Alternative Communication Networks

ZEBRA is an international network of NGOs, film and video makers, distributors, journalists, academics etc. involved in audio-visual activities concerning the North-South relationship. Its aim is to facilitate exchange and collaboration world-wide and to stimulate critical reflection upon current activities and the content and quality of the productions. To achieve this aim ZEBRA collects and disseminates information about relevant organisations, activities and new initiatives from all over the world. It publishes ZEBRA-News, a quarterly bulletin, and initiates seminars and other projects among its participants.

James M. Wall

The spiritual quest of an artists is individual but it touches the whole of humanity. Great literature, painting and music reveal aspects of the human condition which are often concealed by the banality of existence. So it is with cinema whose films, when handled by a master such as Krzysztof Kieslowski, transcend the everyday and speak of the enigmatic and the divine.

The Cultural Environment Movement’s Manifesto

The Cultural Environment Movement (CEM) is an international, multiracial, multicultural and multifaith coalition of independent organizations and supporters in every state of the USA and 57 other countries on six continents. Its over 150 affiliated and supporting organizations and its individual supporters represent a wide range of social and cultural concerns, united in working for freedom, fairness, diversity, responsibility, respect for cultural integrity, the protection of children, and democratic decision-making in the cultural mainstream of all countries. CEM has issued the following Declaration.

Vidéazimut links people and organisations working in both the North and the South in independent and alternative video and television, and others who are in active agreement with Vidéazimut's Declaration of Principles. They are united by their interest in democratic communication and communication for development. Vidéazimut's purpose is to promote the democratic practice of communication by supporting the diverse participants in the broad movement for audio-visual communication for development and democracy. Its members aim to broaden the participation of communities and movements from the South and the North in image production and circulation.

Unda is the International Catholic Association for Radio and Television with 139 National Associations and 26 International Catholic Organisations as its members. It co-ordinates a world-wide network of individuals and institutions involved in broadcasting and offers them a forum for collaboration and reflection.

Keyan G Tomaselli

The founding convention of a new coalition took place at Webster University, St Louis, Missouri, USA, 15-17 March 1996. The Cultural Environment Movement (CEM) brings together like-minded organisations and individuals with the aim of working for a more equitable, genuinely democratic and creative cultural environment. The following keynote address on the theme of cultural identity and human rights took the theme 'Global village or global domination?' The author argued that public media governed by a critical citizenry can negotiate spaces for building local public spheres which are resistant to cultural hegemony.

Robert L. Terrell

China's citizens are sensitive to their nation's portrayal by resident western journalists, and are particularly bothered by the fact that such journalists seem to be engaged in constant criticism of China. Many citizens believe that the vast majority of the western journalists who live among them are deeply biased. This often results a portrayal of China as an unspeakably cruel place filled with teeming masses of intimidated pawns cowed by the oppressive tactics of brutal tyrants. The following article discusses the accuracy of that picture and pleads for a less biased form of journalism.

Seán Ó Siochrú

This article contributes to the emerging debate on what a strategy to promote democratic media might look like, one that on the one hand consciously counters the commercial mass-media now sweeping all before them on the global stage; and on the other develops its own sense of identity, dynamic and destiny. It considers: the strengths and weaknesses of both democratic media alternatives and of global commercial media; some basic building blocks for developing a successful collective strategy for democratic media; a few tentative short-term strategic goals that might be pursued, raising in particular the opportunities created, ironically, by the process of media neo-liberalisation.

Colleen Roach

The MacBride Round Table has met regularly since 1989. The next meeting will be held in Seoul, Korea, in August 1996, the first in Asia. The first meeting took place in Harare, Zimbabwe. The meetings have been well spread geographically: Prague in 1990; Istanbul in 1991; São Paulo in 1992; Dublin in 1993; Honolulu in 1994; and Tunisia in 1995. The origins of the MacBride Round Table encompass several factors as the following profile reveals.

Since its foundation 30 years ago, Inter Press Service (IPS) has demonstrated its capacity to anticipate and respond to changing global realities and communication needs. From small beginnings IPS swiftly grew into an international news agency, with a presence in over 100 countries. Today, IPS is a global communications system for development, with the fifth largest international news network in the world. Looking to the end of the century and beyond, IPS strategy is a response to the geopolitical arena, the impact of globalisation and the unprecedented technological advances in the field of communications.