Online Media:
Opportunities, Challenges and
Threats to Freedom of Expression
Lecture 4, 7 November 2007
Carol Azungi Dralega
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Introduction:
New Media and the FOX discourse
 New Media: The Internet and the WWW constitute new forms of
communication and infrastructure that expand the possibilities for
individual and collective participation, the growth and spread of
information and knowledge.
– Role of the Media: to inform, educate, represent, mirror society,watchdogs,
organize, mobilize, etc
– Channels: websites, ebulletine boards, chat groups, listservs, e-mails, multi-user
domains, multimedia convergencies, weblogs etc.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Introduction contd...
• FOX : act of seeking, receiving and imparting information
regardless of media
• FOX and New Media: How does the new media enhance peoples
freedoms to seek, receive and spread ideas and the creation of
meaning that constitute them as individuals and communities?
• Connection to Democracy:
– Individual rights
– Collective rights
– Governance/democratic responsibility*
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
This lecture...
– Explores ways in which the New media provide new ways for FOX
– Explores challenges that hinder these new possibilities,
– Nature of Online censorship as Threats to FOX
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Characteristics of the Internet
•
•
•
•
•
•
Access to `limitless´ information
Space and Time: Speed
Possibilities to copy, modify, collate, store, transmit content
Democratic nature of media/personalized character of media
Possibilities for two-way flows and Interactivity
Globality: easier for content to cross cultural, political and geographic borders
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
New Media and the opportunities
For Freedom of Expression
• The Internet can function to strengthen and enrich the connections
between citizens and intermediary organizations including political
parties, social movements and interest groups, and the news media, as
well as with public officials and agencies of local, national and global
governance.
• The spread of new freedoms and extent of frontiers of freedoms that
public authorities have often attempted to control; religious freedoms,
gender, ethnicity and sexual freedoms based on social and cultural
identities.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Oppotunities contd...
• Routing: Reaching audiences directly without
gatekeepers or intermediary
– It may also broaden involvement in public life by eroding some of
the barriers to political participation and civic engagement, especially
for marginalized from mainstream politics, facilitating the ability to
gather information, mobilize community networks, to network
diverse coalitions and lobby elected reps.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Opportunities contd...
– Political participation is made easier and certain obstacles like apathy,
shyness, disabilities, time etc can be lessened
– Internet allows for the fragmentation of audiences to focus on specific issues
Vs. Mass Media
– The internet could facilitate opportunities for direct democratic participation
and political expression through e-voting and e-referenda which may help
promote accountability and give the public sense of citizenship and
community and power over their political, social and cultural destinies (few
countries have actually tried this).
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Opportunities contd...
Two-Way communication: A hierarchical political system becomes
more horizontal by increasing political engagement and participation.
Space and Time: ICTs increase the scale and speed of providing
information-this helps create more informed citizens.
CMCs create new ways of organizing with subject-specific groups for
discussion, mobilization and lobbying.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Opportunities continued...
Citizens will have more voice in creating agendas for government
New media will help remove distorting mediators like journalists,
representatives and parties
Politics will be able to respond more directly to citizens as ICT and CMC
enable a kind of political marketing research
ICT will help resolve the problem of representative democracy such as
territorial bases of constituencies, etc
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Opportunities continued...
• Lower costs of copying and distribution of information
allows large number people to publish/disseminate
information more cheaply and widely because websites,
weblogs easy to construct and access in terms of costs of
publication and distribution of traditional media.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Generic models for on-line media
• Digital governance models, developed by
(www.digitalgovernance.org) are continuously evolving, depending on
the uses to which they are put.
• Therefore, there are no rigid and finite models of digital governance.
Since these models are based on strategic use of information, the
possibilities are endless, depending on how innovative and
imaginative the governments, the citizens groups and the
international development agencies can be.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
1. The Broadcasting model
Public Domain
Wider Domain
Public Domain
Info rmation
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Wider Public Domain
• Most important model and stepping stone for other complex models
• Based on the dissemination/broadcasting of useful/important
(government) information to the public through ICTs.
• The utility of this model is that a more informed citizenry is better
able to benefit from governance related services that are available for
them.
– The model can enable citizens to understand what government services are
available and how to avail them.
– Allows people to better judge the existing mechanisms that provide governance
related services and make an informed opinion about performance.
– As a consequence, people may feel more empowered to voice their concerns and
to impact/influence these governance processes.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Aim of the broadcasting model:
 To enhance access/flow of information to society
 To inform citizens through services and also empower citizens with
knowledge for decision making (democratic principles).
Examples:
–
–
–
–
Putting governmental Laws and legislation on line
Avail names, addresses, emails, faxes of local, national, regional officials online
Government plans, budgets, expenditure and performance reports
Opening and closing of government officials
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Critical Flow Model
• Critical Information
Targeted/Wider domain
Private
Domain
Information
Targeted
Domain
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
• Based on the broadcasting or dissemination of information of `critical value`.
• By its very nature, it would not be disclosed by those involved with bad
governance practices
Target audience:
• Media
• Opposition parties
• Judicial bench
• Independent investigators
• Concerned public
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
• The strength of this model is that the concept of 'distance' and
'time' becomes redundant when information is hosted on a digital
network. Once available on the digital network, the information
could be used advantageously - by instantly transferring the critical
information to its user group located anywhere or by making it
freely available in the wider public domain.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Type of information:
–
–
–
–
–
Corruption data to a constituency
Equity reports
Critical Research results
Human rights violation cases
Information usually suppressed; eg. Environmental related radio activity spills etc
Examples:
– Transparency international-daily corruption news since 2000
(www.transparency.org)
– Bangladesh: human rights portal for women, children and marginalized
community (www.banglarights.net).
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Comparative Analysis Model
•
Public + Private Domain Information - Wider public
Public Domain
Wider Domain
Private Domain
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
• The comparative knowledge model is the least used but holds high
significance as it empowers people by matching cases e.g. of bad
governance vs. good governance then analyzing aspects, implications
and impact.
• It is used to explore information and use it to strengthen learning and
argumentation.
Uses;
– Compare past policies/actions to derive lessons for future policy/decision-making
– Evaluate effectiveness of polices and their strengths and weaknesses
– Evaluate performance and track records of decision-makers or decision-making
bodies
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
•
The model continuously assimilates ‘Best Practices’ in
the areas of governance and then uses them as benchmark
to evaluate other governance practices.
– It then uses the result to advocate positive changes or to influence 'public'
opinion on these governance practices.
• The strength of this model lies in the infinite capacity of
digital networks to store varied information and retrieve
and transmit it instantly across all geographical and
hierarchal barriers.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Mostly used by;
• Investigative reporters online
• Researchers etc
Examples:
– See the Global Development Indicators like the UNDP Human Rights
Development Reports and statistics on literacy, health, national development etc.
– Also see India´s Comparative Learning from Disasters data on earth quakes
which indicated that the damages to life and property are not just disasters but also
dependent on preparedness and competences of governments machineries and
policies
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
E-Advocacy and Pressure Group Model
• Networking Networks for Concerted Action
Virtual Community
Communities
Networks
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Real Community
Common Goal
Individual
Interest Groups
E-advocacy or pressure group model is a mobilization and lobbying
model
– Based on setting up planned, directed flow of information to build global allies
– Its strength lies in diversity of the virtual community (in terms of ideas,
expertise and resources) through networking
Most frequently used by;
– Global civic society-to impact global decision-making
This model could be applied for:
– Fostering public debate on larger concerns e.g. conferences, treaties etc
– Formation of pressure groups on important issues
– Opinions of suppressed groups far from decision-making processes
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
– Catalyze participation in decision making
– Build global alliances
Examples include:
• The anti-Iraq war campaigns
• Green Peace cyber activism, Drop the debt campaign
• WTO protests in Seattle ´99 (minute to minute reports, audio)
• Beijing conference of 1993
• BBC’s Free Allan Johnson web campaigns
• Anti-fuel tax campaigns
• WSIS February 2005 and November 2006, and so forth.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Interactive - Service Model
• Citizens
Government
Local
Government
International
Governance
CITIZENS
National
Government
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
The Interactive - service model opens avenues for direct
participation of citizens in government processes;
• Bring together transparency and objectivity
• It is supposed to be a Two-Way communication flow;
– interactivity in policy making processes
– Public debate on opinion polls
– Grievances, feedback
Examples:
• India´s www.gyandoot.net for everyday needs of the people
(agricultural issues, registration of land titles, grievances etc)
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Structures of e-democracy and FOX
• What types of political institutions exist on-line and what
are their functions?
• What opportunities are created for active citizenship and
civic engagement?
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Government websites
•
•
•
Ministries,
Departments,
Embassies and consulates
Functions
• Information
• Interactivity-feedback
• Link to official resources
• “One-stop-shop” for Jobs, questions, tax info etc
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Content analysis:
• Information transparency-ownership, contact details,
organizational information-to create confidence and
accountability in service delivery.
• Interactivity-links and opportunity for input and feedback;
danger of top-down flows, less participation
• More websites in DCs than LDCs
• Most governments work simultaneously with paper and face to
face and electronic in service delivery i.e. They duplicate rather
than replace channels of information.
• Trial and error
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Online parliaments
•
•
Electrol incentive to maintain stronger links with citizens (especially
Europe, USA, Scandinavia...)
Governments are accountable to parliament and parliaments are
accountable to the public (watching the watchdog-accountability)
Parliaments on line/Functions
–
Most rudimentary-some are outdated info, pictures
Content:
– Pending legislation
– Government proposals
– Full texts of press releases
– Audio-visuals virtual tours of buildings
–
–
–
–
–
Details of personal websites of members
Civic education
Resources for education
Debates, sub-committee hearings
They provide public interactivity, organize details and comprehensive
information allowing scrutiny
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Virtual parties
• Waning interest - Parties have been adapting ICTs by choice or
necessity - mobilize activities and disseminate ideologies
What is their role and function?
• Parties represent the diverse interests, they are therefore a fora to
access the public in their bid to compete for office (divergent
ideologies)
• Hope to revitalize the role of political parties
i) by giving people access, choice
ii) check and balance to the ruling establishment
Pessimists-Just propaganda, politics as usual
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Debate Groups
• Brings out the networking potential of the Internet
between advocacy networks, grassroots political
organizations, the independent media and governments
• Debate important issues of social, economic, political
concern; women´s movement, human rights, peace
activists, environmentalists, etc.
• Their use is aimed to increase awareness, engagement
and participation
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
News Media
• The Press ventured online first, followed by the radio then TV
• On their websites; news, current affairs, live coverage for TV
• Opportunities for public participation: feedback, polls on
significant stories etc
• Improved/wider reach through online extension (see Al Jezeera;
Radio and TV Burma, etc)
• Often challenged by political problems of traditional realm
(censorship, intimidation).
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Individual Spaces for FOX
• Personal Websites: personal agendas
• Blogosphere: mainly commentary
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Challenges and Threats to FOX
a) Challenges to FOX: Digital Divide and the abuse of FOX
b) Threats to FOX: Online Censorship
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
1: The Digital Divide


The term used to describe disparities in online communities.
The Question of Access. Global Access: 7% have access
worldwide.
 Its a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing three
aspects;
a) Global Divide
b) Social Divide
c) Democratic divide
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
a) The Global divide
• Divergence of Internet access between Industialized and DCs.
• Developed countries have reinforced their lead in the new
knowledge economy-used technology as an engine for
economic growth while DCs lag behind plagued by multiple
burdens of debt, disease, ignorance (UN, IDRC).
• The UN argues that productivity gains from ICT may widen
this global divide leaving those with lack of skills, resources,
infrastructure to invest in IS further behind..
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Global Divide contd....
• The scenario is that those with incomes, education gain
information/access at a low cost and high speed as opposed to those
without...
• The language issue...(English 87% of documents on the web, 84%
english pages, 1/10 use English; 4.5% German; 3.1 Japan, 1.8 French,
1.2 Spanish, 1.1% Swedish, 1% Italian-the rest 1%
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
b) Social Divide
• Rich and poor within a country
• Even in Industrialized countries-poor neighbourhoods and peripheral
communities experience lower access
• Projects:
i) EU-European Action Plan (1999) Lisbon
ii) US Program “Falling through the Net” by the department of
commerce which emphasizes lower rates, programs for wider access,
skill & content devt, wired classrooms etc.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Social divide contd...
iii) British government-`Networks of City Learning
Centres`, which distribute computers, public library online,
training for poor and minorities...
iv) Norwegian municipalities initiatives...
Some of the causes of these disparities
–
–
–
–
–
Income levels
Occupation
Education
Gender gaps
Generational gaps etc..
• Implication to FOX and democracy among others.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
The Democratic Divide
• Users vs. Non-users of the multiple political resources on the net for
democratic and FOX purposes.
• Division between the plugged-in and the plugged-out, the active and
the disengaged.
• E-opportunities will benefit the elite and therefore those with
established traditional interests will continue to re-assert their control
in the virtual political sphere, in essence it will be a meeting place for
similar minded people just like in the traditional politics.
• Reinforce voices of the powerful-politics as usual...etc
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Abuse of FOX
• Cases of child-porn, racial hatred, destructive expression,
religious fundamentalism etc may be sighted as challenges
of FOX in onlne media.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Censorship, New Media and the a Threat
to FOX
• A historical trajectory censorship:
–
–
–
–
–
Legal
Administrative
Violent
economic
and now through technology.
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
• Legal: censorship laws making it illegal to write and
publish/disseminate information that is seditious,
threat to national security etc
– Repercussion: warnings, suspension, interdiction, seizure, fines,
imprisonment, excommunication, deportation, mutilation, death
etc
– They are often vague and ambiguous
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
• Administrative strategies: obligation to register or
obtain authorization for publication (licencing). Some
times requiring deposit of financial guaranteesconstraining for publicists and opposition politicians
– Government restrains without alerting public opinion
– Opportunity for authorities to take arbitrary decisions
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
• Violence:
– Beating, kidnapping, arbitrary arrests
– Chilling effect: Fear and sense of insecurity-self-censorship
• Economic strategies: an ancient but efficient way of
controlling especially the press
– Taxes on media
– Advertisement restrictions
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Censorship on New Media
• Technology as a tool for censorship: Instrument of
control integrated in medium. Software programsPlatform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) that
prevent users from accessing Internet content in a 2-step
process:
– Rating:
• Classifying web content according to categories like; violence,
nudity, sex, Al Quida, etc through the software developed by the
WWW Consortium (Netscape and Microsoft).
• Websites are rated by publishers (self-rating) or by evaluative 3rd
party
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
– Filtering:
• When a search engine of a web browser is connected to the blocking
software, it filters content on the basis of the information provided by the
software rating system.
• When a site falls under a category, it is blocked and access denied
Many governments use this system:
• E.g. Australia´s broadcasting Amendment Online Bill of May 1999
requiring ISPs to use filters
• Singapore´s National Internet Advisory Committee made it compulsary to
label websites using PICS
• Asia: china, Malaysis, S. Korea all have extensive use of PICS
• USA
• Europe
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
The threat contd...
• Critics: Civil Rights Groups
– Vague and ambiguous and blanket filters see RSACi survey saying 9599% of useful information blocked was relevant to youths
– Homogenization of the internet: leading to powerful institutions who
can afford self-rating while minority will disappear
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Combined methods for Internet
censorship
The use of existing laws and methods with new approaches:
 Central Code Scanning (PICS): Legal Responsibility of the ISP for
content censorship in which the regulatory burden is bestowed on
the ISPs as they are “responsible for the websites they host”, or
“public order and good morals”
 Furnishing list of subscribers to the government i.e. Monthly statistical, data
 Intimidation, arrests, torture, murder - Tunisia, China
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Threats contd...
– Defamation charges (Zimbabwe)
– Closure - constitutional arrangement - national security
Culprits:– Tunisia- Torture, imprisonment, murder
– China-Internet filtering, most sofisticated (legal and
technical involving many state agencies, (1000 of) public
and private personell
– Taiwan, Tibet, Singapore:Content censorship
 Interception of e-mails
 Monitor Internet cafe´s
 Sending computer viruses to dissedents...
 Online media double edged
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Conclusions
• New Media provides new ways for FOX
• Challenges associated with inclusion and exclusion of the
world´s majority population
• The same media (technologies-digital codes) can/are being
used to bog FOX (also see the recent child-porn ring)
– Today, more efficient, less visible and less intrusive as they are behind
the scenes and out of the public eye that the end-user may not be aware
of.
– Policies to protect FOX are still under-developed
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Issues to Ponder...
• What are the scenarios/cases that may legitimate censorship of
on-line media?
• What are the online censorship practices/and justifications in
your country?
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)
Useful resources...
 www.rsf/content.php3 -Press freedom barometer
(66 cyber dissidents imprisoned todate)
 Also see-Reporters without borders for global updates
www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=273
Institutt for medier og kommunikasjon (IMK)