The MacBride Report in Twenty-first-century Capitalism, the Age of Social Media and the BRICS Countries

The MacBride Report was published in 1980. The report communicated the need for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). With the breakdown of what used to be called “actually existing socialism“ in the East and with the rise of the neoliberal commodification of everything, a NWICO indeed emerged, but one that looked quite different from that the MacBride commission imagined. Thirty-five years later, it is time to ask how the situation of the media and communications in society has changed. This contribution asks the question of what we can make of the MacBride Report today in a media world and society that has seen the rise of an economically driven form of globalisation that also has impacts on the media, the expansion of the information economy with a new young precariat at its core, and the emergence of the World Wide Web and its change into a highly commercialised system, including the emergence of so-called “social media“ whose capital accumulation model is based on targeted advertising

Reinventing ‘Many Voices’: MacBride and a Digital New World Information and Communication Order

The MacBride Commission Report was arguably one of the most significant multilateral interventions in the history of international communication. This article charts its emergence at the time of deeply contested Cold War politics, coinciding with the rise of the southern voices in the global arena, led by the non-aligned nations. Thirty-five years after the report's publication, has the global media evolved into a more democratic system, demonstrating greater diversity of views and viewpoints? Despite the still formidable power of US-led western media, the article suggests that the globalisation and digitisation of communication has contributed to a multi-layered and more complex global media scene, demonstrating the “rise of the rest”

The Soft Power of India

India’s soft power is on the rise, in parallel with its economic power as one of the fastest growing major economies in the world. This chapter discusses India’s soft power within four domains: firstly, the democratic strengths of India, a particular distinction among the BRICS countries. As the world’s largest democracy, India has retained and arguably strengthened democracy in a multi-lingual, multi-racial and multi-religious society. The second domain examines the diasporic dimension of India’s international presence, increasingly viewed by Indian government and corporates as a vital resource for its soft power. As the world’s largest English-language speaking diaspora, the Indian presence is visible across the globe. The third domain focuses on the emergence of an Indian internet – part of the Indian government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative, launched in 2015 - and its potential for becoming the world’s largest ‘open’ internet. The chapter argues that, with the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi the push for digital commerce and communication is likely to increase. Already home to the world’s second largest internet population, its creative and cultural industries, notably Bollywood, have the potential to circulate across various digital domains, resulting in globalized production, distribution and consumption practices. However, the chapter argues that these three domains of soft power will remain ineffective until India is able to eliminate its pervasive and persistent poverty, afflicting large number of its citizens

A BRICS Internet and the de-Westernisation of Media Studies

Nous sommes à l’ère des médias, dynamique et numérisée, en activité constante, 24 heures sur 24 et 7 jours sur 7. Dans ce contexte, les flux de communication multilingues se multiplient et les pays des BRICS jouent un rôle majeur dans cette évolution. La présence des BRICS sur la scène médiatique mondiale a toutes les chances de prendre de l’ampleur au vu du développement convergent des contenus et des technologies mobiles via un Internet de plus en plus multilingue. La Chine est déjà le pays qui compte le plus grand nombre d’utilisateurs d’Internet, devant l’Inde, avec une utilisation qui passe majoritairement par des plateformes mobiles. La Russie, le Brésil et l’Afrique du Sud ont également enregistré une importante expansion des communications en ligne. Au cours des dix dernières années, l’Internet en langue russe (« RuNet ») a connu une croissance exceptionnelle tandis qu’en Chine, le gouvernement ainsi que des cyber-sociétés (à l’instar d’Alibaba) se font les champions de la promotion de l’Internet pour défendre la place de deuxième économie mondiale du pays. L’Inde, qui dispose d’un ambitieux programme de développement du numérique (« Digital India ») et de la plus grande industrie cinématographique du monde, est aussi un centre névralgique de l’industrie informatique mondiale et son potentiel d’exportation des produits culturels est en forte croissance. Internet connaît une progression rapide au Brésil, où les pouvoirs publics ont entrepris des expériences innovantes en matière d’administration du web. L’Internet mobile devrait également gagner du terrain en Afrique du Sud, au fur et à mesure que la technologie 4G y devient plus abordable. Quelles conséquences cette connectivité numérique va-t‑elle avoir sur les flux d’actualités, l’organisation de l’information et de la communication, et la pluralité des médias à l’échelle mondiale ? Quelles en seront les implications pour les sciences de l’information, de la communication et des médias, discipline qui a vu le jour en Occident ? L’article montre que les BRICS sont bien placés pour restructurer la recherche mondiale en communication, contribuer à la démocratisation des médias internationaux dans un monde polycentrique et favoriser la poursuite de la désoccidentalisation des médias et de la recherche qui leur est consacrée.In our dynamic, digitised, 24/7 media age, multilingual communication is increasing, with the BRICS countries playing a key role. The global presence of BRICS media is likely to expand with the growing convergence of mobile communications technologies and content via the increasingly multi-lingual Internet. China already has the world’s largest population of Internet users, ahead of India, mainly using mobile phone platforms. Russia, Brazil and South Africa are also seeing rapid growth in on-line communication. In the last ten years, Runet, the Russian-language Internet, has expanded greatly, while the Chinese government and cyber-companies such as Alibaba have taken the lead in promoting the country’s Internet to support its position as the world’s second largest economy. India, with its ambitious ‘Digital India’ programme and the world’s largest film industry, as well as its position as a hub for the global IT industry, has growing potential for cultural exports. In Brazil, the Internet is also expanding rapidly and the government has launched innovative experiments in Internet governance, while mobile internet expansion in South Africa is set to accelerate as 4G connections become more affordable. What impacts will this digital connectivity have on global news flows, the organisation of information and communication and media plurality around the world ? What will be the implications for information, communication and media studies, a field that developed in the West ? Our paper suggests that the BRICS nations have the potential to reframe global research on communication, contribute to the democratisation of global media in a polycentric world and thus to further the de-westernisation of the media and media studies

Review: A riveting media chronicle of giving voice to the voiceless

Review of: Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, by David Robie. Foreword by Kalafi Moala. Auckland: Little Island Press in association with the Pacific Media Centre. 2014, 362 pp. ISBN 978-1877484-25-4Most journalists work to earn a decent living. Some join the profession to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, benefitting from close proximity to the powers that be. David Robie, the doyen of journalism in the South Pacific region, has pursued a different type of journalism, as this book attests. An exceptional individual, apart from being an award-winning journalist, a prolific author and a committed journalism educator, Robie has set new standards of journalism practice and politics in a part of the globe which receives scant coverage in the international media. During the early 1990s, as associate editor of the London-based and now defunct Gemini News Service, a ‘Third World-oriented’ news features service, this reviewer had the privilege to work with Robie, who regularly contributed thoughtful, well-researched but never preachy articles and commentaries from the South Pacific region, which were circulated among the agency’s more than 100 newspapers around the world