PRESS BRIEFING BY UNESCO ON 'WORLD COMMUNICATION REPORT'

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNESCO ON 'WORLD COMMUNICATION REPORT'

The Director of the Freedom of Expression and Democracy Unit of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Alain Modoux, briefed correspondents at Headquarters this afternoon on the occasion of the launching of UNESCO's 1998 World Communication Report.

He said that UNESCO regularly published reports related to its fields of competence -- education, sciences, culture and communication. The first World Communication Report had been published about 10 years ago. The current Report, the second, focused on media and the challenge of new technologies.

The 300-page Report, available in French and in English, had been launched in New York rather than in Paris, because it was felt that the questions treated in the Report concerned the entire United Nations system and not just UNESCO, he said.

The Report had been written at a moment when, in the developed countries, the communications and information industry was gaining importance, and the role of the public sector was shrinking because of the privatization process, he said. Also, the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" was widening. New frontiers between those groups had been noted. "We can say today that the North is also in the South, and the South is also developing in the North." Large parts of populations were being deprived of access to new communications technologies.

He said the traditional dichotomy between North and South was being duplicated by a new dichotomy between the big countries -- with big national markets -- and small countries that did not have the critical mass to compete with the big countries and were condemned to being their customers. It was easy to imagine the impact such a course was having on the cultural identity of small countries.

Commercialization was increasing, he said. Identification of the basic needs of the population was imperative. The public domain had to be protected by assuring free access to a certain amount of basic data -- particularly in the field of education and culture. In a sector where national borders no longer existed, the challenge of freedom of expression also had to be considered. The Report was a first picture of the current situation.

Responding to a question, Mr. Modoux said copies of the Report would be available to correspondents in French and English. The Report would be issued in other languages later.

Mr. Modoux said that, as opposed to reports written by a group of people, the current report had been elaborated by one person -- Lotfi Maherzi -- which

UNESCO Briefing - 2 - 18 March 1998

provided for a certain level of consistency. The author was an Algerian professor of communications living in France. The Report, therefore, was sensitive to the priorities of both the North and the South.

In response to another question, Mr. Modoux said that the current Report had been written from a purely technical and intellectual approach with no pressure from the outside. That would not have been possible 10 years ago. It was obvious, however, that if the spirit of the current report was different than the earlier one, its findings were similar.

In response to a further question, Mr. Modoux said that 10 or 12 years ago UNESCO had tried to compensate partly for the unbalanced situation in global communications by setting up an international programme for the development of communication. However, there had been a lack of adequate funds to make a difference globally.

"The situation is what it is, we can like it or not, but that's not the problem", he said, adding that the current situation was worse than had been anticipated 20 years ago with the advent of new technologies.

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