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Global
Communication
for Justice
A Policy Statement Approved by the
General Board of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the
USA, November 11, 1993
Introduction
The National Council of
the Churches of Christ in the USA, through its programs of mission and
witness, seeks to join with others in defining and creating the
conditions for a more just world order. As a new millennium approaches,
a unique opportunity exists to replace Cold War animosities, which have
dominated the last half of this century, with a more humane
international community. The Council affirms that communication and just
uses of communication technology are essential for a just world.
We understand communication to be basic to community
and the right to communicate a basic human right. The right to receive
and to provide information is as fundamental to the quality of life as
worship, food, clothing and shelter. The right to communicate is
essential to human dignity. It is a precondition of a just and
democratic society. It is necessary if ever peace is to be achieved.
We acknowledge that every right brings with it
responsibilities, and that the whole community is responsible for the
functioning of communication in society. Christians, as citizens, have
an obligation to exert whatever influence they can to ensure that the
mass media in our society operate to serve the public good rather than
merely commercial interests or those of individuals.
This policy statement addresses the issues of global
communication and justice outlined above. It suggests steps our churches
may take to provide alternatives to the increasing centralization of
control and ownership and to the politicizing of world media by a few
powerful governments and transnational media giants.
In this document we affirm communication as both
message and process. When we speak of communication, we speak of that
which takes place between persons, in family and community, as well as
the more formal communication structures that society has built and
continues to embellish. We speak also of messages both overt and covert
and the intended and unintentional impact or results of such messages
having been “heard” and internalized.
When we speak of communication, we speak of the
various forms through which messages are communicated. These encompass
audio and video images whether supplied by video cassette, cable,
satellite or over-the-air broadcasting. We also speak of telephone and
computer communication via land lines, satellite, or undersea cable, and
the control of society that these forms or tools of communication make
possible because of their superior speed and all encompassing “view” of
the globe.
When we speak of “mass” communication, we speak of
its current and potential uses for information, entertainment and
education. When we speak of the communication industries, we include
their structure, politics, economics and regulation, as well as their
responsiveness to the public agenda.
When we speak of “informal,” “alternative” or
“people’s” communication, we speak of those forms of communication used
by individuals, family or community groups to exchange messages and
information and/or to provide an alternative (in form and content) to
the more institutionalized “mass” communication largely controlled by
corporations and/or governments.
The Biblical and
Theological Basis for Our Understanding
The convictions
expressed in this policy statement are based on a biblical understanding
of communication. God is a communicating God. Christians believe that
the creation of the world is rooted in the spoken Word of God. God made
all persons — women, men and children — in the divine image. God created
the world and all living things for relationship.
Communication is one of God’s gifts to humanity, the
gift that binds individuals together into communities, and communities
into one human family. The capacity for sharing knowledge and love with
God and each other is the foundation of our human dignity.
While we honor the beliefs of other faiths, as
Christians we affirm that the supreme act of God’s communication with
the world is the incarnation of Jesus Christ. As God’s “word became
flesh” in Jesus Christ, the promise
of creation was restored and human beings experienced the
possibilities of dialogue with God and with each other.
Christ communicated through acts of self-giving. He
“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). He
ministered to all, but took up the cause of the materially poor, the
mentally and physically ill, the outcasts of society, the powerless, and
the oppressed. Therefore, we boldly state that communication by
Christian churches and people should be acts of love that liberate.
The abuse of communication is one form of humanity’s
alienation from God and neighbor. The consequences of this alienation
can be deadly. But Christians do not speak with a single voice on
communications policy. Some Christians seek to impose censorship on the
mass media to exclude some opinions and enforce others. We reject this
agenda as incompatible with the belief that no community should be
silenced, and, therefore, that all communities should have access to the
means of communication.
Christians — as citizens in a democratic society in
which many religions, ideologies and political viewpoints coexist —
should hesitate before pronouncing that this or that use of the means of
communication is “good” or “evil.” But we do have the right to speak out
on this subject. In seeking to keep the means of communication open to
the widest range of opinion, in struggling to preserve the right to
communication for oppressed and persecuted communities, in opposing
efforts to deny citizens the right of information, in demanding that the
mass media protect children from exploitation, Christians will find
allies among citizens whose worldview is determined by secular ideology
as well as other religious traditions.
The Bible, the inspired word of God, is also a book
of communication and relationship for those who call themselves the
people of God. In its account of the tower of Babel, we see a classic
example of the integral relationship between communication and culture,
for here is a story of communication broken by pride and the search for
power. The theme repeats itself in a positive way in the story of
Pentecost, the birthplace of the mission of the church. Being filled
with the Holy Spirit and in communion with God and one another, the
people of God spoke and heard the divine message of God in their own
languages. They were empowered to communicate the Word.
The Role of the
Church
The existing global web
of communication — symbols, images, and pictures simultaneously
transmitted into scenarios and sequences of events — catch and hold the
lives of people everywhere. The web envelops people’s perceptions and
understanding and finally invades the innermost chamber of
consciousness, deeply affecting spirit as well as life. The church is
called to resist when any force subjugates the spirit, mind, will and
voice of people to the dictates of any worldly power.
Christian theology recognizes the tension between
values of individual consciousness, articulation and self-determination,
on the one hand, and corporateness and need for community, on the other.
Today the church struggles with this tension in the midst of a media
environment that provides its own competing definitions of these
realities. Thus, the church has a critical interest in media structures,
control, audiences and effects.
Churches recognize that issues of justice in local
and national development cannot be addressed without a consciousness of
the role of communication, nor can any group do so without the tools
with which to make their views known.
The churches of the world are a global communication
system through which the voices of those rendered voiceless because they
lack access to the media can be raised to question societal trends that
may be antithetical to justice, freedom and human dignity.
As Christians, we recognize that religious
organizations and individuals have been guilty of not using the
communication media primarily for the public welfare, and we repent both
our inaction and transgressions in this regard.
Often we, as religious groups, have put our
institutional self interest above the public interest. We have failed to
give serious attention to the forces that constrain the press and other
communication media and often have sought simply to put forward our own
special interests rather than challenge the use of communication as a
cultural force that supports the powerful and that victimizes the
powerless.
We have ignored the use of communication by Western
societies as a tool of cultural domination of other nations instead of
speaking to marketplace, industrial and government interests in our own
society on behalf of our brothers and sisters in other countries. We
further observe that sometimes parts of our churches have subjugated the
spirit, mind, will and voice of our people, particularly when Christian
media initiatives invade other countries and cultures without an
understanding of the life, realities and involvement of the local
churches and Christian councils in a particular nation.
Our Concerns
I. The Influence of Communication Technologies and Resources
Citizens of developed and developing nations alike
live in a global information context where information is a commodity
that currently rivals factors such as control of natural resources,
capital and industrial production as an important determinant of global
power.
The traditional arbiters and purveyors of “culture”
(including governments, churches, educational and scientific
organizations) have lost much of their influence when compared to the
influence of mass media.
Public discourse increasingly takes place around an
agenda set by the media. People, whether they live in Manila, Moscow or
Morgantown, now have nearly simultaneous access to the same images and
viewpoints in the interpretation of events.
In long industrialized nations and newly
industrialized nations alike, the social, political and cultural arenas
of life are defined and debated in ways controlled by the media. The
media play an ever more important role in such events as political
campaigns, the overthrow and creation of governments, and in the way
wars are planned, fought and interpreted. The media increasingly shape
consciousness and define the quest for the meaning of life.
II. The Regulation of a Public Resource in the Public Interest
Commitments to public service obligations, once a
part of a social contract involving the government, its citizens and the
media industries, have been abrogated in the United States in favor of
marketplace regulation, a concept now being exported to other nations as
well. Experience during the decade of the ’80s and following has shown
that this type of regulation has not served the public interest but
rather has pandered to what interests the public.
At the same time that mass communication has come to
be more important to social and cultural processes, the media themselves
are undergoing great change. Traditional definitions of media practices,
such as the line between entertainment and news, have become blurred. In
the electronic media, producers now enjoy greater freedom in what may be
“aired” regardless of consideration of the nature of the audience or
community sensibilities, which once were honored.
The media, particularly television, have enormous
impact in the lives of people and societies over a relatively short
time. This impact may at various times be positive or negative, but
currently the negative impact of the entertainment media, advertising,
and even the way news programs are constructed appear to outweigh the
more positive benefits.
Television, whether in the U.S. or in other nations,
is creating a “mass” culture of the lowest common denominator of all of
society. TV programming and images often appeal to the base instincts of
humanity and exploit such instincts for private gain. Thus, both
entertainment and news media are dominated by affirmations of greed,
instant gratification, the use of violence rather than negotiation as a
way of solving problems, titillation (sex rather than love),
exploitation of the weak by the strong (particularly women, children,
older persons, and ethnic minorities), satisfaction of curiosity rather
than a deeper consideration of issues, and single viewpoints rather than
multiple viewpoints.
We do not attribute the negative effects of media to
the individual creations of writers, reporters and producers as much as
to the cumulative effects of a way of viewing the world brought about by
the technical demands of the media themselves.
We recognize that international journalistic and
media organizations have their own codes of ethics. These, however, most
often stress the right to know, objectivity in reporting, freedom of
movement in order to report freely and responsibly on all issues, and
the freedom of journalists to communicate without restrictions. As
Christians, we endorse these ideas, but insist that this agenda is not
adequate to deal with the deeper issues of the cumulative effect upon
cultures, nations and individuals by the mass media.
The church’s role in combating the negative aspects
of the media while upholding freedom of speech and opposing censorship
has been discussed at length in other policy documents prepared by the
National Council of Churches. We would particularly call attention to
the Council’s stand against the inclusion of gratuitous violence and
sexual violence in film and video materials. Rather than address the
issue in detail in this paper, we commend to all the Council’s policy
statement on “Violence in Electronic Media and Film.”
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III. Concentration of Media Ownership and Control
Concentration of ownership of print media and the
film industry has coincided with a trend toward private ownership and
commercialization in broadcasting. Where once public service traditions
dominated in much of the developed and developing worlds (in both
non-commercial and commercial media), Western (specifically North
American) notions of commercialized private enterprise and
“deregulation” are spreading.
A very few media conglomerates (probably no more
than a dozen) dominate the struggle for hundreds of millions of minds in
the global community. These media giants control television and radio,
magazine and book publishing, newspapers, movie production, cable and
record companies. They shape the consciousness of millions and control
access to news and information.
Global media establishments are more and more driven
by the needs and demands of world markets and less and less driven by
national or cultural needs and interests. By concentrating on the
commercially successful strategy of serving “mass tastes” in
entertainment, the media have never adequately served the interests of
the majority of people and seldom those of marginalized peoples. Neither
have they served minority groups, neglecting to program for their
cultural, racial, artistic and justice concerns.
Media increasingly represent the interests of forces
at the centers of political and economic power, neglecting the concerns
of churches and other institutions that advocate for alternative visions
and futures.
As a result of the concentration of ownership and
power, a narrower range of viewpoints is represented. Fewer persons,
nations, groups and societies have the possibility to get their stories
told, their views made known or taken seriously, their cultures
considered, honored or preserved. Instead they are swept away in the
flood of mass images (mostly provided by the United States or other
“Western” nations).
IV. The Impact of Global Media on Indigenous Culture
Media today have an unprecedented ability to define
what exists and what does not. Media images, often created to appeal to
a transnational, predominately Western audience, undermine other
countries’ local and national definitions of what is valuable and
desirable.
Individuals and whole communities of persons within
nations are frequently victimized rather than assisted by the way in
which information is controlled and often distorted. The powerless,
whether in the United States and other developed countries or in the
developing world, rarely have opportunities to tell their own stories.
Others tell the stories for them, often filling these stories with
unacceptable stereotypes.2 The
reality of those without power is not depicted fairly. Neither is the
information provided geared to their best interests, but rather is
tailored to the demands of their own nation or those of foreign
commerce.
In this post-industrial era there is an erosion of
dynamic culture alive to its own needs and true to itself. While
traditional modes of communication enabled development based on cultural
autonomy, mass communication discourages such development. Through mass
media, people in every nation have become consumers of the values
embodied in the entertainment and advertising supplied by their own or
“foreign” societies.
The global community now finds itself in an
unrelenting transition from traditional communication, where
face-to-face and oral interaction predominate, to modern society’s
top-down, one-way, technology-driven and “mediated” communication.
It is the nature of this global discourse that it
can define and limit human prospects for successful common life. The
media encourage an artificial transnational culture based on a selective
vision, which affects the relations between nations and peoples
throughout the world.
As churches, we say we have placed ourselves on the
side of the social, cultural, economic and spiritual development of all
peoples. But we have not always recognized that such development must be
based on a strong cultural identity and autonomy through which peoples
define themselves, their situations and their needs.
V. The Positive and Negative Potential of New
Technologies
Media need not divide peoples and cultures. Media
can make it possible for persons, communities and nations to participate
fully in their own cultures as well as in shared world meanings and
values. Media can enable people to participate in community and national
life.
While it is not the purpose of this policy statement
to discuss individual technologies, which are being introduced at an
astonishing rate, it is important to note certain specific attributes of
transborder electronic data flow and its potential impact on the
economics of every nation on the globe.
Unfortunately, most of the people of the world do
not share in the real benefits of these technologies. The problem is not
only the relative lack of communications media available for use by the
developing world. Equally significant is the quality of information that
is offered.
New technologies and mass media have separated us
from control over our cultural and economic lives. Control has been
transferred, in large part, to those with technical expertise in the
service of the mercantile and the military.
These technologies allow those who own them to
manage information and resources at increasingly remote distances from
the local cultures and economies affected. The instantaneous nature of
global data transmission means that economic powers (both governmental
and non-governmental) have access to current information about weather
and agricultural conditions often before people “on the ground” do. The
global-technological nature of the economy gives tremendous fiscal power
to these same first-world and transnational interests.
However, these technologies also have benefits. They
enable global contact, and when made available for human uses and to
address human needs, can significantly enhance life, development and
global consciousness. Such uses will not become widespread unless
concrete enabling steps are taken. Such uses are not of primary concern
to the current media industries, so the voice of the churches is
significant.
VI. Toward a Forum for Global Dialogue
As we have said, media are powerful resources for
education, promotion of health, and other components of development.
Modern media technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for the
exchange of information between peoples and nations. Media technologies
have great potential to bind the world together, when not beholden
entirely to transnational commercial interests.
One result of the trends toward “privatization” has
been a virtual elimination of any basis for global dialogue about equity
and justice in communication. Whereas for a brief period in history
there were influential public arenas (such as UNESCO, the International
Telecommunications Union, etc.) where such issues could be addressed, in
a totally commercialized world marketplace such discussion may
disappear. Media are being viewed instead as products and thus
discussion is taking place in the realm of trade negotiations where
issues of justice and equity are often ignored as irrelevant.
We ask that appropriate United Nations agencies,
governments and the communication industries in the United States and
around the globe consider exploring and undertaking some strategies that
could work toward change. For example:
1. Establishment of a forum for domestic
dialogue on the matters discussed in this paper. The object of such
a forum would be on-going dialogue among citizens, government and
industries on the country’s communication agenda, to the end that such a
dialogue would result in specific actions and recommendations that would
deal with communication policy in society globally rather than be
limited to short term response to specific and immediate situations.
2. Establishment of a number of global
forums of the type described above where true international dialogue
around all the issues outlined in this paper could take place.
3. Providing opportunity for citizens to be
heard and taken seriously by government and industry circles
regulating media in this country at federal, state and local levels.
Such an approach might well mean the reinstitution of formal community
ascertainment procedures as a prerequisite to license renewal and would
certainly embody mandated responsiveness by the media to the local
community being served. It could also take the form of citizen public
utility boards affording an opportunity to consider effects of policy in
advance of its adoption.
4. Providing opportunity for individuals
and citizen groups to participate in producing and disseminating
their own messages to their community, to have access to all the media
of communication in some proportionate way without the need to purchase
advertising time and space, or costly production equipment.
5. Providing opportunity for all citizens,
but particularly children and youth, to receive media literacy training
and to become active in determining what they will see and hear rather
than simply being passive consumers.
Call to Action
In a faithful response
to God and the mission of the church, we, therefore, adopt this policy
statement on Global Communication for Justice. We call upon the
member communions and all units of the National Council of Churches to
pursue such strategies as:
In Local Church and Family Life
A. Educate families about the way media work and how they as
individuals and groups can become both responsible consumers and users
of media. To that end, local churches should:
1. Sponsor media literacy classes for
all age groups within the church and community.
2. Provide information about public interest groups that have
organized to combat various abuses by the media — from the use of
excessive violence in programming to misleading advertising in
children’s programming — so that those who wish may join in these
advocacy activities at the local and community level as well as
nationally and internationally.
3. Provide commentary from the pulpit on the impact of media on
the quality of life and values of individuals and society and suggest
ways congregations and individuals can both work with the positive
forces and resist the negative.
B. Affirm and support uses of media that promote peace, understanding,
cooperation and multi-culturalism and oppose those uses of media
that encourage violence, factionalism, militarism and ethnic strife.
C. Urge local public broadcasting stations to carry more programming
from other nations, particularly developing nations, such
programming to encompass artistic and entertainment programming as well
as news and information.
D. Affirm the church’s support for the integrity of women and
challenge the media’s stereotypes and exploitative representation of
women.
E. Work with regional and national bodies to provide support for
such activities as:
1. Scholarships and training of persons,
especially women, in developing countries in communication policy
issues and communication management in order that they may be fully
prepared to participate in planning for the communications policy,
programs and infrastructure in their respective nations.
2. Assistance to independent local film and video makers
in every nation so they may share their works in international film
festivals and with people in other parts of the world.
3. Participation in grass-roots communication efforts that offer
alternatives to the mass media.
In Regional and National Church Settings
A. A. Provide
resources to assist local churches with all the activities outlined
above.
B. Integrate sustained work for global communications justice
into current peace and justice advocacy agendas.
C. Oppose gender-biased reporting and encourage the equal
participation of women in mass media and alternative media.
D. Support opportunities for women media practitioners in career
training/development, and advocate for promotions based on merit, for
independent decision-making and for freedom from sexual harassment in
the workplace.
E. Strengthen and support our nation’s public broadcasting system.
F. Work with U.S. companies through such groups as the Interfaith
Center for Corporate Responsibility3
on shareholder actions to persuade U.S. companies to respect nations’
attempts to protect their cultural sovereignty.
G. Assist church members in the United States and in countries
around the globe to meet together to share information and to understand
the importance of their participation as citizens in the development of
policies that determine their own nation’s telecommunications
infrastructure.
H. Urge a U.S. policy of neutrality toward actions taken by less
developed countries to preserve their cultural heritage through
restrictions on the importation of cultural products.
I. Support freedom of movement for journalists of every nation, so
that they may report freely and from first-hand observation.
J. Work with other communions through the National Council of
Churches and the World Association for Christian Communication on the
agenda outlined below.
In Our Ecumenical Life
A. A.
Encourage the NCC Department of Communication to assist in gathering
persons with appropriate expertise to help re-articulate and develop a
public model of administration that neither leaves communications policy
completely to government and government ownership nor to industry but
reasserts that communication and the channels of communication belong to
the people and must be managed for the benefit of all citizens.
B. Assist in developing guidelines for the organization and
functioning of citizen advocate groups.
C. Provide research and information to citizen advocate groups on
the process for obtaining “leave to participate” in governmental
proceedings, public policy development and rule-making in the
communications arena.
D. Work with U.S. counterpart agencies, which are often invited to
provide models of communication policy for developing nations, to ensure
that means for such access is an integral part of the advice provided.
E. Urge that all ecumenical and global churches and agencies work
to assist their members to become media literate. As part of becoming
aware of the power of the media, we particularly suggest the study of
the Principles of Christian Communication developed by the World
Association of Christian Communication.4
F. Urge all church bodies, as well as UNESCO, the U.S. Agency for
International Development, and other similar groups, to place more
emphasis on funding of training and technical assistance for
communications policy in developing nations.
G. Seek inclusion for local cable programmers, local public radio
broadcasters, computer network operators and similar professionals
operating in the public interest as members of training delegations
going to developing nations in order to propagate the concept of a
vigorous, involved public citizen movement.
H. Work together on ecumenical productions that stress the values
and address the issues about which we are concerned.
I. Work with institutions of higher education, particularly
communication and theology faculties, to encourage them to address
societal communication issues in a systematic way.
Notes
1.
Violence in Electronic Media and Film, available from the
Communication Commission, National Council of Churches, Room 852, 475
Riverside Drive, New York, New York 10115.
2.
As a result of the gender bias prevalent in the media, women are
likewise frequently ignored or presented as stereotypes.
3.
The Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, Room 550, 475
Riverside Drive, New York, New York 10115.
4.
Christian Principles of Communication, available from the World
Association for Christian Communication, 357 Kennington Lane, London
SE11 5QY, England.
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