Be The Media

Des Freedman, Goldmith College, University of London:

How is British movement linked to US. There is not yet a Global Media Policy -- it's largely made at national level. The difference is that national policy is increasingly influenced by transnational agreements, like GATT, copyright agreements, etc. Agreements are there to police American intellectual property around the world.

Movements are linked because we face the same neoliberal institutions that have given us deregulation, stolen our water. In Britian they don't have a media reform movement as big as the US. But they do have a large energetic anti-war movement, where media has remained a big issue. The key is link up media issues with other social justice movements.

The campaign for broadcasting freedom held sessions at the European Social Forum, where people connected. This is how we globalize media reform, not by pretending that we have one global media policy. Acknowledge that we already have global movements against war, against World Bank debt payments. Put media democracy on the global map and inside these issues. Recognize that mainstream media converage helped Britain and the US go to war in Iraq. They don't question the right of drug companies to exploit the poor.

Graciela Baroni Selaimen, RITS (Information Network for the Third Sector), Brazil:

In 2001 when the first world social forum was held in porto allegre, communication was the subject of just one session. In 2003 proposed that there would be a whole axis of activies about media democratization. In that year the organizing committee realized that communication should be a central issue, it is immediate and central to every political debate.

Last January the 5th WSF happened, bringing together over 6000 media professional. The theme Communications, Counter-Hegemonic Practices was the focus of a whole day. Never before were so many different communication activists brought together.

In her opinion this evolution of the communication scenario reflects a growing global movement where civil society is understanding communication rights as fundament to democracy. The creation and strengthening of things like the free and open source movement against closed intellectual property is important to confront market-driven policies about communication, culture and knowledge.

It's no longer feasible to tackle local needs and challenges without knowing what's going on at the local level. Globalizing media reform and democratizing communication is important for people to express their voices. Communications rights should find ways to put local experiences and needs in the global perspective. We need to find ways to put the concepts we believe in into practice.

Some data and information about Brazil. Consolidation there is amazing, 277 media channels are owned by the largest corporation, including all forms of media. More than half of the daily news production in just a few hands. NTT Globo reaches more than 99% of the population.

Community radio are under a restrictive law that limits them to broadcasting 25 watts, in the cities this doesn't even reach an entire block. There is no state support and they may not carry advertising. They are often violently rerpressed and shut down by police. This year the number of stations closed by police increased 37%.

There are many challenges in Brazil -- they must be faced while recognizing what is global and working with the US, Europe and the whole world. We must understand what are common goals and what are differences. It is quite different for people in the North and the South.

In the South it means fighting for cultural identity, and the lingering effects of colonization. A sort of colonization that imposes every day how they should behave, consume and look like. Telling them that fitting into these patterns makes them fit into the world.

We need hands from all countries to come together, network and strategize, keeping in mind that our richness and strength is our diversity.

João Brant, Intervozes, Brazil:

Organization deals with activism and policy, bringing communications into the agenda, supporting common coverage of social movements. We try to do everything, and we can't, but we try to go on.

The point he would like to addres is: What is our common goal as a Global movement? What's our agenda for linking movements, especially in terms of long term actions and goals?

If we could define an ideal scenario, what would it be in 10 years time? If we keep our minds only on the present we lose our main goals, we're always trying to catch up, and we don't know how far we stray.

His group working with people from other countries to work on a generic framework around issues like freedom of expression, plurality, cultural rights and intellectual property rights. This leads to policies where communications rights are central.

It's not a state's role to create communications, to facilitate their creation. There should be a public system, neither private nor public.

Five objectives that we should try to have as goals:
1. access to means of productions
2. Technical and material conditions to listen and communicate
3. Autonymous relation to media
4. Active participation to creating policies to create and sustain
5. Balanced conditions and regime to participate in the public sphere

How to finance these things?

Imagine if part of commercial funds could be used to fund this sort of public/community media.

Participatory democracy means that representative democracy is not enough. Mechanisms like local councils, consults can be means to look after civil and human rights in the media. Not control over content. We can't look a freedom of expression without other freedoms from repression.

Four goals and principles:

Plurality and diversity of means and content.

Participatory democracy with citizen participation in policies.

have to get the public sector as the reference of our policy. Private sector should the exception not the rule. We've been brought up with the private reference, but profit does not match with public interest.

Information is not a commodity. Material commodity is not as easily reproduced as information. This principle shows us that information as a commodity is a distortion that the private sector is trying to force on us.

There will be a meeting of WIPO where the US is playing a prominent role, in private interest, not ours. Trying to put cultural communication under WTO rule. We're talking about global strategies and goals which we can deepen in the debate.

Emanuel Njenga Njuguna, Africa Policy Monitor Project, Association for Progressive Communications, Kenya/S. Africa:

They monitor communication and info policy development in Africa with goals around civil society, equal public participation against what private interest is pushing.

A few issues in terms of Africa, Kenya and South Africa are two cases.

In Africa, most people depend on radio, about 80% of households have radio, whereas with internet it's only 2%. In the last few years there's been a move towards liberalization.

In Kenya the colonial history had one state broadcasters to push gov't propaganda on TV, and several radio stations in different language. In the last few years there have been more actors, private broadcasters.

In 1992 with the advent of multiparty politics they've seen more objective reporting in the media. The government has turned to new and subtler ways to censor and control the press.

As a result the media suffers an everpresent threat of being censored or stifled.

Most of the private broadcasters are in the urban areas, because that is where they can generate advertising revenues. In the rural areas they only get the public state broadcaster.

Another key are is local content. Kenya has no regulation on foreign broadcasts and programming. Not enough has been done to encourage the growth of local content, especially in the local area.

By 2004 private and gov't broadcasters have 75-80% foreign content. In 2002 there was a change in gov't after 24 years. They're hoping by next year local content can go to 60%.

The content being produced in America is going all the way to Africa, and people think what they see is true -- they see the US view on the war in Iraq. It's all linked to financing and donor dependency. There is also the lack of resource and facility to create content.

With regard to the Alternative media, there's a lack of clarity and vision on what kind of independent broadcasts they want.

South Africa is making up most of the foreign content, and is becoming the first world part of Africa.

People have been focusing on access to information. The gov't has been working hard to ensure control over media by controlling access to gov't information.

Some victories in Kenya. Some community media are trying to create room in the rural areas, though limited in funding.

In South Africa it's a similar situation, so he will skip forward. However, the Internet has started to have an impact there. In 2004 there were presidential elections, and the current president used the Internet very well.

Legislation development -- in Zimbabwe they have used laws to control what is transmitted in the media. There have been a few victories here and there. They've created some awareness that people don't need to believe everything the media tells them.

Myoungjoon Kim, MediACT, S. Korea

Making labor news documentaries and getting workers to make their own videos in trade unions. They have a media center that is funded by the media board, but they have autonomy in running the center to support public access and indpendent filmmaking.

Start with media literacy. It's true that we have a strong tradition of a militant labor movement, but it is a superficial impression you get from the media. You get the impression that Korean laborers are born fighters and US laborers are born losers. That is incorrect. Korea has a lot problems, with bureaucracy in unions, etc. But we do have militancy. It's not natural, but it's built on media literacy and activism.

Before this session was organized, he was asked by organizer what he thinks of US media activsm. He thinks it's important effective to many countries. The victory with the FCC and fighting back was important. It was covered in Korea as a top storty when the FCC was announcing deregulation. When it was struck down, there was no coverage. So, congratulations.

At the same time the US is playing an important role to push a neoliberal agenda against the public interest. Because of that other social movements in other countries should support the US. You should learn from other countries to strengthen your movement.

Applause.

I will emphasize the Korean cases. Some of the gains we've had were made possible by your gains. The basic media situation is similar, with monopoly and consolidation. We have some public broadcaster. Korea is #1 in broadband connection, which gives us opportunity and problems.

We have a strong tradition of alternative and independent activism, which has been linked with the labor movement. IN the past 25 years there has been a lot of progress. In the labor movement there are a lot of web sites, and lots of laborers producing videos. The Hyundai union is the most left of the labor unions, and they have 3 full time staff making videos. By contract there is a closed-circuit TV system at the factory that workers can watch during lunch, one day every week, where they broadcast programs from the workers' video collective.

They asked his group to make a video once a week that the workers' collective can learn from.

Based on this legacy, the past 5 - 10 years they have been partically successful in the realm of the public sphere and public policy. Based on our media experiment now many local media centers are being established by the ministry of culture. We got legislation in 1999 to establish public access. Now we have 30 minutes every week for public access on the public broadcaster, and we have public access on cable. You can get access to $1000 to create a 30 minute program for public access.

They have a satellite channel that is 24-hour public access also funded by the communiations commission, $20 million. We got this by researching different cases around the globe, including free speech TV and the public access structure in the US.

Based upon our expreiences and research we could create our own perspective and action, which should be done around the world. The conclusion was that we should have a framing perspective on media activism.

Should have a clear position for different media areas, mainstream, public and the public sphere. Activism should come from alternative area. Use public resources for activism and to push issues in the mainstream media.

This should be done offensively rather than defensively. It's important to defend against censorship and deregulation. How can we set an agenda in the name of the people and working class, not in reaction to the corporations and the ruling class. We should trap them into being defensive. Applause.

One important point is how we can have a close link between areas like policy research and activism. Strategy research is important, too. At the same time this kind of research should be closely linked to training people in the fight. There should be a close link with other social movements, and how they can have media activism as their own agenda and we can interact. One way we got policies like public access is due to change of the government in Korea. We have neoliberal gov't but the people know they must move and can exert force. In a way we bluff, the gov't worries that they can mobilize the whole labor movement to defend public access.

He hopes the issue is how we can share the strategies and gains, just like they do at the WTO. How can we grow a regional or bilateral network? We should have a very specific plan. After this we should talk about how to implement a structure to improve the movement in different countries. Maybe someday we can have a big march for media refrom here or in Korea.

Maybe a goal can be addressed in this kind of conference.