is decision-making: governance networks are based on a reflexive rationality as opposed to the substantial rationality of state regulation and the procedural rationality of the market (Mayntz 1993). The third element is the fact that compliance with negotiated decisions is not assured by means of legal sanctions but by the “generation of generalized trust and political obligations” (Sorensen and Torfing 2008: 12), sometimes sustained by self-constituted rules and norms (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998; Khagram et al. 2002). Such distinctive features seem to be responsive to the challenges posed by the diversity of actors and processes (which calls for less state-centric arrangements); the dynamics through which policies are discussed and adopted according to different rationales (where the very relevance and distribution of necessary knowledge imply not only the need for interactions to address complex issues but also ongoing learning processes in which actors are engaged); and the complexity of societal transformations (which include issues such as the effectiveness, implementation, and strength of supranational governing mechanisms). Reflecting on contemporary practices of network governance at the domestic and European levels, Sorensen and Torfing (2008) move away from what they call “first-generation questions” that preoccupied policy network theorists in the early 1990s (such as, “Why are networks formed and how can they evolve?”, “How do they differ from other hierarchical or market modes of regulation?”, and “How do they contribute to effective governance?”) (Mayntz 1993; Rhodes 1997). Instead, they suggest the adoption of “secondgeneration questions” to underpin a new research agenda about networks and governance. These include: “How can we explain the functioning of networks?”, “What are the sources of network success and failure?”, and “What are the democratic challenges and the potential inherent to network governance?” (Sorensen and Torfing 2008: 14).


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The growing interest in networking dynamics and actual networks characterizing scholarly reflections on global transformations and world politics has combined the different “generations” of questions: issues related to network structures and the different ways in which they can be approached, the reasons and modes of network emergence and evolution, and the preconditions for their effectiveness and the ways in which power flows through and among networks.18 We discuss these aspects, offering examples from the realities of GCG, in order to clarify how the relevant components of a network approach should be included in a research agenda.

Different types of networks When considering networks, there are two key elements that deserve specific attention as they determine different types of networks. First, we need to consider what kinds of ties are linking the actors. Indeed, a tie represents one kind of relationship that can be either a “simple” relation (e.g., collaboration or friendship or hate) or a “composite” one (e.g., friendship and collaboration and realization of joined initiatives). But whether relations are simple or composite, ties express one relational meaning at a time. This implies that different relations set up different networks. Second, the nodes that are linked by ties need to be considered. Relations can exist between a variety of actors: are we interested in individuals or in organizations? Do networks include both institutional and noninstitutional actors? Do networks include only human or also non-human agents (Monge and Contractor 2003)? In investigating the GCG environment a first and necessary step to distinguish among the plurality of types of network arrangements is to focus on their composition. In this regard, we stress that scholarly interest often has been directed toward transnational networks that are either initiated and structured around civil society organizations (e.g., the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, IFEX) or toward configurations that address the multi-stakeholder challenge (such as the Global Knowledge Partnership, GKP). Networks that are exclusively constituted by governments or other state-based entities have attracted less attention, although they increasingly

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inhabit the global environment. Although overlooked, these networks are interesting as they represent loose coordinating structures through which state-based agencies conduct their business, mainly through the exchange of information or the definition of guidelines and benchmarks. But they can also become sustained structures of dialogue that, in spite of their informality, constrain actors’ expectations and, therefore, their autonomy in acting at the supranational level.19 Investigating transgovernmental networks (such as the European Regulators Group)20 may offer an alternative entry point into the analysis of the networked governance of communication in the EU. Yet in distinguishing different kinds of networks, it is necessary to go beyond their composition. Networks can indeed be conceived as structures that influence the behavior of their members (in our case, national governments and other state-based agencies, IGOs as well as NGOs, less structured groups, and even individuals) but they can also be considered as actors themselves. In the case of networks-as-structures, as suggested by Kahler (2009) and by Hafner-Burton and Montgomery (2009), networks emerge unintentionally from actors’ engagement in supranational structures: we can think of state actors that participate in different IGOs as well as international NGOs dealing with cultural diversity and trade in cultural products (e.g., the WTO, the WIPO, and UNESCO), and may be signatories of different culture-related treaties, such as the WTO (1994) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement and the UNESCO (2005) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (as well as its precursor agreements).21 Through their joint membership in these processes, states end up creating informal social networks thus influencing forms of a “social power” that results from the density of ties established among the actors (Hafner-Burton and Montgomery 2009: 23). In cases like these, agents within the network are not aware of its overall structure and do not act to change or influence its structure. And yet they are part of network structures that can be investigated by examining the actors’ structural positions by applying social network analysis methodologies.


Differently, when networks are seen as actors, they are understood to be intentionally constituted structures of coordinated action aimed at influencing political processes. Moreover, network-as-actors can be nodes in higher-level network structures which can both shape and constrain actors. Here we can think of the IFEX22 as an example of a “transnational advocacy network” (Keck and Sikkink 1998) when it defines itself as “a dynamic network that monitors, promotes and defends freedom of expression worldwide;” while the GKP, for example, depicts itself on its web site as “the world’s first multistakeholder network promoting innovation and advancement in Knowledge and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development.”23 Focussing on networks as structures as well as on networks as agents is, we suggest, a helpful starting point for developing a thorough understanding of global governance dynamics. Indeed, as Kahler rightly puts it: “networks offer a means to investigate, in a more rigorous and empirically convincing manner, the relation between agents and structure in international politics” (2009: 20). In developing a network-oriented research agenda in the field of GCG, a first step is therefore the definition of the type of network under investigation in terms of its composition (nodes and ties) and its “status” (network structure or actor network).

Why do networks emerge? Although the emergence of networks has become a significant feature in contemporary world politics, this does not mean they are definitive substitutes for more familiar and conventional modes of coordination. “Network governance incorporates and sustains older forms of governance as well as challenging them” (Kahler 2009: 3). This means the analysis of networks in GCG should aim to complement our understanding of conventional regulatory arrangements where state actors, as well as the intergovernmental institutions through which states coordinate their interventions, continue to occupy a crucial place. An interesting example is offered by the role played by the United States (US) in the development and management

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Global Communication Governance of the Internet’s critical resources through semiprivate structures like ICANN.24 More complex is the case of the multi-level governance of media and telecommunication in the EU, where Member States have a predominant role in decisions about certain issues, such as convergence of media outlets and media pluralism, but the Union assumes authority in the governance of telecommunication and infrastructures as part if its industrial policy oriented toward the creation of a single market.25 At both levels, though, the centrality of state-based authority is evident. Yet networks are becoming more diffuse and important, due to their capacity to address challenges posed by fast-changing environments, interconnected issues, and uncertain situations. As outlined by Powell (1990: 322) in his seminal work, network arrangements are often preferred as they are based on cooperation, foster mutual learning and the spread of knowledge, allow a fast translation of knowledge into action, help when resources are variable and the environment uncertain, and favor the employment of knowledge and technical innovation. Therefore, networks are particularly apt for circumstances in which the diversity of actors requires forms of reciprocity through which trust and confidence can be built, the uncertainty produced by technical and societal transformations creates the need for efficient and reliable information, and complexity can best be addressed through exchanging the kind of “tacit knowledge that is difficult to codify” (Sikkink 2009: 230). Among the network structures that have emerged in GCG, we can consider the G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force – a transnational network set up on the occasion of the Okinawa meeting in 2000 where the “digital divide” was finally framed as a global issue26 or the Global Business Dialogue on e-Commerce: “a worldwide, CEO (chief executive officer) led, business initiative, established in January 1999 to assist the development of a global policy framework for the emerging online economy.”27 Finally, the need for knowledge necessary to produce effective policy outputs often translates into state actors’ tendencies to delegate authority. For example, the IETF, an “open international community,”28 acts on behalf of states to carry out policy coordination and standard setting (Cowhey and Mueller 2009). In general, some


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actors may be more inclined than others to see this redistribution of authority happen for strategic reasons or as a result of transformative historical and cultural processes, such as globalizing trends. In sum, state and non-state actors choose network forms of organizations because they allow them to preserve their autonomy, since no formal commitment is made, while entering sustained relationships that facilitate exchange. Networks seem to be preferred by states when they facilitate interventions in situations characterized by high degrees of uncertainty and the need for a rapid response. In the case of civic-oriented actors, the preference for network structures is often a response to the high costs of setting up their own transnational hierarchical organizations. A second step in a GCG-focussed research agenda is therefore to clarify the context within which networks emerge and the policy demands to which they aim to respond. It is a matter for empirical investigation to clarify why, in GCG as in other domains, networks tend to emerge in some sectors, and not in others where more formal conventional mechanisms continue to prevail.

Are network structures effective? The influence and effectiveness of networks within the political realm constitute two of the more problematic aspects of emerging forms of network governance. First, communication being central to networked processes29 does not mean that networks are necessarily homogeneous or consensual governance structures. They seldom comprise configurations of actors bearing the same capabilities and responsibilities. As Knoke et al. (1996) point out, actor networking in policy-making is relevant but we should avoid thinking that interconnectedness does not imply a redistribution of power.30 The density and the direction of exchanges – be they flows of information and resources or different forms of cooperation – influence different degrees of actor centrality with respect to others (Wasserman and Faust 1994; Freeman 2002/1979). Structural differences translate into different capacities to influence network dynamics and this, in turn, can affect their overall

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degree of effectiveness or the influence that networks can have. In the GCG case, an example is offered by the IGF which is officially mandated to be a “multistakeholder policy dialogue,”31 and is therefore an open space for networking. Nevertheless, the relevance of an institutional organization in this topdown structure is evident with the ITU playing an important role in facilitating the process (such as physically hosting the IGF Secretariat) and in connecting otherwise separate clusters of actors (Padovani and Pavan 2009). Second, while in the case of networks conceived as structures, the study of their influence entails the task of measuring the unintentional impacts of networks on the broader political context, whereas, in the case of networks-as-actors, it is possible to consider their effectiveness. In this sense, what is examined is the network’s capacity to perform specific functions and meet specific goals which may include agenda-setting and information provision, promoting policy and discursive change, or fostering behavioral change among key actors (Sikkink 2009: 235). As far as the agenda-setting function of networks is concerned, an interesting example is offered by the Communication Rights in the Information Society Campaign (CRIS)32 – a loose (informal) gathering of NGOs, activists, and researchers who joined forces on the occasion of the WSIS with the goal of ensuring that human rights pertaining to communication processes would be adequately recognized and guaranteed in the WSIS final outputs. CRIS members acted in different ways to set a “communication rights agenda” for the information society: they acted within the WSIS process by both contributing to the official debates33 and organizing a World Forum on Communication Rights as one of the parallel events to the official Summit in 2003. But CRIS also “exported” this agenda to other civil society venues: members of the campaign were active promoters of the European Social Forum on Communication Rights (London, November 2004), the Communication Rights approach adopted by the fifth World Social Forum (Porto Alegre, January 2005), as well as the Campaign’s various national chapters (e.g., Brazil, Colombia, and Italy).34 With respect to changes in policy discourse, one interesting experience is that of the Council of


Europe (CoE) in promoting policy debates on community media at the European level. By engaging with networks of civic organizations, such as Community Media Forum Europe,35 and with the formal institutions of the EU, the CoE performed a bridging role among different actors’ discourses related to the relevance of community media in guaranteeing pluralism and media diversity in the EU. Formal outcomes of such developments were the first report on “The State of Community Media in the European Union” commissioned by the European Parliament, the European Parliament resolution of September 25, 2008 on “Community Media in Europe,” and the CoE’s “Declaration of the Committee of Ministers on the role of community media in promoting social cohesion and intercultural dialogue” adopted by the Committee of Ministers on February 11, 2009. Finally, we should look at changes in actor behaviors. In the GCG domain, we can think again of the Global Business Dialogue on e-Commerce, a network of powerful private actors, not formally accorded any decision-making authority but which has been able to orient the choices of state actors and the institutions devoted to the management of ICT and Internet critical resources. The organization has informally oriented the development, production, and application trajectories shared by the major global commercial actors. We are aware that consideration of network effectiveness from this perspective requires data that are difficult to collect systematically. Nevertheless, a third step in a research agenda is to identify what goals networks set for themselves and their capability to eventually meet these goals. In this sense, one of the challenges in analyzing the role of networks in communication governance is a longitudinal perspective that allows analysis of network evolution and effectiveness, alongside adaptation to changing environmental conditions.

How is power distributed in networks? Contemporary societal transformations not only call for new analytical approaches and consistent governing mechanisms; they also force us to rethink concepts such as power and influence. It seems that the uncertainty generated by diversity,

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Global Communication Governance dynamics, and complexity in a domain like the GCG implies a new centrality of resources such as information, knowledge, and the ability to elaborate frameworks to make sense of this uncertainty through new ideas. As a consequence, more efforts are needed to move beyond mainstream International Relations field’s conceptions of power, based on actors’ military attributes and economic capacity, toward a more explicit appreciation of the relevance of immaterial sources of power in the conduct of world politics.36 We realize that actors come together in network configurations precisely to respond to the challenges posed by such complexity, to pursue goals such as agenda-setting and promoting change in policy discourse, and to foster behavioral change by key actors. Thus, we clearly need to move beyond a “one-dimensional view of power” (Lukes 1974/2005) focussed on formal decision-making and overt conflict. The power in and of networks in transnational governance arrangements is to be conceived as a combination of understanding issues and the implications of technological transformations, control over the agenda, and attempts to influence and redefine actor interests through interaction. Moreover, within network structures, power derives not only from actor attributes but also from the amount and significance of relations they are involved in which, in turn, may be facilitated by the presence of similar perceptions and framings of issues. In sum, we suggest that a network approach not only broadens the space for empirical accounts on the role of ideas, frames, and cognitive elements in the construction of (political) relationships37 but also allows us to investigate how relational power may be exerted in different forms. We can in fact consider the bargaining power of actors involved in networks, especially those agents who act as brokers (see Fernandez and Gould 1989, 1994), enabling otherwise weaker or less connected actors to relate to broader network configurations. Networks allow the exercise of various forms of power. The power to exit, for example, can be exerted by less central actors who, by threatening to abandon or actually exiting the network, can produce profound alterations in the structure of network relations. Finally, social power stems from the social capital created and accessed through ties with other actors in the international system (Kahler 2009).38


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Investigating these different forms of power is not an easy task. Yet we need to recognize and understand them, since the ways in which these modalities are played out influence networks-asactors’ capacities to meet their goals as far as influencing policy agendas, structuring discourses, and reaching agreed or authoritative decisions. In short, power dynamics affect network effectiveness. Focussing on GCG, the International Network on Cultural Policy (INCP)39 that evolved between 1998 and 2005 around the development of the UNESCO (2005) Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions provides a good illustration of all three forms of power. The INCP was a group of over 40 culture ministers who played a leading role in the adoption of the Convention. Backed by Canada and supportive of the Convention’s overall objective to protect and promote cultural diversity, these actors nevertheless expressed different positions in relation to specific issues. A network analysis investigation of actors’ bargaining power in this context could help to better understand the internal power dynamics. Moreover, as the INCP goal was also to support the adoption of a binding document in a broader policy process where controversial positions were expressed, the power of exit of network members was possibly stronger in this case than in processes with less formal expected output. Finally, precisely because the Convention was built on earlier formal agreements, the networks deriving from joint membership and related social power (network-as-structure) would also be interesting to examine. If we then consider that governing is not only conducted through formal decision-making concerning rules and provision, we have to look for power dynamics in different contexts of interaction, paying specific attention to the cognitive and discursive dimensions.40 Indeed, actors involved in transnational networked governance pursue different goals and interact through bargaining and negotiation “producing [an] inter-subjective understanding of issues and (sometimes) norms, and contributing to the production of public purpose of a regulative as well as normative, cognitive and imaginary nature” (Sorensen and Torfing 2008: 9). We therefore suggest that network analysis of governance processes should concentrate both on the social dynamics of actors’ interactions and on the semantic networks they produce by engaging in

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framing activities, policy discourse orientation, and norm structuring. A further aspect that needs to be considered in the analysis of power issues in the GCG domain is that we are examining governance arrangements where information and communication are the very objects of actors’ interventions and, at the same time, the means through which multi-actor and multi-level communication governance processes evolve. This presents a peculiar interplay of means and goals that may affect power relations in the GCG context. Focussing explicitly on the role of technologies in redefining the operation of “Global Information Networks,” Singh (2002) identifies three types of power and discusses the implications of technological developments for each. At the level of “traditional instrumental power” – the ability to influence outcomes – technologies enhance the capacities of traditional actors. In addition, they can also empower new actors as they allow for easier access to relevant information through the availability of documentation concerning policy processes, providing the possibility to contribute and intervene from remote locations through the use of digital platforms. Contemporary trends toward the use of technologies in political communication, as in the 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama, and the way his staff relied upon digital tools to maintain his connection with the electorate, are examples of this potential. At the level of “structural power” (Singh 2002) – the ability to affect rules and institutions – technologies can contribute by shaping structures (and institutions) while also being shaped by them. The Internet offers an interesting example. The management of critical technical resources proceeds through the definition of protocols and the standardization of technical applications which then acquire the strength of rules, not through adoption by any superior authority but through widespread application and use. When “code is law”41 we can see the structural power of technology in place. There is another dimension of power that should be taken into consideration in focussing on governance processes, one that Singh calls “metapower” (Singh 2002), referring to how ICTs enable formerly underprivileged groups to play a role in global politics. When traditional state actors realize that global issues can be dealt with effectively through the contribution of different stakeholders,


there is a space for other actors to observe, react, intervene, and engage. Singh calls this “the power of being there” (Singh 2002), fostered and often enhanced by technologies. We suggest that accessing information, contributing to norm definition, and “being there” do not necessarily take the form of physical interaction among people. Indeed, technologies allow for remote participation (through email exchanges, forums, and teleconferences) and they also foster the development of discourses in the global websphere. Yet the activity of issue articulation that develops in and through the communicative spaces provided by technologies remains underinvestigated (Marres 2006). The social construction of meaning that develops through interactions among discourses, concepts, documents, and web sites in the web-sphere may inform actual decision-making. Therefore, analyses of offline governance networks should be developed in parallel with empirical investigations of the online dimension of interactions that may have an impact on policy discourses and, eventually, policy-making. These reflections about networks and GCG lead us to a specific proposal and some concluding remarks in our articulation of a research agenda on the study of GCG.

Investigating Global Communication Governance Through a Network Approach In this chapter we have addressed the complexities of the GCG domain by suggesting a specific viewpoint through which we think the GCG reality can fruitfully be theorized and empirically explored. We have argued that we cannot fully understand this complexity only by looking at the multi-stakeholder dimension of GCG, since we need adequate tools to define the boundaries of the domain and map out the different configurations of actors engaged in governance processes. Given the “creative disorder” that characterizes contemporary governance, an appropriate analytical approach is needed in order also to uncover the different faces of power involved in the interplay between communication

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Global Communication Governance Table 33.2 Typology of interdependent and complementary network structures offering entry points to the analysis of GCG

Offline Online

Social

Semantic

Offline collaboration networks Online networks of interaction

Offline semantic networks Online thematic networks

Source: Authors.

technologies, issues, actors, and processes. We are not suggesting that a network approach should substitute more conventional forms of investigation of decision-making processes at the international level. We do, however, support the idea that analyzing networks, often enmeshed in the very processes through which formal decision-making is made, may provide an interesting complementary approach. We have suggested that networks offer a very effective focus for empirical investigation but they need to be conceived and traced carefully. In order to develop an appropriate research agenda, we propose starting from defining the type of network we are looking at in terms of its composition and “status” (are we to investigate network structure or networks-as-actors?). Next, we need to clarify the context within which networks emerge and identify the policy demands they address. Finally, it is important to identify what goals networks set for themselves and their capability to eventually meet these goals, when they are intentionally set up to meet certain objectives. A caveat in the conduct of such research stems from the consideration that “the structure of relations among actors and the location of individual actors in the network have important behavioural and perceptual consequences both for the individual units and for the system as a whole” (Knoke and Kuklinski 1982: 13). Consequently, a bias in mapping networks exists and translates into a potential bias in the interpretations of relations between nodes as well as of the entire relational system under examination. Finally, we need to elaborate research paths capable of investigating GCG networks that emerge and develop offline as well as online and we need to examine social interactions as well as the development of shared understandings and perceptions. To this end, we have elaborated a typology of interdependent network structures


(see Table 33.2) through which communication governance networks can be analyzed.42 This typology does not aim to offer a comprehensive view of all possible network forms of organization, but it refers to network structures that we consider relevant in order to understand the networked governance of global communication. Furthermore, we recognize that network analysis can uncover a lot about the reality under investigation, but always in relation to some specific aspects pertaining to actors’ interdependency. It would be naive to think that the analysis of a single type of relation among heterogeneous actors operating in a complex environment could provide a satisfying picture. We therefore suggest that it is only through the combination of these different network structures that we can obtain a more comprehensive understanding of how the GCG policy domain is being structured, where its boundaries are set, which configurations we see in its subdomains, and what kind of power is distributed along network ties and among actors. Offline collaboration networks: these relational structures gather social actors of the same nature (whether they are individuals or organizations) operating in the GCG domain. They can be read in terms of how relational patterns are being developed in a multi-actor environment, thus clarifying what logic provides the bases for political interaction (e.g., long-term solidarity or instrumental coalition building). Indeed, ties between actors exist if a particular kind of relationship is established among them (cooperation, competition, sponsoring, and so on). Therefore ties can be characterized by presence, absence, and strength (such as measuring how many common partners two nodes share when they operate in the GCG domain; quantifying the number of joined initiatives two organizations have realized, etc.) and can better specify the kind of relation that has been established or that is being built up. Furthermore, the specific

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positions of nodes can be evaluated in terms of their prestige,43 whether they involve a brokerage role,44 or the facilitation or control of communication flows within the network.45 Offline semantic networks: these networks trace conversational patterns along which different themes are brought onto the media and communication governance agenda. They depict processes of the collective construction of meaning (Börzel 1998) and they are particularly relevant when it comes to analyzing governance structures which may not aim at producing formal policy outputs (e.g., EU consultative processes or UN-promoted occasions for multi-stakeholder debates). Indeed, these networks provide a useful entry point from which to assess how discursive practices actually inform political processes, possibly influencing policy outcomes.46 Nodes are all of the same nature: they represent concepts; and outline which individuals from governments, the private sector, the technical community as well as public interest groups associate with topics discussed. A tie’s presence can be understood as a positive association among issues; a tie’s absence can be a disconnection in conversational dynamics. And the strength of a tie can be conceived in terms of “semantic proximity” between different themes (the stronger the tie, the greater the association between two issues). In addition, more central themes indicate priorities emerging in a field while clusters can be read in terms of subfields catalyzing the attention of specific actors.47 Online networks of interaction: these networks represent conversational dynamics deployed online between individuals who participate within specific online thematic spaces (e.g., mailing lists, forums, and blog discussions) that often, but not necessarily, accompany more formal governance processes. Analyzing this type of network can help uncover dynamics that are providing the bases for agenda enlargement or refinement when physical presence is not possible. These can include more participatory settings (such as conversations involving several individuals), fewer shared exchanges (for instance, conversations between only two individuals) and information sharing (such as messages sent where no response is required). Nodes can be either of the same or of a different nature, depending on the research questions. They can be actors participating in a specific dialogue space. They can also include emails, blogs


and forum posts, as well as web pages. In these examples, ties can be traced to reproduce the sharing of the same online dialogue spaces (and this would allow for identification of “hot-spots” of online discussions). But these ties could also be traced to reproduce participation in the same conversational thread (thus contributing to the identification of “hot topics” of online discussions).48 Online thematic networks: these networks show how different web-based resources (e.g., web sites, online documents, and blogs), dealing with specific issues of interest to researchers, are related to one another through hypertext links. They can be read in terms of issues, actors, and/ or interests – a diversity represented through online connections among a plurality of resources. Thus, online thematic networks may provide insights into how multi-actor conversations, pushed offline by a relevant governance process (e.g., the WSIS, the IGF, or the revision of the EU Television Without Frontiers Directive) are translated into conversational fluxes within the websphere and are subsequently made accessible to all Internet users.49 Issue networks can also help in tracing the online space of discourses that parallels social mobilization around specific issue areas or topics. These networks can be made up of very heterogeneous nodes that are connected by a relation of recognition (not necessarily mutual), and that contributes to an assessment of how the articulation of a discourse in the web-sphere diversifies, where formal constraints (e.g., of space, time, or availability of resources) are expected to have a lower impact on how a theme is developed and on the possibility for different interested actors to participate.50 Admittedly, the articulated framework we propose is demanding in terms of data availability and quality as well as in terms of time, competence, and technical knowledge required for empirical investigation. Different techniques can be applied and various software tools are available to trace social and semantic networks, be they the result of physical interaction or of online exchanges and connections. However, they are only meaningful insofar as the research questions are properly framed. Therefore, researchers undertaking single research projects might decide to concentrate on one type of network in the framework, consistent with the primary focus of research. Researchers know that in deciding what kinds of networks to analyze,

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Global Communication Governance they also make assumptions concerning why a certain process or dynamic is relevant. Furthermore, when we define nodes and network boundaries, we are addressing issues of inclusion and exclusion, that is, of who can actually participate in a network. While focussing on the structural positions of nodes in the network, we can investigate the realities of such participation as well as the prominent or marginal roles of actors or issues in discourses and processes. Moreover, in looking at specific kinds of ties (e.g., information exchange, sharing of views, direct cooperation amongst actors), we interrogate networks in relation to the social power that is exercised by those who take part in the network; and in focussing on issue networks online, we develop ways to better understand the realities of public debates. In all cases, it may be useful to outline the absence of issues from the broad public agenda, thus developing questions on the invisible aspects of agenda-setting and issue formation. Finally, how far a network approach can contribute to uncovering the power dynamics of world politics and GCG remains a matter for empirical investigation. Nevertheless, the different aspects of power discussed earlier offer directions to enlarge our perspective on this crucial dimension. Our framework and proposed research strategy can be adapted to specific exigencies. Yet the simple adoption of a network perspective does not ensure that the challenges posed by the GCG domain are met. We are always confronted with the difficulties of “researching the global”: developing a comprehensive picture of a relevant process and defining network boundaries is very difficult when processes are fragmented and interconnected in a multi-level environment. Collecting meaningful network data is demanding when it requires us to develop and cultivate transnational relations with individuals and organizations that move from one international setting to another, often in very expensive localities, utilizing languages and codes that render such processes quite difficult to access. Elaborating on the meaningful understanding of a network’s influence implies the need to develop longitudinal data, which can pose specific challenges given that networks are highly fluid and adaptable configurations. However, the challenges posed by GCG are huge and they not only relate to the conduct of politics in a globalizing context but also have enormous implications


for citizens and collectivities in whose interest global communication should be regulated. We suggest that a properly developed network approach can indicate useful ways in which research can contribute to addressing these challenges.

Notes 1

This chapter builds on empirical research that the authors have conducted on the transnational governance of media and communication. It aims to consolidate a theoretical-methodological proposal elaborated in the context of a research project: “Communication rights between local and global: Mobilization networks and governance transformations.” The project was supported by the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research and was conducted in cooperation with the Universities of Trento and Padova during 2007–08. We thank project coordinator Mario Diani for his guidance and suggestions. We assume full responsibility for the content of this chapter. 2 This definition builds on the many scholarly works and traditions referred to in this chapter and is an attempt toward an interdisciplinary understanding of the global networked governance of communication in which regulative, normative, and discursive components are fully appreciated. The definition reflects the authors’ engagement with the Global Media Policy Mapping Project elaborated in the context of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR; see note 5), the conceptual articulation of which is offered in Raboy and Padovani (2010). 3 In relation to the study of different organizational and participation forms adopted by non-state actors, see the Union of International Associations (www. uia.be) and its online databases (http://www.uia.be/ sites/uia.be/db/db/x.php); and the Global Civil Society Yearbooks, which provide an annual overview of developments among non-state actors involved in policy cycles (http://www.lse.ac.uk/ Depts/global/researchgcspub.htm). 4 For example, see Mathiason et al. (2004); Pavan (2009); and Padovani and Pavan (2009). 5 This is also the rationale behind a Global Media Policy Mapping Project, being elaborated by the IAMCR Working Group on Global Media Policy. For a project overview and discussions on mapping as a methodology, see: http://iamcr.org/content/ blogcategory/37/148. 6 For an historical account of the consolidation of the use of the multi-stakeholder concept in the context of the UN, see, for example, the

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International Conference on Financing for Development (often referred to as the “Monterrey Conference”), held in Monterrey, Mexico in 2002; and the so-called “Earth Summit” held in Rio de Janeiro in 2002. 7 The United Nations promoted a high-level gathering that took place in Geneva and Tunis between 2001 (when the preparatory process started) and 2005. The objective was to define a common vision for the information society and a plan of action to meet the goals for building such a society. Accounts of the multi-actor dimension of the WSIS experience can be found in Calabrese (2004); Kleinwächter (2004); Raboy and Landry (2005); Padovani (2005, 2005a); Jensen (2005); and Cammaerts and Carpentier (2006). 8 See Resolution 56/183 adopted by the UN General Assembly in January 2002. 9 See Preamble for the WSIS Civil Society Declaration, “Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs” (WSIS 2003). 10 Kooiman’s approach is often referenced by authors interested in network forms of regulation; see Bortzel (1998); Sorensen and Torfing (2008); and Kahler (2009). 11 The IGF was formally convened as a five-year process in 2005 at the end of the WSIS. In the final Summit document, the Tunis Agenda (Articles 72–82) articulates the overall mandate of the Forum. It is not to be understood as a decision-making body but rather as a space where concerned individuals and organizations can meet and “discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance in order to foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development of the Internet” (WSIS 2005: Article 72). IGF meetings have been held in the following: Athens (2006), Rio de Janeiro (2007), Hyderabad (2008), Sharm El Sheik (2009), and Vilnius (2010). 12 There is growing interest in the experiment of the IGF and in its achievements in terms of setting norms for effectively conducting multi-actor policy dialogues. In this regard, Pavan (2009), points out the “IGF paradox”: participation in the Forum by governments, business entities, and public interest groups has been a reality since 2006 and has led to more or less participatory attempts to structure multi-actor discussion on relevant issues such as privacy, freedom of expression, or child pornography; and it is very likely that this convergence is due to the “non-binding” character of the discussion. While the absence of constraints on final outputs seems to favor the establishment of norms for multi-actor interaction, it remains to be seen how strongly these norms are consolidating and will actually be implemented in other policy contexts.


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For an overview of the New World Information and Communication Order debates, see Carlsson (2003) and Padovani (2008). Attempts to regulate media pluralism at the European level, for instance, have proven ineffective due to ongoing resistance from the side of Member States. For an overview of recent policy debates, see Nesti (2007) and Klimkiewicz (2007). For example, refer to the specific case of the toplevel domains (TLDs) by ICANN. For comprehensive accounts of Internet governance, which is a much more complex field, see MacLean (2004), Drake (2004), Kleinwächter (2004; 2007), Hoffmann (2006) and Pavan (2009). For example, the intervention of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (September 2009) asking Facebook to change its policy in relation to the management of users’ personal information and the implications of Facebook compliance with Canadian laws for the over 200 million users around the world; see http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/ 2009/nr-c_090827_e.cfm. In this chapter, networks are approached as “a specific kind of relation linking a defined set of persons, objects or events” (Knoke and Kuklinski 1982: 12). Whether they are linked to a specific framework (for instance, actor–network–theory) or used in a metaphorical manner (see Castells 1996), they refer to the growing interconnectedness that characterizes contemporary societies. There are several ways in which networks and their roles and functions can be conceived. In our attempt to make a case for a network approach to the study of GCG, we start from the very substance of networks – nodes and ties. We suggest that nodes and ties together can be looked at as both actors and structures, depending on our theoretical approach and our understanding of the field as well as the research questions. Scholarly literature on transnational societal transformations and governance mechanisms (including networks) has rarely made the attempt to bridge disciplinary boundaries, thus confining reflections to the concepts and frameworks of either international relations or transnational collective action. Exceptions include Khagram et al. (2002) and Stone’s (2008) reflections on transnational networks and public policy in the global agora. Only recently addressed in literature, transgovernmental networks of state officials from national ministries have become a rather diffuse reality and a matter of scholarly attention. Critical discussions can be found in Anne-Marie Slaughter’s (2004) text. The European Regulators Group is an independent body for reflection, debate, and advice in the electronic communications regulatory field. Composed

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27 28

29

of the heads of the relevant national authorities, it acts as an interface with the European Commission in order to advise and assist the Commission in consolidating the internal market for electronic communications networks and services; see http://erg. ec.europa.eu. For an historically informed account of the UNESCO Convention in the broader framework of international agreements, see Craufurd Smith (2007). See, for example, www.ifex.org. Clearly expressing the essential feature of a network-as-actor, the GKP is conceived as a structure where “Members enjoy equal rights … and are free to share their ideas, opinions and approaches … while remaining independent, autonomous organizations.” See www.globalknowledgepartnership. org. The latest step in the peculiar relation between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce is represented by the Affirmation of Commitment signed on September 30, 2009; see http://www. icann.org/en/documents/affirmation-of-commitments-30sep09-en.htm. For an overview of media policies in the European context, see Mazzoleni and McQuail (2004); Meier and Trappel (2007); and Terzis (2008). For accounts of its historical evolution and inter-institutional dynamics, see Michalis (2007) and Harcourt (2005). Okinawa Charter on the Global Information Society (http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/summit/2000/charter.html). For some background information on the Digital Opportunity Task Force, its membership and its task, see http://www.ictdevagenda.org/frame.php?dir=07&id=49&sd= 10&sid=1. Quotation taken from web site. See www.gbd-e. org. The IETF describes itself as a “large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet” (see http://www.ietf. org/about). Communicative interaction is central to many theorists of governance and networks: “In network modes of resource allocation, transactions occur … through networks of individuals engaged in reciprocal, preferential, mutually supportive actions … individual units exist not by themselves, but in relation to other units” (Powell 1990: 295–336). Transnational advocacy networks are “voluntary, reciprocal and horizontal patterns of communication and exchange” (Keck and Sikkink 1998: 8). “Governance is achieved by the creation of interactive, socio-political structures and processes


30 31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39 40

559

stimulating communication between actors involved” (Kooiman 2003: 3). Also, see Anheier and Katz (2004); Sorensen and Torfing (2008); and Kahler (2009). The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (WSIS 2005), in setting up the IGF, called for a “forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue” (see para. 67). See www.crisinfo.org. The CRIS Campaign and its extended network have been studied using a social network approach by Mueller et al. (2007). This study shows both the opportunities and challenges of utilizing such an approach in the transnational context. Para. 4 WSIS Declaration of Principles (WSIS 2003) from Geneva states that “communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization,” a formulation originally suggested by CRIS members. For a network analysis of both social and semantic networks of Italian mobilizations around communication rights, see Padovani and Pavan (2009a). Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE) is a network of policy experts, organizations and federations which aims to support the role of Community Media on the European level. Since 2007, the CMFE has been an observer with the Group of Specialists on Media Diversity (MC-S-MD) of the Steering Committee on the Media and New Communication Services (CDMC) of the CoE. We acknowledge efforts to articulate a more comprehensive understanding of power in world politics, from Nye’s idea of “soft power” (Keohane and Nye 1977; Nye 1990), to Haas’s “power of ideas” (1992) and works like Berenskoetter and Williams (2007). Yet we suggest that a relational understanding of the complexity in world politics, where cognitive elements become central, requires a more in-depth elaboration of the concept. We start this process here but recognize that it goes beyond the scope of this chapter. In this perspective, power can derive from knowing or maintaining ties to individuals, institutions, NGOs, and so on. But it may also emanate from linking to or knowing somebody who knows (e.g., an expert as well as a repository of knowledge) (Contractor 2007). “While state material power is determined by the relative size of material capital, social power is determined by the relative social capital created by and accessed through ties with other states in the international system” (Hafner-Burton and Montgomery 2009: 24). See www.incp-ripc.org. Our observations build on different approaches to (transnational) governance and discourse and

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41 42

43 44 45

46

47

48


networks (see Fairclough (1993); Khagram et al. (2002); Finnemore and Sikkink (1998), and Monge and Contractor (2003). Lessig (1999). We have conducted analyses on the different types of networks in the framework, as part of research projects on GCG. In the following, these are referred to in footnotes where we provide references for discussions of each project with respect to questions, methods and outcomes. A comprehensive application of the overall framework remains a plan for further development, though it has been partially developed in Pavan (2009). See, for example, the work on prestige by Knoke and Burt (1983). See, for example, different brokerage functions identified by Fernandez and Gould (1989, 1994). This network type was traced and analyzed in the context of debates on how to reform the Internet governance system (Pavan 2009). Offline collaboration networks were mapped with specific reference to shared partnership between activists participating to the IGF. Further analysis conducted on this kind of network allowed identification of the logics according to which this multi-stakeholder policy forum is fostering the consolidation of sustained political relations between actors of a different nature with specific reference to the issue of Internet governance. “When we see … norms and discourses as co-determinants of international structure, and if social purpose does not always derive from power, it becomes theoretically and empirically important to consider how those international norm structures of social purposes are constructed, maintained and transformed” (Sikkink 2002: 302). On semantic networks and the combination of content and networks analysis (which has inspired part of our analysis), see Diesner and Carley (2005). Padovani and Pavan (2009a) have employed semantic offline networks in analyzing the debate on media pluralism within the EU. Analysis allowed identification of topics within the discussion that were more strongly associated with one another. In the specific example, a set of themes, among which was internal pluralism, was associated with less strength to a harder core of discussion topics represented by issues such as the role of institutional actors in guaranteeing media pluralism, the democratic potential of pluralism itself, the matter of broad access to information and communication resources and contents, and external pluralism amongst others. We are looking into opportunities to utilize software tools that would allow us to combine textual and network analyses for the study of online


resources, from web sites to mailing lists, on the basis of their content. 49 Thematic online networks are traced through the use of “Issue Crawler” software developed by GovCom.Org, see www.govcom.org and www. issuecrawler.net. 50 For example, this network type was employed in order to map the situation of the Italian debate on communication rights (Padovani and Pavan 2009a). This allowed identification of three online thematic clusters, jointly contributing to the overall public discourse around information and communication issues: one is more linked to traditional issues such as freedom of the press and freedom of expression, the second is more linked to free software themes, and a third is composed of “techno-radicals” web sites.

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Index

academic research 104–5 India see India: media research and public policy Access to Knowledge (A2K) movement 99 access to telecommunications services 7–9 universal access 59 broadcasting 66 telecommunications 63–6 actor-network theory (ANT) 117 advertising Audiovisual Media Services Directive (EU) 533, 535–6 gender issues 459 African Charter of Human Rights and Peoples’ Rights 97 AIDS/HIV media campaigns 181 medication 269, 270 Al Jazeera 289, 293, 302, 308 AMARC (World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters) 170 American Convention on Human Rights 97 anarchist theory 117 anti-globalization movement 8 Arab Charter on Human Rights 97 Arab Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism 495 Arab media policy Al Jazeera 289, 293, 302, 308

Arab Satellite Television Charter 293–4, 300–304 challenges to national media policies 294–5 influence of Iran and Turkey 304 Islamic principles 294, 295, 303 Lebanon 296–8 Hizbollah’s media presence 300 linguistic diversity 304 media laws and regulations 302 Mediterranean region 306–7 images of terrorism 316–17 North-South relations 311–16 need to develop freedom and professionalism 307–8 ethical codes 310–311 freedom of expression 309–10 myth of “Arab unity” 308–9 professional rules of conduct 310–311 responsible journalism 310 self-regulation 310 repressive measures 300, 302, 303 Saudi Arabia 294 domestic control and foreign influence 295–6 state-owned and privately owned media 300 supranational policy sphere 300 impact on global media policy 303–4 United Arab Emirates: Dubai Media City (DMC) 298–300


Mansell_bindex.indd 564

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Index ARTICLE 19 219–20 Audiovisual Media Services Directive (EU) 525–6, 528, 531 advertising regulation 533, 535–6 co-and self-regulation 533 country-of-origin principle 533 cross-platform regulation and responsibilities 535 cultural and economic objectives 538–9 definition of media services providers 532 delivery by electronic communication networks 532 difficulties in creating a harmonized legal framework 536–8 editorial responsibility 532 ‘European Works’ and ‘independent productions’ 535 events of societal importance 536 linear versus nonlinear services 531–4, 537–8 on-demand content 532 product placement 535–6 public broadcasting 539–40 remit to inform, educate, and to entertain 532 authoritarian states 6 Bangemann Report 7 Barlow, John Perry 230, 231 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal 474 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) 453–4, 458, 460 Bentham, Jeremy 369 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886) 43 Berne Treaty (1875) 28–9 bilateral trade agreements 386–9, 392 telecommunication and intellectual property 389–92 border controls 24, 27–8, 30 British Empire 24–5 India: anti-colonial struggle 245 broadband access: Caribbean 402 broadcasting cable television 63, 67 Caribbean 403 commercial broadcasting 67 diasporic media 281–3 economic analysis 360–361 global broadcasting 71–2 media reform: US and Canada 149–50, 152, 156


565

national broadcasting organizations 62 post-Soviet Russia 201–2, 204–5 private broadcasting 62–3 Arab media policy 300 programming policy 62, 67 public interest see public service broadcasting radio community radio see community radio pirate radio 123–4, 171 universal access 66 Budapest Declaration on the Right of Access to Information 239 Burkina Faso: communication for development 329–30, 331 Business Interest International NGOs (BINGOs) 122 Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights (BLIHR) 103 cable television 63, 67 Caribbean 403 Canada anti-terrorism laws 495 cultural diversity 160, 344–5 impact of US television 342–3 pluralism 287–9 media reform see media reform: US and Canada public service broadcasting 149–50, 156 Caribbean economies agricultural commodities 398 CARICOM 396, 400, 409 CARIFORUM 396 CARIFTA 400 colonialism and neocolonialism 396, 410 e-commerce 409–10 growth rates 395, 398 IMF loan financing 404–5 information and communication technologies (ICTs) 397 cable television, broadcasting and new media 403 competition 401–3 convergence and ‘next generation networks’ 411 relationship with economic growth and development 398–400 intellectual property rights 410 mobile telecommunication 401–2 music industry 407 nationalization 404 natural resource extraction 398

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566

Index

Caribbean economies (cont’d) policy decision-making 409 taxes on information technology products and services 409 telecommunication companies 401–2 tourism 397, 398 trade agreements 396–7, 400, 403–4, 408 EU-CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement 405–9 trade-dependence 410 trade disputes 408, 410 trade in services 397 transnational corporations 404 vulnerabilities 397 WTO judicial action against the US 408–9 carriage policy 5, 6, 8 common carriage principle 433–4, 438, 440, 442 censorship post-Soviet Russia 196, 197 text messaging 433, 442 Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) 391–2 charity model of development 377 children’s interests Internet regulation age verification 515 bullying 506, 508, 515 child protection versus freedom of expression 505–7, 508, 517 children’s experience of the Internet 505–6, 517 contact risks 509, 514 content regulation 514–15 Facebook 513, 514 integrating diverse policy initiatives 515–16 positive and negative regulation 506–7, 510–511 public consultation 513 risk of harm to children 506, 508–9 safety by design 516 self-regulation 511–14, 517 China control of cyberspace 89 importation of e-waste 474 circuit-switching 439, 440 civil and political rights 96 civil society organizations 8, 11–13, 75 definition of civil society 135 engagement with global policy processes 132


free flow of information 89 human rights and communication policy 97–100 IG Caucus mailing list 137–8 assessment of the impact of civil society 141–3 expertise versus elitism 139–40, 142 gender balance 138–9, 142 online versus offline 140–142 transnational character 138 internet governance (IG) 132, 136 media reform: US and Canada 147–9, 153–6, 157 multi-stakeholderism see multi-stakeholderism Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations Civil Society Relations 122–3, 133, 134 postcolonial media policy 373–7 coded messages 32 Cold War 79, 81–2, 84 colonialism 269 Caribbean 396, 410 India 245 postcolonial policy see postcolonial media policy rule of law 369–71 commercial broadcasting 67 commercialization of content 9 common carriage principle 433–4, 438, 440, 442 communication for development 319, 332–3 Africa 328 Burkina Faso, Niger, and GuineaBissau 329–31 Mali 328–9 South Africa 325 cultural imperialism 319–20, 323–5, 331–2 definitions 320–321 democracy and good governance 321, 322 media development 322–3 media for development 322 methodological and theoretical approaches 324 participatory and community communication 323 political economy 321–2 postcolonial media policy 367–8 UNESCO 320, 321, 325–8, 331, 332 communication policy externality and public good benefits 59–60 public interest research 60–61, 67–8 Communication Rights for the Information Society (CRIS) 374, 552

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Index community radio academic studies 170, 176–7 advocacy 167, 169, 172, 174–5 alternatives to globalization 168 communication rights 168 communities of interest 171 definitions of community media 169–70, 173–4 direct involvement of local communities and marginalized groups 168–9 ease of use and access 166, 169 extremist groups 170 financial sustainability 172, 175 independence 174 India 255–6 Internet activists and 235 legal status 171–2, 176, 177 licenses 173, 174 normative framework 170–171, 176 policy environment 173–4, 177 recognition as a distinct sector 173, 176 resilience 168, 169 restrictions on content 175–6 South Africa 421–3, 427 sustainability and social gain criteria 174 transition from analog to digital broadcasting 176 World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) 170 competition and ownership policy 341, 357–8 conflicts with other policies 359–60 economic reasons for consolidation and concentration of media firms 358–9 Computer Inquiry proceedings 434–43 Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) 149 conflict resolution 47 conflict zones see crisis zones congruence theory 50 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment 96 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 96, 456 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination 96 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions 124, 218, 287, 344–50, 527, 553


567

Convention on the Rights of the Child 96, 510 convergence 2, 3, 8 Internet-based services 73 South Africa 414, 424–5, 427, 429 telecommunication reform 69 cosmopolitan citizenship 283–6 Council of Europe 102, 210, 213, 220–221 counterterrorism anti-terrorism laws see terrorism: anti-terrorism laws post-Soviet Russia 192–3, 198–201 Creative Commons licensing 123 crisis zones Iraq 185–6 framing the state 186–7 governance 187–8 media and the avoidance of violence 188–9 power sharing 186–7 media structure and content avoiding persistent destabilizing violence 185, 188–9 enabling or supporting efforts at recuperating governing functions 184–5, 187–8 power sharing 183–4, 186–7 supporting the idea of the nation 184, 186–7 occupying powers 182, 190 strategic communications 180–181 market for loyalties 181–5, 189–90 critical discourse analysis (CDA) 432–7, 443–4 cultural diversity 124, 218 Canada 160, 287–9 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions 124, 218, 287, 433–50, 527, 553 cosmopolitan citizenship 283–6 counteracting prejudice 276 diasporic media 281–3 ethnic media 281 indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge 264–6, 271, 273–4 migration and diaspora 278–80, 281 pluralism 276, 289–90 Canada 287–9 economic analysis 361–2 globalization from below 277, 280–281, 377 media policy 286–7 policy responses to ethnicity 277–8

3/16/2011 7:00:31 PM

568 cultural environment 151 cultural imperialism 319–20, 323–5, 331–2 cultural products 336–8 competing with US productions 337–8, 340, 342–3 differences between ordinary commodities and 338–40, 527 EU policy-making 527 support measures competition policy 341 expenditure requirements 340–341 national ownership rules 341 public broadcasting 340 scheduling or quota requirements 340 subsidies or tax incentives 341 trade law 341–3 cyber rights 98, 106 Cybercrime Convention 102 cyberlibertarianism 231, 234 data retention 234, 237 decision-making 4, 5, 11 institutional structures 47 multi-stakeholderism 134 networks 549 deconstruction 113 defamation laws: post-Soviet Russia 192 democracy communication for development 321, 322 distributive justice 271–3 effect of expanded intellectual property protection 261–4, 273 dominance of economic power 265–7 democratic theory 118 democratization 4, 12 media reform: US and Canada 150, 151 multi-stakeholderism 133, 134 South Africa 415, 427, 428 deregulation 121–2 India 250–251, 255 Derrida, Jacques 113 developing countries 46–8, 53–4 barriers to access 65–6 Caribbean see Caribbean economies communication for development see communication for development dumping of e-waste by the Global North 474 human rights and development 99 India see India intellectual property regulation 265–71 distributive justice 271–3


Index mobile phone use 60, 63–4, 65–6 postcolonial policy see postcolonial media policy public service broadcasting 216–17 respecting national sovereignty 61 South Africa see South Africa diaspora 278–80, 281 cosmopolitan citizenship 283–6 diasporic media 281–3 ethnic media 281 digital broadcasting 176 ethnic and diasporic media 281 digital compression techniques 3 digital content regulation 9 digital divide 3, 10, 59, 74, 75 media reform: US and Canada 149 postcolonial media policy 375 digital rights management (DRM) 262 digital switchover 223 direct subsidy funds 64 discursive practice theory 432–3, 434–7, 443–4 disintermediation 407 distributive justice 271–3 distribution policies 362–3 Dubai Media City (CMC) 298–300 Dulles, John Foster 79 e-waste 468, 473–4, 477 economic analysis applied tradition 356 competition and ownership policy 357–8 conflicts with other policies 359–60 consolidation and concentration of media firms 358–9 critical tradition 356 cultural and media-specific policy broadcast media structure 360–361 distribution policies 362–3 pluralism 361–2 subsidization 362 effects of regulations and incentives 355–7, 363 evidence-based approach 356 industrial development policy 360–361 intellectual property protection 357 international policy-making 363 public value test 356 social welfare 357, 362 theoretical tradition 356 economic barriers to access 7 economic determinism 4 economic paradigm 52, 53

3/16/2011 7:00:31 PM

Index economic, social and cultural rights 96, 106 elite continuity 414–16, 427 enhanced services 442 environmental issues contribution of communication technologies to the ecological crisis 468–70 e-waste 468, 473–4, 477 electronic media 472–6 green governance 470–471, 480–481 ‘greenwashing’ 479 growth and energy use 467–8, 473, 481 intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations 470 international legislation and agreements 474–5, 476–7 limits of eco-policy in the global political economy 476–8 mobile phones 473–4, 475–6 print media 471–2 private sector policy and innovation 478–80 radiation 475 role of communication technologies in expanding awareness 467–8 satellites and space junk 479–80 stakeholder approach to managing the commons 481 sustainability 471, 481 workplace energy use 478 ethical codes: Arab media policy 310–311 ethnic media 281 Canada 288–9 ethnicity 276 policy responses 277–8 EU-CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement 405–9 European Convention on Human Rights 96, 102 European Court of Human Rights 102–3 European Union 7 anti-terrorism laws 493 Audiovisual Media Services Directive 525–6, 528, 531 advertising regulation 533, 535–6 co-and self-regulation 533 country-of-origin principle 533 cross-platform regulation and responsibilities 535 cultural and economic objectives 538–9 definition of media services providers 532 delivery by electronic communication networks 532


569

difficulties in creating a harmonized legal framework 536–8 editorial responsibility 532 “European Works” and independent productions 535 linear versus nonlinear services 531–4, 537–8 on-demand content 532 product placement 535–6 public broadcasting 539–40 remit to inform, educate, and to entertain 532 cultural goods 527 cultural pluralism 286–7 Data Retention Directive 231–2 environmental legislation 474–5, 476–7 interaction with international organizations 527 non-European immigrants 283 public service broadcasting 221–2, 539–40 Television Without Frontiers Directive 303, 304, 360, 525–31 externalities 59 environmental issues 470 extremism 170, 181 post-Soviet Russia 192–3, 198–201 Facebook 73, 104, 513, 514 failing states 182, 184 see also crisis zones Fairclough, Norman 432, 435–7 feedback loops 48–9, 50 feminism 155, 157–9, 452 see also gender issues Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 320, 321, 323, 328, 331 forum-shopping 47 Foucault, Michel 113–18, 120, 367 free flow of information 61 global balance of forces 90 ideological absolutism 91 libertarian theory 80–82 political context 79–80 UN Declarations 85–7 UNESCO stance 79, 82–5, 87–9, 122 free trade agreements 386, 387, 389–92 freedom of expression 5–6, 98, 105 anti-terrorism laws and free speech 498–9, 501 Arab media policy 309–10 children’s interests and 505–7, 517 common carriage principle 433–4, 438, 440, 442

3/16/2011 7:00:31 PM

570

Index

freedom of expression (cont’d) gender issues 451, 457 media reform: US and Canada 151 postcolonial media policy 376 Freedom of Expression project 99 freedom of information 6 and intellectual property rights 263–4, 271 Freire, Paolo 330–333 Galtung, Johan 367, 368, 375 gender issues 452 advertising 459 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA) 453–4, 458, 460 discrimination 456 freedom of expression 451, 457 MacBride Report 453 mainstreaming 456, 457, 461 New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) 452, 453, 455–6 policy gaps and challenges 458–60 pornography 460 stereotypes 456 tokenism 461 UN Decade for Women 452, 453 Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press 457–8 women’s groups 155, 157–9 gender violence 451, 459 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 43, 264 cultural products and 341–3 multilateralism 385, 388 General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) 44, 122 Caribbean economies 403–4 cultural products and 342, 343 General Postal Union 24, 26, 28 Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action 99–101 global broadcasting 71–2 Global Compact Initiative 103 global governance 2, 8, 10–11 global communication governance (GCG) 544 complexity 546–8 multi-stakeholderism 544–6 network approach see networks goals of governance 49–50 Global Information Infrastructure (GII) 2, 7, 148


global media and communication policy destabilization 9–12 harmonization 487–8 historical perspective 1–2, 5–8 institutions see institutional domain policy analysis 3–5, 47 technologies 2–3 paradigm shifts 51–3 terminologies 543–4 Global Network Initiative (GNI) 103, 104 “global village” 52, 58–9 globalization 24 cosmopolitan citizenship 283–6 from below 277, 280–281, 377 Google 73, 104 governance see global governance government intervention see public intervention grassroots groups see civil society organizations; Internet activists Guinea-Bissau: communication for development 329–31 Habermas, Jürgen 135, 201–2, 213 harmonization 486–7 global media and communication policy 487–8 limits to harmonization of anti-terrorism laws 492–8 UN and harmonization of anti-terrorism laws 490–492 hegemony 114–15, 120–123 Hill, Sir Rowland 27 historical perspective 1–2, 5–8 postal services 23–4, 26–31 telegraphic communication 23–4, 25, 30–33 interconnectivity 34–5 wireless communication 33–4, 35 HIV/AIDS media campaigns 181 medication 269, 270 Hizbollah 300 Hollywood effect on cultural diversity 336–8, 342 effect on the environment 478 human rights 95 and communication policy academic perspective 104–5 business perspective 103–4 institutional perspective 100–103 anti-terrorism laws and 500 civil and political rights 96

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

Index civil society groups and communication policy 97–100 clarification in new and diverse environments 106 cyber rights 98, 106 development and 99, 374 economic, social and cultural rights 96, 106 first-generation rights 96 history of international standards 95–7 impact on global communication policy 105–7 intellectual property regulation 267–71 national human rights institutions (NHRIs) 97, 99–100 right to be informed 122 right to development 374 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 6, 46, 85, 95, 124, 268, 270, 442 hybrid communication services 438–40 ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) 40–42, 44, 47, 54, 72, 73 unilateral control by US 74, 136 IMF (International Monetary Fund) loans: Caribbean economies 404–5 imperialism 24–5, 35 cultural imperialism 319–20, 323–5, 331–2 postcolonial policy see postcolonial media policy trade agreements 383–4 India anti-colonial struggle 245 colonial power structures and rule of law 369, 370 community radio 255–6 diasporic citizenship 284–5 media deregulation 250–251, 255 media research and public policy Centre for Culture, Media and Governance (CCMG) 256–7 competing interest groups 245 constraints in policy and regulatory process 250–253 development policy 246–7 economic liberalization 247 gap between scholarship and public policy 254–5, 257 lack of empirical data 252–3 methodologies 246, 253 planned economy 246


571

post-Emergency (1975–77) 246 Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOEs) 256 university as public institution 247–50 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) 250, 254, 255 indigenous peoples: intellectual property and 264–6, 271, 273–4 industrial development policy 360–361 inequality 8, 10 information society 2, 7, 86, 131 information superhighway 59 Information Technology Agreement (ITA) 409 institutional domain 40–42, 44–5 centralized national provision of services 61–2 congruence theory 50 Council of Europe 102, 210, 213, 220–221 differences between national and global media and communication policy 45–6 emerging organizations 44–5 evolutionary paths 50–51 dominant/non-dominant dialectics 53–4 emerging paradigms 54–5 paradigm shifts 51–3 external goals of institutions 49–50 feedback loops 48–9, 50 government regulation of private provision of services 62–3 human rights and communication policy 100–103 ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) 40–42, 44, 47, 54, 72, 73 unilateral control by US 74, 136 international regime theory 48–9 International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 40, 42, 53, 131 Task Force on Gender Issues 458 telecommunication reform 70–71 legal frameworks 46 power relations 124 respecting national sovereignty 61 structures and policy-making processes 47 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) 6, 7, 40, 42–3, 53, 337 communication for development 320, 321, 325–8, 331, 332 Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions 124, 218, 287, 344–50, 527, 553

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

572

Index

institutional domain (cont’d) free flow of information 79, 82–5, 87–9, 122 human rights focus 101 NWICO see New World Information and Communication Order promotion of public sector broadcasting 218–19 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 40, 43, 53, 54, 264–7, 357 World Trade Organization (WTO) 3, 7, 8, 40, 43–4, 53, 54 intellectual property regulation 265, 266 telecommunication reform 70, 71 intellectual property 9–10 bilateral trade agreements 389–92 Caribbean economies 410 digital rights management (DRM) 262 economic analysis of treaty protection 357 expansion of protection 261–4, 273 HIV/AIDS medication 269 human rights and development goals 267–71 distributive justice 271–3 international regulatory context 264–6 dominance of economic power over democratic decision-making 265–7 networked economy 271 open source collaboration 262 traditional knowledge and indigenous peoples 264–6, 271, 273–4 Inter-American Convention on Human Rights 7 International Bill of Human Rights 96 International Convention for the Protection of Submarine Cables (1888) 32 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 95, 96 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 95, 96 international law 25–6, 46 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal 474 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886) 43 Berne Treaty (1875) 28–9 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions 124, 218, 344–50, 527, 553 Convention on the Rights of the Child 96, 510 Cybercrime Convention 102 harmonization 486–7


global media and communication policy 487–8 limits to harmonization of anti-terrorism laws 492–8 UN and harmonization of anti-terrorism laws 490–492 human rights standards 95–7 International Telecommunication Regulations 47 International Wireless Telegraph Convention (1906) 34 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883) 43 protection of submarine cables 32–3 St Petersburg Convention (1875) 31–2 International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans: Caribbean economies 404–5 International Relations (IR) theory 135 international regime theory 48–9 International Telecommunication Regulations 47 International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 40, 42, 53, 131, 374 Task Force on Gender Issues 458 telecommunication reform 70–71 International Telegraph Union 6, 24, 30, 31 International Wireless Telegraph Convention (1906) 34 Internet case law of the European Court of Human Rights 103 growth in use 72–4 Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) see ICANN network neutrality 152, 155, 434, 443 post-Soviet Russia 202–4 regulation 123 arguments against regulation 508, 509 children’s interests see children’s interests: Internet regulation United Kingdom 507–8 security and privacy 74 state monitoring 231–3 Internet access 59, 60, 65, 66 Caribbean 402 Internet activists 230–231 bypassing the law 236–8 Chaos Computer Club 230, 235 cyberlibertarianism 231, 234 grassroots tech groups 233 harassment from state authorities 234

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

Index insiders, outsiders and ‘beyond’ tactics 237, 238 networked interaction 234 open collaboration 234 policy agendas 233, 235–6, 238 self-organization 233–4 self-regulation 236, 238 temporary coalitions 234 Internet governance (IG) 2 civil society organizations 132, 136 IG Caucus mailing list 137–8 assessment of the impact of civil society 141–3 expertise versus elitism 139–40, 142 gender balance 138–9, 142 online versus offline 140–142 transnational character 138 political implications 137 Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) 136–7, 141–3 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 40, 41, 45, 54, 73, 89, 90, 137 gender issues 460–461 networking 552 Internet Protocol (IP) 73 Iran 304 Iraq 185–6 framing the state 186–7 governance 187–8 media and the avoidance of violence 188–9 power sharing 186–7 Islam 294, 295, 303 journalists effect of anti-terrorism laws 498 post-Soviet Russia 197–201 Lacan, Jacques 113, 115, 119, 125 language use 435–7 Lebanon media policy 296–8 Hizbollah’s media presence 300 legal frameworks 46 see also international law legitimacy 133 liberalism 79–82, 122 categories of rights 96 liberalization see market liberalization linguistic choices 435–7 linguistic engineering 432–3, 437–42 local radio see community radio


573

MacBride Report 6, 53, 83, 86, 122, 131, 319, 321, 327, 368, 374, 390 gender issues 453 Maitland Report 6 Mali: communication for development 328–9 Marconi Company 33–4 market dominance 8 market for loyalties 181–5, 189–90 market liberalization 1, 3, 8, 11, 69–70, 74 environmental issues 469, 470, 474 media reform: US and Canada 148 postcolonial media policy 373, 378 South Africa 415, 416, 421, 428 status of public broadcasting 539 telecommunication 69 Marxism 114, 117, 321 mass media 60 mass participation 4, 12, 59 McLuhan, Marshall 58, 59 media and communication policy see global media and communication policy media campaigns 181 media justice 150–153, 160 media missionaries 218 media reform: US and Canada building organizational infrastructure 160 civil society groups 147–9, 153–6, 157 critical reflection on research and policy impacts 160–161 cultural environment 151 democratization 150, 151 digital divide 149 education and literacy 150, 151 effect of market liberalization 148 freedom of expression 151 Free Press 155–6 Media Action Grassroots Network (MAGNet) 155 Media Action Média (MAM) 158–9 Media and Democracy Coalition 156 media justice 150–153, 160 media ownership 152–4 mobilizing a constituency 159 net neutrality 152, 155 oligopolistic control of the industries 148–9 OpenMedia.ca 158 P-IHAC (Public Information Highway Advisory Council) 156–7 public service broadcasting 149–50, 152, 156 racial justice 152–3 radio 149–50, 152, 154, 156

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

574 media reform: US and Canada (cont’d) right to communicate 150, 151 Women in Media & News 155 women’s groups 155, 157–9 Youth Media Council (YMC) 155 media research 104–5 India see India: media research and public policy merit goods 224 Microsoft 262, 358 migration 24, 278–80, 281 cosmopolitan citizenship 283–6 Mill, John Stuart 79–81, 369 Milton, John 80–81 mobile phones 60, 63–4, 65–6, 401–2 environmental issues 473–4, 475–6 mobility 24 modernization paradigm 415, 416 monopoly providers 69, 74, 359, 390 Most Favoured Nation (MFN) Status 385 Moyers, Bill 147 multi-stakeholderism 132 and civil society 135, 141–3 assessment of impact 134, 141–4 consensual paradigm 135 deliberative processes 135 emergence 132 global communication governance 544–6 participatory models 134 supranational context 135 multilateral trade agreements 384–6, 388–9, 392 national broadcasting organizations 62 national human rights institutions (NHRIs) 97, 99–100 national media and communication policy 7, 45–6, 61–2 centralized provision of services 61–2 challenges to national media policies 294–5 national security 31–2, 263 national sovereignty 61 see also state actors neoliberalism see market liberalization netizens see Internet activists network neutrality 152, 155, 434, 443 networks actor-network theory (ANT) 117 agenda-setting function 552 changes in actor behaviors 552 changes in policy discourse 552


Index composition 549–50 decision-making 549 effectiveness 551–2 emergence 550–551 global communication governance (GCG) 547–8, 554–7 offline collaboration networks 555–6 offline semantic networks 555, 556 online networks of interaction 555, 556 online thematic networks 555, 556 power distribution 552–4 relationships between actors 549 research strategy 556–7 structures 550 types of networks 549–50 New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) 6, 53, 83, 84, 86, 97, 122, 267, 371–3, 390 gender issues 452, 453, 455–6 Niger: communication for development 329–30 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 42, 75 environmental groups 470 free flow of information 89 see also civil society organizations non-state actors 5 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 148, 267, 386 occupying powers 182, 190, 218 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) 53 on-demand content 532 open source collaboration 262 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) 101–2 Organization of American States (OAS) 96 Paine, Thomas 81 paper-based media 471–2 paradigm shifts 51–3, 58 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883) 43 piracy and terrorism 499 film piracy 499 intellectual property 265 pirate radio 123–4, 171 pluralism 276, 289–90

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

Index economic analysis 361–2 globalization from below 277, 280–281, 377 policy analysis 3–5, 47 power relations 118–21 policy destabilization 9–12, 121 policy paradigms 49 policy research 60–61 India see India: media research and public policy political instability see crisis zones pornography 460 postal services 23–4, 26–31 postcolonial media policy 366–7 civil society organizations 373–7 colonial power structures and rule of law 369–71 communication policy as development 367–8 corporate charity model of development 377 development agenda 376 digital divide 375 freedom of information 376 neoliberalism 373, 378 New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) 6, 53, 83, 84, 86, 97, 122, 267, 371–3, 390 right to development 374 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 374–7 power relations 3, 113–14 actor-network theory (ANT) 117 bilateralism 389, 391 causal model 114 critical discourse analysis (CDA) 432–7, 443–4 discursive power functions 114–15, 116, 117 fantasies 119–20, 123, 125 gender issues see gender issues global media policy 121–5 governmentality 116 hegemony 114–15, 120–123 ideology 114–16 linguistic engineering 432–3, 437–42 Marxist model 114 materialist framework 116, 117 multi-stakeholderism see multi-stakeholderism multilateralism 385–6 networks 551–4 political system 118–21 postcolonial axes of power 366


575

property 116–17 regulatory initiatives 123–4 representations 114, 115 social engineering 119–20 social makeability 119–20, 121, 123 strategic model 114 universality and homogeneity of public spaces 120, 121, 124 press freedom 9, 80, 84 ideological absolutism 91 post-Soviet Russia 204–5 print media 471–2 privacy 98, 105 of correspondence 31 private broadcasting 62–3 Arab media policy 300 product placement 535–6 programming policy 62, 67 propaganda 6 property 116–17 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 117 public domain 265 public good benefits 59–60 public interest research 60–61, 67–8 India see India: media research and public policy public intervention 3, 4, 9, 11, 12 government regulation of private provision of services 62–3 public service broadcasting 1, 9, 62, 67, 210–211 blueprint for change 224–5 Canada 149–50, 156 changing definitions 211–13, 224 democratic context 213–14 developing countries 216–17 digital switchover 223 Europe Central and Eastern Europe 215–16 European Union 539–40 Western Europe 214–15 legitimization 223, 224 market provision 223–4 media reform: US and Canada 149–50, 152, 156 merit goods 224 post-war and postcolonial transfer of broadcasting 218 promotion by governments and global agencies 218–23 South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) 421–2, 426 supporting cultural diversity 340

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

576

Index

public service paradigm 52, 53 public value test 356 Public Voice initiative 99 racial justice 152–3 counteracting prejudice 276 radio community radio see community radio media reform: US and Canada 149–50, 152, 154, 156 pirate broadcasting 123–4, 171 spectrum use 10, 34 radio communication 33–4, 35 regime theory 48–9 regional trade agreements 389 regulatory authorities 7–9 common carriage principle 433–4, 438, 440, 442 government regulation of private provision of services 62–3 intellectual property 264–6 international regulatory context dominance of economic power over democratic decision-making 265–7 post-Soviet Russia 197 extremism and counterterrorism 192–3, 198–201 regulation of the Internet 202–4 power relations 123–4 suggestions for reform 74–5 telecommunication 69 regulatory texts critical discourse analysis (CDA) 432–7, 443–4 linguistic engineering 432–3, 437–42 research 104–5 India see India: media research and public policy public interest research 60–61, 67–8 responsible journalism 310 right to be informed 122 right to communicate 122 rule of law: colonial rule 369–71 rural areas 64–5, 66 Russia post-Soviet media and communication policy 192–3, 205–6 absence of censorship 196, 197 defamation laws 192 domination of the governmental media 201–2 financial sustainability 193 freedom of journalism 197


freedom of mass information 195–7 freedom to establish media outlets 196–8 freedom to express an opinion in the media 196 freedom to produce and disseminate mass information 196, 197 legal regulation of the media 197 opening of the media 194–8 press freedom 204–5 regulation of the Internet 202–4 restrictions on journalists: counterterrorism and extremism 192–3, 198–201 right to gather or obtain information from government and other sources 197 Saudi Arabia media policy 294 domestic control and foreign influence 295–6 self-regulation 236, 238 Arab media policy 310 Audiovisual Media Services Directive (EU) 533 children’s interests and the Internet 511–14, 517 ship-to-ship communication 33–4 social constructivism 135 social engineering 119–20 social gain criteria 174 social history 4, 24 social paradigm 52–3 social welfare objectives 357, 362 South Africa 414–15 Broadcasting Acts 422–6 communication for development 325 democratization 415, 427, 428 elite continuity 414–16, 427 Freedom of Expression Institute 420 ‘greenfields’ radio stations 421–3, 427 increasing centralized state control 427, 428 Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) 414, 416, 417, 419, 428 Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) 414, 416–20, 423, 427 liberalization 415, 416, 421, 428 Ministry of Communications 418 modernization paradigm 415, 416 official languages 421, 422 opening the airwaves 414, 415, 427 Parliament 417–18 Parliamentary Portfolio Committee 418

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

Index South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) 415–18 appointment of Board members 425–8 Charter 423, 426 legal framework 420 public and commercial broadcasting 424 public service mandate 421–2, 426 regulation 419–20 taxation 426 technological convergence 414, 424–5, 427, 429 transitional state 415–17, 427, 428 Spain: gender issues 451 spectrum allocation 10, 34 St Petersburg Convention (1875) 31–2 standardization 25, 35 state actors 5, 25 failing states 182, 184 see also crisis zones national media and communication policy 7, 45–6, 61–2 centralized provision of services 61–2 nationalism 35 postcolonial legacy 366–7 power relations 122 respecting national sovereignty 61 state intervention see public intervention strategic communications 180–181 market for loyalties 181–5, 189–90 subsidies 59, 341 direct subsidy funds 64 economic analysis 362 internal cross-subsidy model 64 tax incentives 341 technological convergence 2, 3, 8 Internet-based services 73 South Africa 414, 424–5, 427, 429 telecommunication reform 69 technological paradigm 52, 53 technologies 2–3 paradigm shifts 51–3 telegraphic communication 23–4, 25, 30–33 interconnectivity 34–5 telecommunication see telecommunication wireless communication 33–4, 35 telecommunication bilateral trade agreements 389–92 circuit-switching 439, 440 common carriage principle 433–4, 438, 440, 442


577

enhanced services 442 hybrid communications services 438–40 liberalization 69–70 message-switching 439, 440 nondiscrimination 433, 434, 439 regulation 69 technological innovations 69 universal access 63–6 telegraphic communication 23–4, 25, 30–33 interconnectivity 34–5 television cable 63, 67 Caribbean 403 US market 337–8, 340, 342 Television Without Frontiers Directive (EU) 303, 304, 360, 525–31 terrorism accomplice liability 497 anti-terrorism laws 488–90, 493 Africa 495 Americas 495–6 Arab League 494–5 Asia 494 British Commonwealth 493–4 derogation from constitutional principles and international human rights law 500–501 European Union 493 limits to harmonization 492–8 media and communication policy effects 498–501 pushback reactions to compliance 498 UN and harmonization of legal instruments 490–492 Arab media policy 316–17 connections between terrorism and crime 492 definitions 496–8 evidentiary requirements 497–8 financing 491 information exchange 492 intention as action 497 motivation 497 post-Soviet Russia 192–3, 198–201 state support 491–2 terrorization of non-victims 497 use of communication 488 trade agreements bilateralism 386–9, 392 telecommunication and intellectual property 389–92 Caribbean 396–7, 400

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

578

Index

trade agreements (cont’d) free trade agreements 386, 387, 389–91 imperialism 383–4 Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status 385 multilateralism 384–6, 388–9, 392 regionalism 389 trade disputes: Caribbean economies 308, 410 trade in cultural products see cultural products Trade in Telecommunication Services Agreements 47 Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) 44, 264–6, 272, 390 gender issues 460 transitology 415, 416, 428 Tunis Agenda 100, 137 gender issues 456 Turkey 304 UN Decade for Women 452, 453 UN Development Programme (UNDP) 101, 321, 323, 328, 331 UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 320, 321, 323, 328, 331 UN Human Rights Council 96 UN Millennium Declaration 10, 85–6 UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) 6, 7, 40, 42–3, 53, 337 communication for development 320, 321, 325–8, 331, 332 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions 124, 218, 287, 344–50, 527, 553 free flow of information 79, 82–5, 87–9, 122 human rights focus 101 New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) 6, 53, 83, 84, 86, 97, 122, 267, 371–3, 390 promotion of public sector broadcasting 218–19 UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) 331, 510 United Arab Emirates: Dubai Media City (DMC) 298–300 United Kingdom anti-terrorism laws 493–4 Internet regulation 507–8


United Nations 49, 51 Millennium Declaration 10, 85–6 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 6, 46, 85, 95, 124, 268, 270, 442 United States anti-terrorism laws 495 Computer Inquiry proceedings 434–6, 437–43 cultural diversity 285 media reform see media reform: US and Canada National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) 433, 442 television market 337–8, 340, 342–3 universal access 59 broadcasting 66 telecommunications 63–6 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) 6, 46, 85, 95, 124, 268, 270, 442 Universal Postal Union 28–30 universalism 25, 124 universities: India 247–50 violence 185, 188–9 gender violence 451, 459 Western Union 30, 34, 35 Windhoek Declaration on Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press 457–8 wireless communication 33–4, 35 women’s groups 155, 157–9 see also gender issues Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) 136–7, 141–3 World Administrative Telegraph and Telecommunication Conference (WATTC) 53 World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) 170 World Bank 70 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 40, 43, 53, 54, 264–7, 357 World Social Forum: gender issues 460 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 41, 45, 73, 74, 86–7, 98–101, 131–2, 133, 136 academic perspective 104–5 human rights commitment 101 IG Caucus mailing list see Internet governance: IG Caucus mailing list

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

579

Index impact of human rights on global communication policy 105–6 multi-stakeholderism 545 postcolonial media policy 374–7 World Trade Organization (WTO) 3, 7, 8, 40, 43–4, 53, 54 cultural products and 343–4, 347, 348 Information Technology Agreement (ITA) 409 intellectual property regulation 265, 266


judicial action against the US 408–9 multilateralism 385, 388–9 telecommunication reform 70, 71 Yahoo 73, 104 youth advocacy 155 YouTube 73, 538 Zimmerman, Betty 453

3/16/2011 7:00:32 PM

The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy (Global Media and Communication Handbook Series (IAMCR))

Global Media and Communication Policy

Global Media and Communication Policy

The Handbook of Media Audiences (Global Media and Communication Handbook Series (IAMCR))

The Handbook of Political Economy of Communications (Global Media and Communication Handbook Series (IAMCR))

The Handbook of Global Communication and Media Ethics (Handbooks in Communication and Media) (volume 1+2)

The Handbook of Crisis Communication (Handbooks in Communication and Media)

Global Activism, Global Media

Global Children, Global Media

The Handbook of Internet Studies (Handbooks in Communication and Media)

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