Whose news?
Ellner, Steve
WHOSE NEWS? THE THIRD WORLD IS DIVIDED For several years Western industrial nations have been clashing with third-world representatives over a proposed "New International Information Order"...
...Still another aspect of the NIIO provoking sharp debate in the developing world is the importation of communications technology...
...Plans are afoot to increase cooperation among the sixty-odd state-sponsored agencies which have sprung up in the developing world...
...Many third-world media employees have embraced a version of "dependency theory" which states that increasingly sophisticated technology in poor nations only cements their dependence on the industrialized North...
...THE THIRD WORLD IS DIVIDED For several years Western industrial nations have been clashing with third-world representatives over a proposed "New International Information Order" (NIIO...
...OPEC recently decided to establish an agency of its own to counter allegedly biased treatment in the Western press...
...A group of Uruguayan exiles, most of them anonymous for obvious reasons, presented a paper comparing the internal dimensions of the NIIO with those of the "New International Economic Order...
...STEVE ELLNER (Steve Ellner teaches in Venezuela...
...What would happen, he asked in an interview, if Argentina, Chile, or Bolivia promoted a campaign against Amnesty International in the name of NIIO on the basis that that organization reflects anti-third world prejudices...
...In short, within the third world itself, the NIIO is at a critical crossroads, with important decisions yet to be made: whether to emphasize internal communications policies at the risk of alienating repressive regimes...
...It is certainly easier for third-world nations to speak out in unison against the international news agencies than it is for them to reach a consensus on internal communications policy...
...According to the Uruguayans, the New International Economic Order envisions a "transfer of wealth from rich to poor nations, without considering whether the latter's increased income will be monopolized by local oligarchies...
...Since then, Western representatives have criticized the commission and its third-world and Eastern-bloc backers for encouraging state control of the media and thereby threatening to substitute one form of distortion for another...
...zuela...
...More mundanely, newspaper employees have resisted computerized photo-composition and other kinds of automation by arguing that their nation is currently Nevertheless it is hard to see how the third world can develop viable news agencies capable of competing with the likes of AP and UPI if it eschews recent technological innovations...
...In practice, the effort to define concrete areas of state intervention has racked the democratic developing nations, which have generally been in the forefront of the NIIO movement...
...In theory the right of the state to intervene actively in the regulation of the media-in contrast to the First Amendment norms prevalent in the United States-is generally accepted in the third world...
...and whether to view ultra-modern communication-information systems as inappropriate for developing nations...
...Oswald Capriles, director of the Communications Research Institute of the Central University of Venezuela and one of the conference's organizers, seconded the Uruguayan position...
...These agencies, however, will have to maintain a distance from their respective governments if they are to avoid being converted into organs of official propaganda...
...whether to design commercially viable third-world news agencies or ones which resemble mere press release services...
...The United States, according to this viewpoint, modified its initial opposition to the NIIO in 1977 precisely because it saw an opportunity to sell ultra-modem technology under the guise of helping the third- world achieve a new information order...
...Thus the Venezuelan government recently set off a storm of controversy when it established rather moderate guidelines on TV advertising and soap operas, both widely viewed as detrimental to the nation's traditional values...
...The latest clash has broken out over this month's UNESCO meeting in Paris, called to consider a proposal to license journalists and monitor whether they abide by some official code of ethics...
...The development of advanced computers, satellites, and other powerful communication-information systems has conjured up fears of new forms of control exercised by multinational corporations on behalf of their home governments...
...In addition...
...In 1978, a commission headed by Irish statesman Sean McBride concluded that international news reporting neglects third-world concerns and reinforces negative stereotypes about developing nations...
...Yet the fact that the third world itself is far from unanimity on these questions was made evident at last year's conference of the International Association of Mass Communication Research held in Caracas...
...Similarly the advocates of the NIIO call for establishment of third-world news agencies while failing to realize that the repressive policies of certain governments negate the very objectives of the NIIO...
Vol. 108 • February 1981 • No. 4
