The citizens of at least 90 countries and territories now have laws enabling them to obtain government records and other information.  So, what does it mean to have a ‘right to information’? Why is it important? What has been its impact?

The No-Nonsense guide to the Right to Information

La guía breve del Derecho a la información

Le guide pratique du Droit à l’information
 

What are media observatories? What do they do? How do they contribute to better democracy, greater accountability, and social justice?

The No-Nonsense guide to Media Observatories, Good Governance, and Good Citizenship

Why are communication rights vital to the self-determination of indigenous peoples? Indigenous peoples are the custodians of unique languages, knowledge systemsand beliefs and possess invaluable knowledge of practices for the sustainable management of natural resources. They have a special relation to their traditional land which has intrinsic meaning for their collective physical and cultural survival. Indigenous peoples often suffer from poor political representation and participation, economic marginalization and poverty, lack of access to social services and cultural discrimination. Despite cultural differences, indigenous peoples the world over share common problems: striving for recognition of their identities, their ways of life, and their right to traditional lands, territories and natural resources.

No-Nonsense guide to Indigenous Peoples' Communication Rights.PDF

What are 'communication rights'? How do they relate to 'human rights'? How do they differ from 'Freedom of expression'? This six-page guide offers a background to the concept of communication rights and their relevance today. It stresses the need for adequate public communication, the need to communicate knowledge in order to restore equality and improve creativity, the need to protect the dignity and security of poeple in relation to communication processes, and the need to enable cultural diversity in communication.

The No-Nonsense guide to Communication Rights.PDF

The most basic features of the media-centered operationalization of European public sphere are explained through Kant's 'transcendental principle of publicity.' It is shown that the idea of a personal public use of reason or right to communicate is an idea of terminating the divide, which indeed would enable citizens to become equal in access to public communication and thus help to create a cosmopolitan public sphere.

Communication as a right is a comparatively new concept, although its roots reach deep into the history of human thought. The arguments that underlie it are complex and contested. The first task is, therefore, to identify some of the philosophical and ethical strands that comprise this right. The aim is to provide some grounding for discourse on the right to communicate, which includes many aspects of human life, from the right to be heard to the right to be silent. The second part shows how the right to communicate lies at the very heart of the work of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). It emphasises, in particular, the intellectual and advocacy role WACC played in the critical promotion of the rationale for the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). It also touches on WACC's more recent endeavours in coordinating the input of civil society groups to the UN-convoked World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

In this article, the author reflects optimism about the potential for members of civil society to have a meaningful impact on the global communication policies now in formation. The author sees a thread of aspiration that links the communication rights provisions in the 1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), and the current campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society, although he argues that only now have we got it right.

The author argues that the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the NWICO are both flawed by their exclusive reliance on states and governments as the only legitimate political actors, whereas the participation of civil society groups in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) marks a turning point. WSIS is the first U.N. summit where civil society was officially invited to be a participating partner, he notes. In his view, the WSIS, with all its flaws, established a new and more inclusive political space for addressing the problems of global media—a space that is not simply a club for industry leaders and government bureaucrats.

This article discusses the idea of “civil society” and its relationship to the developing global movement for communication rights. The article reviews the work of a wide range of civil society theorists and applies them to recent developments such as Unite Nation’s World Summit on the Information Society.’

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