Information Society Watch

December 4, 2007, mediaforfreedom.com

Uruguay has passed a Community Broadcasting Bill that recognises community broadcasting in its own right alongside state and private sectors and says television and radio frequencies should be more equitably distributed. A regulatory council of government, media, university and free expression representatives will collaborate to grant and renew frequencies and ensure that the government does not use frequency allocation to indirectly censor broadcasts.

November 2003, Marc Raboy

This chapter examines the impact of globalisation and the technological and economic advances on the role played by the media in the democratisation of societies. Given these characteristics of the global media environment in the information society, the paper focuses on issues of media governance and regulation.

March 3, 2007, Sridhar Muralidharan, Economic & Political Weekly

In India, the question of satellite television regulation has been interpreted differently than the norm. The orthodox viewpoint of airwaves “belonging” to the public is one that is difficult to enunciate especially with regard to the principles of instrumentality and agency.

November 21, 2006, Anne Broache, ZdNet

The California Supreme Court ruled that individual Internet users, such as those posting blogs and other web publishers, cannot be held liable for republishing defamatory statements written by others. This is in affirmation of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 which protects Internet providers as well as users of online services who re-post content.

October 24, 2006, Venkatesan Vembu, DNA World

A new move which requires all Chinese bloggers to compulsorily register their real identity details with authorities is facing severe resistance from bloggers. Bloggers and service providers warn that this violation of freedom of speech and privacy will severely hamper the growth of the blogging industry.

October 18, 2006, The Hoot

The Indian government has moved forward on a decision allowing NGOs to apply for licences without a fee and to have five minutes of advertising per hour of radio broadcasting.