For Free Information and Open Internet (Daudén, Campelo, Ritimo)

Source: For Free Information and Open Internet. Independent journalists, community media and hacktivists take action — Passerelle 11 from Coredem.

Coredem, a Collective Initiative. Coredem (Community of Sites of Documentary Resources for a Global Democracy) is a space for exchanging knowledge and practices by and for actors of social change.

Ritimo, the Publisher. The organisation Ritimo is in charge of Coredem and of publishing the Passerelle Collection. Ritimo is a network for information and documentation on international solidarity and sustainable development.  Ritimo is actively involved in the production and dissemination of plural and critical information, by means of its website: www.ritimo.org

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Introduction.

Digital Citizens and the Media: a Major Social and Democratic Issue. Erika Campelo.

The way we communicate has changed dramatically in recent years with advances in information and communication technology (ICT), especially the Internet. Understanding the technological landscape in front of us is of utmost importance if we want to identify the power relations currently at play in the information sector.

The ways of using ICT are shaking up the mainstream media, both in how information is produced and in its dissemination: “They are forcing the mainstream media to redefine the way they work, what their position and what their role is.”¹ Technological breakthroughs in the digital sector and the almost instantaneous availability of information are contributing to the emergence of a new media model for the 21st century.

In light of this shift, free media activists are encouraging citizens to empower themselves through distinctive and analytical information that sidetracks and criticises the dominant media ‘system’. They are also developing media that represents a vehicle for popular education (television, newspapers and magazines, radio, websites and video). As building and maintaining democratic societies relies on being able to produce and access information, it’s important to keep assessing the role the media (both new and traditional) plays in our societies. The right to communication is the right of everyone to have access to a means of producing and disseminating information, to have the technical and material resources to be heard and to listen, and to have the knowledge to be autonomous and independent in their relation with the media. The right to communication is therefore more extensive than the right to information and than freedom of expression. It’s a universal right, inseparable from other fundamental rights, and all the more significant in the age of the Internet. Technology has undeniably made it easier for individuals and social groups to produce and disseminate information about their actions and their commitments. It is also easier to access information voiced by people with similar concerns.

[1] Ambrosi Alain, Peugeot Valerie and Pimienta Daniel. 2005 Word Matters: multicultural perspectives on information societies, C & F Editions.

Yet with this changing technology, there is also the potential for increased media concentration and control, which could be used to consolidate established powers and existing inequalities. Because although the impact of ICTs on social relations is undeniable, and although their potential to enable humanity to progress is evident, these tools are already in the hands of the neoliberal system’s major players, who use them to maximise profits. Like other economic sectors, ICTs are subject to multinationals’ attempts to monopolise them, whether they be content providers (Google, Apple), social networks (Facebook) or online retailers (Amazon, Alibaba, etc.). ICTs are not exempt from the financial logic that reigns everywhere. The information they transmit is at risk of becoming standardised, as has been the case in the mainstream media for some time. They bring with them new technical possibilities in user surveillance and reader/client surveillance.

Yet the emergence of cooperative production processes and the creation of new media, free software and free protocols are proof that creativity and innovation can bypass economic interests (to some extent, at least) and that the creative forces of the imagination can also shape the future.

Since the 2000s, the Ritimo network has expanded its work on international solidarity to include a commitment to disseminating citizen information to a French-speaking public, through links and tools connecting the information sector with social movements, alternative media and NGOs all over the world. Its role is to enable the voices, analyses and ideas of civil society, minority groups, the socially or economically marginalised and those fighting for change and/or alternatives to reach a wider public and to be taken into account adequately by policymakers and governments. [ … ]

… it’s important to remember that technology alone will not lead to social change. This will only happen if technology is appropriated by each and every one of us and anchored in local knowledge and collective participation. It requires people to make a call on how and why this or that technology should be used and adapt it to the political and socio-economic context in which they live. Faced with the multifaceted reality of the information age, free media activists (particularly those linked to the World Forum of Free Media), developers, NGO activists and people defending freedom of expression all over the world are endeavouring to anticipate risks, study and put forward alternatives so as to foster diversity, refuse being locked into a logic of non-reciprocity and uniformity, and confront the challenges of tomorrow’s societies. [ … ]

Communication as a Right. Laura Daudén.

“The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man’s right to information, first laid down 21 years ago in Article 19. This is the right of man to communicate. It is the angle from which the future development of communications will have to be considered if it is to be fully understood (…).” Jean d’Arcy (1969:14)

 Communication is currently a subject of great debate. The same can be said for the rights relating to it. Although this is not actually new – the political and ideological dimensions of the debate have been on agendas all around the world for at least four decades – the statement of the then director of the UN Radio and Visual Services, and its impact on the discussion regarding the limits of the right to freedom of expression, prove that the issue cannot be broached without recognising this fundamental difficulty.

Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) and in many other international and regional human rights documents, such as the American Convention on Human Rights, freedom of expression has been referred to in a limited way, making it inadequate for dealing with the challenges of the information and knowledge society – as conceived by the United Nations Organisation for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO). It is important to underline that this finding is not an attempt to make the core concept of freedom of expression any less important for consolidating democracy and achieving other human rights. On the contrary: the effort being made here is not merely to give new meaning to this guarantee but to increase the value of the many meanings and rights that go with it.

Limits related to the right to freedom of expression, as it used to be dealt with, became more obvious in the 1960s and 1970s with the explosion of mass media (especially television), which changed the dimensions of the communication phenomenon  and emphasised its multidirectional character: one was not only free to broadcast information but to seek, receive and share it as well. People began to understand that a broader defi nition was needed, which included the importance of communication for constructing social subjects and collective meanings, for creating a democratic State and for reducing inequalities and contributing to social change. An advisory opinion issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR in 1985 demonstrates this trend:

“When an individual’s freedom of expression is unlawfully restricted, it is not only the right of that individual that is being violated, but also the right of all others to ‘receive’ information and ideas. The right protected by Article 13 consequently has a special scope and character, which are evidenced by the dual aspect of freedom of expression.” (1985:9)

The IACHR goes even further and focuses on the conditions required for the mass media to “turn exercising freedom of expression into a reality”, to respond adequately to this “mandate”: “This means that the conditions of its use must conform to the requirements of this freedom, with the result that there must be, inter alia, a plurality of means of communication, the barring of all monopolies thereof, in whatever form, and guarantees for the protection of the freedom and independence of journalists.” (1985:10)

A new right is born

It is important to mention that this discussion took place in the context of an important conceptual development within UNESCO, the UN agency most engaged in building knowledge-based societies. It was here that, in building a “New World Information and Communication Order”, countries of the north, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, were pitted against Non-Aligned Countries, the so-called Third World. As Alan Alegre and Sean O’Siochru (2005) explain, the conflict was based on three conclusions: the doctrine of a free flow of information was reinforcing the Western media’s domination; the increasing concentration of media outlets was resulting in a greater foreign presence in smaller and poorer countries; and, lastly, the increasing importance of technologies controlled by the West was making it more difficult to access knowledge and means of production.

It was at this point, in the late 1970s, that the MacBride Commission was established, chaired by Sean MacBride, responsible for analysing communication problems in modern societies. Its report, presented at the UN General Assembly in 1980, became a benchmark for the budding global communication movement and unleashed a war of opinions on communication-related rights. This debate would later result in the United States leaving UNESCO.

The Commission’s report states: “Communication needs in a democratic society should be met by the extension of specific rights such as the right to be informed, the right to inform, the right to privacy, the right to participate in public communication – all elements of a new concept, the right to communicate. In developing what might be called a new era of social rights, we suggest all the implications of the right to communicate be further explored.” (1980: 265)

In addition to presenting concrete solutions for the imbalanced international flow of communication, Sean MacBride made a list of new communication-related rights and gave the growing communication movement a framework to refer to. Despite instigating a new perspective, the report’s relevance decreased in UNESCO, precisely because of pressure from the United States and the United Kingdom. Over time, the revolutionary strategies proposed by MacBride were replaced by more conservative approaches, such as digital inclusion and the democratisation of information. Gradually discussions shifted towards drawing up a list of rules based on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and later, based on the World Trade Organisation. Thus, due to political power, the UN went from using law to deal with issues of communication to using economics. [ … ]

Laura Daudén. Communications consultant for the NGO Conectas. She is a journalist and graduate in international relations and African studies. She is also co-author of the book Nem paz, nem guerra: três décadas de conflito no Saara Ocidental.

REFERENCES

• Ambrosi Alain, Peugeot Valerie and Pimienta Daniel. 2005 Word Matters: multicultural perspectives on information societies, C & F Editions.
• Article 19. Brazil Mission Statement on the State of Freedom of Expression. Sao Paulo, London: 2007.
• Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Advisory Opinion OC-5/85. November 13th 1985, Series A.
• D’arcy Jean. (1969) ‘Direct broadcasting satellites and the right to communicate’, EBU Review, n.118, P.14.
  

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