By Hye-Jung Park, Media Justice Fund Program Officer, and Charlene Allen, Deputy Director of the Funding Exchange:

During the last year we've joined U.S. delegations to attend Freedom of Expression workshops in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Nairobi, Kenya; and Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

The workshops were organized to explore the implications of digitally networked communications on people’s access to free expression. Invited by the Ford Foundation and Consumers Union, Hye-Jung participated in the Latin American and Asian gatherings, and Charlene in the African session.

We approached the meetings with great excitement, knowing that people’s movements around the world have used technology to advance their causes, and were anxious to learn more. We also knew that many of our grantees were hungry to connect with counterparts in the developing world, to explore the possibilities of building a global movement.

We discovered that while all participants were connected by a common demand for accessible, accountable media, our needs were significantly different, and the framework in which we did our work was different, too. For example, conference participants who had been involved in using technology for political activism - such as the successful use of cell phones for election monitoring in the Philippines - did not necessarily see their work in a media justice framework. Rather, the technology was a tool to advance other social justice goals.

In East Africa, activists had to explain to westerners that if you don’t speak English, or read or write in any language, Internet access is far less valuable than access to a radio. Where we found common ground on media policy issues, such as anti-censorship measures, we often differed on social issues, such as women’s and LGBTQ rights.

We did find instant kinship among open source software activists, and among artists who sought to use electronic media to broaden their creativity. And we gained a far deeper understanding of the ways in which free trade agreements, deregulation, and privatization erode communications rights across the globe.

In the end, we walked away with more questions than answers. In the coming months, we’ll have a chance to get together with other workshop participants, and begin to piece together the steps that may be needed to build international solidarity toward social and media justice.