Reinventing “Many Voices”: MacBride and a Digital New World Information and Communication Order

Abstract

The MacBride Commission Report was arguably one of the most significant multilateral interventions in the history of international communication. This article charts its emergence at the time of deeply contested Cold War politics, coinciding with the rise of the southern voices in the global arena, led by the non-aligned nations. Thirty-five years after the report's publication, has the global media evolved into a more democratic system, demonstrating greater diversity of views and viewpoints? Despite the still formidable power of US-led western media, the article suggests that the globalisation and digitisation of communication has contributed to a multi-layered and more complex global media scene, demonstrating the “rise of the rest”.

KEYWORDS:

• MacBride
• New World Information and Communication Order
• BRICS
• China
• digitisation
• globalisation

Notes

1. The MacBride Commission had the following 16 members: Sean MacBride, chairman (Ireland), Elie Abel (USA), Hubert Beuve-Mery (France), Elebe Ma Ekonzo (Zaire), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Columbia), Mochtar Lubis (Indonesia), Mustapha Masmoudi (Tunisia), Betty Zimmerman (Canada), Michio Nagai (Japan), Fred Isaac Akporuaro Omu (Nigeria), Bogdan Osolnik (Yugoslavia), Gamal el Oteifi (Egypt), Johannes Pietar Pronk (the Netherlands), Juan Somavia (Chile), Boobli George Verghese (India) and Leonid Zamatin (USSR; Zamatin was replaced by Sergei Losev during the study).

Additional information

Daya Kishan Thussu (corresponding author) is Professor of International Communication and Co-Director of India Media Centre in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Westminster, London, UK.