Focus and Scope

The new spiral of violence and lies that abruptly burst upon the world
following the attacks in the US on September 11, has formed an adverse scene
for democratic struggle. This adversity obliges such struggles to step up
their efforts, not only for peace and justice, but also for truth. This
means challenging "excesses" in the manipulation and distortion of
information, as well as the foundations and conditions that allow this to
happen. Similar concerns are what has motivated the fight for
democratization of the media during recent decades.

The WSF, as an networked social process, appears an ideal and legitimate
space to catalyze energy and foster the emergence of a social movement under
the banner of democratization of communications. With this premise in mind,
we propose that this conference should focus its attention on outlining a
SOCIAL AGENDA IN COMMUNICATION. Being a cross-cutting theme that concerns
all human relations, the important thing is to situate the central points for
definition of strategies and aims, in order to build and give impetus to this
social movement.

The Issues

The democratization of communications is above all a question of citizenship
and social justice. It is framed in the human right to information and
communication. In other words, it is inherent to democratic life of society
itself, whose vitality depends on having a duly informed and deliberative
citizenry, able to participate and assume co-responsibility in decision-
making on public issues.

In recent times, however, this democratic aspiration has been seriously
constrained by neoliberal hegemony, which has put the market at the centre of
social organization, thus attempting to confiscate democracies, and annulling
the meaning of citizenship itself. Moreover, communication has become a key
support for this dynamic; so much so that, with support of the accelerated
development of technologies and techniques, the powers that be aim to
transform it into a paradigm of the future, under the formula of the
"information society" or some similar figure.

It is important to point out that there are two central components at the basis
of the development of information and communication technologies. One of them
is digitization, that allows the conversion of all types of information -data,
text, sound, image, video, codes, computer programs- into computer language,
with a codification system based on a binary digit sequence. The other is
related to the extraordinary progress of electronic components: semiconductors,
integrated circuits, transistors and microprocessors.

On the basis of that common language, the creation of protocols that allow for
sharing information among computers has been possible, which, when integrated
with the telecommunications systems (that today include powerful and integrated
satellites) and networking technology, allow for the transmission of any type
of message using a single channel, thus forming the basis of the new
communication and information technologies. This integration of technologies
sustains the logic of technological convergence, that is a fundamental
characteristic of ICTs. That is, it is a multipurpose technology in terms of
required infrastructure and channels, which gives it a flexible character.
This is also expressed in the area of services.

The main expression of such technological developments for the common person
is, without doubt, the Internet, and it is not by chance that it has become the
friendliest face to sell economic globalization.

In practice, communications have not just undergone substantial internal
changes (subordination of the word to the image, live transmissions,
multimedia, etc.), but they have also become one of the most dynamic sectors
with deep repercussions in all realms of societal life.

Communications appear today as one of the cutting-edge sectors of the
economy, both because of their profitability and because they appear to hold
the key to the so-called "new economy". Therefore, in the heat of economic
globalization, it is the sector that has proved the most virulent in
expanding business concentration and transnationalization, a fact which has
resulted in the emergence of veritable "moguls", with ramifications in all
corners of the globe.

These megacorporations have been formed through the fusion of print media,
television chains, cable television, film, software, telecommunications,
entertainment, tourism and others, such that the products and services of
their different branches are able to mutually publicize one another, in the
search for broadening their respective market niches. Today, just seven
corporations dominate the world communications market; if checks on this
oligopolic logic are not established, tomorrow they may be even less.

Since it is a global project, this process has been accompanied by the
imposition, on the one hand, of policies of liberalization and deregulation,
especially in the area of telecommunications, designed to eliminate any state
regulation or arena that might interfere with transnational expansion, and on
the other hand, of norms -such as the novel interpretation of intellectual
property rights- oriented to safeguarding their interests and to definitively
ensuring that information and cultural production are treated as simple
commodities.

Under the cover of neoliberal dogma, a highly concentrated media and cultural
industry has taken shape, that is governed by exclusively commercial
criteria, where what counts is profitability over and above the public
interest, and the consumer paradigm before one of citizens. It is therefore
not surprising that the outlook for the future is one of abundant information
that will be free, but banal, although spectacularized by the media, while
quality information will only be accessible to those who are in a position to
pay.

This thrust is so forceful that in its passage it has practically swept away
media of a public character, privatizing most and forcing the rest to become
commercialized, thus eroding their role as spaces to feed into a broad and
pluralistic debate, open to the different perspectives, ideas and cultural
expressions present in society.

In the midst of these developments, the media have also become a crucial
arena for shaping the public space and the citizenry itself, -crucial, in the
sense that although it is not a new phenomenon, it is an intense and
substantive one- due both to the weight they bring to bear on the definition
of public agendas and their capacity to establish the legitimacy of certain
debates. The predominance of the media is such, with respect to other venues
of social mediation -parties, unions, churches, educational establishments,
etc.-, that these can only prevail by continually recurring to the media.

In this context, there is a real danger of the "dictatorship of the market"
becoming consolidated through the enormous power it has concentrated, in the
realm of communications, to win people's "minds and hearts".

Indeed, as the monopoly to transmit ideas, information and culture expands,
what we observe is that, in the media, plurality and diversity are
progressively disregarded, due to the systematic narrowing of perspectives
expressed in them. This "comparative advantage" resulting from the
concentration of such resources, has become the strategic pillar for the
ideological advancement of neoliberal globalization.

In spite of the pressure exerted on countries around the world to make them
open their markets (foremost, that of communication), the progress of
globalization in this field has been undoubtedly less than that achieved in the
ideological sphere, where "single thought", to use Ramonet's phrase, has caused
great damage. As a result, the neoliberal premise that the market is the only
entity capable of organizing the distribution of resources has spread with
force, not leaving room for the intervention or regulation by the State. This
implies a world where "freedom" is measured by the absence of obstacles for
participants in the market.

In this framework, the discourse on "free press" converted into "free
enterprise" has recovered space. We should recall that the fathers of
neoliberal thinking associated free press with the preservation of public life
beyond the State, with the hypothesis that freedom of opinion must be
guaranteed, with an independent press as the main means to express the
diversity of points of view and create an informed public opinion watchful of
abuses of state power. In this line of thought, it was taken for granted that
free enterprise was the basis for freedom of expression, considering that
economic laissez-faire was the natural counterpart for individual freedom of
thought and expression.

Its concern with freedom of expression, in a historical context marked by
absolutist governments, referred to the threat of state intervention in the
public sphere. Thus, it is specially dishonest or tricky to use this premise
as a shield to cover up the larger threat to freedom of expression that we
presently face: the establishment of commercial media monopolies. Commercial
media measure their success in terms of the profits they make on two fronts,
those resulting from the sale of products to the audience and those from the
sale of audience to advertisers, which have nothing to do with the public
interest.

In fact, billing advertisers prevails in this double profit-oriented game, to
the point where publicity has become the factor that determines programming
guidelines and the success criteria of communication media as a whole. Thus,
alongside globalization of the media, the dissemination of messages that
promote consumerism dominates the field, subordinating cultural differences to

the predominance of the life style based on consumption that characterizes
Northern urban centers. It is a universe where there is virtually no room for
the public interest, since advertisers do not like programs of this type
because little or nothing is "sold" through them.

With these developments, one of the injured parties is journalism, as its
profession -with the concentration operating in the sector- has been displaced
by the entertainment logic guided by "light" and frivolous concerns, to the
extent that the current dominating "winning" formula nowadays is: sex,
sensationalism and violence. Under these new parameters, the search for truth,
constantly hailed by the western press, is becoming a good purpose diluted by
market imperatives, in whose perspective, consumers rather than citizens are
those who matter. And in order to reach consumers, the priority has become to
obtain standard products for every audience, beyond its social strata, country
or culture. Since business is business, this priority has also been extended
to the information sphere. Thus, the amount of commercial data and propaganda
the media offers us is gradually more overwhelming from day to day, while
information decreases and deteriorates.

Even more serious, this trend, that is now supported by the so-called
"entertainment industry" and of "leisure services", appears as a serious threat
to the cultural diversity of the planet. Its transnational expansion erodes
local and traditional cultures, insofar as it promotes basically and in a
subjugating manner the life style and cultural values of economically and
politically dominant powers, particularly of the United States.

Under the lens of the global market, "cultural diversity" is now being reduced
to offering a range of products and services to satisfy consumers' "tastes" in
the broadest possible way, who -additionally- are systematically monitored
(even with resources from espionage itself) by specialists in establishing
"market niches".

As we have gained awareness of the risks of biodiversity degradation, it is now
time to do so on the risk represented by large communication conglomerates in
the field of cultural diversity. That is, we need to take care of the
information and cultural environment, in the same way that taking care of the
environment has become imperative, as a guarantee for the future.

The course of this tendency can only be restrained and modified through
forceful, sustained and proactive citizen action. Paths have been opened by
a multiplicity of initiatives on different planes. Collectives that endeavor
to guarantee universal access and effective appropriation of new information
and communications technologies; exchange networks that develop open source
software; concertation bodies for advocacy in decision-making spheres in
defense of information and communication rights; entities dedicated to
monitoring and implementing critical action in the face of sexist, racist or
exclusionary media content; education programs designed to develop a critical
reading of the media (media literacy); user associations that seek to
influence media programming; independent, alternative, community and other
media, that are committed to democratizing communications; community and
information exchange networks, interlinked through the Internet; researchers
who contribute to deciphering the keys to the present system and to pointing
out possible alternatives; people's organizations that join the struggle
around communication issues; journalists' associations that raise the banner
of ethics and independence; women's collectives that build networks for
advancing a gender perspective in communication; cultural movements that
refuse to be relegated to oblivion; popular education networks; observatories
in favor of the freedom of information; those who associate to oppose
monopolies; movements in defense of public service media; and a long
etcetera.

All these are the scattered seeds of citizen resistance, that need to
multiply and grow together into a broad movement of social movements joined
by the struggle for the democratization of communications, as a battle trench
where the fight for the future itself of democracy is being fought out. It
is not, therefore, an issue that only regards those who are directly or
indirectly linked to communication: it challenges all social actors. And the
WSF can become this necessary and pressing meeting-space.

Alternative Proposals

From various events held around the democratization of communications and the
media, we have gathered the following points as basic input for advancing
towards the formulation of a common agenda:

? The Right to Communicate is now present as an aspiration that furthers
the historical progression that began with the recognition of rights of media
owners, later those who work under relations of dependence in the media, and
finally of all persons, set out in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights as the right to information and the freedom of expression and
opinion. It starts from a more encompassing conception of all the rights
recognized and claimed in the realm of communication, incorporating in
particular new rights related to the changing communications scene, and a
more interactive approach to communication, in which social actors are
information producers and not mere passive receivers of information.
Similarly, it assumes that the recognition of this right is necessary to the
exercise of all other human rights and a fundamental element of the existence
of democracy. The incorporation of this right into the agendas of social
movements and the development of strategies to bring it into force is a key
challenge in the construction of alternatives.

? The establishment of public policy is considered a priority: policy
that is sustained in mechanisms of democratic social control, to limit the
power of interests embodied in market logic, with norms that permit their
regulation, establishment of standards and supervision, omitting questionable
dispositions such as censorship. This issue covers a broad range of aspects.
These include, on the one hand, the present attempts to deregulate the sector
and to impose legislation concerning intellectual property, promoted by the
WTO, IMF and others, which results in facilitating the process of
transnationalization and monopolization of communications media and systems;
and on the other hand, the need to put forward policies to guarantee the
diversity and independence of sources, cultural sovereignty and diversity,
democratic access to technology, among others. In this respect, on-going
resistance struggles include those for the democratization of the radio-
electric spectrum (in the face of attempts to privatize it), the defense of
Internet users' rights (with respect to projects of electronic snooping,
censorship, etc.) and the setting up of independent regulatory bodies through
which the citizenry can participate in the definition of policy, among
others.

? Linked to public policy, the proposal to retrieve and promote the
creation of public/citizen media stands out. This refers to media in the
public sphere (not necessarily of the state), which are under control of
civil society and funded according to the principle of economic solidarity
(i.e. with public and/or private funds).

? Similarly, actions developed in the different national and
international contexts to restrain the process of monopolization of
communications systems and media, and the commodification of information,
take on particular importance.

- A further priority identified is the development of diverse, plural
information, with a gender perspective. Actions in this respect vary from
criticism and pressure directed at the mass media, to support for the
development and survival of alternative and independent media, that adopt
such criteria as basic principles.

? A priority sector to involve in this movement are journalists,
particularly through their associations. Not only are their professional
interests threatened by the commodification of information, but it is also
crucial to build alliances with this sector around the public service
character of communications.

? Another sector with which it is important to develop alliances are
consumer movements, in view of developing pressure towards communications
systems and media. "Consumers" are treated on an individual, isolated basis,
depriving them of any other power than that of buying or not buying,
switching on or off. Their power could be much greater if it were exercised
collectively.

? To develop an informed citizenry requires a capacity for a critical
appraisal of the media, which is the purpose of media literacy programs, so
that the citizenry can have a better understanding of the socially
constructed nature of the media.

? A fundamental aspect to accompany this process are research activities,
which make it possible to focus on new terrain and forms of action. A closer
link between movements for the democratization of communication and
researchers on these issues is needed, as well as the elaboration of
simplified dissemination texts on research findings and exchange activities
between theory and practice.

? One of the central social proposals on communication put forward in the
framework of the last WSF was the urgency of opening a broad public debate on
the impact and consequences of monopolistic concentration in the
communications sector, and priorities in the development of new information
and communications technologies. Such a debate wi