The World Summit on Information Society
humanITy Briefing Paper 7
Date: 21/05/2003
Article
1. Introduction / Background
1.1 "The World Summit on the Information Society will provide a unique opportunity for all key stakeholders to assemble at a high-level gathering and to develop a better understanding of this revolution and its impact on the international community. It aims to bring together Heads of State, Executive Heads of United Nations agencies, industry leaders, non-governmental organizations, media representatives and civil society in a single high-level event. The roles of the various partners (Member States, UN specialized agencies, private sector and civil society) in ensuring smooth coordination of the practical establishment of the information society around the globe will also be at the heart of the Summit and its preparation”.
"The anticipated outcome of the Summit is to develop and foster a clear statement of political will and a concrete plan of action for achieving the goals of the Information Society, while fully reflecting all the different interests at stake. The scope and nature of this ambitious project will require partnerships with public and private entities, and such partnerships will be actively sought in the coming months." (www.itu.int/WSIS/index.html)
1.2 This Briefing Paper will summarise the following aspects of the WSIS debate:
- Scope
- Information Flows.
- Technologies
- End Uses.
2. Scope
2.1 Although there are differing emphases, the WSIS is largely conceived of as a forum to establish global principles upon which poorer countries may claim a fair share of the resources to participate fully in the information society so, in other words, it is seen as a 'North/South' issue.
2.2 As the WSIS is being built up from work in geopolitical regions, the first layer of any discussion must be a set of principles and a declaration which is appropriate to each region.
2.2.1 Within the ambit of the European Union, Candidate States and associates, there are two major issues which need to be considered:
- First, there are many 'information poor' people in rich countries, including those who are socio-economically deprived, disabled people, illiterate people, those who do not speak the language of the country they live in;
- Secondly, even within the European ambit there are wide differences of resources ranging from Finland to Romania.
2.2.2 A regional approach has its weaknesses but it will allow sharp, relevant issues and declarations to be articulated at an early stage. It may be important in the final analysis to create a global declaration but this should result from clearly set out regional positions so that, for example, the EU should not be bound either by the limited view of the issue on the part of china nor by a majority vote of countries which do not share the EU's understanding of the concept.
2.2.3 A regional approach will also allow minorities within a region to state their positions before detail is 'traded away' at the global level.
2.3 There will be a tendency to think of the Information Society in terms of the ability to connect computers to the telecommunications system but this limitation is both artificial and misguided; artificial because of convergence; misguided because the computer as we know it will never be the primary route by which most people in the world access information. Although this is a controversial area, the whole initiative will be almost worthless unless it includes broadcasting and the de-regulation of telecommunications.
2.4 It must be explicitly stated in any global Declaration that what it proposes is a 'floor' and not a ceiling; and it must set out milestones and a timetable for action.
3. Information Flows
3.1 We must learn from the debacle of the New World Information Order initiative of the early 1980s when an artificial conflict was generated between the free (and often biased and venal) news services of rich countries and the indigenous (often worthless) news services of dictatorships in poor countries. Two decades on, we need to find a way out of the hopeless duopoly of United States pulp broadcasting which has the potential to smother indigenous broadcasting in most countries, and the public broadcasting services which operate as the mouthpiece of a political monopoly.
3.2 Major issues include:
- Capacity building for local and diaspora content creation
- The control and ownership of the Internet, telecommunications and broadcasting
- The implications of convergence
- Digital Rights Management and the declaration of Public Domain Documents
- The integrity and attribution of content.
3.3 Any Declaration should focus equally on creating, navigating and processing information; the discussion should not be confined to finding and processing as if the system were one-way, like analogue television.
4. Technologies
4.1 In line with an emphasis on broadcasting as well as computing power and on creativity as well as processing, the Summit must take care to recommend the use of appropriate technologies. There has been a sad tendency in the last decade for rich countries to dump their legacy equipment on poorer countries. The technology may be inappropriate but even where it is of some use it necessarily puts the recipient at a disadvantage over the donor.
4.2 In view of infrastructural limitations, the emphasis in technology should be on portable devices which can be driven by solar power and on mass produced consumer electronics such as televisions and telephones.
4.3 Investment should be made in satellite and wireless technologies but there should also be a global agreement on concessionary satellite fees for specific civil society usage.
4.4 The emphasis should be on distributed processing rather than on mass use of processors that lie idle for 2/3 of the time.
5. End Uses
5.1 Although primary end uses will vary from region to region, the following is a list of particularly important end uses, in addition to standard news and entertainment, of information systems for most countries:
- Health, Medicine and Veterinary
- Meteorology, agriculture and Commodity
- Education, training, learning, skills transfer
- Women's issues, empowerment
- Politics and citizenship
- Business development, finance
6. Resources
- Carey, K (2002) DIASPORA AND THE INTEGRITY OF INFORMATION http://www.humanity.org.uk/articles/pr_diaspora.shtml
- www.genderit.org
- www.ids.ac.uk
- www.itu.int/WSIS/index.html
- www.oneworld.org
- www.soas.ac.uk
- www.wougnet.org/WSIS/wsisgc.html