McGill-Concordia Student Symposium on Media and Communication Policy
McGill-Concordia Student Symposium on Media and Communication Policy
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
9.30-5.15
Arts Building, Room W-220
9:30-9:45
Brief introduction: Professors Marc Raboy and Leslie Regan Shade
9:45-10:15
Philip O. Onguny
Rethinking Kenya’s Media Policy Through Constitutional Review: Possible Solution to Media Crises?
10:15-10:45
Dieudonné Ongbawa
Les Bagyeli et la participation dans la politique de Communication au Cameroun, un chantier à l’image des politiques d’intégration nationales des minorités
10:45-11:15
Maha Hussain
Unintended Consequences: Independent Media and the Authoritarian State in Pakistan
11:15-11:45
Zoë Constantinides
From Avant-Garde to “Innovation”: Trends in Canadian Arts Administration
11:45: 12:15
Evan Light
The Sociopolitical Economy of the Radio Spectrum: Finding a Home for a Foundation
12:15-1:00
LUNCH
1:00-1:30
Tamara Shepherd
User-Generated Content in the Development of Internet Policy
1:30-2:00
Mél Hogan
Ephemateriality
2:00-2:30
Evan Light
Canadian Copyright Collectives: Monopolizing the Myth of Copyright Worldwide
2:30-3:00
Adam Mahon
The “Internet Bill of Rights” and the Need to Define Human Rights in the Internet Environment
3:00-3:30
Leslie De Meulles
The Right to Communicate in a Cosmopolitan Global Sphere
3:30-4:00
Kristina Kjerstad
The European Union and Internet Governance
4:00-4:30
Simon Grant
The Right to Communicate and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Opportunities for Strategic Litigation?
4:30-5:00
Kenza Oumlil
In the Name of “Security:” The USA Patriot Act in a Time of Fear
5:00-5:15
Closing remarks by Raboy and Shade
5:30: Book Launch- For Sale to the Highest Bidder: Telecom Policy in Canada, edited by Moll and Shade, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Thomson House, downstairs restaurant
More than ever before, we depend on telecommunications services to conduct our economic, cultural and social lives. But, after 100 years of managing and controlling this industry to safeguard the interests of all Canadians, recent government decisions are leading us to a communications future that doesn’t include us all. Canadian interests in this vital sector are being traded off in the name of deregulation and harmonization. Whether it is about access or affordability, security or sovereignty, the essays in this book will be a wake-up call to anyone wondering how telecommunications policy affects our daily lives. With contributions from Marc Raboy. Geneviève Bonin, Maude Barlow, Bruce Campbell, Andrew Clement, Michael Geist, Phillipa Lawson, Graham Longford, Marita Moll, Amelia Bryne Potter, Leslie Regan Shade, Ben Scott, Mel Watkins, and Julie White.
McGill-Concordia Student Symposium on Media and Communication Policy
Abstracts of Presentations
Zoë Constantinides
From Avant-Garde to “Innovation”: Trends in Canadian Arts Administration
This presentation investigates the recent reconceptualization of the arts in terms of creative labour, content production, and cultural industry. This re-framing of what it means to be an artist has pervaded Canadian cultural policy. The implications of this shift are apparent in institutional funding practices, including those at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Heritage Canada, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.
Zoë Constantinides, a PhD student in Communications at Concordia University,
researches art and cinema as cultural institutions.
Leslie De Meulles
The Right to Communicate in a Cosmopolitan Global Sphere
The World Summit on Information Society in Tunis 2005 changed the discourse about universal human rights by formally introducing the concept of ‘communication rights’. Comparing the UN Declaration of Human Rights with the WSIS Tunis Agenda for the Information Society reveals how we are talking about communication rights. However, it remains unclear what communication rights actually are. To clarify how communication can be seen as a fundamental human right, we must also understand what we mean by ‘communication’ and ‘rights’. Examining these concepts is necessary to understand whether communication rights should be considered rights at all.
Leslie de Meulles is an MA student in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. Her current research interests include how opinion shapes public discourse and the nature of political participation.
Simon Grant
The Right to Communicate and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Opportunities for Strategic Litigation?
The primary focus of this paper is to map ways in which the globally-developed concept of a “right to communicate” might be embedded into the local field of Canadian constitutional law. The paper’s methodology combines a behavioural approach to strategic Charter litigation with an “internal” legal case-law analysis that will focus particularly on the section 2(b) guarantee of freedom of expression and the Supreme Court’s receptiveness to international law. The paper concludes by suggesting possible scenarios in which activists committed to establishing the right to communicate might seek to mobilize before the courts as litigants or interveners.
Simon Grant is a third-year B.C.L./LL.B. student in McGill University’s Faculty of Law.
Mél Hogan
Ephemateriality
Based on the pioneering research of Lawrence Lessig, Laura Murray, Yockai Benkler and many others, this paper explores the concept of “materiality” within debates about the boundaries of creativity and distribution in online archives within a legal, cultural and economic framework. More specifically, I explore the ways in which online “archivists” raise important questions about, and challenges to, current copyright policies by proposing that digital artefacts require distinctive measures for assessing ownership and use, and conversely affording innovative opportunities for managing and conceptualizing creative practices and products.
Mél Hogan is a first-year student in the Joint PhD in Communication at Concordia
University. Her research interests are: video art and distribution, online archives,
copyright and queer women’s history. Hogan also techs for Dykes on Mykes radio, writes for various websites, and works as a graphic designer. www.melhogan.com
Maha Hussain
Unintended Consequences: Independent Media and the Authoritarian State in Pakistan
This paper will discuss the proliferation of independent media outlets in Pakistan over the past decade, and discuss the relationship between the military regime and the independent (non-state) media actors, particularly as regards the pro-democracy movement. While the military government initially pointed to Pakistan’s thriving media sector as evidence of the regime’s benevolence, this relationship shifted as media coverage of the pro-democracy campaign became more aggressive, culminating in Musharraf’s declaration of a state of emergency and temporary seizure of media facilities in November 2007.
Maha Hussain is a second year BCL/LLB Candidate at the McGill University Faculty of Law. Prior to law school she was (among other things) an aid worker in Tanzania and Pakistan.
Kristina Kjerstad
The European Union and Internet Governance
In this paper, I wish to look at the EU and it’s role in shaping rules and guidelines for Internet Governance. I will examine the EU participation at the WSIS, and the proposals and objections made by the EU during the course of the summit. How does the composition of the EU, and it being a supranational body, affect the general viewpoints offered by the European Council in the WSIS, and does the EU stance ever differ from those of its individual member states? If so, why?
Kristina Kjerstad is a law student from Norway, currently on exchange at McGill, where she is finishing a BA in communication studies from the University of Bergen.
Evan Light
The Sociopolitical Economy of the Radio Spectrum: Finding a Home for a Foundation
The Internet and radio spectrum have long been considered as distinct sets of global communicational infrastructure to be treated alone in their regulation (or lack there of). Initiatives to regulate or manage each have been successful in terms of technological coordination, yet have been fundamentally devoid of for a for the integration of cultural and social needs and values. Advances in wireless broadband technology demonstrate the potential for the Internet to evolve as a network that will make paramount use of the radio spectrum. In this paper, I posit that regulation of the spectrum should be guided, in good part, by cultural and social needs and values and present a number of options.
Canadian Copyright Collectives: Monopolizing the Myth of Copyright Worldwide
Copyright collectives provide a mechanism for the mass representation of intellectual property rights for the creators of works and the mass collection and distribution of related royalties. In the year 2000, there were 32 such entities in the world. Today, there are 38 in Canada with active partnerships throughout the world. This paper proposes a research agenda to examine the monopolization of the concept of copyright in Canada, related mechanisms of corporate governance and the practical effects of Canadian federal advocacy of copyright and intellectual property regimes internationally.
Evan Light is a PhD candidate in communication at Université du Québec à Montréal. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Campus and Community Radio Association and active with the Association mondiale des radiodiffuseurs communautaires.
Adam Mahon
The “Internet Bill of Rights” and the Need to Define Human Rights in the Internet Environment
During the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Tunis, Tunisia in November 2005, a coalition of governmental actors and civil society and non-governmental organizations proposed a project that sought to have as its end result the adoption of an “Internet Bill of Rights”. This paper examines the origins and evolution of the concept of a “Charter of the Rights of the Net.” Particular emphasis is placed on the theoretical and political foundations that have influenced the literature emerging from the Internet Rights movement, and whether such a project can be expected to have a meaningful impact on global internet governance.
Adam Mahon is an MA student in the Department of Political Science at McGill University and Research Fellow at the Canadian Opinion Research Archive at the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University.
Dieudonné Ongbawa
Les Bagyeli et la participation dans la politique de Communication au Cameroun, un chantier à l’image des politiques d’intégration nationales des minorités
Peuple minoritaire et marginalisé, les Bagyeli (un des groupes Pygmées du Cameroun) sont classés parmi les groupes les plus vulnérables du pays. Marginalisation, faible scolarisation, faible revenu, sont quelques clichés dont ils font l’objet. A ceux-ci s’ajoutent la fragilité face à certaines maladies, la déforestation. Ce dernier phénomène prive des Bagyeli de leur berceau et des ressources ainsi que leurs fondements culturels et leur cosmologie. Cette fragilité sur le plan socio culturel fait des Bagyeli des oubliés dans les politiques de communication au Cameroun. Les premiers habitants du Cameroun sont ainsi parmi les derniers parce que absents dans cette sphère, mais aussi parce que les politiques de communication sont tributaires de l’environnement politique, économique et social. En conséquence, la présence des Bagyeli dans la politique de communication appelle à une révision de leur statut social, économique et politique.
The Bagyeli Participation in Communication Policy in Cameroon Depends on Their Social Integration as Marginalized People
Bagyeli are one of the minority and vulnerable groups in Cameroon. Bagyeli are hunters and gatherers and use forest products to survive and now they face the loss of the natural resources they depend upon, as the forest is disappearing and being eroded at an alarming rate. They also face marginalization, education and health problems. In addition the Bagyeli are losing their culture since it is based on the disappearing forest. They are also politically and economically weak. Since economy and politics bias communication policy, the Bagyeli people are left out of the communication system. The first inhabitants of the country are among the last who are absent from this sphere. This is also due to communication policy related to overall politics, economics and social factors. As a consequence, the presence of Bagyeli in communication policy calls for a revision of the social, economical and political statute.
Dieudonné Ongbawa is a PhD student at UQAM. He is interested in International Communication for Development
Philip O. Onguny
Rethinking Kenya’s Media Policy Through Constitutional Review: Possible Solution to Media Crises?
Since Kenya’s political independence in 1963, media coverage has been closely under state control to serve its interests, shunning international and national criticism, especially with the inception of the second regime between 1978 and 2002 that assumed most responsibilities in formulating national policies with little or no public consent. These policies did not spare the institutions of democracy like the media. Moreover, the current constitution, adopted from British colonialists, still reflects the leadership designed to rule instead of serving the local population, yet only a few changes have been made on it. Broad-based section 79, Protection of Freedom of Expression, provides a fuzzy framework for media freedom. Despite the presence of self-regulatory media organizations like the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) and Media Council of Kenya (MCK), it is unclear why the current government decided to ban live media during the crisis triggered by the 2007 general elections. This paper argues that the critical juncture that the crisis exposed – and the negotiations that saw the need for a constitutional review – creates the best opportunity to voice for a proactive media policy. Instead of perceiving the current political impasse as a drawback, it should be regarded as “an open” opportunity to make major changes, that otherwise, will never be made once the opportunity is eliminated.
Philip O. Onguny, originally from Kenya, is a PhD student at UQAM. He is interested in three major research fields: International Communication for Development; Information and Communications Technologies for Development; and Public Policy.
Kenza Oumlil
In the Name of “Security:” The USA Patriot Act in a Time of Fear
Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA Patriot Act) was signed into law to “fight terrorism,” in the name of security. In 2001, the USA Patriot Act,
proposed by President Bush, passed by wide margins in both houses of Congress. Interestingly, the USA Patriot Act was reauthorized in 2006, in spite of concerns about civil liberties and human rights. This paper examines the coverage of the USA Patriot Act in the Associated Press, one of the three leading media agencies globally. Through a textual analysis of newswires from March 2, 2006 to March 9, 2006, which is the period of the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, I examine how the general public was informed about this particular legislature. This paper will also unpack how the issues of surveillance, control, security, freedom of expression, and privacy are framed. A discussion of the construction of opposition to the USA Patriot Act and of the impact that this legislature has had on civil liberties and on human rights is included.
Kenza Oumlil is a student in the Joint Ph.D. Program in Communication at Concordia University. She is interested in Arab and Muslim representations in the U.S. and Canadian media, in critical discourse analysis, and in ethnic studies.
Tamara Shepherd
User-Generated Content in the Development of Internet Policy
This paper will map out some of the social and political challenges faced in the emergent area of policy legislation of user-generated content (“UGC”) online. Recently, a proliferation of participatory web spaces — including those designed for social networking, video uploading, weblogging, and review criticism — have underscored the internet’s potential to empower community and individual voices through a kind of modified self-publishing. Yet because of the dearth of state regulation of public online communication, many of the sites supporting UGC also function as potentially exploitative commercial entities. By mapping out this emergent policy area, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of what is at stake in the regulation of people’s own digital content.
Tamara Shepherd is a first-year PhD student in the Concordia Joint Program in Communication. Her research interests include internet communities, online labour and feminist theory.
