Communication Rights: an Unfinished Agenda

Rossana Reguillo

‘…Los desplazamientos [del capitalismo] contribuyen también al desmantelamiento de la crítica tornándola inoperativa, lo que ha causado la descalificación de las instancias dotadas de un contrapoder a los ojos de los mismos que esperaban de ellas defensa y protección…’

Thousand Oaks-London-New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2003. 260pp.

This book is a frank and competent assessment of the issue of ‘media violence’. The author is very well qualified to discuss this issue from his background in media research, writing several books on media-related topics and as a university professor in mass media communication. He approaches the topic of violence in the media by using broad and detailed documentation to support his discussions.

Seán Ó Siochrú

Following the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in December 2003, the CRIS Campaign, supported by WACC and the Ford Foundation, launched a project on ‘Global Governance and Communication Rights: A Role for Civil Society’. The goal of the project is to promote understanding of communication rights and to reform their governance, especially of media and communication. The context is the rapidly changing and globalising media and communication environment, with governance structures from national to transnational levels unable to keep pace. The project develops toolkits and concrete supports for civil society to respond to such change, in a national context but also in the context of an emerging global civil society.

Mother Tongues & Other Reflections on the Italian Language, by Giulio Lepschy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. 148pp.

In a letter to Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, Voltaire wrote: ‘I am not like a lady at the court of Versailles, who said: “What a great pity it is that the adventure of the tower of Babel should have produced the confusion of languages; if it weren’t for that, everyone would always have spoken French”.’ In contrast one imagines that the author of Mother Tongues is extraordinarily grateful for a confusion in which he has been expertly delving for more than half a century. Honorary Professor in the Department of Italian at University College London, Emeritus Professor at the University of Reading, and awarded a Laurea Honoris Causa by the University of Turin, Giulio Lepschy’s passion is linguistics and, in particular, the various spoken and written languages of his native Italy.

Rainer Kuhlen

The communication rights issue, the right to communicate (r2c), is among the most controversial in the negotiation process leading up to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Looking at the discussions during the preparatory committees (Prepcoms), it is very likely that the r2c will be neglected altogether or will only survive as a vague compromise.

Vassilys Fourkas

The term ‘cyberspace’ was first coined by William Gibson in his 1982 short story ‘Burning Chrome’ to refer to a computer generated virtual reality. However, the term became popular in 1984, after its use in Gibson’s novel Neuromancer. Etymologically, cyberspace is a compound word and the origin of the first term ‘cyber’ comes from the Greek word kybernetes, which means pilot, governor, and ruler. The root ‘cyber’ is also related to ‘cyborg’, a term that describes a human-machine synthesis resulted by connecting the human body in advanced high-tech devices.

Andrew Calabrese

In departing from the traditional principles of ‘just war’ theory, which demand that military action only be in self-defence, the U.S. government’s policy in its war against Iraq was ‘pre-emptive,’ the logic being that the perceived imminent possibility of Iraqi aggression towards the United States ought to be avoided by attacking first. Of course, the obvious question became what evidence was there of imminent danger that should justify an attack? From the start, the principal challenge never was a matter of whether the United States military had the capacity to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime. Rather, the Bush administration’s challenge was all along a matter of how to sell the war to the UN Security Council, to the American people, and now to the Iraqi people. The Bush administration correctly recognized the vital importance of the media, both domestically and internationally, as tools for justifying its war policy in Iraq.

Guy Berger

Earth’s huddled masses missed out on noticing that the WSIS was happening in Geneva last December. That’s because the event became a specialist, minority interest affair — and because the media by and large missed the story. True, the major international gathering in Geneva in December was also ignored by world leaders, and not just the Bush-Blair big-shots. It did not help that Third World champions of ICTs like South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki did not attend. All this added to the general invisibility of WSIS and its consequent lack of direct impact on public knowledge and public opinion.

Marc Raboy

The World Summit on the Information Society has opened a new phase in global communication governance and global governance generally. The WSIS process (including both official and parallel activities) has identified the problematic issues in global communication, indicated the range of views on how to deal with them, provided various blueprints of what should and could be possible in the way of solutions, and gingerly explored ways of dealing with these questions in the future. To that extent, WSIS has crystallized a new paradigm in global governance in which information and communication issues are central, and in which new actors, particularly those rooted in civil society, will be increasingly involved. This is good news for democracy even if it must be taken with a large grain of salt.

Philip Lee

Public memorials usually commemorate military leaders and national triumphs. They are the loci classici of official history, symbolic repositories of a nation’s myths. But in recent years a new kind of public symbol has emerged that is dedicated not to the victors, but to the losers in military and civil conflicts.