WORKSHOP REPORTS: Media and New Technologies

• 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.

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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.