A Voice from the Third World: Towards a 'new world order of information' - Media - April 1977

UNESCO Courier, Dec, 2001 by Ridha Najar

INCONTESTABLY, 1976 was the year in which the problems of information and communication became world-wide issues. A whole series of conferences, symposia and meetings on these subjects launched a major debate and the issues were fully aired at the 19th session of Unesco's General Conference last November in Nairobi, Kenya.

Today the countries of the Third World are demanding a "new world order of information". What does this expression mean? What are the immense stakes in this debate, which poses questions that are at one and the same time cultural, economic and political?

How can the countries of the Third World take the first urgent steps to improve communication between themselves? How can they help to limit the quantity of "one-way information" which for years has relegated them to the role of consumers without calling in question the very principle of a free, balanced (and thereby fruitful) exchange of information between nations?

How will it be possible progressively to achieve the "balanced flow of information" of which so much is heard today, as a means of achieving better communication between peoples, and hence promoting greater international understanding and world peace, which is so often jeopardized by major historical and cultural misunderstandings?

The preamble to the resolution submitted by Tunisia on behalf of the non-aligned countries at the General Conference in Nairobi points out that Unesco has a contribution to make in "liberating the developing countries from the state of dependence resulting from specific historical circumstances which still characterizes their communication and information systems."

Just as people once referred to "political and economic decolonization", they now speak of the "decolonization of information" which is inseparable from the achievement of a new universal humanism founded on dialogue and mutual respect.

The developing countries continue to "consume" world information as it is conceived in the main by the industrialized nations.

This information tends to maintain the people of the Third World in a state of alienation. It also keeps the peoples of the Western countries in a dangerous state of ignorance regarding the realities of the Third World countries, lulling them with the complacent assumption that Western industry, technology and culture, in short, Western civilization as a whole, are superior.

A serious matter, and one which lends itself to all kinds of misunderstandings, is that in the name of a certain concept of the "freedom" and "free flow" of information, most of the large Western news agencies consciously or unconsciously disseminate information which is fragmentary, schematic and frequently distorted concerning the complex realities of the developing countries.

Conversely, the information which they distribute in the Third World countries is sometimes dangerously loaded with the overtones of alien cultures.

The Report of the Symposium of Non-Aligned Countries on Communication, held in Tunis in March 1976, goes as far as considering that, for these international agencies, information is "a commodity... in whose processing and transmission intervene considerations which tend to perpetuate a system of domination in which the authentic interests of the developing countries are consistently ignored or misinterpreted".

Is it surprising therefore that the citizen of the Third World ends up by accepting the vision of himself presented by the mass media?

The technological superiority of the industrially developed countries is constantly growing as a result of modern progress, and their media networks deluge the Third World countries, which are far less well-endowed with technical equipment and trained personnel, with their own brand of information.

There is no point in even mentioning communication satellites. Their "use by developing countries is subject to the will of those who possess the advanced technology, and by it can decisively influence the economic, political and social reality of the developing countries" (1).

This, then, is the state of the world as far as information is concerned. In the 1970s it has forced the Third, World countries to make a harsh, appraisal of their position.

The newly-independent countries, believing that they had defeated direct colonialization, realized that their development remained in jeopardy, that their demands for a new economic order could not make themselves heard, and that their cultural identity could never be achieved without a substantial change in the world system of disseminating information.

What is the solution to this problem? How can better communication between the countries of the Third World be established? What measures will help to achieve a more balanced flow of information between North and South, and vice versa?

In an attempt to find an answer to these interrelated questions, let us consider the action taken by the non-aligned countries (see also article page 18).

Meeting in Algiers, in September 1973, the Fourth Summit Conference of Non-Aligned Countries recommended that a joint plan of action should be worked out in the field of communications.