NWICO

Who gets to tell the world what the world is like?

A newsroom receives reports about several distant countries through one international supplier. It can publish those stories quickly, but it has little money to commission local reporters, translate regional publications or check which voices the supplier has left out. Readers encounter a wide geographical horizon through a narrow doorway.

This fictional newsroom introduces a question that drove a major international controversy: does information move freely when some societies possess far greater power to gather, select and distribute it?

NWICO was a political and normative project rather than a single predictive theory. Governments, journalists, scholars, international organisations and civic groups disagreed about both the diagnosis and the remedies. No one document captures every position associated with it.

Three questions to carry through the chapter

• Resources: who can finance reporting, operate networks, translate material and reach audiences?
• Representation: whose experiences become visible, and who can challenge an account?
• Freedom: how can communication become more equitable while journalists and citizens remain free to question power?

The central challenge is to examine these questions together. An open border does not give every newsroom equal resources. A stronger national media system does not automatically give citizens greater freedom.

Based on Dr. USP’s lecture and supplied transcript, with historical clarification, original activities and fictional case studies. Dates and documents identify the historical debate; the digital examples extend its questions without claiming that the earlier participants anticipated every later technology.

Political independence left another question unsettled: who controls communication?

Decolonisation brought newly independent states into international institutions. Many leaders argued that formal sovereignty had not removed dependence in trade, technology, finance or communication. A country could raise its own flag while relying heavily on external suppliers to learn about neighbouring societies—and even to see how the outside world described it.

These concerns developed alongside the Cold War. “North–South” questions about resources intersected with “East–West” disputes about political systems, propaganda and press freedom. Neither axis fully explains the controversy. Participants within each broad grouping also disagreed.

The connection with NIEO

On 1 May 1974, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, through Resolution 3201 (S-VI), alongside a programme of action. Advocates sought to reshape unequal international economic relationships.

Communication reform became connected to this larger agenda. Supporters argued that development required the means to produce and exchange knowledge, represent cultural life and participate in international discussion. Adopting the declaration did not mean that economic equality had already been achieved.

Infrastructure and voice are connected

A correspondent needs more than permission to speak. Travel, reliable transmission, editing, training and translation all cost money. A regional news service may exist legally yet struggle to distribute a report before better funded competitors fill the available space.

Think of a public meeting with an open microphone but an expensive journey to the venue. Formal permission matters. So do the conditions that allow people to use it. The analogy explains why access and resources entered the debate; it does not justify putting a government official in charge of every speech.

Use historical labels carefully

The lecture uses terms such as “First World” and “Third World”, common in accounts of this period. Read them as historical political categories. They do not describe a permanent ladder of cultural worth, and “the developing world” was never one uniform media system.

Country-level independence and citizen-level participation must also be distinguished. A national broadcaster can reduce dependence on imported programmes while excluding minority languages, critical journalists or local communities.

Trace the route of information before counting the stories.

Advocates criticised several connected inequalities. One concerned the direction and volume of international flows. Another concerned who owned the equipment and distribution networks. A third concerned the selection and interpretation of events.

An empirical landmark

Kaarle Nordenstreng and Tapio Varis’s UNESCO study, Television Traffic—A One-Way Street? (1974), examined international television programme flows. It helped turn attention towards unequal exchange in programme material. Its object was television traffic: do not present it as a measurement of every news agency, every medium or every audience effect.

Quantity is only the starting point

Suppose an outlet doubles its coverage of a country. That could broaden understanding. It could also repeat the same crisis story more often. Examine topics, sources, context and opportunities for response before treating the increase as improved representation.

Likewise, an international supplier may fund reporting that a small outlet cannot afford. Dependence can bring useful services and create vulnerabilities at the same time. The analytical task is to identify the arrangement and its consequences rather than assign quality from geography alone.

Freedom and fairness address different obstacles.

Dr. USP places the distinction between free flow and balanced flow at the centre of the lecture. These phrases gathered different meanings in political argument. Treat the following comparison as a guide to the main concerns, rather than a map of two internally uniform camps.

Balance does not require identical quantities

A demand for better balance need not mean that every country receives the same number of stories or that every allegation receives equal credibility. Events differ. Editorial judgement and evidence still matter.

For a research project, specify the proposed meaning: more reciprocal exchange, more diverse sources, stronger local production, broader topics or less dependence on one intermediary. Without that definition, “balance” can become an attractive label that hides incompatible policies.

The 1978 Mass Media Declaration

UNESCO adopted its Mass Media Declaration on 28 November 1978. Its language brought free circulation together with wider and better balanced dissemination. It also connected journalism with human rights, peace, international understanding and opposition to racialism, apartheid and incitement to war.

The text matters because it complicates a simple opposition between freedom and fairness. It addressed source diversity, freedom to report and stronger communication resources. A declaration expresses agreed principles; it should not be described as a universally enforceable world press law.

Four words gather the lecture’s reform agenda.

The lecture organises NWICO’s aspirations through democratization, decolonization, demonopolization and development. This is a useful teaching framework, not a four-stage sequence or a numerical index.

Put the four Ds under pressure

A new national news service might support cultural production and reduce reliance on external suppliers. If it becomes the only permitted source, however, it can concentrate power and restrict participation. Progress on one dimension does not guarantee progress on all four.

A useful evaluation therefore names the intended beneficiaries. Does the reform strengthen an institution, a government, a commercial group, independent reporters or communities? These interests can overlap, but they should not be treated as identical.

Follow the sequence without inventing a single founding moment.

The debate grew through overlapping meetings, research, declarations and political struggles. Different formulations—new international information order, new world information order and NWICO—circulated during its development. Avoid attaching the whole history to one supposedly definitive act of naming.

1. 1973

   Algiers NAM summit

   An important moment in the political mobilisation around unequal international information relationships.

2. 1974

   Economic reform and media-flow research

   The UN adopts the NIEO declaration; Nordenstreng and Varis publish their study of international television programme flows.

3. 1976

   Tunis, New Delhi and Colombo

   Non-aligned discussions press the communication agenda. The July New Delhi meeting advances cooperation and the press agencies pool; the Colombo summit endorses the decisions.

4. 1977

   MacBride Commission begins work

   UNESCO’s International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems begins its work in December.

5. 1978

   Mass Media Declaration

   UNESCO adopts the declaration connecting free circulation, broader dissemination, human rights and international understanding.

6. 1980

   Report and Belgrade conference

   Many Voices, One World appears. UNESCO considers the report and adopts relevant resolutions, including the establishment of IPDC.

7. 1981

   Declaration of Talloires

   A press-freedom response stresses editorial independence and opposition to licensing and imposed controls.

8. 1984–1985

   Withdrawals from UNESCO

   The United States leaves at the end of 1984; the United Kingdom and Singapore leave at the end of 1985.

9. 1989

   UNESCO’s new communication strategy

   A changed institutional approach joins free expression, wider dissemination and stronger communication capacities.

10. 2003 / 2005

    World Summit on the Information Society

    Geneva and Tunis bring access, development, human rights and information-society governance into a later international process.

A selective study timeline. It distinguishes proposals, publications, institutional decisions and later developments. The 1980 conference was a landmark, not the final occasion on which communication inequality entered international discussion.

Many Voices, One World gave the controversy a substantial common text.

UNESCO’s International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems began its work in December 1977. Chaired by Seán MacBride, it brought together sixteen members from different professional, geographical and political backgrounds.

Members included B. G. Verghese from India and Gabriel García Márquez from Colombia. Their presence helps explain why the report should be read as the work of a diverse commission rather than attributed to one author’s theory.

Its report, Many Voices, One World, was published in 1980. The subtitle describes movement towards a more just and efficient world information and communication order. It examined communication as a social, cultural, economic and political process, extending beyond the international exchange of news.

How to read the report

Separate its diagnosis of problems, proposals for action and areas requiring further study. A report can identify a difficulty without endorsing every remedy mentioned in a surrounding controversy. Differences and comments among members also matter.

The recommendations are commonly counted as eighty-two. That number is useful for an examination answer, but it tells us little unless we understand their subjects: independence, resources, professional integrity, participation and cooperation.

Commission, organisation and governments

The commission’s text, UNESCO’s conference resolutions and the positions of individual governments are distinct sources. They may overlap, but they are not interchangeable.

For example, a government’s argument about sovereignty should not automatically be presented as the commission’s exact recommendation. Equally, a critic’s description of a proposal should be checked against the proposal itself.

Move from a larger transmitter to a wider capacity to communicate.

The lecture highlights self-reliance, better conditions for communication work, democratization and international cooperation. The report’s concluding recommendations can also be read under five broad headings. The following table provides a thematic guide rather than reproducing its eighty-two recommendations.

Training involves more than reporting technique

Dr. USP draws attention to training for journalists, managers and technicians, and to regional institutions and curricula. A production system needs editorial judgement, maintenance, administration and local knowledge together. Equipment can sit idle when the skills and recurring budgets needed to run it are absent.

Horizontal communication changes the question

In a vertical arrangement, a small number of institutions primarily address an audience. Horizontal communication gives people and groups more scope to exchange accounts and organise discussion among themselves. Neither pattern guarantees truth; the distinction concerns relationships and opportunities to participate.

A community reporting network, for instance, may bring local experience into a national conversation. To evaluate it, examine who sets its agenda, whose language it uses and how contributors can challenge its editors.

Counter-information needs independent scrutiny

An alternative account may expose something a dominant source overlooked. It may also introduce its own errors. “Counter” describes its relationship to another account, not an automatic guarantee of accuracy.

Ask the same questions of both: what evidence supports the claim, can it be checked, who funded the report and can affected people respond? Broadening the range of speakers should strengthen inquiry rather than replace one unquestionable authority with another.

The strongest criticism asked who would control the proposed remedies.

Some journalists, publishers and governments feared that demands for national responsibility and a more balanced flow could legitimise censorship, compulsory licensing or political supervision of reporting. Such concerns cannot be dismissed merely because communication inequalities were real.

Supporters of reform, in turn, argued that a formally unrestricted market could preserve the advantages of already powerful organisations. Press freedom and concentrated economic power therefore became entangled in the same controversy.

The Declaration of Talloires, 1981

A conference convened under the World Press Freedom Committee at Talloires, France, on 15–17 May 1981 produced a declaration defending free circulation and an independent press. It opposed licensing of journalists by national or international bodies and rejected imposed controls over professional practice.

The response favoured professional responsibility and self-regulation rather than externally imposed supervision. It also defended advertising’s role in sustaining an economically independent press. The declaration records a position in the debate; it should not be treated as proof that advertising removes every other source of influence.

Three distinctions sharpen the discussion

• Ethics and imposed control: a newsroom’s transparent verification rules differ from a ministry’s power to prohibit an embarrassing report.
• Professional support and permission to report: training or safety assistance differs from requiring official approval before someone may practise journalism.
• Public funding and editorial direction: financial support can be designed with independent decision-making; the funding source alone does not settle the degree of autonomy.

These distinctions do not remove disagreement. They help evaluate a specific institutional design instead of treating every public intervention as identical, or every claim of sovereignty as sufficient justification.

Institutions attempted to turn an international argument into working capacity.

Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool

The lecture discusses the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool, often abbreviated NANAP. It developed through non-aligned cooperation in the mid-1970s, with important decisions at New Delhi in July 1976 and their endorsement at the Colombo summit.

The pool was a cooperative arrangement among participating agencies, rather than one single world newsroom. Its purpose included exchanging reports and strengthening professional and technical cooperation between countries whose communication relationships had often run through external centres.

Direct exchange can widen the routes available to an editor. It does not automatically produce independent reporting: participating agencies can differ in resources, professional practice and relationships with governments.

The 1980 Belgrade decisions

UNESCO’s twenty-first General Conference considered the MacBride report at Belgrade. Resolution 4/19 addressed the commission and the developing communication order; Resolution 4/21 established the International Programme for the Development of Communication, or IPDC.

These were institutional decisions associated with a broader debate. They did not convert every sentence of the commission’s report into a binding rule for the press.

IPDC and media development

IPDC provides an important route for understanding the practical legacy of communication development: cooperation, capacity-building and support for media projects. UNESCO describes it as a multilateral forum that mobilises support for media development and a free, pluralistic press.

When assessing a development project, distinguish money allocated, training delivered, capacity sustained and public benefit. A completed workshop is an output. Evidence that journalists can undertake stronger reporting after the workshop concerns a different outcome.

Ask, too, who makes funding decisions and whether a project can survive after initial support ends. Durable capacity depends on people, recurring costs, editorial arrangements and the conditions in which communication takes place.

A change in the institutional agenda did not settle the underlying questions.

Withdrawals from UNESCO

The United States withdrew at the end of 1984. The United Kingdom and Singapore withdrew at the end of 1985. These dates distinguish notice and debate from the effective end of membership.

Disputes over communication policy formed part of the wider conflict surrounding UNESCO. Political disagreements, management, budgets and contribution arrangements also entered the explanations. Do not assign an identical motive to all three countries or treat one controversy as a complete explanation of every withdrawal.

What changed in 1989?

UNESCO adopted a new communication strategy in 1989. It emphasised free circulation, wider and more balanced dissemination without obstacles to freedom of expression, and stronger communication capacities in developing countries.

This is more precise than saying that communication inequality disappeared from UNESCO’s concerns. The NWICO label lost institutional prominence, while questions about capacity, pluralism and participation continued through other approaches.

World Summit on the Information Society

The UN World Summit on the Information Society, with ITU playing a leading organising role, met in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005. Its process involved governments and other stakeholders, including civil society and business, and addressed access, development and information-society governance.

The Geneva Declaration connected an inclusive information society with the ability to create, access, use and share information and knowledge. It reaffirmed freedom of opinion and expression and gave attention to participation and capacity.

WSIS was a distinct process, not a simple renaming of NWICO. The useful comparison concerns recurring questions: who has access, who shapes the rules, how benefits are shared and how human rights are protected.

Ask where dependence sits in a changed communication system.

Digital communication creates possibilities for direct publishing, translation and cross-border collaboration. It can also leave participants dependent on intermediaries for discovery, advertising, infrastructure or access to data. These are questions to investigate, not reasons to assume that every platform or country shares the same structure.

A historical analogy becomes useful when it identifies a comparable relationship and a meaningful difference. International news suppliers, search services and generative AI systems perform different functions. Naming all of them “gatekeepers” is only the beginning of an explanation.

Open each case, diagnose the issue and identify the limits of the available evidence.

Do not let the national average hide internal inequality

A country may strengthen its position in global communication while particular languages, regions or social groups remain marginalised. Examine ownership, gender, class, location and other relevant conditions within the country as well as between countries.

For AI-related inquiry, a useful small project might compare how a system handles carefully matched questions across languages. Report the system version and sampling conditions. Differences in a few outputs warrant investigation; they do not, by themselves, establish the entire composition of training data or a deliberate policy.

Use the historical argument as a guided viewing exercise.

Watch New World Information and Communication Order: USP Lectures. Pause to identify which claims describe historical events, which state a principle and which evaluate a proposed reform.

Open Dr. USP’s NWICO lecture on YouTube ↗

Keep a two-column viewing note

On the left, record a historical claim and its date. On the right, write the analytical question it raises. For example: “1980 report” beside “How can cooperation expand capacity without creating a new dependence?” This keeps chronology connected to explanation.

The chapter uses the standard spellings MacBride, Nordenstreng, Varis, Verghese and Talloires, and the acronym IPDC. It distinguishes effective withdrawal dates, the 1978 declaration and the 1989 strategy to keep the historical sequence clear.

Choose an answer, then open the explanation.

These questions test distinctions as well as dates. Read every option before revealing the answer. This self-check does not collect responses or calculate a score.

Build an evidence-based account of one communication relationship.

Activity 1 · Audit a small international-news sample

Select two outlets and a defined period, such as one week. Choose a manageable body of international coverage using the same inclusion rule for both. Preserve publication dates, links and the distinction between original reporting and republished material.

Prepare a coding sheet before interpreting the results. Do not assign “bias” as a single unexplained label. Record observable features and then state what they allow you to infer.

Have two students independently code a subset, compare disagreements and refine unclear categories. Report the sampling rule, missing information and limits alongside the findings. A descriptive audit does not establish what audiences believed or why an editor made a particular choice.

Activity 2 · Design a reform with an autonomy safeguard

Choose one diagnosed problem: weak translation capacity, thin regional reporting, high distribution costs or limited community access. Propose a specific intervention and identify who will finance it, govern it and use it.

Then add a safeguard that fits the risk. Examples include transparent eligibility, independent editorial decisions, published grant reasons or accessible appeals. Explain how a journalist or community could criticise the funder without losing the ability to participate.

Research extension · Compare the promise with the result

Question: after a translation-support programme, do participating outlets publish more independently sourced regional reporting and a wider range of voices?

Possible design: compare defined periods before and after support, document other changes in staffing and major events, and where feasible include similar non-participating outlets. Combine content analysis with interviews and programme records.

Interpretation: a change following the programme is not automatically caused by it. News events, new staff or another partnership may explain some of the pattern. Stronger causal claims require a design that addresses those alternatives.

Examination and seminar prompts

• Short answer: explain NWICO through the lecture’s four Ds.
• Historical account: distinguish the MacBride Commission, the 1978 declaration, the 1980 Belgrade resolutions and Talloires.
• Critical essay: can a free flow remain unequal, and can a balancing policy restrict freedom?
• Comparative discussion: what recurs between NWICO and WSIS, and what changes?
• Research proposal: operationalise one claim about communication dependence without reducing quality to nationality.

Read the competing claims alongside the documents that carried them.

NWICO

New World Information and Communication Order: a contested international communication reform agenda.

NIEO

New International Economic Order: the wider economic reform agenda linked to debates about independence and unequal relationships.

Free flow

Circulation of information without censorship or arbitrary obstruction, with different emphases in historical argument.

Balanced flow

A demand for more equitable and reciprocal communication; the intended meaning must be specified.

Self-reliance

Capacity to produce and exchange communication with greater choice and less imposed dependence; not necessarily isolation.

Democratization

Widening access, participation and influence in communication.

Decolonization

Challenging inherited structures of dependence and supporting the capacity for self-representation.

Demonopolization

Reducing concentrated control and expanding viable, independent routes into communication.

Horizontal communication

Exchange among people and groups, with greater scope for dialogue rather than only institutional transmission.

Editorial independence

Capacity to make journalistic decisions without improper direction from governments, owners, funders or other interests.

NANAP

Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool, a cooperative arrangement for exchange and professional assistance.

IPDC

UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication, established in 1980.

WSIS

World Summit on the Information Society, with summit phases in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005.

Right to communicate

A debated formulation emphasising expression, access, dialogue and participation; its use requires clarity about the document and type of claim involved.

Core documents and further study

Use these primary documents and official records to check dates, institutional language and competing positions. The report’s recommendations, a conference resolution and a participant declaration carry different kinds of authority. Longer official titles are retained in their source records.

1. International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. (1980). Many voices, one world: Towards a new more just and more efficient world information and communication order. UNESCO / Kogan Page / Unipub. UNESCO record ↗ · UN catalogue record ↗

   Read the communication-flow discussion, democratization and concluding recommendations together, including areas of disagreement.

2. Nordenstreng, K., & Varis, T. (1974). Television traffic—A one-way street? A survey and analysis of the international flow of television programme material. UNESCO, Reports and Papers on Mass Communication, No. 70. Authors’ university publication record ↗

   An empirical landmark concerning programme flows; keep its medium, period and research object clear.

3. UN General Assembly. (1974, May 1). Declaration on the establishment of a New International Economic Order. Resolution 3201 (S-VI). Official record and text ↗

   Provides the wider economic and political setting for communication reform arguments.

4. Non-Aligned Movement. (1976). Documents of the fifth summit, Colombo, 16–19 August 1976. Primary documents hosted by RIS ↗

   Consult the information-cooperation passages and endorsement of the July New Delhi meeting’s decisions.

5. UNESCO. (1978, November 28). Declaration on fundamental principles concerning the contribution of the mass media to strengthening peace and international understanding, to the promotion of human rights and to countering racialism, apartheid and incitement to war. Official declaration ↗

   Compare Articles I, II and VI on circulation, reporting, participation and communication resources.

6. UNESCO. (1980). Records of the General Conference, twenty-first session, Belgrade. Volume 1: Resolutions. Official conference record ↗

   Consult Resolutions 4/19 and 4/21 rather than treating the entire MacBride report as a binding instrument.

7. Participants in the Voices of Freedom conference. (1981, May 17). Declaration of Talloires. Reproduced in the US Congressional Record, 17 June 1981. Contemporaneous reproduction ↗

   Search the PDF for “Talloires”; distinguish the declaration from the surrounding political commentary.

8. UNESCO. (1997). World communication report. Official report record ↗

   The preface describes the objectives of the communication strategy adopted in 1989.

9. UK National Commission for UNESCO. Our history. Historical account ↗ · UNESCO Türkiye National Commission. UNESCO. Historical membership periods ↗

   Distinguish the dates of notice, withdrawal and later re-entry; this chapter concerns the 1980s episode.

10. UNESCO. International Programme for the Development of Communication. Official programme information ↗

    Follow the practical questions of media development, capacity and pluralism.

11. World Summit on the Information Society. (2003). Geneva Declaration of Principles. Official declaration ↗ · ITU. WSIS outcome documents. Geneva and Tunis texts ↗

    Compare the later access, development and participation agenda with the earlier controversy.

12. Dr. USP. New World Information and Communication Order: USP lectures [Video]. YouTube. Watch the lecture ↗

    Use with the viewing guide, historical timeline and evidence-based application tasks.

The chapter in six statements

1. NWICO was a contested reform agenda addressing communication inequality and participation.
2. Free circulation and unequal capacity can coexist; remedies also need safeguards for expression.
3. The lecture’s four Ds connect participation, cultural self-representation, concentration and development.
4. The 1980 MacBride report, UNESCO decisions and Talloires are different documents and positions.
5. The 1989 strategy and WSIS changed the institutional setting without removing the underlying questions.
6. Evaluate who gains resources, who gains voice and who retains the power to criticise.