Transcript Lessons learned from the NWICO history.

Lessons learned from the NWICO history
Kaarle Nordenstreng
Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Tampere, Finland
Presentation at international conference
on Communication and Power Shifts
Communication University of China
Beijing,12-13 October 2012
Earlier global power shifts
• Decolonization
• Collapse of Soviet Communism
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)
• concept of information decolonisation
- summit in Lusaka 1970
- summit in Algiers 1973
• concept of new international information order
- symposium in Tunis March 1976
- ministerial meeting in Delhi June 1976
- summit in Colombo August 1976
NWICO history
• Five stages
• Overall
1. Decolonization offensive • Birth in
1970-76
decolonization offensive
2. Western conterattack
1976-78
• Consolidation in
3. Truce & compromise
information war
1978-80
4. Corporate offensive
• Decline in
1981-90
corporate offensive
5. Globalization
1991-2010
• Revival in civil society
NWICO process
…the most significant struggle over
international communication policy in the
Fordist era.
…swept aside in the post-Fordist era by a
kind of reregulation of neoliberal
governance.
(Chakravartty & Sarikakis 2006)
Lessons
1. NWICO was on politics
rather than on communication & media
• determining factors were
socioeconomic and geopolitical forces
rather than intellectual & moral arguments
• power rather than reason
Lessons
2. NWICO was on debate
rather than on changing media reality
• abundant talk did not affect much structures &
practices
• changes were occuring anyway
Lessons
3. NWICO survived under political pressure
the better the more articulated was the idea
• new ideas do not travel as mere political
slogans but need elaboration in theory & law
• conceptual clarity ensures resistance aganist
ideological destabilization
Lessons
4. NWICO demonstrates the importance of a
paradigmatic approach to global
communication
• big picture & deep structure should be exposed
• meta concepts such as order testify of proper
philosophical approach
Thank you!
[email protected]
http://www.uta.fi/cmt/en/contact/staff/kaarlenordenstreng/index.html