Will artificial intelligence (AI) help or hinder the survival of minority languages into the next century? According to Ethnologue, a database of the world’s 7,168 living languages, almost half are endangered. Over 88 million people speak a language that may not survive this century except in...
During the latest WACC Europe online discussion, communicators from five continents examined how digital technologies intersect with fundamental questions of justice and equity. Everything is digital, and everywhere it is a justice issue, from the materials powering our smartphones to the algorithms controlling what...
“Civic space enables civil society to play a role in political, economic and social life,” Media Development editor Philip Lee writes in “Integrity and Trust Underpin the Digital Sphere,” the latest issue of WACC’s journal.It follows then that the voices of ordinary people must be...
Over the past few years, climate change has become a lighting rod issue in many countries of the Global North. Populist right-wing figures like Donald Trump (USA), Nigel Farage (UK), Alice Weidel (Germany) and Santiago Abascal (Spain) have either denied climate change, sought to undermine its...
Media literacy is the first and most important step to address communication rights challenges like misinformation, polarization, and misuse of AI. Yet media education must also be tailored to the specific context. For UNESCO Global Media and Information Literacy Week, WACC Asia President Peter Singh...
A WACC-supported project run by Ideosync Media Combine is enhancing digital inclusion of the Soliga Indigenous communities in the Biligiri Rangan Hills of southwestern India’s Karnataka state. The Soliga tribal communities, with 60,000 members, have faced decades of disenfranchisement. They have been advocating over the past...
A WACC-supported project in Kenya is helping an Indigenous community radio station to serve as an enhanced information channel for the Rendille people and preserve the tribe’s language and culture. In 2021, the Fereiti Action Network, a Kenyan, youth-driven organization for social change, partnered with WACC...
In 1999, a public hearing on “Languages and Human Rights” took place at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands. A panel of five experts in communication, language rights, and international law heard test cases of threats to linguistic rights. They included the Amazigh...
A WACC-supported initiative in Argentina is set to make radio a more powerful tool for Indigenous communities to uphold their rights and cultures. Local WACC partner Centro de Educación, Comunicación y Biblioteca Popular (CECOP), with the Argentine Forum of Community Radios (FARCO), is creating an Indigenous communicators...
Power is at play when it comes to the question of whose stories, both individual and collective, are preserved as public memory, says Editor Philip Lee in “Archival Justice: Unfinished Business,” the latest issue of Media Development. In his editorial Lee notes that “what is archived...