- Email: [email protected]
Convergence of Visions: a Condition for Effective Partnership in a Multilateral and Multilingual Environment
Intl. Inform. & Libr. Rev. (1997), 29, 447–454
Convergence of Visions: a Condition for Effective Partnership in a Multilateral and Multilingual Environment ´ ESE ` ´ THER PAQUET-SEVIGNY*
A BSTRACT The right for everyone to access “the promised land” of the InfoSociety is widely recognized. The “wiring of the universe” is now technically and financially possible. One should do it quickly in the respect of human values and rights, freedom of opinion, transparency and cultural diversity. However, in the context of communication developments in 1997, it is a multifacet issue of concern to all the countries. The cyberspace era brings many new challenges to the communications’ academic curricula, professional practices, media owners and the research and development (R&D) of industries across the world. The emerging virtual communities change social and political relationships, as well as the job market well beyond national and linguistic boundaries. The paper examines the minimal conditions needed for this open process to take place with the participation of all players and the possible role of ORBICOM, the network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication. ©1997 Academic Press Limited
“Communication technologies are essential to the generation of, access to and sharing of knowledge and information.” Federico Mayor, 1995, Copenhagen Summit. “We live in an information economy, but I don’t believe we live in an information society.” Steve Jobs.
*Secretary-General, Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communications (ORBICOM), Canada. 1057-2317/97/030447 + 08 $25.00/0
lr970062
© 1997 Academic Press Limited
448
´ T. PAQUET-SEVIGNY
The failure of the past 25 years in developing and sharing information/ communication technologies, forces decision-makers to review their communication concepts and policies. ORBICOM, the world Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication, directs its thought and efforts at the very core of this issue of reframing, convergence and concerted action. Thirty months after its inception, the network brings together 16 Chairs in Communication and 125 associate members from the specialized industry and the practice of journalism, public relations, advertising, and communication law. This partnership now boasts senior professionals from some 60 countries. The stakes are high and the needs glaring. Never in the past 50 years has a single state ranked the development of communicational, technical and human capabilities among its top national priorities. However, communication cannot be confined to a mere supporting role for other individual or collective endeavors: • Communication is a field in its own right, just like education, health, environment, housing, food, and the other spheres of human activity; it concerns us all, whether we belong in the camps of the optimists or the pessimists. • Communication is a major factor in the public debate, the consolidation of civil societies and the empowerment of individuals and communities. • Communication is an inescapable component of strategic planning in any society aiming at convergence, cohesion and understanding. • Communication shares in bringing about the conditions of world security, establishing a culture of peace, culturally and politically enriching human groups and forming transnational communities of interests. • Communication induces openness in social relations and the respect of human rights, just as it pollinates all daily behavior and individual creative potential. F ROM P OLITICS
TO
E CONOMICS, FROM E CONOMICS AND E XCHANGE
TO
K NOWLEDGE
The irony of the state of world communications in 1997 is that: (a) technological links are possible; (b) funding is realistic; and (c) the pressure of world public opinion toward openness, free expression and global connections has been constant for at least 10 years. Yet we are still vacillating and dilly-dallying over “what to do!”
CONVERGENCE OF VISIONS
449
The world economy, meanwhile, has moved from the development of natural resources to the exploitation of knowledge and information. This sector is growing twice as fast as the others. It directly affects the international distribution of labor and the competitive level of national and industrial economies while generating changes in paradigms and growth models. In a strategic paper commissioned by the IDRC (International Development Research Center) and released in late 1996, the authors reassert, after many other Western and Asian authors, the primordial role of knowledge in the direction and action of the world over the next quarter century. They state: “Knowledge now plays a major role in the development process to the point where development itself is redefined as the potential to create, acquire, distribute, and exploit knowledge, both modern and traditional.” Strong Report, IDRC, December 1996.
This redefinition applies to North America and Europe, as well as developing economies. Indeed, this reformulation of the links between knowledge and growth is becoming increasingly explicit with many analysts and people of action, whether their names are Morata, Toffler, Thurow, or Reich. Over the next quarter of a century, according to this task force, nine of the world’s top 15 economies will backslide to the level of developing economies because of their inability to assimilate the knowledge and know-how of the new communication fields. The stakes of the information society extend far beyond the boundaries of the developing and industrial world as we know it today; they also extend beyond traditional professional fields. Every country and every communication discipline, for a variety of reasons, will be deeply affected. The next century’s economy, I dare say, will rest on knowledge and information, its access, development, distribution and management, as well as on the preservation of more ancient knowledge. How is it then that international organizations, traditionally subjected to the moods of policy-makers, and always among the first to paint economic development as the regal road to human development, have managed to remain so silent until recently about such a sensitive issue, directly affecting the development of the intellectual and economic potential of hundreds of countries? How can we explain this persistent delay, which still slows down all the processes essential to the advent of speech pluralism and the democratization of social relations, sole guarantees of individual and collective diversity and creativity?
450
´ T. PAQUET-SEVIGNY
How can we explain this inertia, which contributes daily to the nonexistence or inefficiency of traditional print and electronic media, besides cutting them off from regular sources of information and preventing them from enriching information as do their colleagues from countries that are cultural or geographic neighbors? How can we explain, lastly, that so many national governments, among the world’s poorest and most authoritarian as well as among the most protectionist, continue even today to allow but a privileged few, that is, those who maintain them in power and those around them, to enjoy the advantages of the InfoSociety? Yet, international organizations and national governments are well aware that world knowledge doubles every five years and that a single daily edition of the New York Times offers the public more information than was stored in world memory through the 18th century. They have also known for a long time that only those social groups which partake in the ever multiplying information networks will play a role in the world’s future. Why then, maintain this double talk condemning, on the one hand, the eradication of ancestral knowledge and national cultures and, on the other hand, wittingly delaying this diverse contribution to international information systems? In 1969, there were only four host servers in the entire world; today there are 10 million connected to some 40 000 networks.
O F A LIBIS
AND
I GNORANCE
Nobody believes that technology and system compatability remedy all the ills of the planet; but nobody believes either in the infallibility of national governments in the area of communication. By definition, communication, the exchange and the appropriation of information, fulfills cross functions far exceeding national, cultural, linguistic, and hierarchical boundaries, and all resulting in territorial protectionisms. For the specialized industry, the development of infrastructures and system research as such no longer poses any problem. New modes of thought and action are at work and the issue is no longer whether there can be connectivity for every citizen on the planet or whether technologies create or recreate knowledge and know-how. The urgent issues facing experts are manifold and multifaceted. All those related to technologies are marginal. The development of communication research over the past five years has moved almost entirely from the “push” to the “pull” approach, i.e. from technology to software: cultural, behavioral, pedagogical, legal, and other impacts.
CONVERGENCE OF VISIONS
451
Large projects are increasingly multisectoral, multinational and multilingual. The new challenges of the cyber era, therefore, are enormous. Unless thousands of us throughout the world get involved with the development of convergent, complementary research, training and action projects, the task will be overwhelming, almost inhuman. The areas of information/communication and technologies requiring sustained efforts range as far and wide as: (a) the forms and nature of partnerships to be set up between policymakers, the specialized industry, practitioners, researchers, and NGOs; (b) the contribution of these partnerships to the international debate on minimum international standards for the production, use and circulation of information; (c) the change in the communication employment market, and periodic updates of the situation; (d) the unambiguous reformulation of the public domain and marketable services; (e) the role of the State in the reformulation of public services and the public space as redefined by technologies; (f) the safeguard of privacy and international security within the framework of a new, planet-wide citizenship; (g) human ecology and the homogenization of production and transmission models; (h) the realism of an international technological observatory; (i) the validation and codification of sources; (j) the pedagogical development of multilingual remote teaching; (k) the training of trainers at every level; and (l) the joint funding of multisectoral and multilateral projects: academic and business communities, media and public affairs practitioners, to name but a few.
TOWARD A N EW F ORM OF C ONVERGENCE : ORBICOM, THE WORLD N ETWORK OF UNESCO C HAIRS IN C OMMUNICATION Alliances, partnerships and twinnings are words that encompass many realities, often masking various levels of commitment and putting various concepts of convergence in direct opposition. For our members, ORBICOM, in practice, aims at many forms of convergence. Some are based on complementarity, others are intended to
452
´ T. PAQUET-SEVIGNY
fill gaps, either territorial, intellectual, or strictly functional and practical. However, all potential alliances first meet real needs. Some of these needs are expressed by the demand for specific expertise known to be adaptable from one territory to the other. Others involve recycling or training in fields not yet fully explored. Many alliances enable us to further the exchange of information essential to the reorganization of university programs while others, in the form of training courses and direct actions, enable businesses to familiarize groups of researchers with exploratory development fields, as is often the case when we move into the area of social impacts and information technology uses. In every case, the idea is to expand interfaces between the experts of various regions and to try and understand the legal, cultural, linguistic, technological or sectoral frames of reference giving rise to inquiry. In the long term, every world area aspiring to the autonomous management of continental sub-networks must be able to achieve it, in all freedom and confidence. They will always know that they belong to a great international network, alive to their own definition of their situation. In that sense, the convergence intended by ORBICOM is based on solidarity, the capacity for understanding an overall situation and the real potential of national, continental, international and interdisciplinary interactions. P ROMOTING A LLIANCES ORBICOM’s success rests on the progressive, cross-fertilization of its members. The alliance of academic, media and corporate elites and public policy-makers within ORBICOM encourages sustained consultation between groups and regions. Thus, it is the convergence of our members’ vision and expertise which constitutes the strength and originality of ORBICOM. University, foundation, private business, public organization and professional association partners work together on the definition of ORBICOM policies. This co-operation enables them to map out various projects for the development of world communications. These projects, all in keeping with the multinational, multisectoral and multilingual approach characterizing the network, concern seven key fields of expertise: (1) Communications and international development, including aid policies, decision-making processes and problems related to intercultural communications.
CONVERGENCE OF VISIONS
453
(2) National information policies and communication law, including problems related to access to information, the economic impact of cultural and media products, laws and regulations and intellectual property issues. (3) Access, transfer and use of new technologies (NICT), including multimedia, automation, innovative media applications and interconnectivity. (4) Strategic development as it relates to communication training, dispute settlement, and interor intra-institutional communications. (5) Media development and management, including the new media (Internet, www, etc.), editorial freedom, and public and private media. (6) Public relations, public affairs, and advertising, including crisis management, social and political communications, openness, and the promotion and marketing of goods and services. (7) Professional ethics and training in journalism, public relations, and other communication sectors.
ACTION, T RAINING,
AND
R ESEARCH
Projects undertaken by ORBICOM take the form of research, teaching, training, and publishing, with the following objectives: • developing and promoting the sharing of communication knowledge and expertise through education, research, and concrete action; • linking experts working worldwide in various communication sectors; • setting up training programs and courses to increase communication capabilities and encourage the strengthening and sharing of expertise; • setting up exchange programs for teachers and experts anxious to make other regions benefit from their expertise; • developing publishing and lecture programs in the field of international communications; and • providing international organizations with consultation and expert services on request. Currently, ORBICOM has chairs in Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, France, Hungary, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Uruguay, and has 125 associate members. Every chair includes communication experts from the public and private
454
´ T. PAQUET-SEVIGNY
sectors. Four other chairs are in the process of formation in the Philippines, Japan, Germany, and the USA. Each of these chairs includes communication experts from the public and private sectors. This international co-operation of scientists, top business executives, political consultants, and media experts makes ORBICOM a unique network and represents a true multidisciplinary partnership both for the promotion and the development of communications and for the future of technological access and uses.
Convergence of Visions: a Condition for Effective Partnership in a Multilateral and Multilingual Environment ´ ESE ` ´ THER PAQUET-SEVIGNY*
A BSTRACT The right for everyone to access “the promised land” of the InfoSociety is widely recognized. The “wiring of the universe” is now technically and financially possible. One should do it quickly in the respect of human values and rights, freedom of opinion, transparency and cultural diversity. However, in the context of communication developments in 1997, it is a multifacet issue of concern to all the countries. The cyberspace era brings many new challenges to the communications’ academic curricula, professional practices, media owners and the research and development (R&D) of industries across the world. The emerging virtual communities change social and political relationships, as well as the job market well beyond national and linguistic boundaries. The paper examines the minimal conditions needed for this open process to take place with the participation of all players and the possible role of ORBICOM, the network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication. ©1997 Academic Press Limited
“Communication technologies are essential to the generation of, access to and sharing of knowledge and information.” Federico Mayor, 1995, Copenhagen Summit. “We live in an information economy, but I don’t believe we live in an information society.” Steve Jobs.
*Secretary-General, Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communications (ORBICOM), Canada. 1057-2317/97/030447 + 08 $25.00/0
lr970062
© 1997 Academic Press Limited
448
´ T. PAQUET-SEVIGNY
The failure of the past 25 years in developing and sharing information/ communication technologies, forces decision-makers to review their communication concepts and policies. ORBICOM, the world Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication, directs its thought and efforts at the very core of this issue of reframing, convergence and concerted action. Thirty months after its inception, the network brings together 16 Chairs in Communication and 125 associate members from the specialized industry and the practice of journalism, public relations, advertising, and communication law. This partnership now boasts senior professionals from some 60 countries. The stakes are high and the needs glaring. Never in the past 50 years has a single state ranked the development of communicational, technical and human capabilities among its top national priorities. However, communication cannot be confined to a mere supporting role for other individual or collective endeavors: • Communication is a field in its own right, just like education, health, environment, housing, food, and the other spheres of human activity; it concerns us all, whether we belong in the camps of the optimists or the pessimists. • Communication is a major factor in the public debate, the consolidation of civil societies and the empowerment of individuals and communities. • Communication is an inescapable component of strategic planning in any society aiming at convergence, cohesion and understanding. • Communication shares in bringing about the conditions of world security, establishing a culture of peace, culturally and politically enriching human groups and forming transnational communities of interests. • Communication induces openness in social relations and the respect of human rights, just as it pollinates all daily behavior and individual creative potential. F ROM P OLITICS
TO
E CONOMICS, FROM E CONOMICS AND E XCHANGE
TO
K NOWLEDGE
The irony of the state of world communications in 1997 is that: (a) technological links are possible; (b) funding is realistic; and (c) the pressure of world public opinion toward openness, free expression and global connections has been constant for at least 10 years. Yet we are still vacillating and dilly-dallying over “what to do!”
CONVERGENCE OF VISIONS
449
The world economy, meanwhile, has moved from the development of natural resources to the exploitation of knowledge and information. This sector is growing twice as fast as the others. It directly affects the international distribution of labor and the competitive level of national and industrial economies while generating changes in paradigms and growth models. In a strategic paper commissioned by the IDRC (International Development Research Center) and released in late 1996, the authors reassert, after many other Western and Asian authors, the primordial role of knowledge in the direction and action of the world over the next quarter century. They state: “Knowledge now plays a major role in the development process to the point where development itself is redefined as the potential to create, acquire, distribute, and exploit knowledge, both modern and traditional.” Strong Report, IDRC, December 1996.
This redefinition applies to North America and Europe, as well as developing economies. Indeed, this reformulation of the links between knowledge and growth is becoming increasingly explicit with many analysts and people of action, whether their names are Morata, Toffler, Thurow, or Reich. Over the next quarter of a century, according to this task force, nine of the world’s top 15 economies will backslide to the level of developing economies because of their inability to assimilate the knowledge and know-how of the new communication fields. The stakes of the information society extend far beyond the boundaries of the developing and industrial world as we know it today; they also extend beyond traditional professional fields. Every country and every communication discipline, for a variety of reasons, will be deeply affected. The next century’s economy, I dare say, will rest on knowledge and information, its access, development, distribution and management, as well as on the preservation of more ancient knowledge. How is it then that international organizations, traditionally subjected to the moods of policy-makers, and always among the first to paint economic development as the regal road to human development, have managed to remain so silent until recently about such a sensitive issue, directly affecting the development of the intellectual and economic potential of hundreds of countries? How can we explain this persistent delay, which still slows down all the processes essential to the advent of speech pluralism and the democratization of social relations, sole guarantees of individual and collective diversity and creativity?
450
´ T. PAQUET-SEVIGNY
How can we explain this inertia, which contributes daily to the nonexistence or inefficiency of traditional print and electronic media, besides cutting them off from regular sources of information and preventing them from enriching information as do their colleagues from countries that are cultural or geographic neighbors? How can we explain, lastly, that so many national governments, among the world’s poorest and most authoritarian as well as among the most protectionist, continue even today to allow but a privileged few, that is, those who maintain them in power and those around them, to enjoy the advantages of the InfoSociety? Yet, international organizations and national governments are well aware that world knowledge doubles every five years and that a single daily edition of the New York Times offers the public more information than was stored in world memory through the 18th century. They have also known for a long time that only those social groups which partake in the ever multiplying information networks will play a role in the world’s future. Why then, maintain this double talk condemning, on the one hand, the eradication of ancestral knowledge and national cultures and, on the other hand, wittingly delaying this diverse contribution to international information systems? In 1969, there were only four host servers in the entire world; today there are 10 million connected to some 40 000 networks.
O F A LIBIS
AND
I GNORANCE
Nobody believes that technology and system compatability remedy all the ills of the planet; but nobody believes either in the infallibility of national governments in the area of communication. By definition, communication, the exchange and the appropriation of information, fulfills cross functions far exceeding national, cultural, linguistic, and hierarchical boundaries, and all resulting in territorial protectionisms. For the specialized industry, the development of infrastructures and system research as such no longer poses any problem. New modes of thought and action are at work and the issue is no longer whether there can be connectivity for every citizen on the planet or whether technologies create or recreate knowledge and know-how. The urgent issues facing experts are manifold and multifaceted. All those related to technologies are marginal. The development of communication research over the past five years has moved almost entirely from the “push” to the “pull” approach, i.e. from technology to software: cultural, behavioral, pedagogical, legal, and other impacts.
CONVERGENCE OF VISIONS
451
Large projects are increasingly multisectoral, multinational and multilingual. The new challenges of the cyber era, therefore, are enormous. Unless thousands of us throughout the world get involved with the development of convergent, complementary research, training and action projects, the task will be overwhelming, almost inhuman. The areas of information/communication and technologies requiring sustained efforts range as far and wide as: (a) the forms and nature of partnerships to be set up between policymakers, the specialized industry, practitioners, researchers, and NGOs; (b) the contribution of these partnerships to the international debate on minimum international standards for the production, use and circulation of information; (c) the change in the communication employment market, and periodic updates of the situation; (d) the unambiguous reformulation of the public domain and marketable services; (e) the role of the State in the reformulation of public services and the public space as redefined by technologies; (f) the safeguard of privacy and international security within the framework of a new, planet-wide citizenship; (g) human ecology and the homogenization of production and transmission models; (h) the realism of an international technological observatory; (i) the validation and codification of sources; (j) the pedagogical development of multilingual remote teaching; (k) the training of trainers at every level; and (l) the joint funding of multisectoral and multilateral projects: academic and business communities, media and public affairs practitioners, to name but a few.
TOWARD A N EW F ORM OF C ONVERGENCE : ORBICOM, THE WORLD N ETWORK OF UNESCO C HAIRS IN C OMMUNICATION Alliances, partnerships and twinnings are words that encompass many realities, often masking various levels of commitment and putting various concepts of convergence in direct opposition. For our members, ORBICOM, in practice, aims at many forms of convergence. Some are based on complementarity, others are intended to
452
´ T. PAQUET-SEVIGNY
fill gaps, either territorial, intellectual, or strictly functional and practical. However, all potential alliances first meet real needs. Some of these needs are expressed by the demand for specific expertise known to be adaptable from one territory to the other. Others involve recycling or training in fields not yet fully explored. Many alliances enable us to further the exchange of information essential to the reorganization of university programs while others, in the form of training courses and direct actions, enable businesses to familiarize groups of researchers with exploratory development fields, as is often the case when we move into the area of social impacts and information technology uses. In every case, the idea is to expand interfaces between the experts of various regions and to try and understand the legal, cultural, linguistic, technological or sectoral frames of reference giving rise to inquiry. In the long term, every world area aspiring to the autonomous management of continental sub-networks must be able to achieve it, in all freedom and confidence. They will always know that they belong to a great international network, alive to their own definition of their situation. In that sense, the convergence intended by ORBICOM is based on solidarity, the capacity for understanding an overall situation and the real potential of national, continental, international and interdisciplinary interactions. P ROMOTING A LLIANCES ORBICOM’s success rests on the progressive, cross-fertilization of its members. The alliance of academic, media and corporate elites and public policy-makers within ORBICOM encourages sustained consultation between groups and regions. Thus, it is the convergence of our members’ vision and expertise which constitutes the strength and originality of ORBICOM. University, foundation, private business, public organization and professional association partners work together on the definition of ORBICOM policies. This co-operation enables them to map out various projects for the development of world communications. These projects, all in keeping with the multinational, multisectoral and multilingual approach characterizing the network, concern seven key fields of expertise: (1) Communications and international development, including aid policies, decision-making processes and problems related to intercultural communications.
CONVERGENCE OF VISIONS
453
(2) National information policies and communication law, including problems related to access to information, the economic impact of cultural and media products, laws and regulations and intellectual property issues. (3) Access, transfer and use of new technologies (NICT), including multimedia, automation, innovative media applications and interconnectivity. (4) Strategic development as it relates to communication training, dispute settlement, and interor intra-institutional communications. (5) Media development and management, including the new media (Internet, www, etc.), editorial freedom, and public and private media. (6) Public relations, public affairs, and advertising, including crisis management, social and political communications, openness, and the promotion and marketing of goods and services. (7) Professional ethics and training in journalism, public relations, and other communication sectors.
ACTION, T RAINING,
AND
R ESEARCH
Projects undertaken by ORBICOM take the form of research, teaching, training, and publishing, with the following objectives: • developing and promoting the sharing of communication knowledge and expertise through education, research, and concrete action; • linking experts working worldwide in various communication sectors; • setting up training programs and courses to increase communication capabilities and encourage the strengthening and sharing of expertise; • setting up exchange programs for teachers and experts anxious to make other regions benefit from their expertise; • developing publishing and lecture programs in the field of international communications; and • providing international organizations with consultation and expert services on request. Currently, ORBICOM has chairs in Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, France, Hungary, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Uruguay, and has 125 associate members. Every chair includes communication experts from the public and private
454
´ T. PAQUET-SEVIGNY
sectors. Four other chairs are in the process of formation in the Philippines, Japan, Germany, and the USA. Each of these chairs includes communication experts from the public and private sectors. This international co-operation of scientists, top business executives, political consultants, and media experts makes ORBICOM a unique network and represents a true multidisciplinary partnership both for the promotion and the development of communications and for the future of technological access and uses.