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Conceptual Issues in the Information Debate

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The UN, UNESCO and the Politics of Knowledge

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with conceptual aspects of debates on information and the press within the UN system, including the different ways in which the policy implications of UNESCO’s mandate to ‘educate for peace’ have been construed.

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References

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  2. For a development of liberal theory with particular reference to the information aspects, see Warren Breed, The Self-Guiding Society (New York: Free Press Paperback, 1971).

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  4. Ibid., pp. 80–1.

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  5. Ibid., pp.90–4, 111 and 115.

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  6. Ibid., p.99.

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  7. Ibid., p.111.

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  8. See e.g. Wilbur Schramm, Responsibility in Mass Communication (New York: Harper & Bros, 1967) p. 71 ff.;

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  9. and Charles M. Wiltse, The Jeffersonian Tradition in American Democracy (University of North Carolina Press, 1935) pp. 139–50.

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  12. Ibid., pp.86–97.

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  13. Ibid.

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  14. For discussions of the issues involved in recent international debates on freedom of information and the press, see e.g. article by the Head of the AP Paris Bureau, Mort A. Rosenblum, ‘Reporting from the Third World’, Foreign Affairs, 55 (July 1977) pp. 815–35;

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  22. Constitution of UNESCO, adopted on 16November 1945, UNTS4 at 275; preamble, 1st recital.

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  23. See Doc. ECO/CONF./29 (1946) e.g. pp. 20–7; and UNESCO 1 C/Proceedings, pp.19, 24–5, 44–5 and 61–4.

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  25. For the major postwar debates on the subject in the UN, see UN GAOR 2, C.1, 79–86 mtg (22–7 October 1947) pp. 179–248; C.3, 68–72 mtg (24–9 October 1947) pp. 126–59; Plen 108 mtg (3 November 1947) p. 745, and Plen 115 mtg (15 November 1947) pp. 956–9; and UN GAOR 3(II), C.3, 181–226 mtg (6 April–11 May 1949) pp. 2–419. See also UN Docs E/CN.4/Sub. 1/151 (1951) and Add.1 (1952) and E/CONF.6/10 (1948). For briefer parallel debates within UNESCO, see esp. UNESCO 1 C/Proceedings, pp. 157–61, and 2 C/Proceedings, pp. 96–100, 127–36 and 142–50.

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  26. For the contemporary debate, we have drawn mainly on the summary or verbatim records of discussions reproduced in the following UNESCO documents: Summary of Interventions made in Programme Commission III of the Nineteenth Session of the General Conference, UNESCO Doc. CC.77/WS/21 (April 1977); Records of the International Colloquium on the Free and Balanced Flow of Information between Developed and Developing Countries, Florence, 18–20 April 1977, UNESCO Doc. PI/VI/432 (undated typescript); UNESCO 20 C/Proceedings, pp. 1063–117; and documents produced by UNESCO’s International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (ICSCP), notably the Monographs on Associated Press, United Press International, Reuter and TASS in ICSCP Docs 13 and 15 (undated). The monographs were prepared on the basis of data supplied by the news agencies themselves, with the exception of Reuter for which material was collated from existing works. We have also drawn on Righter, Whose News? and other secondary sources cited in note 12 above.

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  31. and The Right to Know (London: Longmans, 1969);

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  34. Ibid., p. 89.

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  37. UNESCO ICSCP Doc. 19 (undated) Ann.V; and UNESCO Doc. PI/VI/432, note 17 above, pp. 14 and 27.

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  38. See UNESCO ICSCP Doc. 13, pp. 19 and 25 and ICSCP Doc. 15, pp. 144 and 158 (French versions); and UNESCO Doc. PI/VI/432, note 17 above, pp. 7–8, 11 and 23.

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  39. Legum & Cornwall, A Free and Balanced Flow, op. cit., p. 33. See also UNESCO ICSCP Doc. 15, pp. 115–16 (French version); and Righter, Whose News? op. cit., pp. 182–5.

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  40. UNESCO Doc. PI/VI/432, note 17 above, statement by J. Wilson (BBC), pp. 25–6.

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  41. Ibid., p. 11; Righter, Whose News?, op. cit., p.61; and Legum & Cornwell, A Free and Balanced Flow, op. cit., p. 27.

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  42. Ibid. See also AP statistics quoted in Righter, Whose News? op. cit., p. 27.

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  43. See UNESCO ICSCP Doc. 13, pp. 25–6, and ICSCP Doc. 15, pp. 8, 9, 155 and 157; UNESCO Doc. PI/VI/432, note 17 above, pp. 13–14 and 18–19; and Rosenblum, ‘Reporting from the Third World’, op. cit., pp. 823–4.

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  44. See Chapter 5 below.

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  45. For a recent statement of Soviet views, see Y. N. Zasursky and Y. I. Kashlev, ‘The Mass Media and Society: A Soviet Viewpoint’, The UNESCO Courier (April 1977) pp. 24–7.

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  46. See also UNESCO Doc. CC.77/WS/21, note 17 above, pp. 4–5, 8–11, 15–16, 18–20 and 24; and UNESCO ICSCP Doc. 15, pp. 132–40 (French version).

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  47. UNESCO ICSCP Doc. 15, p. 134.

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  51. See e.g. UN Docs E/CN.4/Sub.1/28 (1947) and E/CN.4/Sub.1/54 (1948); also statements by Soviet bloc delegates in debates cited in notes 16–17 above.

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  52. For background and debates, see UN Docs E/CN.4/Sub. 1/104 (1950); E/AC.7/SR.261–8 and SR.271–4 (14–20 and 27–9 April 1954); A/C.3/L.447 (1954); UN GAOR 9, C.3, 599–616 mtg (30 November–11 December 1954) and Plen 514 mtg (17 December 1954); and UN GA Res. 841(IX) of same date (UN GAOR 9 Supp. 21 at 22).

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  53. For text, see International Convention concerning the Use of Broadcasting in the Cause of Peace, Geneva, 1936; LNTS 4.319, v.186, at 302.

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  54. See Doc. ECO/CONF./29, pp. 32–4, 50–99 and 194, and UNESCO 2 C/Proceedings, pp. 104–7 and 347.

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  55. See e.g. UN GAOR 2, C.1, 79–86 mtg (22–7 October 1947) pp. 179–248.

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  56. Ibid. Also UN GAOR 2, C.3, 68 mtg (24 October 1947) pp. 136 and 157.

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  58. As notes 38–9 above. Also James P. Sewell, UNESCO and World Politics (Princeton University Press, 1977) p. 99.

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  59. Unless otherwise specified, this section draws on the classic statement of Non-Aligned policy published by the Tunisian Secretariat of State for Information, The New World Order for Information (Tunis, 1977) and a more polished study from the same source reproduced as UN Doc. A/SPC/33/L.5 Annex (1978); R. Najar, ‘A Voice from the Third World: Towards a “New World Order of Information”’, The UNESCO Courier (April 1977) 21–3;and a paper by B. Osolnik, Yugoslav member of the MacBride Commission, Aims and Approaches to a New International Communication Order, UNESCO ICSCP Doc. 32 (undated).

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  60. See comment by Elihu Katz, former Director of Israel Television, in Cross-Cultural Broadcasting (UNESCO, Reports and Papers in Mass Communication No. 77, Paris, 1976) p. 37; also Righter, Whose News?, op. cit., pp.222–3.

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  61. On this point see also Righter, Whose News?, op. cit., p. 52.

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  63. See esp. Development Dialogue (1976:2) and 1977:1); and Report of the Dag Hammarskjöld Institute for 1975, What Now? Another Development.

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  64. See e.g. UNESCO Doc. CC.77/WS/21, note 17 above, pp. 13–18, 26, 29, 31 and 36–7.

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  65. E.g. Fred Hirsch and David Gordon, Newspaper Money (London: Hutchinson, 1975);

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  1. Clare Wells
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© 1987 Clare Wells

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Wells, C. (1987). Conceptual Issues in the Information Debate. In: The UN, UNESCO and the Politics of Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08409-8_2

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