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THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION IN THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ATLANTA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY MARVIN HAIRE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE JULY 1986 Bu. T ABSTRACT Political Science Haire, Marvin B.A. Youngstown State University, 1976 M.A. Atlanta University, 1980 The Political Economy of the Free Flow of Information in the New International Order. Advisor: Professor William H. Boone Dissertation dated: July 1986 This dissertation analyzes the quest by the underdeveloped and non-aligned nations for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). This is achieved by focusing on the evolution of the debate over the "free flow of information" within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), from its inception in 1946 to the present. The major assumption of this analy¬ sis is that the concept of "free flow" has served as a useful ideolo¬ gical weapon employed by the United States in fostering the emergence of American state, multinational corporate and banking interests as dominant actors in the arena of international communications and in¬ formation in the post-World War II era. This dominance has been achieved at the expense of both Western European allies and Third World nations. We note that until the decision by the Soviet Union to join UNESCO in the mid-1950s and the rise in the membership of Third World nations during the era of decolonization in the 1960s, the U.S. found very little opposition to its views and philosophy regarding the free flow of information. However, with the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement and the socialist inclinations of newly independent member- states of UNESCO, the U.S. found itself increasingly in the minority on major issues on the agency's agenda. The crisis of U.S. legitimacy as the leader of UNESCO came to a head with the call for a New World Information and Communications Or¬ der in 1974. The outline of NWICO sought to challenge the prevailing dominance of Western interpretations of Third World reality and ex¬ pose the illusions of the Western conception of free flow of informa¬ tion. NWICO alternatively proposed the necessity of developing with¬ in UNESCO an independent set of methodologies and techniques for dis¬ seminating accurate information, and the acquisition of the appropri¬ ate technological capacity to enable Third World nations to halt the concentrated flow and control of news and information by Western media monopolies that penetrated sovereign boundaries irrespective of the needs and desires of the population therein. Employing the lens of historical materialism, our hypothesis contends that the NWICO as conceptualized and proposed by the majori¬ ty of UNESCO's member-states will more than likely fail to material¬ ize unless there is a fundamental re-ordering of the international political economy and a re-orientation of the current Third World go¬ verning class away from neo-colonial relations. Until such time we will, at best, witness continuing debates and declarations over the appropriate paths to take toward achieving NWICO with few substantive measures disigned to ensure that it becomes an actuality. The conclusions reached in this analysis suggest that under the the ultra-conservative drift of the Ronald Reagan Administration, the United States has exhibited an increasing impatience and unwilling¬ ness to continue its formal participation in international organiza¬ tions like UNESCO where majority decisions no longer avidly reflect a pro-Western bias. This is clearly seen in the proposed U.S. withdraw¬ al from UNESCO and the accompanying surge toward corporate-sponsored bilateral trade relations. This posture will not only cripple U.N. Special Agencies like UNESCO by drastically cutting their operating budgets and thus curtailing their ability to finance proposed inter¬ governmental development projects. It also exposess the continuing dependency of the Third World ruling elite on the West in general, and even more so than ever before, on the directors of multinational corporations and banks who hold the key to whether this elite will be able to maintain its cherished position as intermediaries between the MNC's and the masses. Rather than facilitating a free and more balanced flow of infor¬ mation between and among nations, these trends show all the signs of deepening the levels of dependency of the Third World on the direct¬ ives of international finance capital. In practical terms we can ex¬ pect an increasing trend toward the merging of traditional telecom¬ munications carriers and computer companies into the new field called "informatics" with little, if any, challenge at all. The deepening economic dependence of the Third World is shown in our study to be a corollary to the rise of informatics and a pre¬ condition of the increasing level of psycho-social and political manipulation of the major institutional arrangements and minds of the populace of the Third World. To facilitate a fuller appreciation of the intricacies and inter-relatedness of these dimensions of the pro¬ blem, a conceptual framework of "cultural imperialism" is offered. As an indication of probable steps that African-Americans might take re¬ lative to these trends, and with the objective of realistically mov¬ ing toward the objectives of creating a NWICO, we offer the broad outlines of a model entitled the Afro-Centric Transnational Informa¬ tion Outreach Network (A.C.T.I.O.N.), It is a model we believe may be a first step in the right direction. This dissertation is dedicated to my lovely wife Gwendolyn B. Haire; my two daughters, Mashirika Zizwe and Adrianne DeOnne; my parents Marshel and Jamie C. Haire; my sister and brother Mrs. Marcia L. Ellis and Nehemiah Haire and their families; and to the memories of my Godmother Mrs. Carthe- nia Jamison Driskell, and my uncle Mr. Noah Haire. I would like to acknowledge the support of several individuals who have provided timely assistance and encouragement throughout the strug¬ gle to achieve this goal during the last five years. This list includes my dissertation advisors: Drs. William H. Boone, Hashim Gibrill, Larry Noble, and Robert Holmes; Professor Alfred Bright, Mr. William L. Driskell, Dr. Ruben Cowart, Mrs. Lena Jones, Ms. Veronica Carter, Mrs. Lisa Richards, Dr. Charles Dean, Dr. Mack H. Jones, Dr. Earl Picard, and Dr. Shelby Lewis. I would also like to extend my sincerest grant of appreciation to Mrs. Debra McClendon for sacrificing untold hours of precious family time to ensure that that the final draft of this dissertation was typed, and to Mr. David G.E. Goins for providing valuable feedback on the various drafts of this dissertation as they have emerged and for providing con¬ tinued intellectual stimulation that has gone a long way toward helping me wade through some rather turbulent waters. Marvin Haire July 25, 1986 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I. THE NEW WORLD INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION ORDER: MYTH OR REALITY Introduction 1 Statement of Problem .•••2 Hypothesis 9 Methodology and Research Techniques 12 Data Collection 14 II. THE FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE Introduction 16 Dissertations/Articles 16 III. TOWARD A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION: A QUESTION OF CULTURAL IMPERIALISM Introduction 47 The Psycho-Social Dimension 52 The Political Dimension 57 The Economic Dimension 62 Conclusions 67 IV. UNESCO AND THE UNITED STATES: THE EARLY YEARS Introduction 72 Pre-UNESCO Goal and Objectives of U.S Communication Policy 78 The United States and UNESCO: The Early Years 85 The Soviet Challenge at UNESCO 95 Chapter V. THE EMERGENCE OF THE THIRD WORLD IN UNESCO: SEEDS OF RESISTANCE AND THE CRISIS OF U.S. LEGITIMACY Introduction 103 Conspiracy of One-Way Flow of Information: The Colonial Legacy 107 l The Grand Area and U.S. Information Policy 114 Toward a More Balanced Flow of Information: Guiding Principles 123 The Challenge of the Non-Aligned Movement 126 The Kissinger Impasses 131 VI. BELGRADE AND BEYOND: REAGONOMICS, INFORMATICS AND THE CRISIS OF THE NWICO Introduction 143 The "Voices of Liberty" 147 The Real NWICO: The American Economic Agenda 159 The Structure of the International Telecommunication System 161 Computer Communication: The "Sixth Sense" 166 For Whom the Bell Tolls 173 VII. SUMMARY 202 CONCLUSIONS 217 VIII. APPENDICES 227 Appendix A. Records of the UNESCO General Conference 21st Session Belgrade, 23 September to 28 October 1980 Volume 1 Resolutions 227 Appendix B. Text of Declaration by News Organizations on Freedom of Press 240 Appendix C. Organizational Structure of UNESCO Secretarial and 1984/85 Budget and Employee Figures 241 Appendix D. Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; Instrument Establishing a Preparatory Educational, Scientific and Cultural Commission; and Resolutions Adopted by the Conference. (1946) 242 Appendix E. Text of Draft Declaration on Fundamental Principles Concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media...UNESCO General Conference, 20th Session, Paris 1978 252 Appendix F. MacBride Commission Report: Party Communication Tomorrow/Conclusion and Recommendations...255 Appendix G. Selected Advertisements of Major Multinational Corporations Involved in the Informatics Industry 272 IX. Bibliography 281 ii CHAPTER I THE NEW WORLD INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION ORDER: MYTH OR REALITY? INTRODUCTION I think we are correct in saying that Africa is the most misre¬ presented continent in the world, and that is largely because our story has been told outside of Africa by non-Africans... We have had the Organization of African Unity, which has been working for the last 20 years as a political forum for the integration of African interests, but we have not had any vehicles on a regular basis for exchanging news and information about Africa. You see, we are still, at the moment, victimized by the colonial structures that were set up many decades ago, so that the exchange of news among African countries and across the continent still, to a large extent, follow the old colonial lines.