Communication Rights in the Information Society

Sasha Costanza-Chock

This article briefly discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the CRIS campaign, describes the ways in which CRIS has mobilized to achieve various kinds of outcomes, and examines the structure of the campaign with a critical eye. It ends with an emphasis on the need for CRIS, and for civil society groups more broadly, to develop a firm stance on the minimum criteria for continued civil society engagement with the WSIS process.

One of the most important political decisions a society makes is how to control its media system. Control entails ownership, regulation and subsidy. Ownership may rest with governments, corporations, non-government organisations or private individuals. It may serve the interests of profit or be non-profit-making. Regulation may be provided by the government, a non-profit agency, political parties, the users of the media and/or advertising.

It may seem as if only governments and the private sector have a stake in the media business, especially since their interests often overlap. However, media concentration also raises a number of issues for civil society.

Community media provide a vital alternative to the profit-oriented agenda of corporate media. They are driven by social objectives rather than the private, profit motive. They empower people rather than treat them as passive consumers, and they nurture local knowledge rather than replace it with standard solutions. Ownership and control of community media is rooted in, and responsible to, the communities they serve. And they are committed to human rights, social justice, the environment and sustainable approaches to development.

Inventions of the mind – ideas – are very special. All culture and society is built upon innumerable layers of accumulated past knowledge and ideas. In the arts, medicine, education, agriculture, and industry – in almost all areas of human endeavour – knowledge and ideas lie at the base of the flowering of human life and its passions.

Is the term ‘The Information Society’ (or the related ‘Knowledge Society’) useful for civil society? Does it adequately describe the changes in global social structures and processes that are currently taking place? Is there really a new form of society emerging? And if so, a society for whom, and how can it be harnessed to enhance human rights and fulfil pressing human needs?