World Association for Christian Communication Global News

A WACC-supported project in Kenya is helping an Indigenous community radio station to serve as an enhanced information channel for the Rendille people and preserve the tribe’s language and culture. In 2021, the Fereiti Action Network, a Kenyan, youth-driven organization for social change, partnered with...

The event “Digital Communication Rights: Empowering women for the digital age” on 12 March at the NGO CSW Forum 68 offered civil society advocates, academics, and media professionals tools to advance a gender-just digital world. The Forum is a civil society gathering held annually in...

Civil society is a vital catalyst for change when it comes to addressing gender-based prejudices in the news, WACC gender and media expert Sarah Macharia reported at a side event to the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68) on Monday...

Apple has been fined €1.8bn by the European Commission for breaking competition laws over music streaming. The EU Competition Commissioner said that Apple had restricted “developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem.” Although Apple says it will...

WACC and partner organizations are aiming to equip gender justice advocates to advance women’s digital communication rights with an event during the NGO CSW Forum 68 in New York on 11–24 March. The Forum is a civil society gathering held in parallel to the annual...

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. Each year, this day serves as a reminder of the progress made towards gender equality and highlights the work that still needs to be done. For International Women’s...

Civil society advocates are concerned that governments, security services, and Big Tech may misuse digital technologies to suppress, control, and profit from ordinary people, says Philip Lee, Media Development editor, in the 1/2024 issue of WACC’s quarterly journal. The authors in “Towards Democratic Governance of...

Media Development 2024-1 Towards Democratic Governance of Digital Society Many actors in civil society worry that digital technologies, including those based on AI, can be appropriated by governments, security services, and global corporations to repress, control, manipulate, and profit from ordinary people – who have...

Over one hundred years of sci-fi books, magazines, TV programmes, and films have made it easier (as Dr Who fans will testify) to believe that aliens from outer space are intent on taking over Earth. In 1938, courtesy of a notorious radio broadcast of “The...

Seán Ó Siochrú and Anita Gurumurthy At the turn of this century, many in civil society believed we were witnessing the dawn of a new era for the public sphere, one where the internet could realise the promise of a communication space where all voices...

Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami Long ago, and when we were still tentative in our vocabulary, Dalit women’s collectives in Mysuru – with very little material wherewithal, but the immense largeness of being – taught us how small is made beautiful. They ran a community...

IT for Change 2023 While AI is not new to the field of computational science, the release of ChatGPT by Open AI in November 2022 marked a watershed moment. In a short time, the tech sector has rolled out Large Language Models (LLMs) and other...

Jim McDonnell In the development and deployment of technologies based on AI, how can the voices of civil society organisations be raised against their potential risks and harms, but also for values such as equity, ethics, digital rights, control, choice, and transparency? In 1847, the...

Vassilis Chryssos In the wake of a swiftly changing post-COVID landscape, there is a notable surge in digitization and datafication within economies and societies, raising concerns. Advocacy efforts for digital inclusion and internet rights face fragmentation, with diverse actors addressing overlapping issues. This article presents...

Carlos F. Baca-Feldman Data on connectivity to telecommunications services in the world show very significant growth in the last five years. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report Measuring digital development. Facts and Figures (2023),1 the number of internet users increased to 5.3 billion,...

Kathleen Diga Civil society engagement around communication rights has become more important and relevant than ever, particularly at this moment where we observe shrinking civic digital spaces1 for free expression without harassment or discrimination. Specifically, we see existent social platforms and, in some cases, governments...

Oscar Felipe Tellez D. Los escenarios internacionales, que reúnen a grandes gobiernos, son envueltos por la cobertura periodística que realizan los medios masivos de comunicación. Eso sí, la construcción del discurso crítico realizado por diferentes sectores académicos y sociales califica esta labor como una acción...

Three years after the Myanmar military seized power in a violent coup, the junta is still carrying out brutal attacks against those resisting its authority. It also uses Internet shutdowns, surveillance, and disappearances to hide its atrocities and to maintain its grip on power. In...

A WACC-supported protect in Costa Rica is helping women Indigenous leaders of the Cabécar nation use digital technologies strategically to connect younger generations with their community’s culture, knowledge, and language. “Cabécar young people influenced by Western culture are becoming disconnected from ancestral wisdom,” says Kemly...

Philip Lee Reflections on digital technologies and artificial intelligence, their potential to change the nature of being human, and the unintended consequences of a Promethean quest for scientific knowledge. In his book Irish Nocturnes, philosopher and poet Chris Arthur observes the unease with which human...