22 Jul 2019 “Democracy, as we know it, is about to die…”
There was a mantra among communities and businesses when foreign goods and huge chain stores started crowding out small, local operations. “Buy local” was the cry.
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15 Jul 2019 Civil rights and the climate crisis
Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, writes that the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of...
08 Jul 2019 Short-sighted policies for short-term gain
Accessibility and affordability are watchwords of the communication rights movement. Yet when it comes to digital access, governments have still not got their act together.
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01 Jul 2019 A voluntary way of holding social media to account
Article 19 – the international freedom of expression organization – has proposed creating Social Media Councils (SMCs) as a way of moderating content on social media based on a “multi-stakeholder accountability mechanism”.
24 Jun 2019 Unfriendly-fire: Media freedom under threat
“Elected leaders in many democracies, who should be press freedom’s staunchest defenders, have made explicit attempts to silence critical media voices and strengthen outlets that serve up favorable coverage. The trend is linked to a global decline in democracy itself: The erosion of press freedom...
17 Jun 2019 Internet governance should work towards mechanisms to reinvigorate independent journalism
A free and independent media sector is one of the cornerstones of what it means for a country to be a liberal democracy. The emergence of the Internet was initially received with much optimism as there was an expectation that it would help democratize media...
10 Jun 2019 True public service media to the rescue
Every ten years or so the BBC comes in for criticism for being too partial or too impartial.
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03 Jun 2019 World Wide Web or webs of intrigue?
In its 2019 report, the Internet Society asks whether the Internet economy is consolidating and, if it is, what the implications might be.
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27 May 2019 Seeing and hearing people who matter
It is more and more evident that communication and information issues are intrinsically connected to questions of sustainable development and human dignity.
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20 May 2019 Support for local media
Subscribers to The Guardian in the UK recently received a message of appreciation from the Editor-in-Chief, Katherine Viner. She announced that after a three-year “turnaround” strategy the newspaper had hit its goal of breaking even – making a small profit that has been ploughed back into supporting...