Third Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy, "Building Democracy for Peace, Development, and Human Rights"

WORKSHOP REPORTS: Media and New Technologies

Confronting the Challenges to Press Freedom: What Works?
Organizers: Thai Journalists Association – Thailand Robin Sewlal, Department of Journalism, Durban Institute of Technology – South Africa	Moderator: Robin Sewlal – South Africa Rapporteur: Kavi Chongkittavorn – Thailand

Observations:

Romania had 15 cases of violent attacks on journalists during 2003.
Seventy-five Cuban human rights activists and journalists were jailed for publishing negative stories about Cuba that were not classified, but stories about everyday life.
Ugandan journalists have to work under the threat of being sentenced to death if they write about rebel activities and are called collaborators if they do so.
In China there is a state-owned agency of about 32.000 employees who only surf the Internet in order to block sites with negative references to China. Some software companies look at China as a big market and therefore tend to help the government hide information from the public.

Challenges:
In general, media owners with political connections often block the free flow of information and create media monopolies. To solve these problems, the legislature can prevent cross-media ownership, promote alternative media, and allocate air times for education and community services. Disconnected regional media is also often a problem where journalists often cover the events only of their own countries despite many regional problems, such as human and drug trafficking and terrorism.

The workshop thus identified three main Challenges:

Proliferation of a culture of secrecy
Concentration of media ownership
Disconnected regional media.

Recommendations:

Any attack on a journalist should be criticized, and fellowships for regional journalists should be promoted to encourage them to report on other countries.
Because Asia is the only region that does not have an independent regional media organization, one should be established
It is important for journalists to follow professional standards.
There should be open discussions within journalist associations and media outlets, based on independent monitoring as a professional development tool.
Training in journalism should be life-long and available to all journalists.

Using Traditional, Alternative, and New Technology Media to Promote Democracy
Organizers: Malaysiakini – Malaysia Herbert Boh – Cameroon	Moderator: Herbert Boh – Cameroon Rapporteur: Premesh Chandran – Malaysia	Presenters: Ogi Zlatev – Bulgaria Terrence Sesay – Liberia Kihong Han – South Korea

Challenges:

Because of low levels of Internet penetration and literacy in Africa, radio continues to be the main medium in local languages and is thus an important source of news about democratic development. In some countries, however, there are basic problems, such as the lack of electricity, or conflict or post-conflict situations, or the theft of radio equipment.
There is some inability to manage and maintain computers.
While there is the possibility of combining Internet and radio—for example, in Indonesia the Internet is used to transmit syndicated radio programming and in Nepal radio broadcasters read news and information obtained through the Internet—and while the cost of satellite uplinking is coming down, this is still too expensive to use for community-based pro-democracy media.

Recommendations:

A center should be established for the development of open-source applications that can be used by democracy groups, including the development of anti-censorship technologies.
Provide training for working in closed societies, including, for example, training in the use of encryption technology.
Support initiatives to compile and distribute materials on democracy and democratic struggles and enhance the work of the Communication Initiative.
Funding should be provided for media initiatives, not only by donor organizations, but also by governments. To encourage this, an analysis should be produced comparing funding for defense and funding for media assistance. In addition, a program for developing advertising revenue for independent media, particularly from big companies that do social image advertising, for instance on the environment or human rights.
Provide assistance to exile communities to develop media for their home countries. Recommendations for Advocacy:
Call on international institutions to support independent and pro-democracy media initiatives by providing assistance and encouraging governments to open media space.
Call on technology companies to halt the development of censorship technology and alert them to the fact that this technology is hindering the development of technologies that benefit independent media.
Intervene at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) to lobby against countries that try to introduce checks on the Internet.
Call on international radio stations, such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), to support democracy in developing countries by increasing their focus of news programming on specific target countries.
Support calls for the reform of media law to allow for pluralistic and independent media.
Call on content providers to increase content in multiple languages.

Using New Technologies in NGO Networking
Organizers: Kabissa – USA Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace – USA	Moderators: Kim Lowery – USA Rakhee Goyal – USA Rapporteurs: Kim Lowery – USA Rakhee Goyal – USA	Presenters: Kim Lowery – USA Rakhee Goyal – USA Premesh Chandran – Malaysia Ricardo Uceda – Peru

This workshop explored the challenges that organizations face both in the general use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and in networking and building relationships in particular. The discussion focused on leveraging the collective experiences of the group to develop a general framework for how to make the most of ICTs, as well as to identify practical solutions to specific challenges participants face.

General Recommendations:

ICTs are a tool.
During every discussion of ICTs, one should remember that these technologies are the means to achieve a larger goal, not an end in and of themselves.
Know your goals.
What are you trying to change?
Who are you trying to reach?
What message are you trying to convey?
Be strategic.
Use a combination of ICT tools to reach different audiences most effectively (for example, through Web sites and print and electronic newsletters as distinct from online discussions or radio, etc.).
Identify expertise and existing solutions to problems instead of duplicating efforts of others.

Challenges and Recommendations:

Challenge: How to do online fundraising?

Recommendations: There are several solutions available, but many are US-specific, such as Paypal and Network for Good. Other systems, such as Kagi, offer credit card processing that works with local structures. However, there still seem to be difficulties in implementing online fundraising in many developing countries. SANGONeT in South Africa is looking into different payment systems for Southern Africa, and Malaysiakini in Malaysia is working to open up many of the US-based systems to other countries. In any case, each organization must judge whether online fundraising really fits the nature of the organization and its appeal to potential individual donors.

Challenge: Using Web sites or e-mail mailing lists?

Recommendation: Most participants agreed that a combination of these tools is effective. While e-mail is more accessible and user-friendly for many people, the Web offers the ability to store resources that can be easily accessed by a larger population.

Challenge: What tools are available to measure the real impact of ICT initiatives?

Recommendation: While participants agreed that it is often difficult to measure the real impact of long-term ICT advocacy programs, some tools are available, both online and offline, which can help NGOs ensure that their ICT initiatives are accomplishing their objectives. Participants suggested the use of surveys, polls, focus groups, and Web tracking and analysis systems to help measure the reach and impact of ICT initiatives.

Challenge: Lack of affordable ICT expertise.

Recommendation: Many options are available, including donated consultancy services, eRider programs available in many regions, and student internships. In addition, participants emphasized the use of Open Source technologies (software and standards) as a way to take advantage of work that has already been done.

Next steps:
The participants acknowledged that the above list of challenges and recommendations is by no means exhaustive and that the discussion and exchange of experiences among the participants should continue. The group met again during the Third Assembly to discuss the further development of the World Movement’s Democracy ICT Group, launched at the Second Assembly in 2000, to continue exchanging ideas of benefit to regional and other functional networks within the World Movement for Democracy.

Workshop participants agreed to gather and share resources of use to democracy activists and networks upon their return home, and this material will be made available on the Democracy ICT Group Web site.

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