p2pnet - rss feed: Open Source Software
The World Summit on the Information Society will be like a "conference on agriculture without farmers," says Guillaume Cheneviere, executive director of the media forum and a former head of Switzerland’s state-owned TSR TV station.
And, "The summit will focus neither on information nor society, despite its name," added David Lewis, spokesman for the European Broadcasting Union a co-sponsor of the media meeting - "the only place where the real issues will be discussed."
Both comments were quoted in Jonathan Fowler’s Associated Press story here on the 192-nation World Summit on the Information Society, due to open in Geneva on Wednesday.
Headlined ‘Broadcasters Feel Left Out of Net Summit,’ Fowler’s report says said the four-day media gathering begins tomorrow and is, "turning out to be essential because their concerns ? and those of TV viewers and radio listeners ? have been sidelined at the technology-heavy Internet summit".
For example, workshops at the media forum consider how the Internet has influenced radio and television, the challenge it poses for public service broadcasters, and how to ensure it does not undermine cultural and language diversity, says the story, going on:
"Discussions also will center on press freedom.
"Lewis said such issues ought to be discussed at the information summit as well because radio and TV, not the Internet, will remain dominant means of mass communication in many poor countries for decades.
"Like the Internet event, the broadcasters’ World Electronic Media Forum is also sponsored by the United Nations and is being held at the same Geneva conference center."
The AP report says although US networks aren’t taking part, the Canadian-based North American Broadcasters’ Association, WBAI Pacifica Radio, the British Broadcasting Corp and state-owned broadcasters from France, Russia and Japan are among the 360 organizations expected to attend, adding that the meeting, "has already been riven by discord over whether the United Nations should have more control of the Internet ? and who will pay for getting more poor nations online.
"For now, key Internet-related decisions are made by a private, U.S.-based organization of technical and business experts known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN (news - web sites). Some developing nations have said they would like a U.N. body to regulate the Internet, but industrialized countries are leery."
