Jeremy Shtern

Media Divides offers a comprehensive democratic audit of communications law and policy. Using the concept of communications rights as a framework for analysis in five key domains – media, access, the Internet, privacy, and copyright – leading analysts reveal that Canada's failure to respond adequately to a host of pressures and developments has left its citizens with unequal access to the nation's communications system and the freedom of expression it promises. Media Divides not only offers the first up-to-date account of the democratic deficits in Canada's communications policy, it formulates recommendations – including the establishment of a Canadian right to communicate – for the future.

In 2003 and again in 2005, the international community was called by the United Nations to take part in a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). This two-phased summit placed an unprecedented global spotlight on information and communication issues. At the same time, the WSIS represented a grand experiment in global governance: the active participation of non-governmental stakeholders in the development of public policies at the international level. Digital Solidarities, Communication Policy and Multi-stakeholder Global Governance examines the actors, structures and themes that shaped the WSIS with a particular focus on the role played by civil society. The book investigates how civil society self-organization has continued post-WSIS through the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and other policymaking venues, and reflects on what the WSIS experience reveals about the challenges and opportunities embedded in the notion of multi-stakeholder governance and its implications for understanding global communication.

Media Divides offers a comprehensive democratic audit of communications law and policy. Using the concept of communications rights as a framework for analysis in five key domains – media, access, the Internet, privacy, and copyright – leading analysts reveal that Canada's failure to respond adequately to a host of pressures and developments has left its citizens with unequal access to the nation's communications system and the freedom of expression it promises. Media Divides not only offers the first up-to-date account of the democratic deficits in Canada's communications policy, it formulates recommendations – including the establishment of a Canadian right to communicate – for the future.