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[From the publication of his EBU paper in 1969 up until his death in 1983, Jean d'Arcy was actively involved in the full range of right to communicate activities - participant, facilitator, spokesperson. Some now consider him the "Father" of the right to communicate, a designation he might have found amusing, given his historical perspective. In papers, conference presentations conversations and letters, this is what Jean d'Arcy had to say about the right to communicate.]
Introduction
Man has a basic biological need to communicate. As a species, man's development was closely governed from the start by the relational activities that he was gradually led to establish through the medium of touch, gesture, hearing and, later, speech. Man depends upon being able to communicate with his fellows. It therefore seems natural that his right to communicate be recognized.
Where do we stand today? Man has always attempted to situate himself in time and space, to interpret the significance of events, to discover through these events the purpose embedded in the current of evolution which carries him along. If today we provisionally give a name to our time, we may choose to call it the space age, the Internet age or, possibly, a global society.
Unfortunately, over fifty years' experience of the mass media - press, film, radio television - have conditioned us, both at the national and international levels, to a single kind of information flow, which we have come to accept as normal. Indeed, we accept this flow as the only possible kind: a vertical, one-way flow from the top downwards of non-diversified, anonymous messages, produced by a few and addressed to all. This is not communication. It is simply unilateral distribution of information. Communication requires interactivity.
In recent years, we have gone from a period of scarcity to one of potential abundance of communication resources, but our thinking and reasoning has remained back in the time of scarcity. While the potential of existing and so far unused communication methods is very large, we still tend to react in terms of mass media when faced with the most recent technological developments, even if they point to an individualization of communications. Will this be the case for generations to come?
We are becoming aware of the essential role played by communication in man's emergence and development. It is as though a major transformation of the possibilities of communication such as we are now witnessing was necessary to identify the function for both the individual and for society. Ours is an age of communication.
Technologies
Today we have enveloped the globe in an extremely fine-meshed nervous system. Our own eyes and ears directly reach the planets. Whereas on the individual scale all forms of direct communication are technically possible, we still act as if communication over a distance had preserved it exceptional, almost magical attributes.
In point of fact, it is not yet one hundred years since man has been able to hear over a distance, and barely forty since he has been able to see beyond the horizon. The achievement dazzled him. For listening and viewing, man accepted the public or private monopolies that he had formerly gradually eliminated in the case of reading. Moreover, those in power, whether religious leaders, politicians or private individuals, have always known that he who controls communications effectively controls society. Indeed, all social structure rests upon and evolves within the framework of those methods of communication available to it at any given time.
The advent of printing, the first of the mass media, gave rise, through its very expansion and in defiance of royal or religious prerogatives to exercise control, to the corollary concept of freedom of expression. The nineteenth century, which saw the extraordinary development of the mass circulation press, was marked by constant struggles to win freedom of the press.
When a name had to be found for radio, initially only its aspect of long distance sound transmission was mentioned: it was called the wireless, the telephone without wires. Never was it realized that its major contribution was not the absence of wires, but the fact that simultaneously large masses of people could be reached, that mass media had just been invented. Similarly, for broadband communication systems, with all their possibilities for innovation, creativeness, and two-way communication, the same procedure as for radio is applied once more. Cable television was the expression used.
Telecommunication still appears to be miraculous, rare and expensive. The instruments of communication still seem to be external to ourselves. We relegate their use to magicians, to communicators, even if at times we do complain about them. Communication satellites continue to offer the possibility of providing services through relatively simple ground installations capable of meeting the requirements of small communities. This technique has considerable advantages for the developing countries.
The technological explosion in communications which we have been witnessing in recent years - destined as it is to contribute, through all the new possibilities which it provides and which must be harnessed in the service of a greater liberty, to the eventual the recognition of a right to communicate - is still far from having exhausted its full impact.
Rights
The notion of an ascending evolution of rights is at the heart of the matter. Our concern must be not to abolish one right in order to replace it by another, but rather to take cognizance of the current by which we are borne along. This slow progression accomplished by mankind, this tentative but constantly more self-assured mastering of the environment, each of these successive victories over time and space can, if we truly wish it, generate further rights accompanied by expanding freedoms and responsibilities.
Here two forces can be seen at work: one that pushes man to communicate and unite with his kind to form a society and another which induces a thus formed society to set up for its own operation and its very expression, ever more perfect communication methods, leading to constantly more evolved societal structures. Successive freedoms result from the tension between the individual's need to communicate and societal need to establish its own channels of communication.
Today, a new step forward seems possible: achievement of man's right to communicate, deriving from our latest victories over time and space and from our increased awareness of the phenomenon of communication. From the very first, this fundamental right was implicit in, and underlay, all the freedoms that have successively been won: freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of information. The advent of the machines, coming between men, caused us to forget its existence. Today, it is clear to us that it encompasses all these freedoms but adds to them, both for individuals and societies, the concepts of access, participation, two-way information flow -- all of which are vital as we now sense for the harmonious development of man and mankind.
UDHR Article 19 summarizes in a few lines the struggle of mankind for the freedoms to communicate.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
But, as I stated in the opening sentence of my 1969 EBU article:
The time will come when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have to encompass a more extensive right than man's right to information, first laid down 21 years ago in Article 19. This is the right of man to communicate.
This right is a right for the future, one to be added to, and not substituted for, those that have already been declared.
Applications
Potential applications of the right to communicate may be explored in a number of areas including cultures, resources and policy
After millennia marked by cultural expansionism, by the successive attempts of empires and religions to impose their own civilizations and their own worldview, from China to Egypt, from Greece to India, from Rome to Islam - to mention only the most ancient - our present age is slowly learning to respect others and is gradually realizing that, for mankind as a whole, our wealth derives from our diversity and not from any artificially imposed unity. By virtue of its pluralistic inspiration and the respect for other cultures which it pre-supposed by recognizing their right to communicate, this concept can also help effectively to solve one of the urgent problems of our time, namely, that of cultural identity of peoples and nations.
Distribution among the nations of the world of the natural, and limited, resource constituted by the radio frequency spectrum has to date followed no other principle than that of 'first come, first served.' Only the World Administrative Radio Conference for Space Telecommunications, held in Geneva by the ITU in 1971, has introduced a new provision, namely, the 'registration of frequency assignments for space radiocommunication services and their use should not provide any permanent priority for any individual country.' The same is true for orbital positions. The adoption of this rule is a preliminary step towards the recognition by and for States of a right to communicate
Three major trends underlying the current revolution in communications can be identified: A wealth of possibilities following on a former scarcity; the extension of these possibilities to a global scale; lastly, a trend towards individualization inherent in the new media that bring new possibilities for individuals to communicate directly with one another. If we take as our starting-point the notion of a fundamental right of citizens and communities to communicate, then an entirely new national policy governing communications must be established.
Persistent questions concerning opportunities for self-expression at the local community level should be decided not in terms of mass media but in terms of communication. Group media can operate on a human scale. Equally, citizens band radio forecast current developments in a variety of mobile services and community networks. Individuals and communities can now assert their right to communicate freely.
Refusal to communicate or self-isolation in the cult of the past lead finally only to a slow death or, at best, to folklore. What is essential is to procure the means and media of communication, which is an act of creation, self-expression, a harmonious link with the planetary current of evolution.
Summary
The concept of the right to communicate can, here and now, provide a new psychological impetus, throw a fresh light on existing structures and enable different objectives to be put forward. These are the tasks which must be accomplished in the coming years, in order that one day we shall be able to achieve this new right, which we know will not replace existing communication freedoms but rather embrace them all.
New thinking is now due. A new philosophy and a new approach to communication issues will lead to studies for the reshaping of both national and international communication structures. To propose at this stage the achievement of this right of man and of nation to communicate would give fresh insight to research on such problems. This is the proposal I wish to make today.
Communications professionals bear very heavy responsibility in this transitional period, for they must rethink the patterns that over the past fifty years have enabled the circulation of sounds and images to reach the level it has today. However, an even great freedom of movement seems to be possible, giving everyone the same rights of choice in this field. The present and future responsibilities will no doubt be great, for the very foundations of communication must be reassessed.
The road now leads to infinitely greater communication possibilities, to a real right to communicate in all its forms. On this road, time itself is of secondary importance; what counts is the will to get there in the end.
Edited by L. S. Harms
[A note on editing: as would be expected, given that this material was prepared for different audiences and purposes, there was a substantial redundancy in the available materials. Beyond that, some of the dated material has either been eliminated or updated. In sum, my attempt has been to present fairly and hear clearly the main themes in the work of Jean d'Arcy on the right to communicate.]
References
Selected papers by Jean d'Arcy:
Direct Broadcast Satellites and the Right of Man to Communicate
EBU Review, 118:14-18, 1969.
Right to Communicate
Theme paper for 1973 IIC Nicosia meeting
Reprinted in Right to Communicate: Collected Papers
L. S. Harms, Jim Richstad and Kathleen A. Kie (eds)
Honolulu: Distributed by the University Press of Hawaii, 1977.
Abstract of this paper was published in Intermedia, No. 4:2-3, 1973.
Right to Communicate
Invited paper by the MacBride Commission, #36,1978
An Ascending Progression
Preface to The Right to Communicate: A New Human Right
In Desmond Fisher and L. S. Harms (eds),
Dublin: Boole Press, 1983
Jean d'Arcy Parle
Edited by Francois Cazenave
Paris: La Documentation Francaise, 1984.
Preface by Henri Pigeat
Notes from conversations with and from letters exchanged between Jean d'Arcy and the editor between 1972-82.