By Philip Lee Those familiar with the history of the 1970s New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) and the 1980s communication rights movement will remember the name of Seán MacBride as the chairperson of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, which...
Clemencia Rodriguez (Colombia/USA), Seán Ó Siochrú (Ireland), Parminder Jeet Singh (India) The fictional portrait below of Nelly and her family living in a media and digital world is based on research conducted by the authors as well as secondary sources. The reality of the struggle...
A WACC-supported project is training members of migrant and host communities on both sides of the Colombian–Venezuelan border as citizen reporters to provide accurate information, address common issues, and foster social cohesion. The Binational School of Community Communication is an integration initiative based on exercising...
Nico Carpentier Power is pervasive, all-encompassing, and ultimately ungraspable. At the same time, power generates difference through a logic of privilege. Even though a distinction between “the powerless” and “the powerful” is too simplistic, we can still see, throughout the world, assemblages of the privileged,...
Seán Ó Siochrú and Anita Gurumurthy At the turn of this century, many in civil society believed we were witnessing the dawn of a new era for the public sphere, one where the internet could realise the promise of a communication space where all voices...
Working Group An international working group prepared the following paper for the symposium on “Communication for Social Justice in the Digital Age”, which took place in Berlin and online September 13-15, 2021. It sets out an understanding of public space today, outlines what issues are...
The latest issue of WACC’s Media Development magazine examines the concept of public sphere, its role in promoting democracy and political accountability, and why principles of human rights and social justice must underpin it. In “Democratizing the Public Sphere,” WACC General Secretary and Media Development...
By Philip Lee Digital connectivity has transformed the notion of the “public sphere”. This is true at all levels: global, regional, national, community, and personal, where digital technologies have become ever more present and integral. Before digital, media and communication ecosystems that contributed to public...
By Deepti Bharthur and Ankita Aggarwal “Because of the greatness of our city, the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us,” proclaimed Pericles, one of the founding figures of the Athenian democratic city-state. In a eulogy for the fallen soldiers of the Peloponnesian...