Forum documents

View from the Bridge

Moderator: Shashi Tharoor
10 December, 2003.

This session draw conclusions from the preceding discussions and looked forward to the future with regard to the role of the electronic media in the Information Society.

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Summary

This last interactive session of the WEMF sought to highlight critical points that emerged from the previous discussions but which should be taken into account in the future.

Moderator SHASHI THAROOR raised some of the problems, if not contradictions, that the Information Society will need to confront in the years ahead. Emphasising that the title of this session – View from the Bridge - did not reflect any form of control as if a captain on a ship’s bridge, he said he regarded it more as symbolising a view from above over all sides of real or imagined divides within the new media.

Among the issues Tharoor sought to accentuate was the need for governments to communicate with their citizens, versus the need for the media to retain their editorial independence. He questioned the extent to which new technology affected this relationship between media and government. He also stressed other themes that clearly emerged in the previous sessions, such as whether the abundance of information was making people more engaged, or whether it was distancing them from the problems at hand. He raised the topic of whether the information society threatens cultural diversity. Tharoor further stressed the lack of access to new media of many of the world’s inhabitants and the fact that the majority of websites were in English and developed in western countries. “Who are the real agenda setters in the information society?” he wondered. “Have the new information technologies simply extended the reach of the privileged?”

Asking the four panellists to comment on these and other questions, Tharoor first went to GREG DYKE on satellite link from London. The current head of the BBC spoke of whether media relationships with governments have changed due to the need of the media to reflect different viewpoints as part of its communication role as a window and mirror of society. “If national broadcasters are doing their job and reflecting a range of opinions,” he said, “there are inevitably times when media and the government of the day will be caught up in clashes.” Clearly, governments would prefer to put across their own views during times of war and terrorism, he said. “We should not look for confrontation, but we should not avoid it either.”

Taking on another broadly debated theme at the WEMF, notably international coverage of the 2003 war in Iraq, Dyke pointed out that the recent conflict was indeed one of those times when the BBC clashed with the government in its efforts to reflect different voices and opinions. “This did not happen in the United States,” Dyke said and further noted that among the 800-odd ‘experts’ used by American broadcasters as part of their coverage, only six were critical of the US position. Such restricted coverage prompted a substantial number of Americans to turn to the BBC for their information, he said. Even the BBC had to tow the line in its coverage of the war, Dyke admitted : “We and everyone else found that with the Iraqi war, 24 hour news often did not get it right because of the demands.”

Expressing a philosophical reflection of the new media, PETER SLOTERDIJK said that Martin Luther had regarded the Gutenberg printing press as a gift from God making it easier to spread the gospel. “I am certain that he would say the same today of the new technologies,” he said. “Broadcasters are all seeking to spread their gospel. In many ways all of us here are a meeting of Martin Luther impersonators.” The new media, he noted, is far more effective than the handwritten gospel because it can be transmitted in a stronger manner, but it still aims at providing sufficiently good news, balanced by the bad, to encourage viewers and listeners in the right direction.

People, however, need to redefine the media ethics of today, Sloterdijk said, since "group dissolving powers" prevail over "group creating powers". The meaning of the media is to generate courage, entrepreneurial values, generosity and to dissolve resentment; this is what the gospel was always about, whether Christian or otherwise. " Does our experience of the media correspond to this?” he asked. While media literacy is important, it must be carefully linked to the "humanising effects of primary literacy".

Picking up on the issue of people being overwhelmed by communications, JOHN RENDON pointed out that there was no fixed architecture to the information age. “It is being constantly constructed and reconstructed,” he said. He maintained that one should not only view the new technology as a means of helping media do its job, but seek to understand the dynamic of information as an empowering vehicle. “The information society consists not of people living in houses of brick and mortar but rather in communities of interest. We should not become fixated by innovation, but how the dynamic affects the individual,” he said.

Rendon further pursued the lessons learned from the Iraq conflict by saying that he could identify five such wars. First, the reality of combat operations; then the different wars that the US, Europe, Arab states, and the rest of the world saw on television. These wars were never portrayed in alignment or along similar lines, he said. The implication, Rendon concluded, is that these portrayals both reflected and influenced the belief-sets of their own audiences. “Media reported what they thought their audiences wanted to see,” he said.

Emphasising the importance of human rights as part of the information society, JUAN SOMAVIA said he could perceive, particularly from the point of view of a social activist, great potential with regard to the Internet. With regards to communication divides, he noted, “it is important to recognize the bridge as being about communication rights between citizens. There is an incredible divide in having your rights recognized.” He also stressed the need to deal with the “new realities,” namely the problems facing people seeking to express themselves with regard to governments, commercial institutions and those setting the agenda. “ Porto Alegre would not have been organized the way it is today without the web,” he noted.

Asked whether he could foresee obstacles for poor people seeking to exercise their freedom of expression, Somavia said there should be far greater focus and value placed on local issues affecting the information society rather than only on those at a global scale. “I never hear about the local,” he said. “It is the local that matters to the village, the region, the country.” As did previous participants, Somavia pointed out that many people still lack any form of access to such forms of communication. “This should be a priority,” he said.

Returning to the question of the new roles of the media, Somavia said he felt there should be a more expanded dialogue on globalization issues. Media have an important role, he noted, in trying to understand these global changes. Several speakers as well as participants from the floor stressed the need for better education of both journalists and the general public with regard to media and information issues. While today's television is dominated by instant news, Dyke said, he hoped that, in the years to come, greater emphasis would be focused on current affairs, in order to provide audiences with a better analysis of events. One participant noted that the media should seek to play a far more assertive role in development issues, while another warned of the problems facing young people seeking to identify the «good guys» and «bad guys» presented by television news. There should be far greater efforts to educate what he described as the «fifth power» (the public) in media literacy. “Media education is essential", said one participant.

Finally, despite an apology by Tharoor at the beginning of the session for the all-male line-up of speakers, one participant noted that it was unacceptable to have such a panel discuss such a crucial issue without the involvement of women. Another participant from Romania noted that media in her country have gone through dramatic´improvements over the past decade; however, what her children have gained in technologically-generated speed on the Internet, they have lost in content. “How does one establish a balance between education and information?” she wondered. Many of these and other questions were further developed by the twelve workshops that followed the WEMF plenary sessions.

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