Global media/communication movement(s)

A multilingual, global collaborative Internet site devoted to recording research on and connections with alternative, radical, citizens, Community, independent, militant, autonomous, media throughout the world. 

A report from the National Labor Committee: At the Kiryung Electronics Factory in South Korea, young women assembling Sirius Satellite Radios are stripped of their rights and forced to work grueling hours for below-subsistence wages.  When the women sought their legal rights, they were attacked and beaten.

The Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) is a space for collaborative monitoring of implementation of international (and national) commitments made by governments towards the creation of an inclusive information society.

It focuses on monitoring progress made towards implementing the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) action agenda and other international and national commitments related to information and communications. It also provides analytical overviews of institutions involved in implementation. GISWatch aims to make governments and international organisations accountable for meeting the commitments they make through contributing to building a strong and sustainable global civil society policy advocacy network.

The GISWatch 2007 and GISWatch 2008 reports are the first in a series of yearly reports covering the state of the information society from the perspectives of civil society.

GISWatch is not only a publication, it is a process. The long term goal of the project is to build policy analysis skills and ‘habits’ into the work of civil society organisations that work in the areas of ICT for development, democracy and social justice.

About us
The Global Information Society Watch is a joint initiative of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos) and the Third World Institute (ITeM), and follows up on our long-term interest in the impact of civil society on governance processes and our efforts to enhance public participation in national and international forums.

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) www.apc.org
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network of civil society organisations dedicated to empowering and supporting groups and individuals working for peace, human rights, development and protection of the environment, through the strategic use of information and communication technologies, including the internet.
Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation (Hivos) www.hivos.nl
Hivos is a Dutch non-governmental organisation guided by humanist values. The work of Hivos aims at structurally alleviating poverty, with an emphasis on civil society building and on sustainable economic development. The efforts of Hivos are focused on nine themes: financial services and business development; sustainable production; human rights and democratisation; HIV/AIDS; gender, women and development; art and culture; ICT & media; advocacy and communication; and the knowledge programme.
Third World Institute (ITeM) www.item.org.uy
The Third World Institute (ITeM) performs information, communication and education activities on an international level, concerning development and environment-related activities. It is a civil society organization, working for civil society, which encourages citizen involvement in global decision-making processes.

A 2008 report from several practitioners describing the powerful role of community media in their regions.

"The real focus of the text is on democratic and sustainable development. It reflects the main interest of those who support or are active in community radio, an interest that does not centre on technology, equipment, infrastructure or spectrum. Their interest focuses on participation."

"This publication is not designed to be an exhaustive analysis of community radio in the 21st century. It is designed to provide perspectives on a rapidly changing and increasingly relevant movement within the context of contemporary development debates. It does not suggest that community media offer a panacea to all society’s ills, nor to argue that other forms of media do not have critical roles in development. It does argue that current evidence and experience should prompt a major re-evaluation and increasing interest in community radio by development policymakers and specialists. We suggest that what is also needed are strong efforts to create more enabling policy and regulatory environments for community media."

Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007

How the index was compiled

Paris, 16 October 2007

The Reporters Without Borders index
measures the state of press freedom in the world. It reflects the
degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each
country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure
respect for this freedom.

A score and a position is assigned to
each country in the final ranking. They are complementary indicators
that together assess the state of press freedom. A country can change
position from year to year even if its score stays the same, and
vice-versa.

This ranking reflects the situation
during a specific period. It is based solely on events between 1
September 2006 and 1 September 2007. It does not look at human rights
violations in general, just press freedom violations.

To compile this index, Reporters
Without Borders prepared a questionnaire with 50 criteria that assess
the state of press freedom in each country. It includes every kind of
violation directly affecting journalists (such as murders,
imprisonment, physical attacks and threats) and news media (censorship,
confiscation of newspaper issues, searches and harassment). Ánd it
includes the degree of impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these
press freedom violations.

It also measures the level of
self-censorship in each country and the ability of the media to
investigate and criticise. Financial pressure, which is increasingly
common, is also assessed and incorporated into the final score.

The questionnaire takes account of the
legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences,
the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how
the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public
media. It also reflects violations of the free flow of information on
the Internet.

The World Information Access Project has published their 2007
report, presenting trends in the distribution of information and
communication technologies around the world. The report includes an
interesting map of the distribution of government websites and costs of
internet access across the world.

The idea of the protests against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, known as the FARC, was born less than a month ago on the
social networking Web site Facebook, and more than 100,000 people in
165 cities around the world confirmed their participation.