13 Jan 2021 New Year Message from WACC’s President Posted at 11:24h in Uncategorised by Marites (Tess) Sison Dear WACC Members and Partners, We enter this New Year2021 like many others in the past, full of hope and promise. However, unlike previous years we are entering 2021 loaded with the burdens of 2020, where the events and developments on our… Read more »

11 Jan 2021 New Year, new digital responsibilities Posted at 00:00h in Comment by Saskia Rowley Last year – and even as recently as January 6, 2021 – saw anti-democratic tendencies and misinformation magnified by social media in several countries, contributing to near breakdowns in the rule of law. It is time for stringent regulation of social media companies and… Read more »

21 Dec 2020 Remembering the past to reimagine the future Posted at 00:00h in Comment by Saskia Rowley Cloud storage and hard drives are today’s scrapbooks, records, and memories. In his book delete (2009), Viktor Mayer-Schönberger explored “The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age”. He writes, “As humans we do not travel ignorantly through time. With our capacity to… Read more »

18 Dec 2020 Mongolia journalists, students learn how to use their gender ethics compass Twenty students and 20 young journalists in Mongolia have gained a better understanding of gender equality in reporting after taking part in a WACC-supported project implemented by the Press Institute of Mongolia’s School of Journalism.   The project, Increasing awareness of gender inequality in media content in… Read more »

18 Dec 2020 WACC: ‘Uphold migrants’ dignity and humanity’ On December 18, International Migrants Day, WACC calls on governments, civil society, the international community, and other interested actors around the world to work together to promote a rights-based approach to migration — one that upholds migrants’ dignity and humanity, and promotes dialogue and understanding between migrants and host communities. This year’s theme… Read more »

14 Dec 2020 Empowering women by tackling online harassment and abuse Posted at 00:00h in Comment by Saskia Rowley Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 says, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” In other words,… Read more »

09 Dec 2020 General Secretary’s message on Human Rights Day 2020 Human Rights Day 2020 Message by Philip Lee, WACC General Secretary Fake news and disinformation, sanctioned by some political leaders and spread by social media, are major threats to democracy today. In late 2016, Oxford Dictionaries selected “post-truth” as the word of the year, defining it as “relating to… Read more »

08 Dec 2020 ‘Get vaccinated against misinformation’ radio campaign by WACC partner yields positive results About 42, 360 inhabitants of remote Indigenous communities in Guerrero, Mexico are being provided with life-saving information about Covid-19, thanks to WACC-supported radio programs in Mixtec and Spanish produced by local partner, Centro de Investigación en Comunicación Comunitaria A.C. (CICCAC). Broadcast on Radio Zapata 94.1 FM, the… Read more »

07 Dec 2020 Speaking up for decency and dialogue Posted at 00:00h in Comment by Saskia Rowley Stars on the digital Walk of Infamy are being awarded to world leaders. Former US President Donald Trump, current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro have each received one. They have been admonished by Twitter and Facebook for posts… Read more »

30 Nov 2020 Media Development’s new issue tackles ‘Communication in a Time of Crisis’ After a challenging year dominated by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the latest issue of Media Development, WACC Global’s quarterly journal, examines “Communication in a Time of Crisis.”  Articles in the issue range from Covid-19 related misinformation to reflections on the impact of the pandemic on human… Read more »