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[RRE]Broadcasting and the Internet in Developing Countries
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Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 14:25:31 +0200
From: Bruce Girard
[...]
CONVERGING RESPONSIBILITY: BROADCASTING AND THE INTERNET IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
IIC Pre-Conference September 4 and 5, 1999 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
BACKGROUND Founded in 1968, the International Institute of Communications (IIC) is an interdisciplinary network of senior communications decision- takers and thinkers in some 70 countries.
IIC activities include a publishing program, regular international meetings about telecommunications and broadcasting, and its Annual Conference.
IIC's Annual Conference provides a forum for an interchange of perspectives between IIC members, who are drawn from industry, government and academia in broadcasting, telecommunications, information technology, online services and the print media. More information about the IIC is available at http://www.iicom.org.
This year's conference will be held September 7-9 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The conference's theme is "Emerging Knowledge Society - Commerce, Culture and Communities in Cyberspace". For information about the 1999 annual conference, visit http://www.iicom.org/services/conferences/kl99/index.htm.
The main conference events are usually preceded by smaller meetings in which participants are able to focus on particular areas of interest. This year, as it has on numerous occasions in the past, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation is hosting a special developing countries pre-conference.
In addition to providing the thirty invited participants from Asia and the Middle East with a forum for discussion, the pre-conference is an opportunity to put developing country issues and perspectives on the IIC's main agenda. A report from the pre-conference is presented to a plenary session of the IIC and all pre-conference participants are able to participate fully in the full IIC conference, enriching the discussions with their perspectives and making contacts with IIC members.
DATES The pre-conference will be held on September 4 and 5. A special program, including visits to media and telecom projects in Malaysia, will be organised for September 6. Pre-conference participants will join the full IIC conference September 7 to 9.
LOCATION Equatorial Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
SPONSORS The pre-conference is hosted and organised by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Additional financial support is being provided by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Other national and international development agencies are being asked to sponsor the participation of representatives of some of their partner projects in the region. Additional support is being provided by Telecommunications Policy, Delft University of Technology, the IIC, and Comunica.
CONVERGENCE The convergence of telecommunications, media and information technologies is one of the most important phenomenon of the late 20th century. Even relatively cautious observers admit that the impact of the changes that will be brought on by new information and communication technologies will rival those that accompanied the invention of the printing press.
Ignoring the economic importance of telecommunications and information technologies is perilous. In developed world economies, the sector it is widely regarded as the single most important contributor to economic growth. In the developing countries the sector has not yet achieved the same status. Nonetheless, it is experiencing exponential growth, particularly in urban centres.
Media, the other side of the convergence coin, have, in addition to a growing economic importance, an enormous socio-cultural impact. Convergence is changing the nature of the information we have, the way we receive it, who we receive it from and what we do with it.
CONVERGING RESPONSIBILITY Even while technological advances are bringing about such profound changes, the vast majority of the world's population has no direct access to the new technologies, much less any influence over the nature of the changes that they cause. It is estimated that 170 million people have access to the Internet. That is a mere 4% of the world's population. And more than 80% (137 million) of those are in North America or Europe. In most developing countries less than 1% of the population has access to the technology that is changing the world. With the growth of the global knowledge economy there is a very real danger that ever-widening gap between the information rich and the information poor may obliterate any chance of a more equitable world order.
Given the short-term difficulties of extending the developed world's Internet model to the developing world, the past few years have seen tremendous interest and activity in alternative models. Most of the attention has been placed on various models of shared access to technology and services in the form of community telecentres. Other experiments, some of which will be looked at in this conference, have tried to use existing broadcasters as virtual community gateways to the information society.
It is clear that convergence will impact on broadcasters in developing countries in a very different way than in Europe and North America. While in the developed world there are predictions that new media and the Internet may soon become substitutes for broadcast services and distribution systems, in the developing countries this will not happen in the foreseeable future. Radio will continue to be the most important medium for the vast majority of the world's inhabitants and television will continue to have a recognisable form in the first years of the 21st century.
However, new information and communication technologies do present profound challenges and opportunities for broadcasters in developing countries. Advances in satellite technologies mean that broadcasters in the South have easy access to international radio broadcasting services from the United States and several European countries. These services are rebroadcast and it is not uncommon for listeners to be better informed about policies of the US government than of their own country.
What will be the implications of new services that will enable broadcasts direct from satellite to receiver - from London or New York direct to the Himalaya or the Amazon. Will local independent radio successfully make the switch to digital, or will we see a two-tiered broadcasting system - big commercial for the urban middle classes, and independent stations on the lower quality analogue channels, increasingly abandoned by audiences and advertisers.
But the same convergence that can contribute to the growing gap between the info rich and info poor can also be used in innovative ways by local broadcasters in the pursuit of public service objectives. The Internet's relative accessibility and flexibility have made it a particularly useful tool in this task.
For example, in 1996 Pulsar, a Latin American news agency for independent and community radio, was founded. Pulsar was the first experiment of its kind, and by the time the agency celebrated its second anniversary it had correspondents in most countries of the region and was delivering its text and audio clip news service to more than 1,000 subscribers in fifty countries.
Earlier this month, a similar initiative enabled the creation of an Internet-based network of twenty local radio stations from all over Indonesia. The country's first democratic elections provided the backdrop to the network's inaugural nationwide exchange of news and audio clips.
In Sri Lanka Kothmale Community Radio serves as a gateway between the Internet and rural communities. The station has computer equipment and Internet connectivity through a dedicated 64KB line. In addition to a community data base and a mini ISP, the Kothmale broadcasts the program Radio Browse, in which announcers receive information requests from listeners and try to get the answers from the Internet.
In addition to looking at these exciting and innovative examples of how convergence can support democratic development and local, national and regional culture, the conference will look at how broadcasters can participate in and support the debates over national telecom policies. Important policy development is no longer the exclusive preserve of government or to be decided behind closed boardroom doors. If the policies that will give form to convergence are to serve the interests of society at large, they must be developed in a way that will converge the specific interests and responsibilities of government, the telecom industry, the media, and the public.
The conference will examine: (1) how broadcasters participate in the policy development and regulatory processes and (2) how broadcasters, government and others can share responsibility for making the processes more transparent and enabling more public participation.
PARTICIPATION The thirty participants will be primarily from Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia and the Arab world and will include broadcasters, regulators/policy makers, researchers and ISPs.
From the broadcasting side the emphasis will be on local, independent and community radio and television, although there will also be representatives from the ABU's Asiavision initiative, and from AIBD. UNESCO, SCO/CAF and other national and international development agencies are being asked to sponsor the participation of representatives of their partners in the region.
The regulators and policy makers/researchers and ISPs will be high level people from the region and a few invited experts.
Rohan Samarajiva, former Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka will be both a keynote speaker and an active participant in the conference.
AGENDA A draft agenda is being drawn up and will be circulated to interested parties for comment.
FOR MORE INFORMATION A website is being set up for the event at http://www.comunica.org/kl/
You can also contact the organisers.
Bruce Girard bgirard@comunica.org Economics of Infrastructure Programme Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management Delft University of Technology PO Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft The Netherlands Tel: +(31-15) 278.85.48 - Fax: +(31-15) 278 7925
Sucharita Eashwar voices@vsnl.com Bangalore, India Fax: +(91-80) 5303403
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Bruce Girard bgirard@comunica.org or bruceg@sepa.tudelft.nl TU Delft: +31(0)15 278.8548 Fax: +31(0)15 278.7925 Home office: +31(0)15 213.3830 Mobile +31(0)6 2039.6958 Kloksteeg 17b, 2611 BL Delft, The Netherlands From the Americas, fax to (1-209) 821-9414 ```
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