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More press coverage equals attention to
important issues
November 12,
2007
By Janna Quitney Anderson, Director of Imagining
the Internet and Assistant Professor of Communications,
Elon University
 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil -
More cameras at the press conference and more questions
accepted from the forum floor are both good signs that
the people who have the power to make decisions are
letting in a little light.
Today at the first day of the second Internet
Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro we saw ample
evidence of the success of the idea of bottom-up,
transparent governance. There is no doubt that there is
still much work to be done to actually accomplish a
true "bottom-up, transparent" process (these
are the favorite buzz words of people planning the
IGF), but it is exciting to meet with and talk to the
people who are making many of the decisions, to see
that they seem to be listening to constructive
criticism and to hear that they are making some
progress toward a more open system of decision-making
regarding the policy that will influence the future of
the internet.
If you measure success by the number of cameras at the
opening-day press conference, then the second IGF is
considerably bigger and more successful than the first.
Opening day at Athens in 2006 there were a few print
reporters in the room at the post-opening-ceremony
press session, and perhaps one news crew with a video
camera. The room was actually embarrassingly empty.
Today, I witnessed a first-day press conference with at
least three dozen people from around the world –
Brazil, Italy, China and many other nations –
scribbling in notebooks and capturing audio clips and
video images to build into news accounts about the
event.
Were they frustrated with the uninspiring and
generalized comments of the people being interviewed?
Yes. But at least they were there, they got the
opportunity to meet these people and ask their
questions, and perhaps next time the answers will be
more revealing.
Nitin Desai, the United Nations Secretary
General's special adviser for Internet governance,
said the internet has required people to find new ways
to make decisions regarding social welfare. "There
is a certain exploration going on," he said.
"The Internet is not owned by anybody. It's
also not a physical infrastructure … The
challenge is how to get this interaction going in a
constructive way."
 Sha Zukang, attending the event to open it
as the special representative of UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-Moon, was the UN ambassador from China until
just a few months ago. When reporters tried to get him
to respond to questions about Internet censorship in
his home country, he was careful in his answer.
"Now I am neutral," he said in reference to
his new UN role. "So it's in my best interests
to shut up." That got a laugh from the press.
"My personal position," he added, "is
we are all for freedom of information. This is a basic
human right – no doubt about it. That is why the
Internet is useful. But freedom doesn't mean you
are free to do anything. Would you tolerate the use of
the Internet for terrorist purposes, for pornography
for our kids?"
He went on to say that the Internet is used
successfully by many people in his home nation.
"Find out how widely the Internet is used in China
– much information is flowing there, then I'm
sure you will be pleasantly or unpleasantly
surprised," he added to the chagrin of most of the
reporters in the room, all of whom are cognizant of the
instances of censorship and surveillance in the Chinese
Internet system.
 When the press conference was completed,
Roberto Mangabeira Unger, the minister of the long-term
planning secretariat for Brazil, an eloquent
speaker in regard to the topic of the Internet and
globalization, was mobbed by members of the media,
there to ask him questions about his position about
Internet governance. You wouldn't have seen that in
Athens. It is progress. Progress because people are
beginning to understand the importance of paying
attention to how the Internet is shaped by policy and
public input.
The Internet leaders at this conference seem to be
listening and reacting to the questions and concerns of
civil society and representatives of non-governmental
organizations. They seem to be working for the
multilateral, transparent and democratic process that
they have been talking about. The world will benefit if
that is true.
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