At the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, the CRIS campaign will be launched at a seminar on the Social Appropriation and Control of ICTs. The seminar program is below.
World Social Forum, Porto Alegre 2002
Communication and Citizenship II:
Seminar on Civil society appropriation and control
of information and communication technology (ICTs)
Friday February 1, 2pm - 6 pm.
Place: Club de Comercio
Communication, media and information technology, are central elements in globalisation. They are equally central to people's struggles for social and economic justice. Current trends in the information and communications industry, and in the national and global policies that govern this industry, tend to restrict people's rights to communicate. At the same time, the commodification of information content, for example, on the Internet, limits cultural and intellectual diversity.
This seminar will outline these developments and the political challenges in the field of communication, media and new technologies. It will identify civil society initiatives that are seeking to build alternatives, and that are challenging the increasingly powerful onslaught on people's rights to communicate, and on their access to the potential benefits of information and communications technologies (ICTs). And the Campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) will be presented in the context of the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society.
Part 1: The global scenario:
- Communication and globalization: Sally Burch, (ALAI)
- The right to communicate and the Information Society: Sean O'Siochru, (CRIS)
- ICTs: access, appropriation and control: ValÈrie Peugeot, (VECAM)
Part 2: Civil society initiatives:
Presentation of on-going initiatives such as:
Internet Rights; community radio; community networks; alternative economic models of communication; feminist perspective; open source soft-ware; governance and legislative issues, etc. etc.
With a view to the repercussions of global tendencies, alternatives and proposals they are developing; advances in terms of appropriation and control of ICTs.
Part 3: Future Interconnections:
Presentation of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the CRIS Campaign.
Discussion on mechanisms and proposals for building a common global agenda.
Simultaneous translation will be provided.
Organizers:
Agencia Latinoamericana de Información -ALAI-
Association for Progressive Communications -APC-
Association pour la promotion de l'Èconomie sociale et solidaire -APRESS-
Co-conveners:
ATTAC-France
VECAM
AMARC
Carrefour Mondial de l'Internet Citoyen
