Communication Rights and Communication Wrongs

In this article posted on the SciDev.Net website, author Nalaka Gunawardene discusses communication rights, and expresses questions and concerns about when media and communication may result in violations of privacy and other "communication wrongs."

The article first looks at the example of the large numbers of local and foreign journalists who covered the humanitarian crisis resulting from the Asian tsunami that hit in December 2004. According to the article, while media coverage helped inspire significant donations of disaster aid, the rights to privacy and dignity of thousands of people were repeatedly violated. The author proposes that "we in the media and in activist circles often fail to see the bigger picture. We also overlook the 'communication wrongs' that we ourselves commit, even if only inadvertently." Shahidul Alam, who heads Drik Picture Library in Bangladesh, has expressed concern that photojournalists are increasingly manipulating reality to get ever more dramatic images. In that process, they compromise journalistic integrity and trample on communication rights. Similarly, the author states, media persistently use stereotyped images of the South - captured mostly by northern photographers and camera crews.

According to the article, it is not only the media that can violate others' communication rights. When development agencies and 'pro-poor' activists presume that the impoverished just need information about survival or sustenance, the latter's communication rights are not respected. The information needs - and wants - of the economically poor are wide and varied. Sarvodaya, a Sri Lankan development organisation, once surveyed the information needs of economically poor people in rural and semi-urban areas. It was found that they wanted information on health and nutrition, as well as details of bank loans, foreign jobs and insurance policies. There was also considerable interest in world affairs, new books and movies, national politics, and questions being asked in parliament.

The article proposes that the first step toward promoting communication rights is to stop these wrongs, whether they're acts of omission or commission. Ensuring communication rights for all in the information society is not a mere slogan or campaign; it is an integral part of social justice, and a goal that is attainable with current technologies and resources. The author concludes that "the media and development communities are currently part of the problem. Information and communication technologies may have launched our world on a course towards becoming a 'global village'. But we won't become a true global family unless and until we engage fellow villagers in our conversation."