Role of UN in Communication

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United Nations, Role of

Joseph A. MehanColumbia University, USA

I. The 19461956 Period

II. The 19571974 Period

III. The 19751985 Period

IV. The 19862000 Period

V. Conclusion

GLOSSARY

communications The hardware systems that carry information, such

as AT&T, AOL, and Intelsat.

information The material carried on communications systems and

media, such as news and documentaries; technical, financial, and

scientific data; and facts obtained by retrieval from information

bases.

media The outlets used to reach mass audiences, such as

newspapers, radio, television, the Internet, and cable.

The United Nations was involved in internationalcommunications almost from its very beginning.

The issue of communications and mass media had notbeen foreseen as a major UN responsibility at thefounding conference of the United Nations, held inSan Francisco in 1945. Global events, however, forceda different reality on the United Nations.

I. THE 19461956 PERIOD

The United States press was the initiator of the UnitedNations early involvement with communications/media. Leaders of this effort were the American Societyof Newspaper Editors and key journalists such as Kent

Cooper, general manager of the Associated Press; HughBaillie, head of the United Press; Roy Howard, chair-man of ScrippsHoward Newspapers; and Erwin D.Canham, editor of the Christian Science Monitor. Thetrade publication Editor & Publisher gave its strongsupport as well.

The Americans sought to introduce a resolution atthe first UN General Assembly held early in 1946 in

London calling for an international conference on free-dom of information. However, a prior agreementreached in San Francisco in 1945 stipulated that thefirst General Assembly session would concentrate onlyon organizing the UN operating structure, not onmatters of substance. The Americans had to wait for

the second General Assembly session, held later in 1946in New York, before they could introduce the reso-lution. It was approved in December 1946, and themeeting was set for the spring of 1948 in Geneva. TheAmerican journalists urgently wanted the conference tobe held because they believed that the free Westernpress had played such an important role in defeatingdemocracys enemies during World War II that thisforce should be harnessed to help guarantee a peacefulpostwar world, especially a force copying the Americanmedia model.

The conference took place from March 23 to April21, 1948, with 238 delegates from the United Nations

51 member nations participating. Observers were alsoon hand from three countries that had not yet officiallyjoined the United Nations, and eight international as-sociations sent representatives.

The four-week meeting afforded many opportun-ities, among them a forum for nations to present theiropinions on what part communications and mediashould play during the postwar era. Nations could alsoaddress how media should function in harmony withthe newly emerging principles and goals of the UnitedNations.

The American journalists original purpose in propos-ing the meetingto use communications and media in

pursuit of permanent peace, especially the U.S. modelmet with painfully opposite results. The Americansreceived an unexpected shock: delegates, even fromfriendly nations, showered criticisms on the Americanmedia. They charged that the American systemprivately owned, for-profit, independent of govern-mentwas mostly serving its own interests, not thepublics. They added that it did little to promote peace.

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Critics, who came largely from nations that had gov-ernment-supported or -operated media systems, saidthe American way was a form of cultural imperial-ism.By this, they meant that the historic U.S. policysupporting the free flow of information and universalaccess to news sources was actually a form of economic

exploitation. The critics charged that such free flowalso permitted penetration by American business enter-prises, which would then create new sales markets orindustrial bases of little benefit to the home country.They contended that American goods (e.g., blue jeans,cola soft drinks, movies, popular music), introducedvia American media, were ultimately transformingtheir cultures into copies of America. On a professionallevel, American journalists heard themselves describedas ill prepared to cover stories in foreign countries,deficient in otherslanguages and cultural knowledge,and reporting only events of the most superficial andsensational nature.

In communications/media debates within the UnitedNations for decades to come, American representativeswere to hear these charges repeated. The criticismsinfluenced the attitude that the United States broughtto these debates, usually a defensive one.

Despite this unpleasant surprise, American partici-pants recovered and managed to join in the approval ofan unexpectedly large number of resolutions. In all, theconference approved 48 resolutions relating to freedomof information. The United States voted yes on 45resolutions, abstained on 2, and cast a negative voteon only 1.

The resolutions approved included an international

right of correction, a citizens right to receive andimpart information, the gathering and imparting ofnews, and general principles for professional conducton the part of journalists and publications. A resolutionon the most sensitive of topics, freedom of informationitself, passed with 31 votes in favor, 6 opposed, and 2abstaining. The Soviet Union and its bloc cast the nega-tive votes; the abstainers were the United States andAustralia. The United States explanation for its absten-tion was that the resolution contained too many loop-holes, allowing exceptions to the continuous practice offreedom of the press. Among exceptions cited werenational emergencies, wartime conditions, and national

security. An American representative commented, Thetail of limitations was wagging the dog of freedom.

The overall outcome of the conference, however,motivated Gunnar Garbo, a Norwegian communica-tions expert, to conclude the following in a report(Working Paper 15 for the UN Educational, Scientific,and Cultural Organization [UNESCO]): The inter-national community has never been closer to reaching

agreement on the fundamental conditions for the trans-mission of words and pictures within and betweennations, than at the U.N. Conference on Freedom ofInformation.

Momentum gained from the conference in placinginternational communications at the forefront of UN

issues, however, was quickly lost by unrelated worldevents. The General Assembly, overwhelmed by themagnitude of the worlds immediate and massive post-war problems, was unable to take up the conferencesresults at that time. Action was postponed in 1948 until1949 and then again the following year. The Economicand Social Council, which had jurisdiction over theconferences work, sent resolutions to subcommitteesfor review.

A major unforeseen complicationthen exploded: waron the Korean peninsula. In June 1950, North KoreasCommunist regime invaded South Korea, which wasstrongly backed by the West. The invasion challenged

the United Nations charter, which dedicated the organ-ization to maintaining the peace. With memories of thefailure of the United Nationspredecessor, the Leagueof Nations, to act under similar circumstances duringthe 1930s, the United Nations took the lead in forminga military coalition, with major U.S. involvement, todefend against the North Korean invasion.

By 1952, four years after the Geneva Conferenceended, the results of the conference had been realizedin only one piece of international law directly affectingthe media: the Convention on the International Rightof Correction. The convention was approved by theGeneral Assembly on December 16, 1952. Although it

was a source of satisfaction to those who supported it,the convention actually proved to be little used in fast-moving daily media operations.

Garbo, who had commented earlier on the confer-ences unexpected success, was moved to comment nowthatthe world forgot the UN conference of 1948 andthe results it had achieved.

Although the 1948 Geneva Conference did not ac-complish the goals hoped for by its American instiga-tors, and although it did not profoundly affect theoverall course of international communications andmedia, it did have several important aspects that werepart of the UN scene over the next half-century.

The conference showed the recognition by the inter-national community and the United Nations itself ofcommunications/media as a major force in post-WorldWar II affairs. It demonstrated the new organizationsability to organize and conduct a complex and import-ant world meeting. And it foreshadowed problems anddebates on this subject that would occur within theUnited Nations for decades to come.

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Heads of governments quickly recognized that noother entity except the United Nations existed with aglobal membership, staff, and facilities on the scalenecessary to handle the challenge of international com-munications.Nationalentitieswereacknowledgedtobeappropriate for handling communications and media

operations within their own borders. But beyond that,there was no structure or authority in place that coulddeal with cross-border activities. The United Nations,therefore, obtained the fast-developing internationalcommunications and media issue almost by default.

The period from 1946 to 1956 witnessed the UNsystem adapting to this reality. Fortunately for thenew organization, the contemporary media scene wasrelatively quiet, essentially a continuation of the situ-ation before World War II. Newspapers, magazines,books, and radio were still the prime outlets for reach-ing the public with information and entertainment.However, there was one new medium forcing its way

into the existing outlets that would prove to be ofunimagined importance: television.

Aside from the forthcoming intrusion of television,the United Nations began to function actively in therealm of the established media. One of its agencies,UNESCO, had been assigned by its charter to handleinternational communications/media issues for the UNfamily. The charter directed UNESCO to collaboratein the work of advancing the mutual knowledge andidentity of peoples through all the means of mass com-munications and to that end recommend such inter-national agreements as may be necessary to promotethe freeflow of ideas by word and image.

UNESCOs early programs, therefore, concentratedon research into the previous use and effectiveness ofmass media and on possible future ways in which toemploy media to produce improved benefits for society.Studies also explored national policies on communica-tions that could best help countries emerging intoindependence. UNESCO became a think tank oninternational communications for UN member nations.

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU),which had begun life as the International TelegraphUnion in 1865 but by now was a unit in the UN system,took over another function within the establishedmedia. The ITU assumed responsibility for assigning

radio frequencies to stations crossing national bound-aries, for developing workable standards and proced-ures that would permit transnational compatibility,and for negotiating agreements in areas of competitiveservice to avoid destructive clashes.

With one exception, membership and representationin the ITU was limited to national entities, generally thePostal, Telegraph, and Telephone Ministries (PTTs) of

countries. That exception was the United States. Be-cause of its unique private enterprise, profit-makingsystem, the United States was represented at ITU con-ferences by delegations prominently including high-level executives of major U.S. corporations, such asAT&T. U.S. government officials were the titular

leaders of the delegation, but the strength lay with thecorporate delegation members.The period from 1946 to 1956thefirst decade of

the United Nations existencewas a time that theorganization spent, in the global communications area,establishing a workable status quo, pouring resourcesinto reconstruction, preserving the overall status quo,and introducing innovation only when the pressurebecame too strong to hold it back (e.g., television).The history of the United Nationsrole in internationalcommunications and media was being forged method-ically and systematically during the formative years ofthe early postwar communications revolution.

II. THE 19571974 PERIOD

On October 4, 1957, the world changed. The SovietUnion launched a tiny satellite called Sputnik into orbitaround the earth in outer space. The earth had shat-tered its gravitational bonds and was now functioningin a different realm. The transformation was as suddenand definitive as when thefirst atomic bomb explodedon July 16, 1945.

The successful orbiting of the tiny earth satellite hadsubsequent consequences for every aspect of life on

earth. One of them inevitably was the way in whichpeople and nations communicated with each other. TheUnited Nations reacted in 1958 with the establishmentof a temporary Committee on the Peaceful Uses ofOuter Space (COPUOS) and then made the committeea permanent entity in 1959.

The United States and the Soviet Union, the onlymember states with the capability of launching satel-lites into space at that time, became leading members ofCOPUOS. For the next 40 years, the committee was thekey forum in determining how the international com-munity would use the vast new potential of outer space.Each guideline, regulation, and standard that COPUOS

set made history. COPUOS was in the purest sense apioneer; it was operating where nothing else had everbeen. COPUOS was pushing humanitys frontiersbeyond terrestrial boundaries for the first time sincehumans inhabited the earth.

The framework required to produce an orderlysystem in space began to emerge in a steady successionof UN legal instruments. Many of the measures had

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originated within COPUOS. Some of the milestoneagreements passed were the following:

. Resolution establishing a UN registry for launch-ings into space (1961)

. Resolution endorsing the basic principles by whichthe United Nations sponsors space launchings

(1962). Declaration of Guiding Principles on the Use of

Satellite Broadcasting for the Free Flow of Infor-mation (1962)

. Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities ofStates in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space(1966)

. Resolution on Agreement on Rescue and Return ofAstronauts and Space Objects (1967)

. Convention on International Liability for DamageCaused by Space Objects (1971)

. Resolution on International Relations in theSphere of Information and Mass Communications(1978)

. Principles Governing the Use by States of ArtificialEarth Satellites for International Direct TelevisionBroadcasting (1982)

. Resolution Relating to Remote Sensing of theEarth from Space (1986)

. Principles Relevant to the Use of Nuclear PowerSources in Outer Space (1992)

The remainder of the period from 1957 to 1974 sawthe United Nations erect a structure in which inter-national development of space communications couldtake place in a coherent organized manner.

III. THE 19751985 PERIOD

The whole international communications scenechanged completely by the 1970s. New technologieswere responsible for communications systems thatby now regularly used outer space as a means of carry-ing content to any destination on the globe at incred-ible speeds. Broadcast satellitesdescendants of theoriginal tiny Sputnik satelliteorbited the earth trans-mitting entertainment, information, business, and fi-nancial data from signals sent to them by ground

stations and then relayed to receiving stations thou-sands of miles away An e-mail sent from one computerto another computer takes 1/4 second to reach thesatellite and 1/4 second to bounce to its destination.Television, meanwhile, moved from a small elite audi-ence in the United States during the late 1940s to avirtual universal medium during the 1970s, with somenations able to participate better than others.

Content of broadcasts and transmissions was notmerely routine traffic but rather invaluable data forbusiness competition, strategic planning, and scientificadvancements. Communications infrastructures andmedia outlets became major players on the world scene.

In this new aggressive and competitive environment,

conflicts broke out within the UN arena. A major onetook place in UNESCO, starting in the early 1970s. Theconflict arose after scores of poor underdevelopednations completed a decade or more of experience asindependent countries, following UN-sponsored decol-onization during the 1950s and 1960s. Among theresources they discovered they needed were updatedcommunications infrastructures and modern media fa-cilities. The countries realized that the communica-tions/media structures left behind by the departingcolonial powers were either obsolete, inadequate, ornonexistent.

The new nations, now identified as a group called the

Third Worldcountrieswith the United States andthe industrial West being the First World and theSoviet Union and its bloc being the Second Worldmade an appeal to rich countries for help on twogrounds. One that they cited was internal: they saidthey needed adequate communications and media toknit together the various language and ethnic groupsinside their borders into a cohesive national identity.A second they cited was external: they said they neededadequate communications facilities to be able to par-ticipate in the world economy, which was now beingconducted through sophisticated new technologiesthat they did not possess. This dilemmathe so-called

gap between the haves and the have notsremained at the root of many UN debates from the1970s onward. (Although billions of people every-where were affected by this ongoing story, it neverreceived adequate media coverage and presentation tothe publics awareness.)

The initiative by the Third World nations in commu-nications touched off four major controversies, all ori-ginally within UNESCO in Paris but eventually spillingover into UN headquarters in New York. The firstconflict arose from the appeal itself for communica-tions help from the poor developing nations. Theiraction was described by observers as a summons to

erect a New World Information and CommunicationOrder (NWICO), an effort that began during the early1970s. The second event of importance was the ap-pointment in 1977 by UNESCO Director-GeneralAmadou Mahtar MBow of an International Commis-sion for the Study of Communications Problems.(MBow was from Senegal and was the first blackAfrican to head a UN agency.) The commissions



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mandate was to make thefirst survey ever of the statusof the entire worlds communications and media and toreport its findings back to UNESCO by 1980. Thethird conflict during the decade also arose from ThirdWorld origins. The developing nations for many yearshad wanted some kind of official declaration that

would publicly recognize the role the media play inworld affairs and would put on record specific goalsfor the medias functioning. They initiated a campaignfor a Declaration on Mass Media. The fourth signifi-cant event was one that started in a noncontroversialway but soon became entangled in conflicting ideo-logical interpretations. This was the establishmentduring 19781980 by UNESCO member states of anentity called the International Program for the Devel-opment of Communications (IPDC).

A closer examination of each of these controversiesreveals the major strains and accomplishments runningthrough the UN system in international communica-

tions during the period from 1975 to 1985.

A. The New World Information and CommunicationOrder Debate

All subsequent conflicts within UNESCO and the UNsystem over communications/media stem from the alle-gations made and emotions aroused by the NWICOdebate. Just as the 1948 Geneva Conference put nationsin a position where they were obliged by circumstancesto reveal their positions on communications role inpostwar society, so too the 1970s NWICO debate ne-cessitated that nations take stands on the issue of meet-

ing the poor nationsbasic communications needs. Theresult of the introduction of this controversial issue wasto divide the world community into two basic camps:supporters and opponents of the NWICO.

A paper submitted to UNESCO in July 1978 byMustapha Masmoudi, information minister of Tunisia,was a milestone in summing up the Third Worlds argu-ment against the existing communications/media orderand an explanation of why a NWICO was needed.Masmoudis 24-page paper charged that a profoundimbalanceexisted between thecommunications/mediacapabilities of the industrial nations and those of thenewly independent nations; that it was a one-way flow

of information, with entertainment, information, andtechnical data moving only from the rich countries tothe poor; and that the handful of industrial Westerncountries had complete communications/mediadomination over two-thirds of the worlds popula-tion. Masmoudi concluded that a relationship ofequalityhad to replace what he described as the cur-rent inequality, that a paramount rolehad emerged

for international communications in the industrialnations and needed to be established in the poornations, and that aid of all kinds was necessarynewinfrastructure, modern equipment, and creation oftraining facilities, such as for maintenance workersand schools of journalism, which did not exist at that

time.In addition to his criticisms, Masmoudi made sugges-tions as to how to achieve the general goals that theThird World desired to have fulfilled. Among thesewere many ideas the West had already opposed: aninternational code of ethics to guide journalists, agree-ment by governments to protect journalists in thecourse of their work, and (perhaps the most controver-sial of all) a proposed tax on the importation of culturalgoods. These goods overwhelminglyflowed to the richnations from the poor ones, so that Masmoudis call tobuild a fund to support Third World cultural and com-munications development through the tax would

largely fall on the West.Led by the United States, the West gave a negative

response to the NWICO appeal. Another factor in theNWICO controversy was the cold war antagonismbetween the United States and the Soviet Union takingplace in the background. The Soviet Union had adopted(verbally at least) the cause of the NWICO, whichindicated an almost automatic contrary response bythe West.

Leaders of Americas communications and mediaestablishment perceived the NWICO drive as actuallya Soviet-inspired plot to undermine the free and demo-cratic Western press system and to substitute state con-

trol for it. These leaders envisioned the imposition bythe NWICO of many practices odious in the West butacceptable in the Soviet Union and in the Third Worldcountries that were run by dictators. These practicesincluded censorship, elimination of freedom of thepress, and dedication of the media to serve the staterather than the public.

The American medias coverage of the NWICOdebate, consistent with this viewpoint of the nature ofthe NWICO itself, was highly effective in creating anegative image among U.S. journalists, governmentofficials, and the segment of the population that wasexposed to its periodic coverage.

Both supporters and opponents of the NWICOremained locked in their respective positions as the1970s unfolded. The American press establishmentcreated the World Press Freedom Committee in 1976,specifically to lead the battle against the NWICO. Thecommittee maintained a permanent observer at debatesat UNESCO headquarters in Paris and sponsoredtwo large international gatherings/meetings during the



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early 1980s to rally opposition to the NWICO andUNESCO. It continued to produce a steady stream ofanti-NWICO press releases and statements. Invectivereplaced any chance for reasonable discourse.

The conflict continued from the 1970s into the1980s.

B. The MacBride Commissions Report

Director-General MBow, fearing at the 1976UNESCO General Conference that the organizationwas in danger of tearing itself apart over the NWICOissue, took a step he thought would ease the pressurecreating a committee to study the problem. The 16-member commission of communications and mediaexperts was carefully chosen to give representation toall geographic and political interests. MBow namedSean MacBride, a former foreign minister of Irelandwho had won both Nobel and Lenin peace prizes, to

be its chairman. The group quickly became knownas the MacBride Commission. Appointed in late 1977,the commission was given a mandate to reviewall theproblems of communications in contemporary societyseen against the background of technological problemsand recent developments in international relations.

After public hearings held in Sweden, Yugoslavia,India, and Mexico; 100 working papers especiallycommissioned to guide and inform the commissionmembers; consultations with communications expertsfrom all over the world; and two years of concentratedeffort, the commission handed in its report to MBow atthe end of 1979. The 275-page report became a major

element in the controversial atmosphere in inter-national communications during the late 1970s andearly 1980s. Published under the title ofMany Voices,One World,the report contained an exhaustive surveyof the history, growth, current dimensions, and techno-logical advances of communications on the worldscene. The MacBride Commission Report also con-tained 82 Conclusions and Recommendations plus12 moreIssues Requiring Further Study.

In essence, the MacBride Commission Report camedown strongly in favor of much of what the ThirdWorld nations had been requesting. Of great signifi-cance, it urged the wealthy nations to assist in building

communications infrastructures that the Third Worldcountries said they wanted and needed.

The commission also favored public control or oper-ation of the media as opposed to the private and com-mercial approach that formed the backbone of theAmerican system. Its explanation for this stand wasboth practical and philosophical: that in the two-thirds of the world that was underdeveloped, only

governments had the funding and resources to supporta communications and media system; there was noviable private sector. The commission also believedthat private for-profit systems would not provide theuniversality of services required given the money-losingnature of such undertakings.

The general orientation of the MacBride Report didnot appeal to the American-led Western communica-tions companies. They believed that preservation ofthe status quo was essential for their well-being. Thecontents of some of the reports recommendations illus-trate the source of the industrial Wests dissatisfaction:

No. 38:Transnational corporations should supply theauthorities of the countries in which they operate, onrequest and on a regular basis . . . , all informationrequired for legislative or administrative purposes.

No. 58: Effective legal measures should be designed tolimit the process of concentration and monopoliza-tion.

No. 12: Among Issues Requiring Further Study,thereport suggested the establishment of an inter-national duty on the use of the electromagnetic spec-trum and geostationary orbit space for the benefit ofthe developing countries.

Leaders of the Western communications/media es-tablishment vehemently denounced the report. U.S.journalists organizations objected strongly to it asseeming to favor practices they had long opposedlicensing of journalists, protection of journalists bythe state, codes of ethics, and the like. And Americaneditorial writers and political columnists saw the report

as a threat to press freedom and as an opening wedge tostate control and censorship.

The MacBride Commission Report remained a majoringredient in the turmoil within the UN system from thelate 1970s to the 1980s.

C. The Mass Media Declaration

The Third World, with its great communications needsand numerical advantage in votes, initiated the drivefor a declaration within UNESCO during the early1970s. At times over the years, the Soviet Union, seek-ing to agitate the West, produced drafts that reflected

its Communist philosophycomplete governmentcontrol and operation of media, censorship, mediaworking for the benefit of the state and not for thepublic at large, and so on. These drafts added tothe fear and apprehension in the West. Inevitably andunavoidably, drafts of the Mass Media Declarationcame to be tests of strength between the United Statesand the Soviet Union in the cold war struggle.



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By the time of the 1978 General Conference, how-ever, a major political change had taken place in Amer-ica. The Democratic party, headed by President JimmyCarter, won control of the White House in the 1976elections. The Democrats brought with them a trad-ition of greater approval of multilateral diplomacy

and internationalism than did the Republican party.Even the cold war had moderated somewhat underthe new American administration. MBow used thechanged conditions to try to work out a compromiseon the long-smoldering Mass Media Declarationcontroversy.

The attempt at compromise was successful, and onNovember 22, 1978, the UNESCO member nationsapproved the proposed declaration by acclamation,with no objections voiced. Its official title was asfollows: Declaration on Fundamental Principles Con-cerning the Contribution of the Mass Media toStrengthening Peace and International Understanding,

to the Promotion of Human Rights, and to CounteringRacialism, Apartheid, and Incitement to War.

The compromise outcome was achieved by a delicatebalancing of content and responsibility. The text cameout in favor of freedom of information, which pleasedthe West. But it also endorsed the concept ofdemocra-tization of media,giving the workers and the public agreater say in their operation, a goal of the NWICOsupporters.

The declaration extolled the good that the mediacan do in supporting peace and the reduction oftensions and understanding among peoples, but it didnotcommand,or even strongly suggest, that reporters

and editors must do this.The passage of this inter-national instrument, dedicated to the mass media aloneafter years of bitter and contentious arguments, indi-cated that UN involvement in international communi-cations was still strong and that communications wasstill an issue of foremost importance for the worldcommunity.

D. The International Program for the Developmentof Communications

During the period from 1976 to 1980, when therewere improved relations between the United States

government and UNESCO, a fourth important step ininternational communications was taken. This wasthe establishment of the IPDC. The United States sug-gested the creation of the program at the 1978UNESCO General Conference in Paris. The step wouldmeet a long-standing desire on the part of the develop-ing nations for a practical entity within the UnitedNations that would deal with concrete matters such as

actually putting new equipment into place and sendingtechnical experts to train Third World media personneland by creating schools of journalism. U.S. Ambas-sador John Reinhardt suggested at the 1978 GeneralConference that MBow convene a planning meet-ing within the next six months and added that my

government is prepared to play a full part in thesedeliberations.An initial organizational meeting was hosted by the

Carter administration in 1979 in Washington, D.C.,and planning sessions were followed up at UNESCOheadquarters in Paris in 1980. By January 1981, theIPDC was ready to begin its operations. Thefirst distri-bution meeting of its board of governors was held inAcapulco, Mexico, in January 1982.

By then, however, a Republican administration,headed by President Ronald Reagan, had taken overfrom the Carter administration in Washington. The Re-agan administration would prove to be the most conser-

vative in a half-century in American political history(since the Hoover administration of 19281932) andstrongly favored bilateral foreign relations over multi-lateral ones. The consequence wasthat support from theUnitedStates that had been anticipated to give theIPDCmeaningful strength and breadth was not forthcoming.

The IPDC, however, was able to distribute some $30million in seed money and start-up funds to about 700communications and media projects in developingcountries during the period from 1981 to 1999dis-tributing approximately $2.5 million per year. Thelargest contributors were the Scandinavian countriesand Japan. The necessary amount projected by commu-

nications scholars to bring Third World facilities up tomodern levels was scores of billions of dollars annually.The IPDC plays a vital role, however, in at least gettingprojects started in Third World countries.

The U.S. contribution to the IPDC amounted to atotal of less than a half-million dollars. Its bilateralprograms throughout the world, however, amountedto scores of millions of dollars.

By the mid-1980s, the political debates withinthe UN system over international communications,largely within UNESCO, had had a major impact onthe entire world scene. The United States, reactingnegatively to the accumulated disfavor over the

NWICO campaign, the MacBride Commission Re-port, the Mass Media Declaration, and criticisms thatUNESCOs administration was inefficient, resigned itsmembership. At the stroke of the new year when 1984became 1985, the United States walked out ofUNESCO. On September 19, 2002, President Bush, inan address to the UN General Assembly, declaredtheUnited States will return to UNESCO.Great Britain,



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expressing similar reasons, followed the United Statesout at the stroke of the new year when 1985 became1986. The British returned to UNESCO in 1998.

IV. THE 19862000 PERIOD

While the political dimension was going through tu-multuous years at the United Nations, the operationalside of international communications was movingalong with great advances. Coping with these changesplaced a strenuous burden on COPUOS, the ITU,UNESCO, and the General Assemblys Committee onInformation (established in 1978). The new era createdits own important questions needing answers.

For instance, progress in broadcasting by satelliteinvolved issues that were not only philosophical butalso (ultimately) political. Technology had enabledbroadcasters to use a geostationary orbit circling the

globe at the equator to produce the same effect asmotionless permanent sites. Satellites traveling at thesame speed as the earth, 22,300 miles out in space, werein effect standing still. They were in the most desirable,efficient orbital slots.

The practice within COPUOS had been to awardthe limited slots to those nations ready and able touse themfirst come, first served. However, theawakening of the Third World to its communicationsneeds created a demand for the setting aside of geosta-tionary orbital slots for the poorer nations until thetime when they could use them. This produced a majordebate.

Another controversy centered around the use ofdirect broadcast satellites. These satellites bypassed na-tionally operated ground stations and sent their signalsdirectly into the homes of private citizens via receivingdishes. This technological advance produced a contro-versy within COPUOS over prior consentwhetherit was necessary to obtain permission from a countrybefore intruding into its territory, another form of thelong-debatednational sovereigntyprinciple.

Without COPUOS, these bitterly contested issueswould have had no forum in which to discuss andresolve them. Over the years of the 1980s, CO-PUOSand sometimes the ITU, the Committee on

Information, and UNESCOresolved these or similarcontroversies. Sophisticated technology was an invalu-able aide, providing in the case of equatorial orbit slotsminiaturized but more powerful satellites, enablingmore of them to be crowded into the limited space.The issue of prior consent was resolved by agreementthat did not make mandatory the obtaining of officialpermission but strongly urged informal consent.

The years from 1986 to 2000 were thus a time oftremendous growth and development of internationalcommunications, unlike any that the world had seenbefore. There existed at that time a wide variety of newactivities: the global sharing of news and entertainmenttelevision programs seen simultaneously by hundreds

of millions of viewers, corporate communicationssystems that huge conglomerates built privately anddepended on for their global transactions, the satel-lite/computer/fiber-optic/digital cable networks carry-ing financial data to round-the-clock marketseverywhere (along with entertainment), and so on.

AlsoincludedintheUnitedNations involvementwasthe responsibility of facilitating the use of computerizedreservations systems that permitted the transportationand tourism industries to function worldwide, settingup informatics and information retrieval bases used byscholars and millions of individual computer users, andsupervising remote sensing operations, meteorological

information, and many other areas.New forms of corporate organizations grew up

almost overnight, integrally involving communica-tions. Transnational conglomerates, produced bymergers and acquisitions without regard to nationalboundaries, grew to immense unprecedented sizes;these giant entities were quickly beyond national andeven international control. The United Nationsgrappled with the problem of regulating them neverthe-less.

British communications authority Anthony Smith,writing in his 1992 book The Age of Behemoths,saidthat thesebehemothshad becomea law unto them-

selves.The towering individuals running these behe-moths included individuals such as Rupert Murdoch,Sylvio Berlusconi, Robert Maxwell, and Ted Turner aswell as corporations such as Bertelsman in Germany,Disney in the United States, and SONY in Japan.

Bill Gates, the multibillionaire head of Microsoft, ledthe new breed of young people of power located in theskyrocketing computer and computer service indus-tries. The days when national PTTs were controllableby ITU officials were long gone. And so were the influ-ential roles of UNESCO, COPUOS, and the Committeeon Information.

Ben Bagdikian, an American editor and scholar,

stated in the original 1983 edition of his book, TheMedia Monopoly, that some 50 giant corporationscontrolled the worlds communications scene. Hisfourth revised edition of the book in 1992 reduced thatnumber to 20; thefifth edition in 1997 had the numberdown to 10Time-Warner, Disney, Viacom, News Cor-poration, Sony, Telecommunications, Seagram, Wes-tinghouse, Gannet, and General Electric.



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Technological developments of momentous im-portance propelled the furious advancement ofinternational communications. The replacement ofold-fashioned copper wiring with fiber-optic cableswas one of the major contributors. Copper couldhandle limited amounts of telephone calls at once, but

fiber-optic cables could carry loads hundreds of timesgreater. Analog encoding of computer signals wassuperseded by digital symbols that were infinitelyspeedier and of much greater capacity. New-age cablesystems carried the programming of 100 more channelsto millions and millions of television viewers in theirhomes worldwide.

Computers, which had been the small domain ofscientists and large business corporations during the1970s into the 1980s, spread with incredible speed intothe general population during the late 1980s and1990s. Networks of computer systems joined togetherto produce the phenomenon of the Internet and the

widespread and fast-growing use of electronic mail(e-mail). E-mail could deliver messages to another com-puter anywhere on the globe in a matter of seconds.Interactivity became a common practice through theInternetthe purchasing of stocks, the purchasing ofconsumer items, and even the creation of romances.Personal computers enabled access to complete librar-ies without leaving home.

High-definition television produced clearer picturesthan could be imagined previously. Digital cameras,compact video cameras and video recorders, fax ma-chines, and all the sophisticated services of computersmade the international communications scene during

the period from 1980 to 2000 almost unrecognizablefrom the age of newspaper predominance just 50 yearsearlier.

The United Nations had spanned, influenced, anddirected to an important degree the evolution ofworld communications during the post-World War IIperiod until the present. Within this remarkable eraof new discoveries, new technology, and new uses,the UN systems services were indispensable. Beginningin the late 1980s and continuing into the 1990s, how-ever, a major change was in store for the UnitedNations.

At this point, many industrial and government

leaders became impatient with the routinized, some-what cumbersome UN machinery. In addition,some were disenchanted with the United Nationsone nation, one votesystem, which made equal atthe ballot box the poorest undeveloped country withthe richest, most advanced country. Furthermore, con-glomerate tycoons did not like the transparency of UNoperations, which were open to the media if not directly

open to the public. They preferred a much more con-trolled and protected environment.

An important and revealing article about whathappened next during the crucial period from 1980to 2000 was written by an American scholar, EileenMahoney. Mahoney, writing in the 1993 volume

Beyond National Sovereignty, disclosed insights thatgave answers to questions that had been puzzlingexperts during most of that period. Mahoneys researchand conclusions were a revelation and milestone inunderstanding the course of late 20th-century inter-national communications.

Mahoney wrote that the significant action relating tointernational communications was nottaking place anylonger in the UN agencies where it had been located for40 years. Instead, she declared, the United States had,without fanfare around 1990, shifted key negotiationsregarding communications access agreements, sales ofequipment, and areas of jurisdiction and responsibility

to the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement onTrade and Tariffs (GATT).

In fact, Mahoney wrote, agreements worked out inthe GATT, such as those on low earth orbit use forhandling mobile telephone services as well as servicesfor maritime and aeronautical communicationsworth billions of dollarshad been negotiated in aclosed trade arena without any public awareness (suchas the United Nations had once made possible).

From the standpoint of the United States and otherleading communications powers, the move away fromthe UN system met the crucial needs of three forcesdriving their communications revolution: mergers, pri-

vatization, and deregulation. Within the atmosphere ofthe GATT, a commercial trade organization (where theUnited States had great weight and power, in contrastto the UN system of one nation, one vote), the ar-rangement was much more favorable to the handful ofmajor industrial powers. The behemoths could nowcontrol most of the worlds communications and mediacapabilities without the awkwardness of the demo-cratic, transparent UN machinery.

Many academic critics viewed the picture disclosedby Mahoney with alarm. They were dismayed thatinternational communications, which had always beenheld to be a natural resource open to all the peoples of

the world, had now become a mere commodity. Thismeant that it could be tradedlike wheat, sorghum,coffee, or coalamong the minority handful of richnations, while the majority poorer nations could onlystand by as silent onlookers. In this context, publicdemonstrations and riots broke out at World TradeOrganization (WTO) (the successor to the GATT)conferences in Seattle, Washington, and in Prague in



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19992000. The protestors charged that the WTOlacked accountability to anyone other than itself indealing with transactions affecting billions of people,that it used undemocratic practices in its operations,and that it did not share with citizens at large the detailsof negotiations that profoundly affected their lives.

V. CONCLUSION

The idea of an NWICO for universal, improved com-munications/media capability at the service of all soci-ety seemed to fade further than ever from realization atthe turn into the new millennium, the year 2000.

In global oversight, UNESCO produced a 299-pageWorld Communication Report in 1997. Its chiefauthor, Algerian media scholar Lofti Maherzi, wasnot able to draw optimistic conclusions from thelengthyfindings in the report. Maherzis comment on

communications changes during the period from 1970to 2000 and the future of the world community was asfollows:

Such huge transformations are without precedent in

human history, and change power relationships on an

international scale, eluding completely the ability of

governments to understand and control them. They

inspire confusionin most politicians anddoubt in many

observers.

In truth, theyhave the ability both to create large-scale

exclusion and to generate constraints which interfere

with democratic processes, as well as to mobilize other

resources for betterserving civiclife, collective solidarity,and a feeling for shared knowledge and understanding.

Maherzis comments on the huge transforma-tions . . . without precedent in human history and theirability to generate constraints which interfere withdemocratic processes hearken back to anotherwarning given a generation ago. Masmoudi, in hismilestone 1978 paper supporting an NWICO, said thatthere was no doubt of the capability of industrializedWestern powers, because of their great commercialsuccess, to make the dream of communications capabil-ity for poorer nations a reality. But, Masmoudi warned,

what needed to be presentwhat was necessary to

make it happenwas the political will. That ingredi-ent, in historical perspective, still seemed to be lackingas the world of communications/media moved intothe 21st century.

See Also the Following Articles

COMMUNICATION CONGLOMERATES . DEVELOPINGNATIONS AND THE MEDIA . ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,COMMUNICATION AND . ELECTRONIC COMMERCE .

GLOBALIZATION OF MEDIA, CONCEPT AND NATURE OF .

HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES . INTERNATIONALCOMMUNICATION REGIMES . NATIONALIST MOVEMENTSAND THE MEDIA . NEW MEDIA . NEW WORLDINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION ORDER .

PRIVATIZATION, LIBERALIZATION, AND DEREGULATION .

SATELLITE BROADCASTING

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Hamelink, C. J. (1994). The Politics of World Communication. Sage,Thousand Oaks, CA.

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Herman, E. S., and McChesney, R. W. (1997). The Global Media:New Missionaries of Global Capitalism. Cassel, Washington, DC.

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McChesney, R. (1999).Rich Media, Poor Democracy. University ofIllinois Press.

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Role of UN in Communication