Transcript slides

Before the Web
Global Media Debates in
Critical Perspective
Futures & Pasts
1) What has the UN’s role been in shaping – framing – global
media policy agendas?
2) Should the UN continue to play a formative role in this
domain given the convergences between (global) media,
internet design, access, use, and content management?
3) If internet-dependent media and communications operate at
a “supraterritorial” (Scholte 2000) rather than a national
level then:
– Who decides on how it is run; on whose terms, and for whom
– Where do these decisions take place?
– Who pays, and for which aspects of internet design, access, use,
and content management?
4) Are the issues technical (problem solving), sociocultural
(about individuals/society and cultures), political (power
relations) or economic (ownership and control)?
The intergovernmental institutions
comprising the international state –
or “multilateral” - system “are
particular amalgams of ideas,
interests and material power which
in turn influence the development of
ideas, interests and material
conditions” (Bøås & McNeill 2004: 4,
6)
Shifting terms of
reference
Mass Media
Telecommunications
Information and
Communication
Technologies (ICT)
Information Society
New Media
The Internet
World Wide Web
Social Media
Scholarly, Political, Policy debates
compete and overlap
•
Media/cultural imperialism literature/decolonization (1960’s onwards)
•
Globalization theories/neoliberal economic orthodoxies (1980’s
onwards)
•
Information society theories/rise of internet - world wide web (1990’s)
and Web 2.0/social media (2000’s): “a new definition of media”
(Council of Europe 2011)?
•
Critiques of International Development agendas: tackling global
socioeconomic divides (Millennium Development Goals/Sustainable
Development Goals)
•
Theory and research into online vs. offline domains, old vs. new
media/old vs. new social movements, existing vs. emerging human
rights for the online environment
Framing agendas = Steering priorities
“Every question concerned with development is a question
concerned with planned social change and thereby also
necessarily a political question” (Bøås & McNeill 2004: 4).
Categories of ‘Development’ since WWII
• developed countries
• developing countries
• Un/under/least-developed countries
Changing Indicators for ‘Development’
• Economic Development (GDP/GNP, income)
• Sustainable Development (environmental variables)
• Human Development (UNDP Human Development Reports)
UN General Assembly Undertakings since turn of this century
• Millennium Development Goals (2000)
• Sustainable Development Goals (2015)
To put it another way, policymaking is a form of
politics/policy outcomes are political outcomes
UN Spaces for Media/Internet Policy
• NWICO (1970’s-80’s) UNESCO hosted
• World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 2003 –
2005 Action lines (WSIS+10 - 10 year Review in 2015)
– ITU (WSIS host/WSIS+10 Partner)
– UNESCO (NWICO host/WSIS+10 partner)
– UNCTAD - United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development
– DESA - Department of Economic and Social Affairs (IGF
Oversight)
– UNDP
• Internet Governance Forum (independent agency set up by
UN Resolution) 2006 – 2010/2010-2015 (3rd Renewal in
2015 in New York, December 2015) – 2016 (onwards) ???
the Internet at the United Nations:
Time-Windows
2006
2008
1st Internet
Governance Forum
in Athens
3rd IGF in
Hyderabad
2009
2007
4th IGF in Sharm El
Sheikh
2nd IGF in Rio de
Janeiro
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2003
2010
The UN World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) begins in Geneva: 2003
Declaration of Principles: Building the
Information Society: A Global Challenge in
the New Millennium
5th (final) Internet
Governance Forum in
Vilnius
2003 Civil Society Declaration: Shaping
Information Societies for Human Needs
9/11/2001 and
since
2005
The WSIS ends in
Tunisia: 2005 Tunis
Commitment
2005 Civil Society
Declaration: “Much
more could have been
achieved”
WSIS+10 Reviews
2013, 2014 UNESCO
2015 ITU
2015 General Assembly
WSIS+10
Outcome/Sustainable
Development Goals
2010
2011
IGF (second generation)
in Nairobi? (tbc)
2012
What next?
2011
2012
IGF 2011- Nairobi, Kenya
IGF 2012 – Baku, Azerbaijan
2013 – Bali, Indonesia
2014- Istanbul, Turkey
2015 – João Pessoa, Brazil
2016 – Guadalajara, Mexico
Global Media Governance:
Before and After the Internet
•
Three (perhaps four) phases at UN level since mid-20th century &
release of 1948 UN Conference on Freedom of Information
– New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO)
1970’s-1980’s: media divide/imperialism issues between
developed and developing UN member-states + public (state)
vs. private (commercial) ownership and control of news and
entertainment media
• 1978 UNESCO Mass Media Declaration
• 1980 MacBride Report
– 1980’s -1990’s “Global Glasnost” period with demise of
Soviet/Chinese Communist Bloc: Neoliberal economic
orthodoxies, rise of electronic/satellite communications and
internet
– 2000-2005: “Information Society” and ICT for Development
Priorities during the World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS)
– 2006 onwards: “Internet Freedom” vs. “Regulation” or
“internet sovereignty” vs. “internet jurisdiction”
2000 Millennium Development Goals focus on ICTs (viz. the Internet):
Target 8f – ‘In cooperation with the private sector, make available
benefits of new technologies, especially information and
communications..’
•
•
•
Multilateral institutions court ‘public-private partnerships’ for
implementing policies whilst adopting “multistakeholder participatory
models” for agenda-setting based at the IGF and elsewhere in the UN
system alongside incumbent internet governance bodies (ICANN,
IETF, W3C inter alia)
2015 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda framing is to “address
Internet governance to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development.
Shifting context over the last 10-15 years as media/internet
governance becomes explicitly politicized :
–
–
–
–
UN member-states re-claiming sovereignty over their media/Internet;
transnational corporations (IT, media, web) claiming they speak for internet
‘freedom’
technical, academic, activist & advocacy communities mobilizing on
numerous platforms (e.g. human rights, privacy, freedom of expression,
gender equality, net neutrality)
Arab Uprisings, Wikileaks, Snowden revelations of state sponsored mass
online surveillance signal shifts in how “civil society actors” regard the
legitimacy of UN member-states and intergovernmental - multilateral organizations
Consolidation of the global market share of US-based internet service
providers facing off contenders at national level (e.g. China, Russia, Brazil)
Global Internet Governance in the Looking Glass: The MacBride Report
25 years on
“This brief glance back at the past is not a gratuitous exercise. It is designed to
show that the ills as well as the benefits of modern communication are rooted
in the distant past, but a past that is still with us today, both in means of
communication still used in different parts of the world, and in a social legacy
that is a result of and a cause of the evolution of communication. … recurrent
themes in our Report…are…
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
the power possessed by those who control and direct communication;
its influence on social assumptions and therefore on social action;
the inequalities between various groups or classes within each society;
the domination that has been conferred by colonial rule, or at least by the
advantages derived from a faster and earlier process of development.
But as we confront these problems, we can restate them in a more positive and
hopeful direction. It is possible to think of
(a) the diffusion of power through broader access to and participation in the
communication process;
(b) the benefits of communication used as an educational and socializing force;
(c) the reduction of inequalities through democratization;
(d) the abolition of the vestiges of domination as full national liberation
becomes a reality” (MacBride Report 1980: I-4) .
Recurring Frames
• The media/internet as a public good/service?
• Ownership & Control: Who regulates - governments or
private actors, states or markets?
• Terms of Access and Use along socioeconomic, political
& cultural divides within and across national borders
• Legal accountability for any decision-making: nationstates/governments, global institutions, media
organizations and/or internet service providers
(“intermediaries”)?
• After Snowden – Human Rights agendas offline go
online
Theorizing into - and out of - these
processes, institutional spaces and actors
In terms of state actors and IGO’s
• From a Westphalian to Post-Westphalian Framework (Fraser
2004, 2007)
• … or a “post-national constellation” (Habermas 1998)
In terms of corporate (non-state) actors
• Public-private partnerships to multistakeholder internet
governance
In terms of civil society (other non-state actors) organizations
• Transnational networks – “rhizomatic” forces against
“empire” (Deleuze & Guatarri, Hardt & Negri).
• Co-optation into a global “internet governmentality matrix”
(Lipschutz 2005, Franklin 2010, 2013)
Time to consider a “new notion of media” ?
Despite the changes in the ecosystem, the role of the media in a
democratic society, albeit with additional tools (namely interaction and
engagement), has not changed. Media-related policy must therefore take
full account of these and future developments, embracing a notion of
media which is appropriate for such a fluid and multidimensional reality
…[relevant to all] actors whether new or traditional who operate within
the media ecosystem… Media policy makers are invited to take account of
the following criteria when considering if particular activities, services or
actors ought to be considered as media…
..1) Intent to act as media
…2) Purpose and underlying objectives..
…3) Editorial control…
…4) Professional Standards..
…5) Outreach and Dissemination
..6) Public expectation..
(Council of Europe, 2011, Recommendation CM/Rec(2011)7 on a new
notion of media)
Struggle over the narrative, about who gets to sit
at the table, be “in the room”, influence agendasetting behind the scenes and our screens
MacBride/NWICO debates may predate
the internet but they do presage it.
“Distance has ceased to be an obstacle, and the possibility
exists - if there were a collective will - of a universal
communication system linking any point on the planet
with any other. The equipment, cumbersome and costly in
its early days, has become rapidly cheaper and is by its
nature extremely flexible. Electronic communications, for
a long time restricted to communication between
individuals, are increasingly available for use in collective
communication. Conversely, it is feasible to envisage,
instead of global systems, a web of communication
networks, integrating autonomous or semi-autonomous,
decentralized units. (MacBride 1980: I-9)”