THE GLOBAL NETWORK LE RESEAU GLOBAL NO. 4-5 Le Reseau The Network Communication and Society in Eastern Europe • Communication et Societé en Europe de l’Est No 4-5 MARCH / JUNE 1996 Peter Gross & Ray Hiebert Departures on an Old Fashioned Track. Broadcast Laws in Romania, Poland and The Czech Republic Vesella Tabakova Women and Media in Bulgaria: Access to Expression and Decision Making File / Dossier Detailed presentation of some Central & Eastern European Schools of Journalism Contents / Sommaire ESSAY ESSAI Tapio Varis Global Communication in the Age of Cyberspace SPECIAL EMPHASIS LE POINT SUR Peter Gross & Ray Hiebert Departures on an Old Fashioned Track. Broadcasting Laws in Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic Marius Lukosiunas & Skirmantas Valiulis Lithuanian Mass Media and Its Legal Regulation Between 1991 - 1995 AR T I C L E S AR T I C L E S Vesella Tabakova Women and Media in Bulgaria: Access to Expression and Decision Making Daniela Frumusani New Role Models for Journalists in Eastern European Countries Teresa Sasinska-Klas Transformation of the Polish Media System FI L E DO S S I E R Detailed Presentation of some Central & Eastern European Schools of Journalism Facultatea de Jurnalism si Stiintele Comunicarii Universitatea Bucuresti FJSC PUB L I S H I N G DIR E C T O R / DIR E C T E U R DE L AP U B L I C A T I O N Mihai Coman „A strong publisher creates a cor- porate culture that can leave its EDITOR / REDACTEUR EN CHEF Oscar Stanciulescu mark on an organisation long after he or she is gone.“ ADVISORY BOARD / COMITÉE DE LECTURE Jean-Pierre Bacot France Philip Meyer Claude Jean Bertrand France Peter Gross US „An editor should tell the writer Andrei Marga Romania his writing is better than it is. Not Kent Middleton US a lot better, a little better.“ Pierre Mory Belgium Todor Petev Bulgaria T.S.Elliot Walery Pisarek Poland Zoltan Rostas Romania „No passion in the world is equal Slavko Splichal Slovenia to the passion to alter someone Kenneth Starck US else’s drafts.“ Gina Stoiciu Canada H.G. Wells COVER ILLUSTRATION DESIGN & L AYOUT Pablo Picasso - „Don Quijote“ Oscar Stanciulescu SUBSCRIPTIONS / ABONNEMENTS 3 issues per year Romania Europe Outside / Outre Europe Students / Etudiants 12.000 lei 36 USD 44 USD Individuals / Particuliers 20.000 lei 48 USD 56 USD Institutions 30.000 lei 75 USD 80 USD Checks should be payable / Chèques doit être payé à: Banca Internationala a Religiilor, Bucuresti, Romania Account no: 40205002080016 for USD payments Please send the money order to the publisher. Abonamentele în lei se fac în contul 4010500208, deschis la Banca Internationalã a Religiilor din Bucuresti, România. Vã rugãm sã trimiteti dispozitia de platã pe adresa editorului. ISSN 1223-5199 The Global Network / Le reseau global 5 Global Communication in the Age of Cyberspace BY TAPIO VARIS Abstract not only the information technology but the human and social di - H E m a i n mensions of assisting thesis of this research, learning and paper is to instruction. Cultural di - say that the versities are real and the structure they should not only be Tof communication, uni - understood but also sup - versities, research and ported in order to make learning institutions will intercultural communi - grow in a qualitative cation work. Culture is way. This means that not any static concept but there will not only be an interactive, changing more information to deal process which with but new ways of will give meaning dealing with it and serv - and sense of be - Tapio Varis ing the public, media, longingness to is professor at the faculties, students and people. Further - University of professionals. The pro - more, my view is Helsinki, Finland cess of globalism support - that although we and ed by the new technology try to bring some visiting-professor at is full of contradictions kind of an order the University of which are cultural in to the increasing Santiago, Spain nature. The question is information flow The Global Network / Le reseau global 6 and media environment, the nications and the introduction world around us, including the of new telematic services. arts, is not in any predeter - mined order but rather in a cre - The almost unavoidable global- ative form of anarchy, chaos. isation is promoted by technol- ogy which in turn favours sim- plified answers to most compli- ck d cated social, cultural and reli- gious conflicts that are bound to emerge in this globalisation H E rapid development in process. Already in the begin- T information and communi- ning of the 1960’s a French cation technology, especially in sociologist Jacques Ellul spoke computer and telecommunica- of the new media as „technolog- tion systems, is creating pro- ical bluff.“ He thought that found changes in the structure each new medium does bring of the world economic system. something new in the organis- It is changing political and cul- ing, processing and utilisation tural institutions, education of information but also makes and research, as well as the something disappear. The new nature of diplomacy. Two inventions, though, always issues will dominate the future have consequences that could of communications for some not have been foreseen (Varis time to come. First, the expo- 1965). Culture is a changing, nential increase in the quantity interactive process that deals of information and communica- with human values which are tion in the emerging global hard if not impossible to pre- information society; and sec- di c t . ond, knowledge is becoming the most important resource in a When studying the policy dis- global information economy course of global television (Melody 1994). The key con- Michael Curting criticised the cepts are interconnectedness utopian discourse of the early and network economy. 1960’s that television would play an important role in pro- There are at least two techno- moting an „imagined communi- logical trends in the late 1990’s ty“ of citizens throughout the that affect world business, world. This notion of cultural institutions and everyday life. and geographic integration One is the rapid exploitation of was, according to Curting, Internet by corporations and some kind of official interna- institutions, and the other is tionalism decided from above the deregulation of telecommu- analogous to the official nation- The Global Network / Le reseau global 7 alism of Russification in the the audiovisual space of televi- nineteenth-century Russia - sion and video -has intensified and both turned out to be fail- in two decades in an unprece- ures (Curting, 1993, p.131- dented way: in order to believe 132). Today, European Union we have to see things (Gubern speaks of cultural diversity 19 9 6 ) . instead of one European cul- ture in trying to avoid these The period of transition that problems but the share of we are now living differs from Eurosceptics in all EU coun- the periods of change of older tries is still large. dominant media. Radio, televi- sion and cable were introduced A Galician film historian Juan within a period of reasonable A. Hernandez Les observes length and when we moved to that we have to make a differ- the active use of a new form of ence between the use of the communication we could also new audiovisual media and have a rough estimation of the learning. More information economic and social impacts of does not mean more culture. it and train new professionals More information is saturation, for the media and support peo- not reflection nor analysis. To ple for the institutions. read a book with a high voice or using radio and television loud- Now different forms of commu- speakers is to recapture the nication and technologies inte- mediaeval sense of knowledge grate and converge with a and communication - particu- speed that hardly anyone has larly during an era when peo- the time or ability to assess all ple do not know any more how of the consequences, real possi- to read. Telematic human bilities or problems. beings, says Hernandez Les, are nonalphabetic who can no We are probably living in an more name things, separate era of transition equal to the the significant from non-signifi- introduction of steam engines cant. The images dominate peo- in 1760-1830 or electricity dur- ple in the major media like ing 1880-1930. The period of rhetoric dominates the spoken transition and confusion was of word (Hernandez Les 1996). a length between 50-70 years, a life of a generation. Now the Professor Roman Gubern from information and communica- the Autonomous University of tion technology, multinational Barcelona concludes that enterprises, and the weakening between the peace in Vietnam of the welfare state and nation- and Sarajevo our iconosphere - al state are creating a new The Global Network / Le reseau global 8 global system which is not yet like classic love, they can an order but is often called easily cross borders. information society. Italian Fiats clamber up the cliffs of Norway. Ever- The Italian philosopher Gianni worried specialists in Vattimo has recently called Renault taxis jolt around this age as „the end of employ- the bumpy streets of ment“. According to him the Moscow. Ford is ubiqui - new technology has made man- tous, he’s in Australia, ual work obsolete. He also he’s also in Japan. asks if the Latin mind is better American Chevrolet prepared to face the existing trucks carry Sumatran instability than the Anglo- tobacco and Palestine Saxon, Northern mind which is oranges. A Spanish more prepared to live in social banker owns a German stability, in „order“ (German Mercedes. 10-H.P. „Ordnung“). The new electronic Citroens in display win - industries might, however, cre- dows in Piccadilly or ate new jobs like the automo- Berlin cause dreamy bile industry once and an passers-by to halt.