User:Lengot/sandbox

Global Media and Communication Policy

This emerging field of study in communication started with the intent to solve local or indigenous problems using different development strategies in the context of globalizing information society. The digitization of ICT paved way for the convergence of media and communication industries which led to the intervention of a Global Information Infrastructure (GII). Internet governance is the center of the global media and communication policy which is the content of the objectives of the 2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). This refers to the policies from which the Internet users based their decisions on matters involving development and the use of the Internet. The thought of the information society gives “a central organizing pillar” for media and communication (McQuail, 1998, as cited in Mansell et. al., 2011). This has been supported by the idea that there must be a new “enlightenment” that both formal and informal mechanism must be offered as way to express different opinions about media ideals (Hamelink et. al., 2007, as cited in Mansell et. al., 2011)

Perspectives in Global Media and Communication Policy Analysis

There are a number of insights which can be considered in media and communication policy analysis. Lasswell (1972, as cited in Mansell et. al., 2011) said that policy analysts must not be involved in the policy-makers concered. This is supported by Lazarsfeld (1941, as cited in Mansell et. al., 2011) when the importance of immunity of policy analysts to any pressure is given emphasis. But Braman (2006, as cited in Mansell et. al., 2011) contradicts this view by claiming that media and communication policy is formed through the intervention of politics. Having media and communication policy as constituted in the global level, the identification of actors and the entities they represent are then needed. This tradition of policy analysis is focused on elite actors who share interests in a certain policy. Samarajiva and Zainudeen (2008, as cited in Mansell et. al.,2011) explains that policy requires knowledge that is not necessarily complete and that non-specialists are participants in policy =-making in the GMCP. Edquist (1997, as cited in Mansell et. al., 2011) then proposed that GMCP must be analyzed both in the individual and institutional level to eradicate any existing intervention of power from the local to the global context. Another intervention is advanced by Wedt (1992, as cited in Mansell et. al., 2011) which also includes non-actors but recognizes the importance of political facets of policy.