An influential book on communications in the 1980s was Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Communication, by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. It proposed a “propaganda model” as a way of understanding how the mass media system intersected with the U.S. economy, political system, and mobilising support for the special interests dominating state and corporate activity.
UN meetings are often bureaucratic. This one has a sense of urgency.
With its rather dull title, the UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development is taking place in New York 9-18 July 2019. Its theme is “Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality”.
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Following the election of Embert Charles as WACC President and Stephen Brown as WACC Treasurer, a new Board of Directors has been appointed commencing June 1, 2019 for a four-year term.
This article sets out the conclusions of a year-long research project led by CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. Our consultations heard the voices of people from around 80 countries. Civil society leaders, activists and stakeholders shared 54 written contributions and provided 97 interviews, while 26 democracy dialogues – informal citizen-led discussions on challenges with and hopes for democracy – were convened in countries around the world.
Drawing on learnings from WACC consultations with 92 organizations and academic institutions working on communication-related issues, this article examines the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda from a communication rights perspective. It argues for the missing SDG 18: Communication rights for all.
Wikileaks and false news; an American Presidency run via Twitter; Charlie Hebdo; hackers manipulating elections, stealing corporate secrets and shutting down public utilities; mass surveillance via the internet of things; 24/7 news, information and disinformation cycles broadcast continuously on public and personal screens; wall-to-wall cultures of celebrity and political bullying and libel via social media; social media supplanting face-to-face relations at dinner tables and in bedrooms; conspiracy theories overriding peer refereed science … No wonder many young people are checking out into worlds of videogames, comic superheroes and pharmacologically altered realities. While schools and school systems stand frozen in the headlights.
On 7 September 2018, former President Obama delivered a pointed critique of the Trump presidency. Speaking to students at the University of Illinois, he urged political awareness and action, saying:
Adela Navarro is director of the weekly news magazine Zeta, one of the only outlets in Mexico regularly reporting on drug trafficking, government corruption, and organized crime. Over a 27 year career, Navarro has seen colleagues killed for their reporting, and lives and works under constant threat. On 13 September 2017 Navarro joined PEN and the Ryerson University International Issues Discussion Series to give a lecture entitled “Investigative Journalism in a Dangerous Country”.
In the clamour and razzmatazz of our high-tech media, form tends to dominate content and everything has to turn in a quick profit. So can the spirit and values of public service journalism survive?
