"The New World Order and the Geopolitics of Information" by Christopher Brown-Syed originally appeared in: LIBRES: Library and Information Science Research (ISSN:1058-6768) January 19, 1993.
 
 

Preface to the 1999 Web edition:

This paper recounts, rather inadquately, but at least compactly, the controversy surrounding the Unesco led initiative for a New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO), and tangentially, for a New International Economic Order (NIEO), the involvement of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and the Western reaction which the proposals stimulated. Much more exhaustive, book-length accounts exist, the most notable of which is Hope and Folly by Preston, Schiller and Herman.

I have used the word "liberal" herein not as it is sometimes used in the United States (to refer to left of centre politics), but as it is used in Canada and Europe - to refer to a centrist, free enterprise stance, rather than a "structuralist" that is, a socialist, social-democratic, or perhaps, a neo-Marxist one. The latter is to be distinguished from the Soviet-style "communist" approach, which is usually identified as "Soviet" herein.

Readers should note that this article describes attitudes and issues prevalent during the Cold War. Though superpower politics would seem to be a thing of the past, the underlying problem which the NWICO sought to ameliorate - uneven world development - remains to be solved. While they disagreed a great deal about possible solutions, the liberals, the socialists, and the political conservatives who were involved all appear to have recognized this problem. I find Richard Nixon's comments particulary interesting.

While this document has been reformatted for the Web, I have left it intact otherwise, mistakes and all. Chris Brown-Syed, Detroit, 1999.

During the past three decades, it has been suggested that an imbalance in information production and distribution might underlie uneven world economic development. Fraught with ideology, the debate about a New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO), tended to focus upon media ownership and upon the contending concepts of information as commodity and information as social good, upon the freedom of information as an individual versus a collective right.

This discussion paper summarizes the debate, and suggests that the collapse of the Soviet Union might provide an opportunity to overcome past political differences and to get down to the real business of assisting developing nations. In this activity, information technology specialists such as journalists, librarians, and computer scientists might play key roles.

The NWICO debate flourished, or perhaps one might more aptly say, raged, throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s in the halls of the United Nations, and particularly within Unesco. NWICO proponents and opponents alike accepted the premise of a link between economic progress and the availability of information. However, liberal theorists maintained that national cultures and sovereignty were not threatened by information concentration, while structuralist and socialist analysts argued that they were. In particular, the NWICO proponents, mostly drawn from the ranks of non-aligned nations, claimed that Western ownership and control of both the news media and their distribution channels constituted a form of cultural dominance whose covert goal was capitalist economic expansion.

This argument, played out in fora such as the Non-Aligned Movement and Unesco conferences drew support from the Soviet Union, and hostility from Western administrations. It was partly due to fears of the growing "politicization" of Unesco that the United States and Great Britain withdrew from that organisation in the mid 1980s.

The NWICO movement began as a protest over the concentration of print and broadcast media ownership among de facto cartels, and developed into an argument about the cultural dominance of poor nations by wealthy ones. However, even before the Soviet collapse, some NWICO proponents were beginning to suggest that the issue of news imbalance was a red herring, and that supplying developing nations with current banking and business information was more crucial.

Today, with the Cold War fast fading from public memory, many of the positions discussed in this article will perhaps seem archaic and quaint. However, the problem of uneven world development, far from disappearing with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, remains with us. Indeed, we in the West are provided daily with ample evidence that a whole segment of the globe - Eastern Europe - is almost as badly off as the so-called "developing" nations. Moreover, the Third World of the 1990s finds itself with only one ideological pole toward which to turn, and with the West as the major viable source of economic assistance.

Politics aside, it would seem that the basic NWICO assumption that information plenty is concomitant to and predeterminate of economic prosperity, remains at least arguable.

In hindsight, it appears that the East-West politicization of the NWICO debate merely served to distract attention from deep seated problems which persist and are likely to grow more pernicious in the short term.

Now that we are freer of the bonds of conflicting East-West ideologies, perhaps the time has come for technocrats - librarians, computer programmers, journalists, and communications specialists to address the problem objectively, and from a holistic, information science perspective. This effort might consist of developing better ways of exporting development information from the rich nations of the North and West, to the poor ones of the South and East, and of importing knowledge of developing countries through development education activities.

For working definitions, let us say that development education is the activity of acquainting Western populations with the problems of Third Word and with its various cultures. Development information is that required for economic growth and the improvement of social conditions. In order to effect change in the developed world, this paper contends, it will be necessary to arrive at a new synthesis, acceptable to both laissez-faire liberals and to structuralist theoreticians who believe to various degrees in government involvement with the economy. Most importantly, since information technology is increasingly becoming the key to economic prosperity, it behooves us to help redefine the debate as an information science issue, rather than a media studies problem.

Before proceeding, it might prove beneficial to set out some working definitions. Most importantly, the term "culture" requires clarification.
 

"Culture may be defined as the organisation of shared experience which includes values and standards of perceiving, judging and acting within a specific social milieu at a definite historical state. In other words, culture is the complex of material and spiritual goods and values created by human activity in the process of social development." (Jefkins and Ugboajah, 1986: 151).

The year 1980 saw the publication of Anthony Smith's Geopolitics of Information, and the report of Unesco's MacBride Commission on world communications problems, Many Voices, One World. Both works described an emerging model of world communications problems, and proposed a political framework for their solution generally referred to as the New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO). However, neither work could offered specific agendas or timetables for resolution. Smiths' scholarly work never set out to do this, while Unesco, as an organisation operating by consensus, could not impose its political will upon member nations.

The NWICO received much attention in the press, due mostly to the opposition of Western nations to its implications for journalism. Over the past decade, the defence or refutation of NWICO claims became a major preoccupation of the literature of the geopolitics of information.

Canada's Tom McPhail presented a comprehensive analysis of the NWICO's major issues and constructs, emphasising the role of Unesco and the Non-Aligned Movement in NWICO policy formation (McPhail, 1981). Daniel Meyer sought to test the key hypotheses behind the NWICO analysis of communications structures (Meyer, 1987). William Preston, Herbert I. Schiller, and Edward S. Herman provided definitive analyses of the political aspects of the NWICO, including its treatment by the media. (Preston et al. 1989).

Johan Galtung, in various writings, proposed a "structuralist" model of centre-periphery relations to explain the patterns of information exchange, elaborating upon the work of writers such as Rein Turn (1979). Others such as Jenkins and Ugboajah (1986), Tunisia's Mustapha Masmoudi, and writers from India, Africa and South America, described the effects of the current system of communications infrastructure and information production upon Third World development.

In the structuralist model of communications, unprocessed information flows from underdeveloped nations to the developed countries of the West or North, much as do the raw materials of industry. Information users in the developed countries interpret, process, and act upon this information, redistributing it in turn to the client states, along with more information about their own activities, cultures, and politics. Thus, the Third World nations come to be viewed through the eyes of the information interpreters of the developed nations, whose organisations control both the finances and infrastructures of the distribution system, while the developing nations never quite receive the latest information, nor the latitude of interpreting it to their own advantage. As well, in terms of pure volume of information produced and consumed, the developing nations lag far behind.

Because many of these writers argued in particular against de facto media cartels, because of political problems within Unesco itself, and because of the East-West rivalries of the times, the NWICO debate came to be treated as a confrontation between capitalism and Soviet communism. Opponents charged, with some justification, that the NWICO proposals were part of a larger communist agenda.

Smith's Geopolitics, focused almost exclusively upon the imbalance evidenced in the news media. The choice of focus is far from arbitrary, since Smith viewed this area as the most contentious.

"The conflict between North and South over the dissemination of news is more intractable than any other contemporary debate over the unfair distribution of earth resources, for it intrudes into the very culture of Western societies." (Smith, 1980: 15).

It remained difficult, Smith contended, to provide a balanced view of the Third World, since the news gathering and disseminating organisations, as well as their technological infrastructures were controlled by a few Western nations:

"The Third World has accused the West of cultural domination through its control of the major news- collecting resources of the world, through the unstinted flow of its cultural products across the world, and through the financial power of its advertising agencies, its international newspaper chains, its newsprint companies, and its hold over the electro-magnetic spectrum on which broadcasting, navigation, meteorology and much else depend." (Smith, 1980: 13).

"Our mental media picture of the world is compounded of our Western interests within it and is supportive therefore of those interests. The struggle to escape from our bad image of the Third World is an essential stage in its struggle for independence." (Smith, 1980: 10)

In interpreting Third World events for domestic audiences, Western journalists apply their own standards of propriety. Here lies the crux of media bias:

"It is what the agencies and western journalism do inadvertently which is the trouble. We think of the price of motor cars as necessarily rising through no one's fault; we think of the price of petrol rising as a direct result of the 'greed' of a few Arabs." (Smith, 1980: 110).

One solution to the problem of news imbalance was thought to be the institution of a more bi-directional flow of information, which recognised freedom of expression or communication as a collective right of nations as well as an individual right.

In other words, NWICO advocates suggested, a small under-reported or mis-reported country should have the right to rectify its public image abroad.

The NWICO debate focused on the desirability of a balanced and controlled flow of information, as opposed to a free and unrestricted one. This can easily be interpreted as an argument for freedom of the press versus censorship. Smith warned that the call for a balanced flow of information presented "a double crisis, intractable both in doctrine and in management." (Smith, 1980: 16). As Ithiel de Sola Pool remarked, "The slogan of protection of national culture most often really means the protection of an existing government, or of some special interest within it." (Pool, 1990 :125)

The concept of a link between communications and control is fundamental to cybernetic theory (Wiener, 1948). Wiener stressed that in all organisms, from amoeba to nation state, communications are fundamental to interaction with internal and external environments. As Canada's Francis Fox, chair of a major federal cultural policy review committee noted:

"The important thing about information technology is not so much that it uses and processes information - which it does in abundance - but that it is fundamentally a control technology. If we are to understand the nature of the new information technologies, it is necessary to focus less on their content and more on their function (i.e. regulation - in the cybernetic sense of the term - of systems, or in other words, control.)" (Babe, 1990 : 250).

This condensing of space and time became more pronounced with the advent of the telephone. Pool calls the effect, the "spatial reorganisation of activity", and takes special note of its ability to undermine existing organisational hierarchies, and to enable corporate decentralisation on a global scale.

"Another effect of the telephone was also to loosen hierarchical layering. As Marshall McLuhan put it, 'The pyramidal structure... cannot withstand the speed of the telephone to bypass all hierarchical arrangements..." (Pool, 1990: 69).

As well, liberal Western schemes to speed the Third World toward development may have helped to perpetuate indigenous elites. Citing the case of the Philippine press, Smith contended that bilateral grants, training, or skill-transfer programmes resulted in "transplanted journalism", and the formation of elites who were in effect "internal emigres", divorced from their own cultures. (Smith, 1980: 155). As an Indian national observed, "News travels faster but the rural elite are the first to have it." (Smith, 1980: 161). In concluding that the existing information order is "a product of and has itself extended the historical relationships between the 'active' and the 'passive' nations," (Smith, 1980: 175), he emphasised the systematic and endemic aspects of the structuralist argument.

"We have learned that the de-colonisation and growth of supra-nationalism were not the termination of imperial relationships, but merely the extending of a geo- political web which has been spinning since the Renaissance." (Smith, 1980: 176).

Principles and Premises

The basic premise of the movement for a New World Information and Communications Order (NWICO), was that an imbalance existed in the direction, volume, and types of information exchanged between adequately developed countries and the Third World, which was detrimental to development and systemic in nature. Of equal importance with, and logically prior to this conception, is the ethical notion that information should be viewed a shared resource or as a social good rather than as a commodity.

The major documents of the NWICO include the Unesco Media Declaration of 1978, Unesco's Statement on Journalistic Ethics, and the report of the International Commission for the Study of Communications Problems (MacBride Commission), published in 1980. NWICO premises included the assertion that information is necessary to economic development, and that any attempt to establish a New International Economic Order (NIEO) must incorporate, or even depend upon, reform in the world communications system.

In the chief NWICO paradigm, (the structuralist model), the current world situation is characterised by the dominance of information producing nations over those which consume cultural and information 'products'. The set of relations between these "know" and "know-not" nations, has been described variously as a centre- periphery situation, as a North-South conflict, or as a relationship of neo-colonialism or neo-imperialism. The structuralist school included "neo-Marxian journalists, many Third World diplomats, and theorists like Johan Galtung." (Meyer, 1985:10). Galtung's major contribution to the platform is his "centre-periphery" typology, which provided a perspective on cultural dominance.

"According to this schema, nations at the Centre... dominate a 'feudal network of communication'. The Centre owns the major news agencies and 'Centre news takes up a much larger proportion of Periphery news media than vice versa'... users in the Periphery 'come to see with Centre eyes.'" (Meyer, 1985: 10) quoting (Galtung, 1979, 165-166).

The range of problems addressed by the NWICO included cultural dominance, concentration of media ownership among de facto cartels, transborder data flows controlled by multi-national corporations, the effects of tourism and advertising, and the uneven world allocation of radio, satellite, and telecommunications technologies and infrastructures. The NWICO proposals held that all of these relationships ran counter to the interests of the developing world, threatening self- determination, sovereignty and economic development. Although the notion of a revised world information structure would entail the establishment of a "free and balanced flow" of all sorts of cultural, scientific, technical, and financial information, the debate over the NWICO tended to focus on perceived problems with the news media.

Although the relationships described by the structuralist model were generally accepted, the negative effects of current world information flow were disputed by the NWICO's liberal and conservative opponents. Some of these, endowed with the optimism of Daniel Lerner, or Ithiel de Sola Pool, believed that the current system was either inherently liberating, or would develop of its own accord, or could be adapted to address the problems of developing nations through sufficient attention to education, or technology transfer, or the development of Third World infrastructures. The more conservative among free market thinkers favoured the continuance of the current information regime.

Problems With the Agenda and the Forum

Those who sought to implement the NWICO proposals had to contend with vigorous opposition from within the so-called 'dominant' countries - principally from the United States and to a lesser extent from Britain (Preston et al., 1989). In retrospect, we can categorize the problems with NWICO implementation as: problems inherent in the NWICO formula itself, difficulties in proving the veracity of its claims, complications arising from the use of Unesco as a forum of discussion, bad will occasioned by "stridency" in the language of proponents and opponents, and ideological differences over basic concepts. As well, the fact that the scheme was to a large degree a construct of Third World diplomats such as Tunisia's Mustapha Masmoudi and other Non-Aligned Movement ministers, coupled with the choice of Unesco as a forum for debate, occasioned resistance from the developed nations.

While the United States pointed to the adoption of NWICO as one of its reasons for pulling out of that agency, the US was already at loggerheads with Unesco before the NWICO issues were tabled (Partan, 1975). US participation in Unesco depended upon the resolution of several different political concerns, of which the NWICO was merely one. However, at the height of its "vitriolic name calling" phase (during the mid 1980s), the NWICO debate became the occasion for ad hominem attacks on Unesco's leaders from the West, and "strident" calls for the overthrow of imperialism from the Third World.

Both supporters and opponents have emphasised NWICO claims about inequalities in news flows, and freedom of information as a collective right of nations. These notions ran contrary to Western ideas of press freedom and free markets. Moreover, they served to distract debate both from deeper phenomenological analyses of world culture in its broader sense, and from establishing practical agendas for the amelioration of conditions in the Third World. Terminology of the NWICO Proposals On 28 November, 1978, at the twentieth General Conference in Paris, Unesco issued a proclamation calling for the establishment of a New World Information Order.

At the same conference, the International Commission for the Study of Communications Problems, (the MacBride Commission), which had been established by Unesco in 1976, presented its interim report. The final draft of the MacBride report was published in 1980. Unesco's policies toward the media are to be found in both sources, and in attendant documents such as the 1980 "Statement on Journalistic Ethics", which was reaffirmed at the 1983 Mexico select committee meeting. These documents tend to be conflated in the literature of Unesco critics. It seems essential to begin by examining the language of the 1978 Media Declaration itself.

The document, which came to be known as the "Unesco Media Declaration" or "Media Charter", bore the full title: "Declaration on the Fundamental Principles Concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media to Strengthening Peace and International Understanding, to the Promotion of Human Rights, and to Countering Racialism, Apartheid and Incitement to War." Its full text appears in Meyer (1987). The phrase "countering racialism, apartheid and incitement to war", occurs no less than four times within the body of the proclamation, as well as in its preamble and title.

The link between the goal of defeating these ills, and Unesco's scientific, educational, and cultural role is established in Article III(2), which asserts that "aggressive war, racialism, apartheid and other violations of human rights [are] inter alia spawned by prejudice and ignorance." Thus, combatting war could be seen as part of Unesco's mandate of disseminating information and promoting literacy and education. The language of this clause recalls the maxim, "Wars begin in the minds of men", and is included by way of allusion to the Unesco constitution.

In good legalistic tradition, the Declaration contained in its preamble fourteen "recalling" clauses citing traditional UN concern with information, communication, and the press. These clauses included references to the Unesco constitution, the 1945 Charter of the United Nations, and to various UN resolutions on the subject, establishing the declaration's historical precedent. The body of the proclamation consisted of eleven articles, providing in the main for recognition by member states of the rights of freedom of opinion, expression, and of information, and calling upon them to exert their efforts to strengthen peace and to promote education.

The provisions which were new and innovative with in declaration consisted of calls for the establishment of "equilibrium and reciprocity" in communications, and a freer and more balanced flow of information between the advanced and developing nations. The provision for restructuring global communications and information distribution sparked adverse Western reaction, since mass communications were and are tied to the commercial and national interests of the developed countries. As well, attempts to regulate the media through import quotas, indigenous content regulations, or accreditation schemes, entail the risk of misuse by totalitarian governments, and appear to limit the freedom of the press, which is enshrined in Article I of the Constitution of the United States, though not, perhaps, in the constitutions of other nations.

The document called for the establishment of conditions "guaranteeing [journalists] the best conditions for the exercise of their profession" in Article II(4), and in Article X, for the procurement by member states of "adequate conditions and resources" to enable the Third World press to expand, and a respect for "different economic and social systems" - a fairly transparent reference to the now-defunct Soviet economy. States should ensure, the declaration said, that journalists enjoy the proper conditions in which to carry out their duties. Article XI called again for a guarantee of "the existence of favourable conditions" for the exercise of journalistic activities.

The declaration did not specify what these conditions should be. The declaration's connections to economic policies emerged in Article VII, wherein the link between the UN's proposed New International Information Order and its New International Economic Order was explicitly stated; "...the mass media contribute effectively to the strengthening of peace and international understanding, to the promotion of human rights, and to the establishment of a more just and equitable international economic order." Calls for greater balance in information flow to and from developing countries appeared in Articles VI and X. The latter called on member States to "facilitate the procurement by the mass media in developing states of adequate conditions and resources enabling them to gain strength and expand", and to co-operate with the media internally, with other Third World states, and with the more developed nations.

Viewed out of context and with hindsight, the Declaration appears to be a basically liberal [i.e. centrist as opposed to socialist] document. It repeatedly elicited support for human rights, the freedom of the press, and the free flow of information. While emphasising the responsibility of the media for education and the maintenance of world peace, and making broad calls for more equitable distribution of wealth, it does not seem to contain any of the catch phrases so repugnant to Western sensibilities - denunciations of imperialism, for example.

There is certainly no mention of the "licensing" of journalists - a phrase which would become the rallying cry of NWICO opponents. However, if the Declaration did not recommend press restrictions, it did contain several phrases and terms which could be interpreted as accusatory of Western foreign policy and attributable to Marxist-Leninist inspiration. Additionally, as Daniel Partan remarked, (Partan, 1975), Unesco had for some time left itself open to charges of "politicization" when its documents touched upon matters only tangentially related to its educational, scientific and cultural mandate, which was always interpreted quite narrowly by its critics.

Unesco calls for cultural protectionism aroused suspicion of censorship or monopoly. As Ithiel de Sola Pool observed, "The slogan of protection of national culture most often really means the protection of an existing government, or of some special interest within it." (Pool, 1990 :125) In the view of Western critics, the Declaration, with its relatively mild phrases, and subsequent Unesco statements, constituted calls for the licensing of journalists and state control of the media.

In establishing a link between the NWICO and NIEO programmes, the Media Declaration could be interpreted as demanding a world Socialist distribution of wealth. Since to implement international protection of journalists, one must have a way of recognising them, the document seems to recommend an international press accreditation scheme. As well, it could be argued that there is a fine line between procuring resources for the media, and state procurement of the media themselves, or of their privately owned technological infrastructures.

If the language of the Declaration itself did not contain provocative Marxist or anti-capitalist language, plenty of examples could be found both in the statements of individual Unesco delegates, and in other official publications. Links between notions of "imperialism", "colonialism", "apartheid", and "Zionism" appeared in the subsequent Unesco Statement on Journalistic Ethics, as did references to "peaceful coexistence" and "disarmament", and the rights of nations to "self determination". While the 1978 Media Declaration presented a set of broad principles, it did not contain any concrete plan of action or set of regulations.

The MacBride Commission, formed by Unesco in 1976, presented its Interim Report at the 1978 General Conference. The final draft was ready for publication two years later. While the MacBride Report represented a remarkable scholarly and diplomatic effort, it too lacked an agenda, as Mustapha Masmoudi noted. (Masmoudi, 1985). In 1980, Unesco held a consultative meeting in Mexico City, which lent its support to the 1978 media declaration.

By the time of its 1983 Paris consultative meeting, the central principles of the NWICO had taken form. This meeting ratified a declaration on the "International Principles of Professional Ethics in Journalism", which stressed the rights of individuals and nations to "true and authentic" distortion-free information, and stressed the obligation of the media to provide one, suggesting that the journalists' primary duties were to "humanist values" rather than to their employers.

The ethics statement marked the first attempt at a set of NWICO regulations. As well, it explicitly recognized information as a social good rather than a commodity. Principle III, the so-called "conscience clause", states: "Information in journalism is understood as a social good and not as a commodity, which means that the journalist shares responsibility for the information transmitted and is thus accountable not only to those controlling the media but ultimately to the public at large, including various social interests. The journalist's social responsibility requires that he or she will act under all circumstances in conformity with a personal ethical consciousness."

Two additional inclusions are significant: the identification of journalistic ethics with the "universal values of humanism... social progress and national liberation", (Principle VIII), and the expansion of the "peace" rhetoric of the 1978 Media Declaration to include overt references to disarmament and neo-colonialism. "The ethical commitment to the universal values of humanism calls for the journalist to abstain from any justification for, or incitement to, wars of aggression and the arms race, especially in nuclear weapons, and all other forms of violence, hatred or discrimination, especially racialism and apartheid, oppression by tyrannic regimes, colonialism and neocolonialism, as well as other great evils which afflict humanity such as poverty, malnutrition and diseases."

The term "disarmament" could well have been interpreted by the West as a Soviet code-word for the unilateral dismemberment of NATO's nuclear capabilities, upon which the 'balance of power' rested at the time. The Soviets, with their superior conventional forces in Europe, would have derived more latitude from nuclear disarmament. Thus, in the critics' view, "disarmament" really meant granting the Soviet Union de facto strategic superiority. Given the international mistrust of the period, it is not difficult to see how incorporation of such phrases into charters and declarations would raise concerns about Unesco's "politicization".

Many Voices Calling Vitriolic Names

The International Commission for the Study of Communications Problems had been formed during the nineteenth general conference of Unesco, held at Nairobi in 1976. This commission, operating under the presidency of Ireland's former Foreign Minister, Sean MacBride, presented its Interim Report at the 1978 conference. Its final report was published in 1980, under the title, Many Voices, One World. This report tended to be mentioned, especially by hostile writers, in the same breath as the Draft Declaration on Media Policy, which had been formulated after presentation of the Commission's Interim Report at the '78 conference. Moreover, certain resolutions suggested by members from the Soviet and Non- Aligned blocks, which were never actually included in either document and would have placed limits on press accreditation, were represented as having been central tenets of the New World Information and Communications Order outlined in the MacBride Report. (USNC, 1984).

The MacBride Report represents a masterly attempt at synthesis; to present the cases for structuralist models of information while recommending liberal solutions. In fact, dissenting opinions appended to the Report, Sergei Losev (a TASS official), Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Juan Somavia, and Mustapha Masmoudi, objected to various degrees to the document's liberal slant. (Unesco, 1980: 279-281). Masmoudi's noteworthy characterisation of the report as a "deontological code" explicates the report's ultimate grounding: it rests upon voluntary rather than regulatory or prescriptive adhesion, and proposes few normative measures.

Article I(3) of the Unesco constitution prohibits Unesco from intervening in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of Member States. (Partan, 1975: passim). Thus, any Unesco resolution has only the legal status of a recommendation. While calling repeatedly for "global perspectives", the Report accentuated personal actions and the duties of individual reporters or organisations as remedies for media inequities. In so doing, it endorsed no credible macro analysis of the problems, preferring to deal with them from a safer, ideologically neutral, micro point of view. Thus, despite Western concern, stress was not put on any systematic domination by "imperialist" forces in the MacBride Report's recommendations.

In suggesting individual rather than concerted social action, the Report remained an essentially liberal document, thereby leaving itself open to critics of the Left as well. An example of the compromise nature of the MacBride Report may be seen in its analysis on "Dominance in Communication Contents." The Committee identified various problems associated with the cultural message of media contents: the media may distort the contents of news or information by presenting inaccuracies or untruths instead of facts; media consumption may result in cultural alienation, so that the values presented in the media overshadow local or historical ones; external influences, such as transnational corporate interests, may affect media contents. However, the Report suggested that the responsibility for cultural dominance must be shared by both the producing and consuming nations, since consuming nations buy media products willingly, and could presumably refrain from purchasing them.

While structuralist analysis is evident in the first three points, this last exemplifies the Report's inherently liberal character. It is not surprising that socialist Commissioners such as Losev, Masmoudi, and Garcia-Marquez, should feel less than satisfied with the Report and should feel compelled to append dissenting opinions. Nor is it surprising that conservative member Elie Abel of the United States, should lodge his own complaints about the document's socialist leanings. Although the MacBride Report was lauded by both camps as a masterful and diplomatic effort, it could not lay the politicization controversy.

Moreover, it can be seen as a product of forces developing within Unesco and the United Nations as a whole. It is clear that by the 1976 General Conference, whereat Unesco's Director General, Amadou Mahtar M'Bow, was instructed to investigate the information issue, and to establish the MacBride Commission, a general ideological climate existed within Unesco, and perhaps within the United Nations at large, which contained elements inherently at odds with American foreign policy. The United States announced in 1983 that unless Unesco implemented changes in its budgetary system, and abandoned its "statist" approach, it would withdraw from the agency at the end of 1984.

In an eleventh-hour attempt to head off American withdrawal, the Executive Committee of the United States National Committee for Unesco (USNC), issued a privately printed "advisory", containing 23 points, supportive of Unesco and refuting the administration's allegations. (USNC, 1984). It is noteworthy that the signatories to the Advisory included Leonard R. Sussman of Freedom House, in his capacity as Vice Chairman of the USNC. Despite his opposition to various Unesco policies, even Sussman wished to effect change from within.

The Advisory argued that Unesco had been no more or less politicized than any other UN body, that the "rights of peoples" statements were not meant to detract from individual rights, that Unesco did not adopt a "statist" approach to issues, and that the USSR did not hold undue sway over Unesco. The USNC maintained, with arguable accuracy, that "The New International Economic Order (NIEO) had not been central to Unesco programs", but granted that it had been "reflected in many of the debates, publications and programs". The Unesco budget, argued the USNC showed only a small increase during the fiscal year, despite US claims of "profligate leaps", and that charges of Paris officials' leading exorbitant lifestyles were false.

As well, the USNC defended contentious programmes like assistance to the PLO and various African liberation movements, and to disarmament studies, by stating that they took small percentages of the budget and were educational in nature. (USNC, 1983: passim). The American withdrawal from Unesco, which took effect at the end of 1984, together with M'Bow's treatment at the hands of the American press, is well documented in Hope and Folly, the definitive 1989 study by Preston, Schiller and Herman.

An interesting feature of this particular sequence of political events lies in the fact that so much of the American campaign was waged in the pages of the press. This lent credence to what was perhaps the most audacious structuralist contention - that the press, even in democratic countries, is manipulated by "governments or elites". As well, the story illustrated, through the rather heavy media reliance upon anti-Unesco "experts" from the Heritage Foundation, that there are inherent weaknesses in the "official sources" policies of the media. (Preston, et al., 1989: 216, 222 and passim). It is far to easy, say critics, for administrations to promote "experts" whose views they find agreeable. Once established, such experts tend to become "convenience sources" for journalists.

How justified was Western concern over the "politicization" of Unesco? Did the Media Declaration and MacBride Report represent isolated phenomena, or an overall shift in Unesco politics? Or were these reports merely the latest examples in a leftward-leaning political climate within Unesco and the United Nations itself at the time? For instance, concern over the politicization of Unesco had already been aroused at least a decade earlier, with Daniel Partan's study.

Partan, who prepared his work for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, noted three frequently used meanings of the term "politicization". The term is used: "to refer to UNESCO decisions on matters that are considered by some to lie essentially outside the domain of 'education, science and culture'", "to refer to decisions reached through a process that some see as not reflecting the high standards of scholarship that should be expected of the agency," and "to reflect a view that specific actions taken by the UNESCO Executive Board or General Conference were taken to express a partizan political position, rather than as an objective, non-partizan determination on a matter falling within UNESCO's competence." (Partan, 1975:9).

While his paper came to be cited by NWICO supporters and critics alike, Partan stated clearly that it offered no conclusions about Unesco's politicization. (Partan, 1975: vii.) Under the directorship of Rene Maheu, Unesco had criticised Israel for archaeological digs conducted in the occupied territories after the 1967 war, charging that they violated the Hague Convention. (Partan, 1975: 95-99).

Unesco's calls for the elimination of colonialism and racialism had led to the withdrawal of South Africa in 1955. The organisation had applied sanctions against South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, and Portugal in 1966, and the General Council had issued a statement "deploring racial discrimination and apartheid", and "all forms and manifestations of colonialism and neo colonialism," as "a threat to international peace and security [and] a crime against humanity." (Partan, 1975: 122). In resolutions of 1960, 1962, 1964 the General Council had stressed Unesco's role in "contributing to the attainment of independence by colonial countries and peoples."

The distinction between countries and peoples is of note, since some of the groups seeking assistance were (arguably) "peoples" without "nations" such as the Palestinians, or the Southern Africans. These resolutions emphasised Unesco's desire for education planning, elimination of illiteracy, training of qualified national personnel, organization and development of science & technology, the preservation of national cultures and the development of information media. (Partan, 1975: 116). The document urged: "Unesco should take a more active part in the struggle against all forms and manifestions of fascism, neo-colonialism and other forms of oppression and tyranny, racialism and apartheid caused by imperialism..." (Partan, 1975: 126-127).

This language implies (again arguably), that the ills of racism and apartheid are products of Western politics. As well, critics charged Unesco with supporting guerilla and terrorist groups. Instances included the admission of observers from the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the Organisation for African Unity, as representatives of "peoples struggling for liberation, self-determination and independence against colonial and alien domination." (Partan, 1975: 169). Nor were such sentiments confined to Unesco. The UN General Assembly resolution 3237 had invited the PLO to "participate in the deliberations of the General Assembly on the question of Palestine", in October of 1974. (Partan, 1975: 173). When the World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC79) argued for more equitable distribution of radio frequencies among the developing nations, the United States considered withdrawing from the International Telecommunications Union. (Surprennant, 1983: 225).

Outside Unesco, but under its aegis, various groups such as the International Organization of Journalists and similar bodies representing Asian, African, and Latin American media workers subscribed to NWICO principles as well. The International Progress Organisation entitled its 1985 Cyprus meeting: "The New International Information and Communications Order - Basis for Cultural Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence Among Nations." (Kochler, 1985).

The use of Nikita Kruschov's phrase "peaceful coexistence", in the title of a Unesco-sponsored seminar would have been enough to provide hostile observers with 'conclusive' evidence of Unesco's "politicization." According to William Safire, the term "peaceful coexistence" can be traced to V.I. Lenin, and was used extensively by Khrushchev, who employed it in a very technical sense, declaring in a 1961 speech: "Peaceful coexistence... is a form of intense economic, political, and ideological struggle of the proletariat against the aggressive forces of imperialism in the international arena." (Safire, 1978: 522).

If the inclusion of such terms in the seminar's title, (even though dated by this time), was not enough raise administration alarm, then Hans Kochler's opening address could well have sent up the balloon: "As a result of the colonial past, the industrialized world is not only trying to impose its particular value-system and way of life upon other civilizations, it is also dominating and channelizing the flow of information from the developing countries to the outside world which reduces their chances to present their own views in an authentic way. The sophisticated infrastructure of information in the industrialized world prevents the development of alternative infrastructures in the 'Third World' which is contrary to the principle of freedom of information." (Kochler, 1985:1).

Kochler suggested that information imbalance was part of a systemic problem inherent in technology and in capitalism itself, which kept the have- not nations poor. As well, he suggested that the media were being used as Western propaganda channels. To be fair, Western agencies such as the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and Radio Canada International freely admit to having engaged in specific anti-communist activities. For instance, "As concern with Communist influence in Eastern Europe in the 1950s mounted, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Hungarian" were added to RCI's language set. (Canada, 1987: 103).

Appearing at the same conference, Mustapha Masmoudi, Paul Audley of Canada, Themba Sono, Andreas Sophocleous, and others provided less heated analyses. However, the anger and frustration of the less developed countries is evident in the presentations of speakers like K.P. Misra, and Saad Qasem Hammoudi. Hammoudi cited Harold Innis' analysis of media and society. (Kochler, 1985: 29). Sophocleous presented a pro and con argument for the unrestricted free flow of information, noting the potential dangers of "xenomania and the imitation of foreign models in all aspects of life" and the danger of "erosion of cultural tradition", and the "imposition of social and economic systems" on consumer countries. (Kochler, 1985: 78-9). Misra lauded Mahatma Ghandi and Indira Ghandi for attempting to find a middle way.

Mustapha Masmoudi's contribution to this seminar is important because it dealt in particulars. While pointing out the value of the Media Declaration and MacBride Report, (and claiming credit for the NAM's 1976 Tunis meeting), Masmoudi proposed a plan of action for NWICO implementation. Masmoudi argued for (a) a new definition of the right to communicate which would ensure free and balanced flow of information; (b) equity and equality based on democratization of informational means and structures on a horizontal as well as a vertical level; (c) the establishment of a right of access to information sources; (d) the discarding of principles such as the 'self control' of the media in favour of a standard code of ethics; (e) the protection of journalists in their relations with their employers as well as while on dangerous missions; (f) a right to rectification for the victims of selective or unbalanced information; and (g) the inclusion in the Berne Convention of favourable copyright concessions for the developing nations.

He emphasised the differences between notions of "press freedom" or "free flow" in Western and developing Nations, emphasising the NWICO ideals of the collective right to communicate, the rights of sovereign entities to protect their cultures, and the concept of a plurality of information sources. "The essential criterion of information freedom resides in the plurality of sources and in the free access to these sources and to all kinds of opinion." (Kochler, 1985: 9-22).

US Administration Perspectives

American receptiveness to Third World desires tended to vary with the government of the day. After a relatively tolerant treatment of Third World aspirations under Kennedy, (Preston, et al. 1989: 94-98), Johnson, Nixon, and Carter, America tended to revert to the "domino theory" of Soviet expansionism during the Reagan era. In retrospect, Richard Nixon observes:

"Poverty and bad government are nothing new. What is new is that millions who endure poverty and bad government can now know what they are missing. To see how the other half lives, all they have to do is switch on their television sets. Their realization that those who live in the West are far more wealthy, far more comfortable, and far better fed, has created enormous frustration and tension throughout the developing world." (Nixon, 1984:73).

"These societies-in-a-hurry have little patience with the historical pace of Western development; what happened in the west over centuries, some Middle Easterners now seek to accomplish in years. Moreover, they want to do it their own way." (Lerner, 1954: 47).

"Let us not delude ourselves. The Soviet Union is behind all the unrest that is going on. If they weren't engaged in this game of dominoes, there wouldn't be any hotspots in the world." [1]

MacFarlane, and others concluded however, that the Soviet Union was reluctant to become involved in the region. (Kramer, 1989: 66). Eugene B. Rumer of the Rand Corporation suggested that the Soviet military had "not shown much interest in the Third World", and predicted that under Gorbachev, the trend would continue. (MacFarlane, 1989: 126-128).

Soviet Perspectives

Although perhaps exaggerated, US administration concerns were not without foundation. Long after the American withdrawal from Unesco, during subsequent debate about the possibility of rejoining the organisation, Reuter moved a story entitled "Soviets accept blame for UNESCO pullout."

"PARIS (Reuter) - The Soviet Union accepts a share of the blame for the decision by the United States and Britain to quit the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO, the Soviet foreign minister said yesterday. The United States, Britain and Singapore left in 1984 and 1985, alleging financial mismanagement under former director-general Amadou Mahtar M'Bow. Eduard Shevardnadze said Moscow helped to pave the way because it felt ideas were being imposed on his country that were unacceptable." (Toronto Star, Thu 13 Oct 88: A9).

From a socialist point of view, the less developed countries are not "poor", since they possess ample resources and populations - which, in Marxism, are regarded merely units of capital. Rather, these nations are "backward", because they are unable to exploit their wealth. In a Marxist theory of value, capital is just "uncrystallized labour," and labour is capital turned productive. (P. Sloan, 1973: 38). Thus, Alimov could say that the underdeveloped nations were "wealthy", because they contained vast human resources.

Socialists could argue that it is in the interests of imperialist and neo-imperialist forces to maintain the condition of imbalance, as capitalist expansion demands the existence of sources of cheap resources and of consumer sales which the Third World nations represent. As Alimov acknowledged, the West had claimed that the Non-Aligned Movement did not represent "genuine non-alignment". The NAM countries did not maintain "equidistance" between the two contending ideologies - capitalism and communism, nor between the two competing superpowers.

The West alleged that the NAM represented a process increasingly 'politicised' and Eastward-leaning. However, to Soviet theorists like Alimov, the concept of "genuine non- alignment" was merely an ideologically inspired imperialist myth. Nor did he deny the Soviet Union's influence upon the NAM.

"It would be naive to deny the direct ideological influence of the Soviet Union on the development of the national liberation movement today. The ideas of the great October Socialist Revolution and the Soviet policy of peace meet the aspirations of the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania... They have also influenced the evolution of the anti-imperialist concept and policy of non-alignment. This is a commonly recognized fact." (Alimov, 1987: 160).

From Alimov's stance, the actions of imperialist military forces, or of neo-imperialist ones such as multi- national corporations, could not be equated with those of the "progressive forces", namely, the socialist community. Whether by arms or by trade, they sought to maintain economic hegemony in the place of 19th Century style colonialism, while his side promoted the genuine liberation and self- determination of peoples. (Alimov, 1987: 167). Thus, from the Soviet point of view, Western economics could be held to blame for hegemonic activities in business as well as for "aggressive wars" and for supporting "tyrannical regimes" in order to protect bourgeois interests.

Soviet leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev maintained that it was not really necessary to promote of revolution in the less developed countries. Brezhnev's policy assumed the character of "resisting Western export of counterrevolution." (MacFarlane, 1989a: 10). However, Brezhnev asserted that, while maintaining peace generally, the Soviet Union had the right to intervene to protect communist regimes by any means including force, and to assist in otherwise sovereign states wherein tendencies toward capitalism indicated attempts to subvert communism. This statement came to be known as the "Brezhnev Doctrine". (Safire, 1978: 177). MacFarlane remarks that the Soviet Union tended to view American criticism of this policy as hypocritical. While America supported repressive regimes such as Pinochet's in Chile, the US raised "an absurd noise ... about 'expansion', when the forces of progress aid freedom-loving peoples subjected to imperialist and racist aggression." [2]

Information was explicitly recognised in the Unesco Media Declaration and MacBride Report as a prerequisite for economic development. By corollary, the structure of world information flow must necessarily be viewed as supportive of the global economy. In Non-alignment and Information, the Yugoslavian writer Bulatovic asserted that the imbalance in communication flow was merely an extension of economic inequity:

"The existing imbalance and inequality in the sphere of political and economic relations has also gained full expression within the domain of information, the non-aligned countries having noted with concern `the vast and ever growing gap between communicatoin [sic] capacities in the non-aligned countries and in the advanced countries which is a legacy of their colonial past' at the summit conference in Colombo." (Bulatovic, 1978: 10).

Cooperative ventures such as the establishment of the non-aligned countries' News Agencies Pool sought to marshall collective buying power to offset the effect of media monopolies. Given the frank admissions of Eastern commentators that the goals of the NAM were tied to those of the NWICO and NIEO, and that all were beneficial to the cause of world socialism, coupled with the inclusion of Marxist- sounding phrases such as "hegemony", "neo-imperialism", and "domination", in the literature, it is easy to see how Western, particulary American, alarms could have been raised about Unesco's politicization. It remains to be seen how seriously Western interests could in fact have been jeopardised by Third World activism.

Western suspicion of any Unesco agenda supported by the Soviets served to enmesh the NWICO further in the political web. While the ideological bickering and "vitriolic name calling" continued, the genuine needs of the developing nations persisted. It is important to note, however, that the critics of the existing information regime included not only Soviet bloc commentators, but also Western scholars.

The Controversy over M'Bow

The NWICO agenda was complicated further by controversies over the character of Unesco's Director-General, Amadou Mahtar M'Bow. An educator with and earned Licentiate from Paris, experience as an education minister, and a great many honourary degrees, M'Bow was repeatedly characterised by the Western press as being "personally extravagant", a poor manager, "wasteful", given to patronage, anti-Western in outlook and deficient in academic credentials.

In what was itself a remarkable example of selectivity in the media, M'Bow was repeatedly referred to as Unesco's "controversial", leader, and the organisation as "beleaguered", during his thirteen-year tenure, and during his unsuccessful 1988 bid for re-election. These ad hominem attacks against the Unesco leader were applied with dubious logic to critiques of the organisation's programme.

After 1985, Unesco's efforts to persuade the United States to return to the organisation included changes to budget and fiscal policies, election of a compromise candidate for Director General, and rewording of the controversial media charter. Sections of the media charter most offensive to the West, such as "Item 12", had already been dropped by the time of the MacBride Report, as noted by the Executive of the US Commission to Unesco, and well before the 1984 American pullout.

Simultaneously, however, M'Bow attempted to sue the United States to obtain the 1985 funding it had withheld. In 1986, jurist Karel Vasek called M'Bow's stance "legal nonsense" and resigned from his Unesco advisory position. On October 2 of that year, Reuter carried a story which quoted Vasek as "accusing Director-General Amadou Mahtar M'Bow of conducting a private war against the United States and Britain, and of harming international relations." [3]

M'Bow attempted to retaliate. The Western powers were merely using Unesco and the United Nations as a convenient scapegoat, he charged in a Reuter item of 21 October, 1987: "Some people have sought to make the failings of the U.N. system responsible for the most flagrant flaws in international relations," M'Bow said at the start of a full meeting of UNESCO's 158 member states. "But it can only reflect the dilemmas of the international community." [4]

While M'Bow had stated in 1986 that he would not seek re-election as Unesco's head, he changed his mind two years later. A plethora of Reuter and UPI reports criticized him for seeking an "unprecedented" third term in office during the November 1988 campaign.

While Canada remained in Unesco, its media followed the American line in opposing M'Bow's re-election. "Controversial M'Bow seeks third term as UNESCO head", proclaimed a 1987 Toronto Star headline.[5]

The article, derived from the Associated Press wire, portrayed M'Bow's action as "challenging Western governments that have criticized his leadership for the past 13 years." M'Bow's nomination had been proffered by President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, the article reported. An un-named Canadian External Affairs spokesperson voiced Canada's belief that "it would not be in the interests of UNESCO" for M'Bow to be given a third term." According to this official, Unesco needed "methods of "modern financial control." [6]

Another article dubbed M'Bow "dangerous", and to suggested his re- election "could spell the end of the cultural agency."

The story quoted "Western diplomats and observers", who contended that electing M'Bow "could lead to financial and political disaster, causing new departures by Western nations and further aggravating UNESCO's budget problems." It presented an itemized list of M'Bow's failings, charging that "his call for new world economic, information and communications systems also offended the West".

"He lives rent-free on a $159,000 salary and travels extensively... He is wasteful of UNESCO's resources, his critics say, signing over 70 per cent of the budget to staff. M'Bow's opponents also feel his academic qualifications are insufficient for the post of director-general." [7]

Nor did the controversy end with M'Bow's defeat. A compromise candidate, Spanish biochemist Federico Mayor Zaragoza, became Unesco leader in 1988. [9]

"Diplomats hailed the result", according to press accounts, "as signalling a new spirit of reconciliation" at Unesco. However, Mayor began to draw the familiar Western criticisms almost immediately. Reproaches varied from accusations of his being "too slow" in conducting reforms, to claims of extravagance in employing "hundreds of consultants" and seeking to create "44 senior posts at a cost of $6.5 Million, figures which Mayor repeatedly denied. [8]

Western displeasure with Unesco persisted throughout the 1980s. The Reagan and Bush administrations continued to criticise Unesco for fiscal ineptitude, while admitting that "vitriolic name calling against the West" had "largely been eliminated". [10]

However, US administrations had other reasons to defer. One further source of dissatisfaction was the application of the Palestine Liberation Organisation for full membership in various UN bodies, including Unesco, in May of 1989.

At this point, both the United States and the PLO were both sending "observers" to Unesco. The US observer, Terry Miller, remarked in a Reuter story: "I think it's clear that the admission of the PLO as a member would make it much more difficult for the U.S. to consider rejoining the organization." Omar Massalha, the PLO observer replied that "Arab states were studying ways of compensating for the U.S. threat." [11]

In the event, the PLO settled for "observer" status. Nevertheless, the issue lent fresh fuel to administration charges of Unesco's politicization.

Meanwhile, Mayor, instituted cuts in Unesco's staffing, meeting and travel budgets. Since Unesco's mandate includes facilitating consultation among specialists of various nations, this revelation might appear unnerving.

More disturbing yet was Mayor's 1988 assertion that "documentation of all sorts had been cut by 50%" since he came to office. If the provision of documentation has indeed been curtailed to such a degree, it is clear that the US withdrawal has had drastic consequences for Unesco effectiveness as a provider of scientific and technical information. [12]

Finally, some concessions to the liberal theory of free flow of information seem to have crept back into the text of a revised Media Declaration. In November of 1989, a Reuter story announced a compromise: "The freedom of the press has returned to the halls of UNESCO," said Canadian delegate Tom McPhail. [13] Stating that the debate had "dogged the life of the U.N. agency for years", the story continued: "Critics of the original charter, the New World Information Order, said it was anti-Western and muzzled the press." Despite repeated reassurances from commentators with as widely diverging views as Masmoudi and Sussman, the notion of the NWICO as a proposal for licensing journalists persisted.

The warm reactions of various unnamed "Western delegates" to the revised charter's language may be accounted for by its adoption of two key stances. First, the new wording enshrined the liberal concept of freedom of information, though in a somewhat backhanded manner:

"The new text maintains the old charter's call for balanced information but adds `without any obstacle to the freedom of expression'." (ibid.)

"Amendments put in by Western delegates are aimed at ensuring that UNESCO funds will flow both to private and public media." (ibid.)

It seems clear, therefore, that the "politicization" of Unesco was merely part of a broader phenomenon.

In the years since the Second World War, a great many new countries had come into being as the British, French, and Dutch, for example, dismantled their empires. There were many new voices in the United Nations and in Unesco, and as Surprennant observed, the United States could simply no longer rely upon consensus or upon its own technical sophistication to carry motions in these fora.

If the NWICO debate of the 1980s is viewed in this historical context, then attacks on the character and ability of M'Bow as Unesco director seem strident and misleading. The United States had found fault with M'Bow's predecessor, and would do so with his successor.

The politicization of Unesco, while real, was not an isolated phenomenon. It was merely part of an historical trend. Preston suggests that America could not come to grips with its sudden numerical disadvantage in the General Assembly, and therefore reacted badly. (Preston et al., 1989: 193).

Theoretical Challenges

Whatever the political inspiration of NWICO claims, two facts remain.

First, concern over development information results from the ongoing "frustration" of Third World nations noted by Richard Nixon. Second, the truth of the claims remains a fruitful area for study. The imbalance in the production and flow of cultural products remains, whether good or bad for the receiving nations.

The validity of NWICO claims about of media ownership went largely unchallenged on both sides. After all, corporate ownership can be established easily from sources like Who Owns Whom. However, liberals and structuralist were sharply divided about the adverse effects of media concentration.

Numerous works such as Smith (1980), the MacBride Report (Unesco, 1980), Meyer (1985), and Herman and Chomsky (1989), established the concentration of news flows in the hands of the "big five" agencies (AP, UPI, Reuter, AFP, and TASS), sometimes with the addition of other smaller agencies.

Herman and Chomsky, for example, referred to some 34 media agencies. However, most studies have focused on the established concerns of news flow, bias in the news media, the effects of advertising, the actions of multi- nationals, and trans-border data flows.

The effects of elites - such as non- media oriented multi-nationals with branch offices in the Third World, or privileged groups within such nations, go largely unexplored, despite studies of the "elite press", which have received some attention. (Mazharul Haque, 1988).

This may be due to the fact that the sorts of information which pertain most to development (financial, technical, scientific), are proprietary or restricted, and hence more difficult to study.

Some confirmation of this notion comes from the management literature. For example, one paper on transborder management speaks of the "flow of intelligence, ideas and knowledge" as being essential to multi-national operations. (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1987). The most difficult problem for one company, the study says, was "the quick transfer of proprietary knowledge within the company." The solution for another - to transfer people, rotating senior staff worldwide, "thereby strengthening the web of interdependence."

While it may be argued that high- tech companies such as Xerox and Geac, which maintain internal electronic mail services, move documents, software, and management reports across borders with ease and in virtual secrecy, the management skills required to implement new products, strategies, or techniques cannot be transmitted electronically.

The most rigorous examination of specific NWICO hypotheses is to be found in William Meyer's work (Meyer, 1988). Beginning with an outline of the neo-colonial nature of contemporary news-flow patterns, Meyer specifies and tests the structuralist thesis and the theory of cultural dominance following accepted social science methodology.

Meyer's typology of conservative, reformist [liberal], and structuralist NWICO schools is worthy of note, as it forms the basis for an understanding both of the NWICO and of the objections to it which have been raised. The conservatives, represented by Leonard Sussman of Freedom House, and dissenting MacBride Commissioner Elie Abel, see imbalance in news flow as a "natural characteristics of information gathering and dissemination." He quotes Abel's objection:

"At no time has the commission seen evidence adduced in support of the notion that market and commercial considerations necessarily exert a negative effect [upon societies]." (Meyer, 1985: 7).

However, while the terminology may be relatively new, the earliest Unesco documents emphasised training of indigenous personnel, free flow of information, and mutual appreciation of cultural values. (Unesco, 1947, 1960). While Meyer (and Masmoudi) might well argue that it was not until the 1970s that the current labels became attached to these activities, their origins in the optimism of the post-war period should not be overlooked.

Meyer also notes that Galtung's theory can be extended well beyond the issue of news flow imbalance, to include the study of tourism, corporate presences, and other social or commercial relations which currently exist between former colonising and colonised nations. As well, he is fully cognizant of the major difference between the structural theory and its competitors - the structuralist tenet that information should be considered a social good rather than a commodity.

It is of note that liberal notions of technology transfer and development information, ideas which follow in the tradition of Daniel Lerner, include the training of librarians and information specialists, and the establishment of regional document delivery centres, repatriation of archival and cultural collections, and other mechanisms of improving development information delivery to the Third World as well.

Working within the system, liberals would seek to improve Western knowledge of the less developed countries (development education), while improving the flow of information needed for development to the LDCs and of exchanging it "horizontally" among them. CIDA's development education schemes, and Unesco's library training activities can be understood in this sense.

Structuralist accept liberal proposals to some degree, Meyer asserts, but only as precursors to more fundamental changes. Meyer points to proposals for Third World training centres "condemned by [Herbert] Schiller as tools of economic neo-imperialism". (Meyer, 1985: 10) quoting (Schiller, 1976:11).

Meyer concludes that while the "framework" of Galtung's schema is essentially correct, in that it accurately reflects the pattern of information flow, he has been unable to relate the actions of Western media to "cultural hegemony", the persuasiveness of their advertising contents to consumer behaviour, nor the effect of their portrayal of violence upon Third World crime. (Meyer, 1985: 58, 90, 108).

It may be objected that Meyer is testing isolated components, rather than evaluating an entire system. For example, advertising expensive consumer products in nations with low per-capita income will not likely produce much of a cash result, although it may occasion expectations about the "good life" which Meyer, using financial data, is unable to measure.

Collins (1990), challenges the very notion of cultural sovereignty in a recent book about Canadian culture. While freely admitting the overwhelming imbalance in consumption of cultural products, he argues that national identity depends more upon legal and political institutions than upon culture or communications. Collins sees the structuralist model of centre-periphery relations as the "dominant paradigm" among Canadian dependency theorists.

Collins' major argument with regard to media dependency is to be found in his criticism of Dallas Smythe (Smythe, 1981), by recourse to the "active audience" theory of Eliu Katz (Katz and Liebes, 1985).

The refocussing of attention to audience interpretation rather than transmitter value loading, is reminiscent of conciliatory passages in the MacBride report, to the effect that the consumer nations are free to reject cheap foreign imports. According to Barbara Roach such efforts represent an ideologically motivated attempt by writers "such as Eliu Katz and John Fiske... to undermine both the notion of cultural imperialism and ideology." (Roach, 1990: 5).

Additional challenges to the NWICO and calls for a reformulation of the its basic goals have recently come from sources within the movement as well as from its traditional opponents among the liberal economic school. Salinas (1986), argues that it is time to recognize the congruence of NWICO and NIEO goals and concepts, and to shift the movement's focus from attention to media flow and toward the more crucial development issues of unequal access to scientific, technical, and financial information. Roach (1990), advocates a position which pays increasing attention to the democratic socialist agenda of the NWICO. Edwards (1990), suggests that the termination of the NWICO is essential to US interests, and that rejoining Unesco would be "premature", while Surprennant (1987), argues that US interests would best be served in a new climate of "mutual trust and good faith."

Surprennant reasserts that the issues of the NWICO, WARC and TBDF are inseparably linked, and suggests that concrete steps to ensure fairer access to radio frequencies and satellite parking orbits, and some indications of a US trend toward flexibility, the "information war" between developed and less developed nations has escalated during the years since the MacBride Report. The issues of trans-border data flow and media imbalance remain largely unaddressed, Surprennant claims, citing Unesco sources. Maintaining that resolution of these problems would be in the interests of both camps, he too suggests that the NWICO debate should be abandoned and further negotiations conducted under a new rubric and in a "spirit of mutual trust".

Roach (1990), argues that the NWICO debate has now been largely abandoned by Unesco, as part of Federico Mayor's attempt to appease the West, but points out that the agenda has been taken up by such groups as the Union for Democratic Communication, and the International Federation of Journalists. As well, she outlines persistent efforts by liberal theorists such as Eliu Katz, and conservative spokespeople such as Leonard Sussman, to undermine the movement. Meanwhile, she suggests, the problem of information disparity has grown worse, while the liberal idealism of Toffler, Bell, and the "information society" school remains unrealized.

Moreover, she maintains that the NWICO principle is insufficient to address the issues of cultural domination, and suggests a new formula which would abandon the concept of national sovereignty entirely. Arguing that the statist bias of the NWICO programme of "inter-national" development merely perpetuates Third World elites and neo-colonial relations, she proposes adoption of a democratic socialist notion of popular sovereignty. Integral to Roach's reformulation would be recognition of the interests of women and other minority groups, and of the effectiveness of mass political action.

Cautioning that the breakup of East bloc means increasing privatisation of the media, and creating wider markets for American cultural industries, she warns that the North-South focus of the NWICO debate, "always too narrow", is no longer even adequate. The new programme must address the problems of "have nots" regardless of geography. Roach argues that even among structuralist such as Kaarle Nordenstreng, a hidden bias against women and minority groups exists, indicative of an elitist attitude in general. Nordenstreng erred, Roach charges, when in organising a conference on the NWICO in 1990, he failed to invite any women. (Roach, 1990:4).

Roach's reminder that the "North-South" terminology is simply one of convenience is well taken. As early as 1979, Rein Turn had published an "Atlantic triangle" diagram to demonstrate that the flow of raw data arrives in the US from countries to the East as well as the South, while cultural products and processed information flow the other way. (Becker, 1985: 133). With the recent changes in Eastern Europe, the "bonanza for US media transnationals" forecast in that region, increased traffic over the eastward- leading branch of the triangle should occur.

While Masmoudi and other Arab spokespeople have paid tribute to the "liberation of women" in NWICO speeches for some time, there remain broad gulfs between Western and Islamic interpretations of that particular issue. The Islamic notion of freedom - freedom to practice what Westerners might see as restrictive religious practices - is typologically similar to the pre- Glasnost Soviet idea - freedom from reactionary influence. Losev's 1980 charge that NWICO literature is "too westernised" could be reiterated with some justification as terms like "greening of the NWICO" and "grass roots politics" creep into the documents of its proponents.

Viewed from the "development information" perspective, the inclusion of concerns for women and minorities expressed in the Roach article, and in the agenda of the Union for Democratic Communication in which it appears, seem to complicate the NWICO agenda by interjecting Western interests. From the "development information" angle, however, Roach's agenda seems worth considering. If the NWICO platform can be revitalized as a Western "consciousness-raising" tool, it may achieve its unrealized goal of affecting the "deontological code" of media producers and controllers.

As early as 1986, former ardent NWICO supporter Raquel Salinas suggested in a brief Information Development article that the agenda had produced no results. Lamenting that the NWICO concern over domination of news media obscured crucial role of business, trade, and international relations information, she suggested that the time had come to scrap the NWICO and "start all over". Contending that the NWICO and NIEO were identical, she suggested that the Third World nations band together to promote increased horizontal sharing of business information which would enable them to renegotiate mounting and unrepayable debts.

The sorts of information required by the debtor nations - namely, business information designed to "reduce uncertainty" and to "aid in decision- making" - are precisely the sorts of "restricted" information shared by creditor nations to their great advantage.

The information required for development is not, Salinas argues, the type of information conveyed by the news media. Thus, no amount of flow redirection in that sphere can address the crucial issues of development.

If Surprennant's dialogue of trust and cooperation were to occur within Unesco or the ITU, a reassessment of American policy would be required.

During the Gorbachev era, conservative perceptions of Unesco and the NWICO remained largely unchanged. A Gorbachev-era article by Lee Edwards, vice-chair of the US National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, repeated many of the traditional administration concerns over Unesco " it was financially mismanaged, riddled with KGB spies, and neglected practical concerns in favour of ideology. (Edwards, 1990).

In Edwards' view, a serious flaw lay in Unesco's continued emphasis on the collective right to communicate. As well, Unesco programmes such as support for "national liberation movements" ran contrary to American interests. While acknowledging that M'Bow and Mayor had "instituted a few reforms", Edwards cited the Heritage Foundation's Edwin J. Feulner's charge that Mayor still recognized "the legitimacy of calls for a new world information and communication order", itself a "cause for alarm." He pointed to Unesco statements advocating "the overhaul of the role and the messages of the mass media through the prism of the state rather than the individual journalist," as evidence of the agency's continued politicization, and challenged Unesco to institute "its own Glasnost and Perestroika". (Edwards, 1989: 117).

As readers will no doubt have noted, some of the NWICO and NIEO jargon has survived. In a 1991 New York Times Magazine article, language columnist William Safire commented on US President George Bush's repeated use of the phrase "New World Order". [15] Safire provided a brief recapitulation of the introduction of the terms "New International Economic Order" and "New World Information and Communications Order", mentioning their introduction in the United Nations, but omitting reference to the Non-Aligned Movement. He noted that Bush's notion of a new order bore similarity to the NIEO idea, and remarked that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's concurrent use of the phrase marked the first time both superpowers had adopted identical terms for major agendas. So far, Safire quipped, no one had picked up on the idea that Bush's "new order" was to be led by the "new world", that is, by America.

Conclusions

Despite the controversy, concrete steps have been achieved toward implementing selected NWICO goals through Unesco itself, other UN agencies such as the ITU, regional groups of Third World nations, and professional organisations such as IFLA, FID, and various groups of journalists computing and communications workers. As well, technological advances during the 1980s, especially in microelectronics and satellite communications, have removed some of the constraints operative at the beginning of the decade; chiefly because the price of computing has dropped dramatically, and perhaps also because of increased competition among communication satellite launch vendors.

New rules regarding communications satellites and radio frequencies were introduced in the WARC conferences. The Non-Aligned Press Agencies Pool (NAMEDIA) became operational. Unesco continued to publish practical guidebooks for librarians in the Third World, to make library and document processing software available to them for no charge, (Unesco, 1989), and to co- sponsor conferences and training programmes.

On the development education side, agencies such as the Canadian International Development Agency, the National Film Board of Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Public Broadcasting System in the United States, and the British Broadcasting Corporation, have produced many excellent programmes about the problems of the Third World intended for viewing in the West.

In development information provision, advances have occurred as well. Canada's Northern Network beams television into the Arctic, while radio networks in Cameroon's and the Caribbean, and India's satellite broadcast systems provide health, agricultural, and technical information in rural areas. Perhaps most importantly, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the "East-West" political orientation has evaporated.

It would seem to be an appropriate time to renew activity along the North-South axis.

The decade of the 1980s has been the occasion of widespread improvements in communications and computing technologies. These included innovations in information processing methods and infrastructures such as high speed packet switching networks, cheaper satellites, faster processors, cheaper disks, and fibre optics, and integrated digital and voice communications.

Consequently, it is even more feasible today to conduct business on a 'centre - periphery' basis. It may be argued that decentralized decision making is largely illusory.

Allowing branch managers to make more decisions locally poses less of a corporate risk because of the possibility of continual monitoring of resources, processes, and results by home office. Thus, ultimate control has not really been decentralised at all. In fact, quite the opposite may be said to have occurred.

Multinational corporations (MNCs), willingly set up branch plants in the Third World, where labour and materials are cheaper and government regulations less stringent. It is arguable that because of today's improved communications technologies, home office can retain much better control over the activities of MNCs world wide. The MNC thus becomes one of the principal sources of transborder data flow.

Marie-France Plassard pointed out in her annotated bibliography (Plassard, 1990), that Third World material is still hard to access from Western databases, citing S. Bandara's 1987 article in Information Development. Bandara "states that only a few of the scholarly journals considered important enough to be indexed are produced in developing countries, and that many of the scientists prefer to communicate through journals published in developed countries." (Plassard, 1990: 357-358). However, since the latter 1980s, database publishers such as Dialog have introduced new products such as the Arab Information Bank, (Dialog file 465), which may eventually help rectify this situation.

Some theorists such as Johan Galtung suggest that the corporate organisation of the American conglomerate has become the pattern of intergovernmental relations as well. Relations between America and the less developed countries, they argue, can be viewed in the light of the centre- periphery paradigm. America, viewed as a corporate centre, retains its proprietary knowledge and technology, while conducting low level resource procurement and manufacturing activities abroad, but channels the profits home.

It has been suggested that protectionist policies, which would seek to exert national sovereignty by imposing restrictions on the volume or price of transborder data flows, could become a means of retaining information sovereignty. The counter argument is simply that restrictions either on cash flow or data flow from any particular one of the less developed nations will be ineffective.

Another point made by critics is that commercial transborder data flow, like cultural communication, is predominantly one way. Home office gathers raw information from the periphery, to support decision making at home. Rarely does useful knowledge flow back to the periphery nations, and when it does, in likely concerns the introduction of proprietary processes or products. The sorts of information which would help Third World nations reach the stage of 'adequate development', are not those likely to be passed their way by the MNCs. (Salinas, 1988).

In addition to being material "have-nots", inhabitants of the periphery nations have become "know-nots" when it comes to possession of important decision-making knowledge, since raw data is increasingly processed into knowledge in the centre.

In summary, major reasons for the difficulties which have been experienced in implementing the NWICO scheme included muddled Unesco politics, the rejection of the agenda by successive American administrations, and in the inability of its supporters to arrive at consensus positions.

The NWICO debate tended to focus on press freedom, to the detriment of more urgently needed development information plans. It can be argued that Unesco may have been an inappropriate forum for the NWICO, since the Western administrations were already predisposed against various UN agencies. It may well be that the time has come for the NWICO proposals to be acted out by the professional organisations. With the advent of the so-called New World Order of the 1990s, the time is certainly ripe for the abandonment of rhetoric and the reasoned examination of the sorts of requirements identified by Salinas, Surprennant and the others.

On the beneficial side, however, the NWICO debate at least served to focus government attention upon information in a way hitherto unwitnessed. It produced general agreement on the structure of the contemporary world information situation, and engendered some willingness to restructure that system for the benefit of developing nations.

Incorporating suggestions from Salinas, Roach, and Surprennant, we can begin to outline the basics of a post-NWICO model.

Since there is little argument with the structuralist model of information flow itself, this part of the paradigm will likely remain intact. The new model should pay less attention to the news media, which constitute a minor percentage of all information flows across borders.

Proprietary information is unlikely to be disclosed by the multi- nationals, so attention to trans border data flows may prove another blind alley. However, developing nations could study the corporate information exchange structures which enable creditors to conduct their business so successfully, and should consider emulating them.

A post-NWICO agenda should pay more attention to other aspects of cultural exchange as well - to tourism, the activities of non-governmental organisations, and to ways to popularize development education schemes. Rather than shielding tourists from the harsher conditions of Third World life, governments should consider ways of acquainting visitors with them gently yet impressively.

Finally, a New World Order should emphasise development information in its broadest and most practical senses. Planners should concentrate upon identifying and implementing the information technology truly required at the present time.

If information is indeed a pre-requisite to economic growth, then for the underdeveloped nations, information technology is truly appropriate technology. In short, it is time to reclaim the NWICO for information science and to get on with the job of implementing it. Trans- national professional organisations can be of assistance in promoting appropriate information technology.

The political alliances formed after the Second World War resulted in a bi-polar world divided into east and west. Meanwhile, technological and economic developments superimposed a North and South polarisation which has resulted in uneven growth and may have perpetuated the gap between affluence and poverty.

The emerging political reality of the 1990s will force the adoption of a new synthesis. This synthesis must combine the "Lerner hypothesis" - that `modernisation' is inevitable, with the structuralist paradigm - that inequality is a basic feature of the system. Only when both sides deal with the logic of each argument rather than the ideologies, will the dialectic of information inequality find its resolution.

Notes:

[1] Ronald Reagan. quoted in Schlesinger, A. (1983). "Foreign policy and the American character". (Foreign Affairs LXII, Winter: 3, cited in MacFarlane, 1983b).

[2] 'Obozrevatel: Opasnaya kampania' [Commentator: dangerous campaign]. Pravda, 14 May, 1976:4, cited in: (MacFarlane, 1989a: 11).

[3] "U.N. agency's chief biased against West resigning jurist says." Toronto Star, Thu 2 Oct 86, p. A16.

[4] "Critics making U.N. a scapegoat M'Bow charges" Toronto Star, Wed 21 Oct 87, p. A19.

[5] "Controversial M'Bow seeks third term as UNESCO head" Toronto Star, Fri 25 Sep 87, p. A16.

[6] "Canada opposed to re-election of controversial UNESCO head". Toronto Star, Wed 7 Oct 87: A3.

[7] "Bid by M'Bow for re-election called dangerous to UNESCO" Toronto Star, Fri 16 Oct 87, p. A26.

[8] "Big majority gives Spaniard UNESCO post" Toronto Star, Sun 8 Nov 87, p. H3.

[9] Geddes, Diana. "Expansion sparks flap at U.N. agency". Toronto Star, Fri 25 May, 1990. p. A18.

[10] "Not ready to rejoin UNESCO, U.S. says". Toronto Star, Tue 17 Apr 90: A3.

[11] Toronto Star, Wednesday 10 May, 1989.

[12] "UNESCO spending down, chief says." Toronto Star, Tue 22 Mar 88 p. A12. "UNESCO Head Defends Pace of His Changes." Washington Post, 10 Oct 89, p.27. Wood, Nancy. "U.N. agency chief won't alter reforms." Toronto Star, Thu 05 Apr 90, p. A22.

[13] "West praises changes in U.N. media charter" Toronto Star, Sat 11 Nov 89, p. A13.

[14] "Americans reject rejoining UNESCO" Toronto Star, Wed 18 Apr 90, p. A5. "Not ready to rejoin UNESCO, U.S. says" Toronto Star, Tue 17 Apr 90, p. A3.

[15] Safire, William. "The New New World Order", New York Times Magazine, Sunday 17 Feb 1991, p. 3-5.

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