“A Global Vision of Digital Justice,” the most recent issue of WACC’s journal Media Development, delves deeper into the question of how democratic and inclusive governance frameworks can be designed for today’s digital information society.  

The United Nations Summit of the Future in September 2024 and the World Summit on the Information Society+20 (WSIS+20) High-Level Event in July next year are pivotal for democratic freedoms worldwide – and communication rights in particular, writes editor Philip Lee.

He notes that “international, regional, and national organisations spent months working tirelessly to clarify the issues at stake and to secure a place for civil society’s views and demands” in the Pact for the Future and its Global Digital Compact endorsed by the Summit of the Future.

Media Development 4/2024 features a background paper that WACC commissioned to provide context as well as ways to create an environment that genuinely fosters peace and mutual understanding.

Contributors Clemencia Rodriguez, Seán Ó Siochrú, and Parminder Jeet Singh illustrate the reality of the struggle for control of media and communication ecosystems through the fictional portrait of “Nelly” and family and trace this struggle from 1970 into a digital future anchored in communication rights.

They invite civil society to seize WSIS+20 as “a rare opportunity to develop a global progressive digital vision and movement and to stake [our] claim to influence political decisions.” The paper offers 11 non-negotiables as a discussion-starter towards a normative framework.

In a companion article, Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami of IT for Change analyse the Global Digital Compact through a gender-equality lens – with sobering conclusions.

“The [Compact] seems yet another instance of the empty policy motions of ‘gender mainstreaming’ that only streams gender away,” they observe and urge advocates for a gender-just digital society to use the upcoming Beijing+30 and WSIS+20 review processes to “galvanize actions” for gender justice.  

Three further contributions in the issue explore the issue of trust in the news through critiques of media coverage of the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.

Public debate around the WSIS+20 process has highlighted the nexus between digital technologies, AI, and trust in the news, says Lee, and illustrated the need for democratic and inclusive regulatory frameworks as called for by Rodriguez, Ó Siochrú, and Jeet Singh.

“Without such frameworks, we shall be back to square one.”