Access to information
Seán Ó Siochrú is a researcher, writer and activist in media and communication. As a director of Nexus Research Cooperative in Dublin, he works for international agencies in information and communication technologies. A founder of the Platform for Communication Rights, he has been actively involved in the WSIS process since the beginning.
Today, December 10th at 14:00, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) officially began – after a preparatory process that was longer that foreseen, due to difficulty in reaching a consensus on the Declaration of Principles and the Action Plan, the final documents to be discussed and sanctioned by the heads of government present in Geneva.
The squabbling over whether industrialised countries should help pay for technology infrastructure in the South continues to deflect attention from the potential of ICTs in development. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who is pushing for the creation of a fund to help developing countries bridge the digital divide. Industrialised states are said to be firmly opposed to the idea, claiming th...
Stories in English and French from the IPS news agency and InfoSud agence de presse about media, communication and technology. During the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) this website will carry daily, electronic versions of the TerraViva Conference newspaper from Geneva.
The WSIS Civil Society Plenary unanimously adopted the Civil Society Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society this week. The document “Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs” sets a landmark in the type of consensus-building that envisions the priorities to which civil society should commit to in order to develop a people-centred and an inclusive approach to the Inf...
Policy decisions being made today will impact on the peoples of the world’s ability and potential to use ICTs as tools in their work tomorrow. At the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held December 10-12 in Geneva – governments will sign a declaration that will enhance or hinder access to ICTs for the vast majority of the world’s population. ...
After months of hard work and negotiations, the CRIS campaign can see some light at the end of a long, dark, eighteen months long WSIS tunnel. Paragraph 4 of the Draft Declaration reads: “Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organisation. It is central to the information society.” Sean O’Siochru, spokesperson for the CRIS campa...
The aim of this manual is to draw upon existing knowledge and materials on Telecentres, and adapt them to the African context in a style, which is user-friendly and makes few assumptions about the user’s knowledge. This manual is aimed at any person or organisation that is interested in setting up a community-based Telecentre, such as a telecom operator, an NGO, a community group, a local gov...

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