When it comes to generative artificial intelligence, I am a sceptic. Is it just another Big Tech tool for collecting our personal data? Will it just magnify misinformation in a volatile political climate? Will it perpetuate racist, sexist and cultural stereotypes? Will it seem “smarter” only...
WACC partners from Latin America are set to demonstrate the essential place of local voices exercising communication rights for climate justice as the United Nations Biodiversity Conference - COP 16 opens today in Cali, Colombia. Every two years the UN event gathers governments and other stakeholders...
In 2001, Jack G. Shaheen published Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. In an analysis of over 900 films with Arab and Muslim characters from 1896 to 2000, he showed how moviemakers represented Arabs as heartless, uncivilized, religious fanatics akin to the worst...
Some 25 of WACC’s grassroots partners in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East will explore the communication rights implications of the newly adopted United Nations Global Digital Compact and develop a joint plan of action for advocacy when they meet on 22–25 October in Kathmandu,...
“Summit of the Future” sounds a bit like an Avengers movie. It is in fact a much-anticipated (and much-hyped) United Nations event on 22–23 September that aims to address the critical issues that are increasingly transforming lives – issues such as climate change, digital governance,...
WACC has received with sadness the announcement of the closing of ALC News, the pioneering ecumenical communication agency for Latin America and the Caribbean based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After 30 years of service to the ecumenical community, this innovative, full-service communication agency that published in...
Constructive journalism has an important role to play both within and without conflict situations, editor Philip Lee says in the 3/2024 issue of Media Development, WACC’s quarterly journal.Such communication can help those outside a conflict situation to better understand what is happening and increase trust...
The 2024 Summer Olympics – or the XXXIII Olympiad – are finally here! Whether you, or I, get to watch any of the games, livestreamed and in full, is a separate issue. Those of us old enough to remember will recall a time when the Olympics were...
Football (soccer), the world’s most popular—and we would argue most beautiful—sport, has become a multi-million-dollar industry marked by astronomical salaries, stadiums that look like spaceships, and billion-dollar sponsorship and television deals. The sport is regulated by FIFA at the global level and groups like CONMEBOL and...
June 18 is the International Day for Countering Hate Speech and June 20 is World Refugee Day. With migrants and refugees often targeted by hate, it can be natural – and even useful – to mark the days together. Certainly WACC Europe, after their 2017 media...