 So today we'll be discussing the New World Information and Communication Order. This was a very important concept which was discussed on a number of international platforms, including the UNESCO, the Non-Aligned Movement, and on the World Press Freedom Committee. So it was a very important debate during the 70s and 80s of the last century, but there are certain important things in that debate that is probably relevant even today. So let's discuss on the important aspects of the New World Information and Communication Order. So in today's discussion, I'll be talking about the various elements of the debate that took place in the UNESCO and on the NAMM platforms. I'll also talk about the McBride Commission Report, its recommendations, and the various things that followed after that. The McBride Commission Report and its aftermath was followed by the Tallarys Declaration as it is known by the World Press Freedom Committee, so we'll discuss about that as well. Then the United States withdrew from the UNESCO in 1984, followed by Great Britain and Singapore, so we'll talk about that. And there will be a short discussion on the World Summit on Information Society as well. So there are two very important elements of the debate on the New World Information and Communication Order. While the first world, and we'll see the US perspective, talks about a free flow of information, the non-aligned countries and the developing countries, they talk about a balanced flow of information. And a lot of this debate in UNESCO was sought to be synthesized by using a free flow and a wider and more balanced dissemination of information. So in today's discussion, we'll see the subtle differences between the free flow and the balanced flow and how it played out in the international relations and in the international communication perspective. So one of the guiding principles of the New World Information and Communication Order is that the states are sovereign and autonomous to fully develop their information and communication systems. And if their information and communication systems are fully developed, then they can effectively participate as independent members of the international community. Otherwise, they would be dependent on the first world systems or the first world domination will be perpetuated. So this is the guiding principle of the New World Information and Communication Order. This new international information and communication order was first suggested at the fourth summit meeting of the non-aligned movement held in Algiers in 1973. We'll talk about the other meetings as we go along, but this was the first time that the term New International Information and Communication Order was first used. It later came to be known as the New World Information and Communication Order. Way back in 1952, the United Nations General Assembly, it had resolved that it was essential for indigenous media systems in underdeveloped countries to have adequate infrastructure and facilities so that they could disseminate useful information which would aid the progress of national culture and also foster better international understanding. So these indigenous media systems are very important in these underdeveloped countries, which would help in the progress of the national culture and also foster better international understanding among all countries. Before the debate on the World Information and Communication Order, there was this UNESCO report in 1974, which was basically about trade in media products, and this was by Norton String and Varis, and this report pointed out that there was inequality of trade among the developed and developing countries as far as media products are concerned, and there was a distinct one-way flow of media products from the advanced countries to the developing and the less developed countries. So there are a lot of statistics about that. We are not going to get into those statistics, but this was recorded in this UNESCO report in 1974. Around the same time or much before that, after the First World War, the United States had started advocating the free-flow principle. As along with the other Western European nations, its media system was extremely well developed, but it was excluded from the international news market, especially by Great Britain and France in their colonies, and this was what the United States was against, and that is why it started advocating the free-flow principle right from the Second World War, and it also started advocating against censorship and these kind of things, but we'll see that this was slightly of a different kind because it was about United States media organizations getting entry into the British and French colonies basically. So the free-flow concept that the United States started talking about was very different from the balanced flow concept that the non-aligned movement countries started talking about in the 70s. UNESCO in the 1950s and 60s was also concerned about developing the media infrastructure in the developing countries and basically the UNESCO work during that time was about technologies transferred, both hardware and software, so it would work on transferring hardware technology to the less developed countries and also radio programs and such things to those countries. And the UNESCO even set a goal at that point of time and the goal was that every country had at least 10 copies of a daily newspaper, 5 radio receivers, 2 television sets and 2 cinema seats per 1,000 people and it was seen that even in the late 70s there were almost 100 countries who did not reach this kind of a goal. So the development of media and communication infrastructure was there on the UNESCO agenda even in the 1950s and 60s. And in 1974 the UNESCO started working on an overall guideline for the role of mass media in the international system and we'll talk about the mass media declaration in 1978 in our future slides and a very important thing that came up during the UNESCO discussions during that time was the concept of right to communicate, that everybody has a right to communicate. I have a right to communicate my views to other people. So this was a very, very profound kind of a concept that the UNESCO adopted. And a lot of what McBride Commission did and a lot of what this New World Information and Communication Order spoke of was about this right to communicate as well. So the United Nations on 1st May 1974 in New York had as spoken about the declaration of the establishment of a new international economic order. And we'll see that how this talked about a new international economic order very quickly percolated through a new international information order as well. And as we know this international economic order was about getting equality and sovereign quality and interdependence among the states who could cooperate among each other irrespective of their economic and social systems. So this for the first time the United Nations spoke of inequality amongst countries at the international level. In 1976 and that was a turning point in this debate on New World Information and Communication Order at this non-aligned symposium on information in Tunis in 1976 the symposium spoke of the decolonization of information. So the symposium suggested that the information in the world showed a disequilibrium favoring some and ignoring others. So this system was favoring certain countries and it was the duty of the non-aligned countries and other developing countries to change this situation so that they could get a decolonization of information and initiate a new international order in information. So there are four D's of this particular concept of New World Information and Communication Order and the first is that of democratization. So new flows are one way flows and that is why it is undemocratic and that is why the New World Information and Communication Order should be democratized so that the balance of news flows between the countries is restored or is established. So one important principle of this New World Information and Communication Order is democratization. The second important principle is that of decolonization. So this one way flow from the first world countries to the non-aligned countries reflected a lack of respect for the country's cultural identity. So it was just one way communication from the richer countries to the poorer countries and this reflected a lack of respect for the country's cultural identities and if true decolonization was to be gained then this New World Information Order was extremely important. At the same time this reflected the monopoly status of the transnational news corporations and news agencies. So this was seen as a threat to national independence of these poorer countries and it was also seen as a threat to the sovereignty of these countries. So this New World Information and Communication Order was supposed to restore this de-monopolized structure. So this monopoly was sought to be demolished through this New World Information and Communication Order. And the fourth D is that of development. So since the mass media is seen to be a very important element in the national development process that is why for a better development a more just distribution of communication resources is required. So the New World Information and Communication Order would lead to greater development of these countries. So this Tunis Declaration was followed by this Delhi Declaration. So this recommendations of the Tunis Symposium were presented to the De-colonization of Information Conference Nations at New Delhi in July 1976 and a number of points were incorporated in that declaration. So I'm just going to discuss about one or two important points of that New Delhi Declaration. So the first was that the present global information flows are marked by a serious inadequacy and imbalance. So the information flows that were present at that point of time, they were inadequate and imbalanced and the means of communication of information are concentrated in a few countries. So only a few countries have the means of communication and the rest of the world just follows them. So that was leading to a lot of imbalance in communication and it was leading to under development of these countries in the larger perspective. So that had to be set right. And also this situation perpetuated the colonial era of dependence and domination. So it was almost just 25-30 years when these countries had gained independence from the colonial power. So this question of colonial dependence and domination was still very fresh and that is why this call for breaking free from this colonial dependence and domination on the western news agencies and transnational news corporations. It even led to judgments and decisions on what should be done very much dependent on the news sources of information that was available and that is why that had to be taken care of. This was followed by this publication of this book popularly known as the McBride Commission Report. It was named Many Voices One World The subtext was towards a new more just and more efficient world information and communication order. So there were a lot of recommendations by the McBride Commission. In fact, 82 recommendations I'm not going to talk about all the recommendations but this was one work which is very important and a very substantial work in the progress towards new world information and communication order. So the McBride Commission was constituted with these 16 members from all over the world. We had BG Varghese from India. We had Sean McBride from Ireland. We had the well-known Gabriel Garcia Marquez from Colombia and people representing 16 different countries and we'll talk about the recommendations of the McBride Commission in the next few slides. So the work for McBride Commission was stated as this. So it was supposed to analyze communication problems in their different aspects within the perspective of the establishment of a new international economic order and of the measures to be taken to foster the institution of a new world information order. So as we have seen, the new economic order was already in place and this was seen to be constituting or seen to be a very important measure for the establishment of that new international economic order. So in other words, a new world information order was necessary for the establishment of a new international economic order and this is what the UNESCO work plan suggested in writing. So this is the main argument of the Many Voices One World Report that we just saw that was on the page 141 of the report. It said that the concept of free flow between the strong and the weak has had undesirable consequences for the latter and hence at the international level for the developing countries. So in effect, this report spoke against the free flow argument and spoke of that balanced flow. So as we have seen earlier that one view was that let there be free flow let there be no government intervention and this is what is the crux of the argument on both sides of the new world information communication order debate. At one end are people who suggest that there should be free flow there should be no licensing there should be no government intervention and at the other end are the people who say that this free flow concept is not just because it favors the strong at the expense of the weak and hence this has to be set right. So these are the recommendations so if I have to talk in about the recommendations so this was that the development of the third world countries so that they become truly independent and self-reliant and develop their cultural identities. So how could this multilateral United Nations platform help in the development of the third world countries? So that was one of the major recommendations. Better international news gathering and better conditions for journalists so how could international journalists gather news across national boundaries and better working conditions for journalists especially in the developing and non-aligned countries. It also spoke of democratization of communication access to the sources of communication and participation in communication in other words it spoke strongly about the right to communicate and also on the furtherance of international cooperation how could international cooperation lead to set right the imbalance of information flow which was as we see leading to a lot of loss of cultural identity and many other things and perpetuating the old colonial structures. And it spoke at length about better training for all communicators not only journalists but also non-journalists like managers and technicians. And one important point was that the third world communicators should receive their initial training at regional centers with curricular designed by instructors from the region so the media curriculum was to be designed and implemented by academics or by trainers from that particular region and not influenced by the external agencies. Also it also the McBride commission report recommendation also spoke of the participation in media management by the representatives of the public and citizens group. So it was in one way suggesting that the monopolization by these giant corporations was something that had to be taken care of. It spoke of horizontal communication and also counter information that means if there is in the present days of fake news and all this is so very relevant. So providing counter information from the institutional side. It also spoke of alternative communication especially community media and all that so that was also there in the McBride commission report. This was debated at the Belgrade UNESCO conference of 1980. So even the Belgrade UNESCO conference and probably that was the last time that the New World Information and Communication order was discussed on a UNESCO platform so it spoke of the elimination of information imbalances and of the negative effects of media concentration. The Belgrade UNESCO conference also spoke of the removal of obstacles to a free and better balance dissemination of information and ideas. So all the obstacles towards this free and better balance dissemination as we can see that they are trying to balance between these two concepts of free flow of communication and also a balanced flow of communication. And they spoke of the need for developing countries to improve their equipment, personnel and infrastructures with the support of developed countries. So the UNESCO conference was trying to take this middle path between the NAMM recommendations and between the requirement of certain first world countries which did not want any government intervention in media structures or in media institutions. This was the first time that this was recorded on the UNESCO record so this is known as Resolution 419 there are a lot of quite a few aspects to that talking about one of them and this is from the UNESCO records of the general conference 1980 volume 1 and it says that the cooperation in the field of information is an integral part of the struggle for the creation of new international relations in general and new international information order in particular. So this cooperation in the field of information is what this resolution talks about. So international cooperation is required for a new international information order. So this was the first time that this term was recorded on UNESCO records. So one of the things that followed the McBride commission report was the establishment of this international program for communication development IPCD and it was mandated to perform these four important work of providing development assistance to the developing countries of coordinating among these countries relevant information in the establishment of media and communication infrastructure and on providing funding opportunities for these relevant areas. Another thing that took place in the meanwhile was this mass media declaration also known as the declaration on 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. And as we can see and there are quite a few elements of this mass media declaration as it is popularly known that apart from apartheid all these problems of peace and international understanding and human rights and countering racialism they are very relevant even today. A lot of the inputs of this mass media declaration is in fact relevant even to this day. Along with that in the meanwhile there was this Lima NAMM conference in 1975 which was attended by 81 foreign ministers of the non-aligned movement countries and they adopted a special resolution on cooperation in the field of diffusion of information and mass communications media and one important outcome of this Lima NAMM conference was the establishment of the non-aligned news agencies pool. So this NANAP which is what its acronym is it started as a result of this Lima NAMM conference. And one of the things that this non-aligned news agencies pool was supposed to do was to set up cooperation among the non-aligned countries with a view to promoting a free and balanced flow of information. So it was not supposed to be one single organization but it was supposed to ensure cooperation and flow of information among the non-aligned countries. So this was one, so this was a pool of news agencies among the non-aligned countries to ensure flow of information between these countries. And it was also supposed to be a system for professional cooperation and coordination basically for the purposes of training and such purposes. So the pool encourages its members to give professional and technical assistance as I just said and also providing training facilities for the journalists and technicians of these news agencies. So in the next few slides we are going to talk about what is popularly known as the Taleries Convention under the ages of the World Press Freedom Committee and what were the main contours of opposition to the New World Information and Communication Order which and what were the fallouts of that. So from May 15 to May 17 there was this meeting convened by the World Press Freedom Committee as we suggested and as we can see from the date that it followed the McBride Commission report and they were concerned with considering improving the free flow of information worldwide and the importance of advertising as consumer service as opposed to the government intervention that the New World Information and Communication Order was talking about this particular idea was about talking about the importance of advertising as consumer service and how does it help the press sustain so how does it help a self-sustaining press and the elimination of censorship and every form of arbitrary control of information and opinion. So any control of information and opinion is to be resisted and this is what the debate rallied round to so all the ideas of balanced flow of information were seen by these people as some kind of attempt to control information and opinion. So this is what the convention suggested that there can be no international code of ethics because the plurality of view makes this impossible because every nation has its own requirements or every society has its own policies and a single international code is simply not possible. They also spoke against the licensing of journalists. They were extremely not willing to have any license or any kind of barrier being put up for people becoming journalists. So licensing of journalists by national or international bodies should not be sanctioned was what they suggested and there should not be any special requirements demanded of journalists. So as we can see that they were talking about what is popularly known as the libertarian principle. So the code of ethics are desirable if they are enforced by media professionals themselves. So if they are imposed by governments it is not acceptable. If there are code of ethics it should be done by the media professionals themselves and by their employers for example but not by governments. So as is widely known the debates over licensing of journalists and assigning them responsibilities and monitoring their output was what gave UNESCO a bad name in the eyes of the American press and this led to the American establishment deciding to withdraw from the UNESCO in 1984 and there were other stated reasons also we will talk about in the next few slides but this is very important so this is what was suggested that any attempt to regulate the press even international communication was simply not acceptable and this is what the argument came down to. So USA also mentioned this UNESCO's work with NICO and with the New World Information and Communication Order and also spoke of the budgetary accesses etc etc but this United States withdrawal from UNESCO was something that dealt a death blow if we can call to this concept of NICO because following that we will see that it was shared and after 1989 it wasn't considered on the UNESCO platform and as we can see that these were two different lines of thought one where free flow of information meant that no government control no intervention and at the other level was a suggestion that okay since there are these existing inequalities so let there be some kind of a support for the poorer countries but this led to the withdrawal of the United States from the UNESCO and finally it also led to the withdrawal of Great Britain and Singapore as well and in the Paris UNESCO conference in 1989 the concept of NICO was stricken off from the agenda once for all and even the interest in the concept of the right to communicate waned after this 1989 convention but around the same time and at least for the next 10 years the McBride round table were held in different countries starting from Harare Zimbabwe in October 1989 so it was there in a lot of these academic exercises but it was not a part of the United Nations program early in this particular century in this new millennium we had this World Summit on Information Society organized by the International Telecommunications Union along with UNESCO and there have been two conventions one in Geneva in 2003 and another in Tunis in 2005 and the stated purpose of this convention has been to develop and foster a clear statement of political will and a concrete plan of action for achieving the goals of the information society so the stated goals of information society of using the internet technology and information and communication technology for national development so how could all these goals be achieved through international cooperation was what the World Summit on Information Society so some people see that as a new as a development from the new world information communication order to the present technological realities so we end here thank you very much