ORIGINS OF THE MEDIA REVOLUTION The digital media revolution, like most technological revolutions, started out as a concept

among scientists and visionaries long before new hardware allowed engineers to create prototypes. One early Web visionary was science fiction writer H.G. Wells, known for the War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. Wells believed a global system of electronic encyclopedias would advance intelligence far more than universities, which he considered reactionary. Another visionary was White House science advisor Vannevar Bush, who had overseen the development of many scientific projects in World War II. Bush thought people in the future would use a device he called the Memex to store books and personal information. In 1964, Martin Greenberger of MIT wrote that computers could become the information utilities that would fulfill Bushs Memex vision. Another visionary was Ted Nelson, who represented the unlimited horizons of the California perspective of the 1960s. Nelson envisioned automatic links between ideas and called them hypertext. He tried to start a universal publishing system called Xanadu in the 1960s and 1970s, but ran up against the limits of available computer hardware and software. While none of these ideas was successful in its own right, each helped paint a different picture of what a global interactive medium could become. The technology certainly lagged behind the vision. One early home information system was a radio-fax arrangement demonstrated by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1938. The system was too expensive to be commercial, but it was an interesting forerunner of future communications systems. These prototypes and faltering experiments provided clues about what audiences might expect from a more flexible and inclusive information system.

Prototype Networks
The World Wide Web is today the largest part of a computer network called the Internet, which started as a system for exchanging data and text messages in the 1960s. Most of the early development was funded by US military research institutions working on a way to communicate between mainframe computers. Packet switching, developed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1969, was a major advance that allowed small units of information to be exchanged, checked and re-routed if necessary under all kinds of adverse network conditions. The military network was eventually linked to other university and research networks through a protocol called TCP/IP in the early 1970s. A program that allowed people to send each other e-mail was also developed. Scientists and academics who first used this network started to enjoy the free and fast information exchanges. They found it easy to keep up with distant colleagues, arrange conferences, exchange ideas and collaborate on research. And they also started having fun writing to friends and trading advice and jokes. In the late 1970s, various pieces of the academic and military networks were brought together into the National Science Foundation network and merged with a university network called "Bitnet" (Because Its Time network). Most of the early uses for the system involved e-mail among groups of people sharing common academic interests.

Interactivity, New Technology and the Mass Media

When the history of the Internet and Web is written, an important question may be why the mainstream mass media lagged so far behind in the 1990s. Part of the answer is that waves of new technologies had already caused tremendous and painful changes in the business. These included the switch from letterpress to offset printing and from hot lead typesetting to cold type generated by primitive (although usually functional) mainframe computers. Surveys found attitudes to be generally positive in the newsroom, but technical innovation was often resented as much as it was welcomed. In the 1980s, two kinds of experiments in new interactive media backed by news organizations turned out to be expensive failures. These were teletext and videotex. Teletext -- Around 1978, television networks experimented with inserting text and crude graphics into the TV signal (technically, into the vertical blanking interval). Several hundred pages could be broadcast in sequence to viewers with a special receiver and a small keypad. Stations and networks in the US., Japan and Europe experimented with the teletext system, but there were serious problems. For example, if a viewer wanted a page that happened to be at the end of the sequence, it could take as long as 30 seconds to load. Videotex -- Another approach involved what was generically called "videotex." (The name was shortened from "Videotext" because in the computers of the era, file names could not be longer than eight characters). Early prototypes involved an Associated Press / Compuserve partnership in 1980 and the Times Mirror "Gateway" and Knight Ridder "Viewtron" experiments of 1982 1986. Viewtron was ahead of its time with electronic banking, games, chats and other non-news services. Another experiment was the CBS-IBM-Sears venture called Trinitex, which started in 1984, ended in 1988. It was revived in 1989 as Prodigy without CBS as a partner.. American videotex experiments did not succeed partly because the technology was expensive. The Viewtron terminal cost $600 and the monthly fees were over $20, for example. Viewtron tried to bring down the expense with advertising,, but poor graphics kept most advertisers away. Also, the interface was clumsy. Modems typically ran at 300 bits per second (compared 28,800 bits per second typical of the very slowest modems of the early 2000s. Also, navigation was clumsy. Pages were accessed by number, not hot links, and it was all too easy to get lost.

The mass media (radio, television, newspapers and magazines) are fundamental to development. They enable people to learn about issues and make their voices heard. They can exert a powerful influence, for good or for ill. Free, independent media are important to ensure freedom of speech (guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), promote democracy, good governance, peace and human rights, combat poverty and crime, inform people about issues and enable them to participate in public debate. Media are vital to ensure the public is involved in defining development strategies, and to attain widespread support for those strategies. There are considerable differences in media among regions and countries, and between cities and rural areas. Community radio and privately owned press and TV have had a longer tradition in Latin America than in Asia and Africa. Rural areas receive less coverage than cities (reporting, broadcast coverage and print circulation). The last decades have witnessed the following trends: A continued rise in the importance of the mass media with democratisation and fewer state controls, yet their continued misuse in some quarters for instance by groups that divide rather than unite communities. The rising professionalism of media work, along with a need to balance journalistic freedoms with quality and responsibility (so-called peace journalism), and increased selfcensorship (since 11 Sept 2001). Privatisation of state-run broadcasters in many countries, yet the concentration of ownership into a few hands. This often results in improved

technical quality but impoverished content, and particularly in the loss of cultural, educational and developmental content. Revived interest in radio: both community stations (local orientation and social agenda, often in local languages), and commercial FM stations (no social agenda, competing for audiences and broadcast rights). Attempts to use the media to promote democracy, community dialogue, and social/economic development. The rapid advance of information and communication technologies, and their influence on the acquisition, production, exchange and dissemination of information by the traditional mass media. Further globalisation of the media, with a few dominant players based in the developed world, with little relevance to local cultures and conditions. Key issues in decision making Role of media The media are sources of entertainment, news, public information, education, advocacy and dialogue, and function as a mirror of society. Audiences demand for entertainment (and media organisations need to make a profit) may compete for broadcast time and column-inches with development agencies desire to use the media to provide education and promote development goals. Social marketing and edutainment try to change audiences behaviour in areas such as family planning, AIDS, public health and sanitation. They often use entertainment methods such as pop songs and soap operas. However, some see this as manipulative. Despite their name, mass media still do not reach many people in remote rural areas. Many are under the influence of the state, and

have often been used to disseminate information in top-down manner. But recent trends are towards community dialogue and bottom-up participation in public debate. Mechanisms include talk or call-in radio programmes, and community radio and newspapers. Key questions include: What incentives might encourage private media to provide development programming on a sustainable basis combining educational content with commercial success? How can the media provide opportunities for marginalised groups, particularly in rural areas, to voice their opinions and participate in the public debate? How can they help promote social goods and reduce the knowledge gap between rich and poor? Should support from development agencies focus on the media (i.e., geared towards organisations), or messages (geared towards content or programming), or perhaps a mixture of these? What type of regulation is necessary to promote balanced, reliable journalism? At a minimum, the existence of a self-regulating body appears to be a prerequisite. Media freedom Free media and an active civil society are mutually reinforcing. One cannot thrive without the other. The Western tradition of the media as the conduit through which information passes is different from the view held by many of those in power in developing countries, who see the media as a way to inform (and perhaps control) the masses. Media play a vital role in reinforcing democracy, and in turn rely on freedom from state control and censorship. Decades of restrictions are hard to overcome. State-run media in many countries still adulate those in power and

allow little room for opposing views. Privatised media may also lack independence: they are often run by wealthy individuals or parrot the lines of political parties. Some governments still restrict their freedom by selective licensing, harassment or threats. Nevertheless, some form of regulation is necessary to avoid problems of (for example) libel, incitement to violence, and unethical journalism. Questions include: How can free, balanced, effective and responsible media be developed? Should donors make funding What is the appropriate role for public media, and what should be the balance between public and private media? How can legislation ensure that public media are independent despite their government financing? How can pluralism, media diversity and editorial independence be promoted in states that are still fragile? How can governments be made to understand and respect the role of the media in a democracy? What is the appropriate balance between media regulation and freedom? How can private media be encouraged to work in the public interest? How can praise journalism and hate journalism be avoided? How relevant are Western theories of media to cultures in developing countries? Sustainability and accessibility Privately owned media need to support themselves through advertising or (for print media) sales and subscriptions. But advertisers are scarce, and the poor buy few newspapers and magazines. As a result, coverage is largely confined to the urban middle classes and neglects rural areas and poorer urban areas. The lack of funds also affects media content. TV

broadcasters cannot afford to invest in quality, locally produced programmes, so are forced to broadcast cheaper, often foreign, alternatives. Sustainability also requires an enabling environment in terms of legislation, infrastructure, security and capacity. Newspapers demand both literacy and money to buy them. While the demand for printed media and TV is rising, radio remains the most promising medium in vast areas without electricity. Questions include: How can the coverage and availability of media be improved and made more relevant to the illiterate and otherwise marginalised groups? How can production standards, services and independence be maintained in private media? How can community media maintain their democratic and development mandates in face of limited funds, personnel and facilities, and sometimes adverse regulatory regimes? Capacity building Professional capacity remains a common constraint, as also are facilities and equipment. In many countries, development broadcasting is still the responsibility of poorly trained staff in line ministries (agriculture, health, cooperatives, etc.). A more successful model is for professional staff in broadcasting organisations to take on this work, drawing on the line ministries as a resource. Digital technologies have opened exciting possibilities for all types of media. These technologies lower the costs of entry to the industry, potentially increasing media diversity and the range of viewpoints. They also enable the media to become more interactive. Radio stations can now download and exchange music and information to use in programmes. Many media organisations need help to take

advantage of these possibilities. At the individual level, the training of managers, journalists, development communication professionals and technicians must be a priority. Editors and journalists and government officials need to learn the new rules of the game in a free media (this includes responsibilities, standards and such ethics as balanced reporting); technicians need to keep pace with the new, digital technologies. Questions include: How can the professionalism and quality of the media be improved? What is the appropriate division of responsibilities between broadcasting organisations and line ministries? How can journalists and other media professionals with appropriate skills be trained (this involves strengthening training organisations, curricula and materials)? How can media influences on audiences be monitored and evaluated? How can media councils and regulatory bodies be strengthened without risking fragile media freedoms? What other changes (policies, resources, approaches) are needed so that newly trained staff professionals

Information and communication technologies and the digital divide in the Third World countries N. Balakrishnan
Supercomputer Education and Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India The technophiles view is that the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) herald the arrival of the new information era and are key factors for social change. The technophobes view the advances in ICT as new and sophisticated tools that would further the industrial imperialism. In spite of these opposing views, it is a fact that ICT have been contributing to a significant part of the economy of many developing nations. This is substantiated by the actions of almost every Third World country in treating ICT as a high priority item in their economic planning. ICT is seen to play an important role in political, socioeconomical, and cultural globalization process. Many international organizations including the World Bank, United Nations (UN) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), have fostered multitude of initiatives in the Third World countries that not only help in bringing the benefits of ICT to the Third World, but also create a framework for influencing policy formulations, open up markets, introduce competition and deregulate the ICT market. The changes brought about by ICT are rapid and ubiquitous. The uneven diffusion of this fast-changing technology has also caused the digital divide within the countries and between the countries. It is almost certain that the countries which do not adopt and adapt to these changes will be marginalized, widening the digital divide. Third World countries are precariously poised at this juncture and a careful planning on their part would decide if the ICT would bring economic growth for them or push them deeper into technological isolation. In this paper, we discuss the emerging trend in ICT, the state of their assimilation world over and the emerging digital divide. Introduction The advances in Information Technology and the advent of internet and e-commerce have resulted in the knowledge products forming a substantial portion of the economic growth of many countries. Countries that master the techniques of creating, managing and protecting their knowledge and information products would emerge as the superpowers in the ensuing knowledge era. The world is undergoing a transition from a paper economy to a digital economy. The need of the hour is a highly proactive role from the Third World countries either singly or jointly, that would take into account the changing scenarios in the information and communication technologies and their nonlinear interactions and convergence. Changing technologies and their convergence There are three basic constituents that shape the information technology world. These are computers, connectivity and content. Together, these generate knowledge that will then call for all the awesome power of information management and the planning to foster and protect. Many Third World countries (TWC) by virtue of their having large pool of scientific talents and being the oldest civilizations, are excellently poised to generate contents. Many factors contributed to the easy availability of computers and the skills necessary to optimally utilize them. First is the growth of the software industry that has enhanced the PC penetration. Second is the Moores law, due to which the costs of computers have been falling at approximately 40% a year. But still a major hurdle in

most of the Third World nations is their low levels of connectivity within and to the outside world. Computers and smart access devices The microprocessor that forms the heart of the PC is becoming smaller, faster and cheaper. The processor revolution is fuelled by an intense research in Material Science. The first microprocessor Intel 4004 introduced in 1971 had less than 3000 transistors and operated at a clock frequency of 108 kHz. Today, the Intel Pentium IV using the 0.18 micron technology, has nearly 42 million transistors and operates at a clock frequency of 1.5 GHz. The exponential growth in the number of transistors in a single chip and the clock rate for the microprocessor manufactured by Intel (www.intel.com) are depicted in Figure 1. The trends characterized by the well known Moores Law1 are similar for microprocessors manufactured by other major vendors. SPECIAL SECTION: SCIENCE IN THE THIRD WORLD CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 81, NO. 8, 25 OCTOBER 2001 967 Figure 1. Trends in processor speed and number of transistors in microprocessors (based on the data from www.intel.com). Conventional photolithographic equipments usually use ultraviolet rays at 248 or 193 nanometers. A series of lenses are used to reduce the image to a quarter in size. The rays are passed through the mask on which the circuit patterns are traced. The image is then exposed in a chemical on the wafer. Another chemical treatment etches away either the exposed or unexposed areas of the image, creating the chip2. Using Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) one can embed ever smaller features on silicon, beginning with chips at 70-nanometer level. The EUV uses the 13nanometer wavelengths. Most materials absorb UV light and the researchers needed to come up with materials that reflect this wavelength. This is in variance from the tradional transmitted-light photomasks used in the Deep Ultra Violet (DUV) photolithography. The microprocessors that will reach the market in 2005 will feature 70-nanometers. There will be a smooth transition in later years for producing chips with 10-nanometer elements. This will extend the present microprocessors soon to have a billion transistors and with clock frequencies in the range of 10 GHz (refs 3 and 4). This could result in a performance of 100,000 MIPS increase over the current processors. One of the difficulties that arises in such highly integrated high clock rate microprocessors is the difficulty of transporting data and clock within the processor at rates near 10 GHz. The copper as a conductor at these rates would not work. Even 3 GHz would pose a serious problem. Over a dozen research groups across the world are racing to develop miniature optical devices capable of being integrated right into the silicon chip. There are basically two approaches to solve this problem. One is to use the silicon siblings such as GaAs as light emitting devices and these can be easily integrated into the silicon chip. The second approach is to make light emitting diodes from silicon. For decades, silicon has been the cheap raw material used in transistors. But silicon without its ability to emit light, has been the limiting factor. Earlier attempts to make silicon emit light yielded efficiencies in the range of 0.1% which is far below the 1% minimum efficiency acceptable in the industry. Recent work of scientists at the University of Texas at Austin has resulted in processes that will produce stable microscopic nanocrystals out of silicon that can emit light. By changing the size of the silicon nanostructures, it is possible to change the colour of the light emitted (http://www.smalltimes.com/). Such small silicon microphotonic devices will be future alternatives for interconnects within the chip and

between them. This will also be useful in making faster memories that consume less power and newer class of television and computer displays with full rainbow colours. In brief, with silicon as the base material, the road map predicted by Moores law will hold at least for the next 15 to 20 years4,5. While the processor density doubles every 18 months, the Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) density has been seen to double every 3 years. This has motivated the architectural innovations like the introduction of cache memories and the attendant memory hierarchy. It is today feasible to have 4 gigabits per chip of DRAM. The magnetic storage devices have medium access time due to their mechanical limitation and offer storage densities in the range of a gigabit per square inch. Due to the popularity of PCs and laptops, the trend is towards designing smaller, faster, high capacity and cheaper storage units. The increased market demand has also resulted in their cost halving every year. Figure 2 describes the trend seen in magnetic hard disk storage evolution based on data available at www.ibm.com. It is seen in Figure 2 that the future laptops and PCs would offer low form factor storage of nearly a terabyte.

Media and the New Colonialism The significance of this shift from a society that is commodity-based to one that is information-based is far more than that it allows us to buy the same newspaper almost anywhere in the world. It means that we already have moved into an age where information is power -- economic, political, and social power. Of course, information always has been power. Two thousand years ago the Roman roads throughout southern Europe gave the emperors the information and transportation they required to hold the empire together. A thousand years ago knots tied in strings carried by runners along the Andes Mountains enabled the Incas to run their domain. A hundred years ago the lines of international communication closely followed the lines of the North Atlantic empires. The cartel of European news agencies divided up the world according to the political and economic spheres of influence. Transoceanic cables and later radio frequencies provided the links of empire 50 years ago. Even when the post-World War II national liberation movements changed the political alignment of the world, the old structures of economic and information dependence persisted. As the Third World nations threw off political domination, the First World nations simply substituted economic and media domination. In fact, as the production, control, and use of information has become increasingly important during the last few years, information dependency in the Third World has actually increased. Where and how does this dependency take place? First, it occurs in the press. Two U.S. news agencies dominate the entire world`s daily output. The Associated Press puts out 17 million words overseas daily, serving 108 nations with 559 foreign correspondants and 62 foreign bureaus. United Press International operates in 92 countries including 2,246 subscribers outside the United States, plus 36 national news agencies, produces 11 million words and 200 news pictures daily, and gathers its foreign news with a staff of 578 overseas and 81 foreign bureaus. All other press agencies -- AFP (France), Reuters (United Kingdon), Tass (Soviet Union) and a half dozen other national press groups -- taken together, issue some 3 million words daily -- about one-tenth of the output of the two U.S. agencies. Second, there is dependency in radio and television. All broadcasting is controlled to some extent by governments, partly because the frequencies are limited and must be regulated to avoid chaos, but more importantly because radio and television are such powerful agents for shaping culture. But again, U.S. broadcasting dominates the world scene. UNESCO estimates that the number of hours of American TV programs exported each year ranges up to 200,000, or more than twice the number of hours exported by all the other nations combined. Anyone

who has seen "Kojak" and "The Bionic Woman" in Hong Kong, or "Peyton Place" and "The Flintstones" in Latin America knows what this means. Third, there is dependency because of advertising. By l970, only 2 of the top 25 U. S. advertising agencies did not have overseas offices. In Peru, for example, more than 80% of the advertising carried by Peruvian newspapers, radio, and television is channeled through big American advertising firms, such as J. Walter Thompson, McKann Erickson, Grant Advertising, and Katts Acciones, Inc.. One of the most serious problems created by First World domination of advertising is that it tends to create consumer demand in the Third World for luxury products. Disposable diapers, cosmetics, and soft drinks are pressed on the population in nations which desperately need to promote the basics of good health and consumption of simple, nutritious foods. Consider one example. In the early l980s Nestle ads widely circulated in Africa showed a "nurse" urging young mothers to buy and use powered-milk formula (a major Nestle product) for their children. As a result of this advertising campaign many mothers shifted from breast feeding to bottle feeding. When mothers discovered they could no longer breast feed their children they had to rely totally on the Nestle product. But since most of the families were desperately poor, mothers began to water down the milk. As a result, some babies died because of unsterile water, bottles and nipples, and many others simply died of starvation, while parents looked on helplessly. Churches in Europe and North America negotiated with Nestle to get them to withdraw the ad campaign. Nestle refused. The courts proved to be useless because Nestle had operations so in many different countries, outside the jurisdiction of any single legal system. So the churches launched a boycott of Nestle products which, over a three year period, resulted in Nestle finally withdrawing the ads. This is one of many ways that media domination results in advertising which benefits the industrialized western nations at the expense of the poor. Fourth, media domination occurs in data flow. This is the least understood, yet potentially the most important aspect of information dependency. During the past 30 years the world`s basic industries -- textiles, steel, automobiles, and rubber -- have slowly been replaced by new industries -- electronics, space, biochemistry, and exploitation of the seas. All these new industries depend heavily on the processing of information. Cees Hamelink of the Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands estimates that 70% of the costs of industrial production today are devoted to the processing of information -market exploitation, advertising, research and development, and intracompany communications. These new companies are multinational; they are not "located" anywhere. They place their various production, distribution, marketing, and finance centers anywhere in the world which best suits them. The corporation was an economic and legal concept invented in the 19th century to avoid the problem of personal accountability. Its creation facilitated the accumulation of capital which resulted in the economic system we know today. The successor to the corporation is the multinational corporation, which was

developed after World War II and soon emerged as an ingenious way for individuals to avoid the problem of any accountability, since it stood outside the jurisdiction of any single nation. Multinationals transcend national boundaries and therefore are mostly outside national control. They exist beyond the laws and regulations of state and federal governments, which until mid-century were used by states and nations to curb the excessive power of huge business enterprises. But the computers, data banks, terminals, programs, and software of multinationals provide them with the power to move money, labor, parts, and natural resources in ways to emphasize profits without consideration of the welfare of any nation, especially the new Third World nations and their peoples. Finally, there is media dependency in satellite transmission and sensing. Satellites are the electronic highways which make the other information technologies possible. Worldwide news services, television programs, and data flow would be impossible without the satellite. And whoever controls the satellites controls the world`s information flow. For example, a major international bank located in New York can keep watch on crops and shipping, the mining of resources, weather developments, and many other aspects of business in most of the nations of the world -- daily, hourly -- right from their offices in Manhattan. If the Landsat Satellite picks up a different color in its pictures of the coffee plantations of Columbia, the banks`s specialists may determine that this indicates a blight on the leaves which will result in serious crop failure. This information then allows their investment department to buy and sell coffee futures that day on the world`s markets with information that even the coffee growers in the plantations in Columbia may not yet have! This is what it means to say that knowledge is power today. In theory, anyone can purchase those pictures from the Landsat Satellite, though they are costly. But to have the computer lines and terminals, specialists in image analysis, specialists in food production, geology, land management, ocean ecology, investment specialists, and, finally, to own the worldwide satellite facilities to move the information instantly -- such capability can be achieved only by very large, multinational corporations. The result is that in this increasingly technological era communications is benefiting the rich nations at the expense of the poor, and within a given nation, the rich people at the expense of the poor. This raises some important moral questions. By what right do some get to benefit from the new technology at the expense of others? If the technology depends on the use of scarce spectrum which belongs to all nations equally, should not all nations benefit equally from its use? And if taxes pay for the research and development that makes the new communication technology available, should not all taxpayers have a say in how the technology is to be used? A New World-Information Order

As nation after nation in Asia and Africa gained their independence in the l950s, it became apparent to these newly "free" nations that the old political colonialism had largely been replaced by new economic and information colonialism. In l956 the leaders of most of the former colonies of the world met in Bandung to organize a "nonaligned" movement which established their group as a buffer between the proponents of capitalism (First World) and those of communism (Second World). This Third World group, interested in neither capitalism or communism so much as in the opportunity to develop their own nationhood, began to press for a new economic independence from both First and Second Worlds. The United Nations was their forum. By l970, the l6th General Assembly of UNESCO had defined the concept of a New International Economic Order which stated that the emerging nations would not be able to develop until they decreased their economic dependence on the First World. By this time the members of UNESCO were aware that the economic well-being of the Third World also depended upon a new kind of information flow. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in San Francisco at the time of the founding of the United Nations, stated the goal in Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.1. In l974 the nonaligned nations started their own News Pool, an attempt to redress the imbalance of news about the Third World. Charging U.S. news agencies with intentional bias and systematic distortion, Rafael Caldera, former President of Venezuela, said: "Perhaps the phrase `no news is good news` has become `good news is no news.` Only the most deplorable incidents, be they the work of nature or man, get reported." Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez agreed: "The big press of the big countries does not report about our realities, our struggles and our goals. . . ." In l976 a UNESCO conference outlined the basic proposals of a New International Information Order: greater public access and participation in the media, regional cooperation in news flow, and agreement on a "free and balanced flow" of information. It was this last concept which became the center of debate in the West. At present, the nations of the world are divided on how information should be treated. There are basically two views. One view, supported primarily by the United States, Great Britain, and most of the European nations, calls for a "free flow" of information, that is, virtually no governmental restrictions except technical ones; in effect communication flow exists for those who are willing and able to pay for it, and who claim it first. The second view, supported primarily by the new Third World nations, questions this de facto dominance of communication by the West, and calls for a "balanced flow," which means that laws would establish a greater balance between the interests of the First World and Third World. For exampoe, Tunisia`s Ambassador Mustapha Masmoundi`s in l980 called for the establishment of national communication agencies which would be

responsible for "formulating overall communications policies" to promote national development. He urged information professionals to draw up a "code of ethics governing the conduct of all communicators," including the requirement "that the events be reported in their real context," and to provide for recourse and "the right of response to and correction of misstatements." But when UNESCO agencies began to talk "balance," Western news agencies, and especially U.S. news agencies, began to cry foul. Time magazine carried an essay entitled "The Global First Amendment War," saying that "at stake, ultimately, is the right of readers, radio listeners and television viewers everywhere to be properly [sic] informed about the world around them; for the developing and industrial countries alike to learn about one another without hindrance."2. To this Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland, replied: "Freedom of speech has also become in practice the freedom of the rich." To complicate matters further, the communist bloc has supported the "balanced flow" position in UNESCO. But media "balance" within these nations in practice usually means whatever the government decrees, and there is almost no opportunity for the presentation of other views to help provide balance. Thus the Second World support for "balance" is little more of a political ploy to appear to be aligned with the Third World nations than it is genuine support for the concept of open communication. The issue of "free flow" versus "balanced flow" is perplexing, particularly for Americans with our belief that the First Amendment guarantee of free speech is essential to our system of governance. Many would say that there is no principle more central to our liberty than the freedom of citizens to communicate with one another, and that this freedom must never be encroached upon by government for any reason, no matter how benign. On the other hand, as Third World leaders point out, the l8th and l9th century laissezfaire concept in economics, which encouraged Europe and America to act in any way that favored their own self-interest, clearly resulted in massive injustices throughout the world. This same big-fish-eat-little-fish morality has also been at work in the field of communication. Could laws and international agreements help to restrain unfair media competition? The current debate on this question is full of ironies. Many of the Third World nations most vocal in calling for "balanced" information are themselves dictatorships or oligopolies which use information to further the interests of a tiny power elite. Korea, much of the Soviet bloc, and many nations in South America and Africa use the press mostly as a propaganda tool. On the other hand, the United States, the loudest voice calling for "free flow" maintains such a thorough domination of many foreign markets that a genuine free flow of information there is impossible as well.

In l978 UNESCO established an International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. This 16-member body, with representation from First, Second, and Third World nations and led by former Irish Foreign Minister Sean MacBride, made its report in November l980. The MacBride Report challenges the thesis held by many in the West that technology is neutral, and notes that usually technology is part of a system which favors the most power groups in any given society. It suggested that some technology ought to be delayed or even indefinitely postponed if it clearly fails to further the needs of humankind.3. Unfortunately, the MacBride Report as a whole failed to provide any definitive proposals to meet the demands of either side. On one hand, editors of the New York Times were upset because the report seemed to suggest some kind of government intervention to achieve balance. On the other hand, Third World nations regretted that the report provided no clear call for laws or international agreements to end the present economic domination by First World nations.