INTRODUCTION
The
debate over the role of information and communication in developing countries was
never so intense before the Second World War. During the two decades which
followed questions were raised on the imbalance pertaining to global news flow
and later on, in other forms of media. During the 1970s, centre stage was given
to the concerns about communication in ‘development’ of a nation. It would be
crucial to note that this was a period of changing international political
set-up and shifting of power. Many countries which were being decolonized and
the prevailing ‘developing’ countries echoed similar demands regarding the bias
existing in favour of the Western countries in terms of news, information and
communication technology.
UNDERSTANDING
THE NWICO DEBATE
“The
domination endured by the poor of the world as a result of oppression by the
powerful is a reality that degrades the whole of humankind as such. Hope for
equality and justice is at the root of the struggle of every social group for
the well-being of its members.”
(Lee,
1986: 82)
The
above statement defines the concerns of the Third World countries which led to
a calling for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) during
the 1970s. It was mainly initiated by the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) who later raised it the General Assembly of the United Nations. During
1970s the domination of global media and information industry by a handful of
transnational giants raised serious concerns about the injustice and imbalance
prevailing in the processing of world information. Simply put, ‘The legal
debate over the NWICO centers on the differences between the U.S. position that
a free and unfettered flow of information is an established international legal
principle, and the NWICO proponents' belief that a government balanced flow of
information is permitted by international law’. (Wilson, 1986:108). There
existed disparities between developed and developing countries, regional
disparities, one-way flow, vertical flow, market dominance, distortion of
content, cultural alienation, barriers to democratization, lack of critical
awareness and lack of cooperation between nations when it came to communication
and information sector. These problems were recognised and pointed out later in
the MacBride Report titled Many Voices,
One World (1980) published by UNESCO, which identified all these problems
and the MacBride commission came up with recommendations.
The
NWICO debate had three stages. The first stage (1973-1976) demanded ‘the
establishment of a free and balanced flow of information and rejected any
attempt at cultural colonialism’ (Lee, 1986: 82). This was when the term NWICO
had not emerged and it was called NIIO (New International Information Order).
The first phase of NWICO was criticized to be very ideology-driven (Bascur in
Lee, 1982: 83). The second stage (1976-1979) of the debate was the most
important one. It was during this phase when the theoretical paradigms of the
first stage were researched upon and a connection between ideology and
‘reality’ in the world order was established, much to the displeasure of the
developed countries. It was actually the third phase which gave a concrete
shape to this debate with UNESCO publishing the MacBride Report in 1980. There
were sixteen international experts in the MacBride commission which were
‘largely representative of the world’s political, economics and geographic
spectrum- had been asked to study no less than “the totality of communication
problems in modern societies”’ (Mowlana and Roach, 1992). MacBride report
placed the communication at the centre of development process for any
developing country. It stated that “development strategies should incorporate
communication policies as an integral part in the diagnosis of needs and in
design and implementation of selected priorities. In this respect communication
should be considered a major development source, 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”
(Many
Voices, One World, MacBride, 1980: 258)
The
basic demands of the NWICO were the four Ds- Democratization, Decolonization,
Demonopolization and Development.
‘1.
News flows are castigated as “one-way flows”, and measures to ensure a more
equitable balance of news flows between countries are demanded
(Democratization).
2.
The ’one-way flow’ and misrepresentations are interpreted to reflect a lack of
respect for the countries’ cultural identities, a matter of great importance to
the non-aligned countries (Decolonization).
3.
The monopoly status of transnationalcorporations in terms of communications
technology is perceived as a threat to national independence (Demonopolization).
4.
The vital role of mass media in the development process is underlined, and the
non-aligned countries join together to demand a more just distribution of
communication resources in the world (Development).’ (Carlsson 2003: 12)
YES, THIS DEBATE
IS OBSOLETE
With
an unforeseen impact and growth of globalisation, some argue, the NWICO debate
doesn’t hold much relevance now. The balance of power is becoming more and more
evenhanded i.e. impartial due to emerging ‘free flow’ markets and availability
of a wider variety of resources.
Dr.
Ulla Carlsson, the director of The Nordic Information Centre for Media and
Communication Research (NORDICOM) wrote that when it came to the NWICO debate,
there were ‘events and circumstances that led to the issue’s subsidence and
subsequent removal from international agendas’ (Carlsson, 2003: 2). One of the
reasons for the aforementioned is the breakdown of Soviet Union, the
‘traditional’ supporter of NWICO. Other reasons included the changing of the
socio-economic landscape of the world. “..Political and academic debates over
the idea of a NWICO have become rather quiescent in the past few years in light
of the rapidly changing world political environment; international communication
is likely to remain a highly visible global issue in the I99os. The scope and
substance of discussions of this issue are expected to be shaped by two global
trends now in the making: first, the widespread proliferation of new
information/communication technologies, and second, the growing democratization
of sociopolitical systems around the world in the aftermath of the breakup of
the Soviet Union, a traditional long-time supporter of Third World calls for a
NWICO.” (Aiysh, 1992: 488)
Another
very important reason why this debate is sometimes rendered obsolete is because
of the advent and conquest of internet over the world. The internet society or
the ‘network society’ as conceived by Manuel Castells, a well-known
communications scholar aptly describes the world we are living in. The internet
has, according to proponents of the power of the World Wide Web; we are no
longer bound by economic, social and political boundaries when it comes to
communication and information being readily available to all. Internet is a
medium which provides equal forums irrespective of the national backgrounds. In
this age of internet, NWICO seems like it doesn’t fit, barring the areas where
accessibility to internet is an issue but that is being ruled out more and more
every day. Taking a very recent research example, Victor Pickard (2007), talked
about NWICO, WSIS, internet governance, neo-liberalism, global communication,
international communication and most recently, Internet policy. He describes
NWICO as ‘a lost promise’ and that ‘NWICO gradually receded into relative
obscurity following the pullout of its largest sponsors’ (Pickard, 2007: 122).
The NWICO debate is often severely criticized by the West, especially in
American newspapers and journals. Their argument advocating the ‘free-flow of
information’ is a strong one. Their view is that the governments must not curb
or regulate the information in their own countries, treating information as
commodities and with neo-liberal institutions like WTO, information now is in
the process to be traded freely. Whether or not this will lead to lead to
adverse consequences is another matter but in a scenario like this where information
is being treated as any other commodity in a ‘free market’, NWICO doesn’t hold
much promise, in fact, in such cases it does not hold any relevance.
NO, THIS
DEBATE IS NOT OBSOLETE
Despite
the glorification and celebration of globalisation, we need to look at the
criticism against neo-liberal policies around the world because the
communication sector also has been engulfed in the neo-liberal policy debate. Increasing
inequalities, profit-maximizing nature and imperialistic undertones are the
burning issues which still haunt the communication policy making. One of the
scholars whose work was on the WSIS writes that ‘the old controversy about the
New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) seems to be experiencing
a resurrection in our times, on the occasion of WSIS. The controversy then
lasted about ten years, from 1975 to 1985 and escalated into the withdrawal of
the USA from the UNESCO. They have only returned as of fall 2003’ (Kuhlen,
2003: 1)
One
important concern of the NWICO was the standard of reporting of journalists
worldwide in case of news. This is an argument which is valid even today. With
the nations claiming to have greater press freedom, technology and skilled
journalists, the bias seems to be more than ever before, which is ironical but
not so hard to understand given the international and national political
dynamics. There was a UNESCO sponsored study called ‘Foreign Images Study, a
cross-national comparative news analysis sponsored by UNESCO and the IAMCR and
organized by Jim Halloran. The study monitored the foreign news coverage of
selected media (including news agencies) of 29 countries during one or two sample
weeks in 1979. Like the findings of other studies, the results of this project
justified several, though not all, of the critical arguments of the NWICO
debate’ (Schulz, 2001: 5)
In
order to understand today’s communication problems, it is very important to
view them ‘in a historical perspective to understand the roots of
the current debate and how they relate to changes that are affecting the world
today.’ (Padovani, 2005:1). In a research article of 2006 published by the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was said that ‘civil society actors
are calling for the use of multiple mechanisms for financing and a reduction in
sole reliance on market mechanisms, echoing the recommendations of the MacBride
Report.’ (Mansell and Nordenstreng, 2007: 14). This is an indicator that major
elements of the NWICO debate are still very much valid.
‘Recent non-aligned meetings such as the eighth summit
conference , held in Harare in 1986, and the Ninth meeting of the
Intergovernmental Council for the Coordination of Information (IGC), also held in Harare in June 1987,
continue to provide unqualified support for NWICO’ ((Roach, 1990: 290) and
hence never let it go out of steam. These summits and conferences extended the
NWICO theme to the World Summit on Information Society in 2003 and the term
NWICO is still referred to, in the reports and recommendations of these
summits. “Despite the fact that they were writing in the late 1970s, the
authors of the MacBride Report envisaged a network akin to the globally
distributed internet that has emerged.” (Mansell and Nordenstreng, 2007: 20)
This shows that the NWICO, though based in 1970s had envisaged a future with
global governance and network. Pickard (2007) analyses that ‘by historicizing
WSIS in its relation to NWICO, theorizing related debates in the context of neo-liberalism,
and textually analyzing key policy documents, this analysis (that of NWICO and
WSIS) brings into sharper focus the foundational assumptions of today’s global
communications system’. It is very clear that to understand today’s problems
pertaining to international communication and information flow, we have to go
back to NWICO, and so it is certainly not obsolete.
CONCLUSION-
THE FUTURE OF NWICO DEBATE
Having
analysed the arguments of both the sides, the relevance of NWICO still cannot
be ruled out as it is brought up in every communication policy debate.
“The
political and economic context clearly has changed since the NWICO debate, but
many of the political and economic issues are the same.” (Mansell and
Nordenstreng, 2007: 26)
Although
a direct comparison between NWICO and World Summit on Information Society
(WSIS) is limited by the latter’s focus on the Internet, ‘significant
technological developments clearly have exacerbated concerns first addressed at
NWICO. Also noteworthy are issues no longer on the table during these
discussions. These omissions reflect larger political economic structural
changes that have filtered down through the policy discourse. For example,
according to the WSIS vision, access is a wholly good thing without qualifying
whether for individuals or corporations. Furthermore, little discussion centers
on transborder data flow despite the fact that 90% of the Internet belongs to
proprietary networks, not the “open” Internet. These networks require special
security and firewalls and generate an enormous international flow of data. Yet
it has become an unquestioned assumption that this flow should be left
unregulated.’ (Pickard, 2007: 134). WSIS also raised parallel concerns with the
NWICO even though they had a time difference of around 35 years between them.
This strongly indicates that although the NWICO debate is not as strongly valid
as it was when it was established, the international communication policy
debates are still haunted by the ghost of NWICO, i.e., their basic elements are
the same. Therefore, this debate certainly cannot be described as ‘obsolete’ or
irrelevant yet. It remains to be seen whether it ever will be. To sum up the
entire argument, ‘with the rapid developments in communications technologies
and the resulting expansion of Western satellite and cable television in the
developing world, key issues in the 1970s debates about the New World
Information and Communication Order (NWICO) may again be relevant’ (Thussu,
2000: 323)
REFERENCES on request
