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The World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) is an international NGO registered as a charity in Canada and the United Kingdom.
WACC has members in 120 countries. [1] Members are organised into eight Regional Associations (Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America and Pacific). [2]
The origins of WACC date back to 1950 when Christian communicators from Europe and North America began seeking guidelines for the future of religious broadcasting. Several organisations, including the World Council of Churches, shared the same concerns and they eventually joined forces to establish the 'old' WACC in 1968. Rapid developments in mass media worldwide and a concern to integrate the work of the Agency for Christian Literature Development of the World Council of Churches led to a merger in 1975 that created the present WACC. [3] In 1986 WACC adopted its Christian Principles of Communication as a statement of core values based on Liberation Theology's option for the poor; the principles were updated in 2009. [4]
WACC's Theory of Change articulates how a focus on communication - as a right, as a practice, as a skill and as a profession - is fundamental to achieving dignity, inclusion, and informed and active participation, essential to sustainable development and just and peaceful communities.
WACC's wide-ranging activities include support for communication projects mainly, but not exclusively, in the global south; the promotion of analysis, reflection and action on important topics related to its areas of concern; support for networking within and beyond its membership; and publication and sharing of information; indigenous, gender and human rights. [5] WACC's project support has traditionally been largely of a responsive nature. WACC's largest single activity is The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) a worldwide longitudinal study (1995, 2000, 2005) on the representation of women in the world's media. The fifth research in the series was conducted in 2015 by hundreds of volunteers in 114 countries around the world. The next GMMP was published in 2020 [6] and covered over 30,000 media stories from 116 countries. [7]
WACC, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2018, has been instrumental in developing the concept of Communication Rights and their relationship to participatory development communication. WACC launched a Centre for Communication Rights, to promote materials on several communication related issues, including digital civil rights. [8]
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a two-phase United Nations-sponsored summit on information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. WSIS Forums have taken place periodically since then. One of the Summit's chief aims is to bridge the global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by increasing internet accessibility in the developing world. The conferences established 17 May as World Information Society Day.
An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee.
The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles considered useful by its supporters for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century. Created by a global consultation process, and endorsed by organizations representing millions of people, the Charter "seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family, the greater community of life, and future generations." It calls upon humanity to help create a global partnership at a critical juncture in history. The Earth Charter's ethical vision proposes that environmental protection, human rights, equitable human development, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. The Charter attempts to provide a new framework for thinking about and addressing these issues. The Earth Charter Initiative organization exists to promote the Charter.
IFEX, formerly International Freedom of Expression Exchange, is a global network of more than 120 independent non-governmental organisations that work at a local, national, regional, or international level to defend and promote freedom of expression as a human right.
The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters is the international umbrella organization of community radio broadcasters founded in 1983, with nearly 3,000 members in 110 countries. Its mission is to support and contribute to the development of community and participatory radio along the principles of solidarity and international cooperation.
Article 19 is a British international human rights organisation that works to defend and promote freedom of expression and freedom of information worldwide. It was founded in 1987. The organisation takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.
The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental cooperative organization founded in 1895 to unite, represent and serve cooperatives worldwide. The ICA is the custodian of the internationally recognised definition, values and principles of a cooperative in the ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity. The ICA represents 315 co-operative federation and organisations in 107 countries.
Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) also known as Women of Uganda Network Development Limited is Ugandan non-governmental organization that aids women and women's organisations in the use and access of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to share information and address issues their concerns such as gender norms, advocating for their rights and building communities and businesses through education.
The International Programme for the Development of Communication is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) programme aimed at strengthening the development of mass media in developing countries.
Christian Blind Mission (CBM) is an international Christian development organization, committed to improving the quality of life of persons with disabilities in the poorest communities of the world. It is considered one of the world's oldest and largest organizations working in this field.
CABI is a nonprofit intergovernmental development and information organisation focusing primarily on agricultural and environmental issues in the developing world, and the creation, curation, and dissemination of scientific knowledge.
Scholars at Risk (SAR) is a United States-based international network of academic institutions organized to support and defend the principles of academic freedom and to defend the human rights of scholars around the world. Network membership includes over 530 higher educational institutions in 42 countries.
SIGNIS (official name: World Catholic Association for Communication) is a Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement for professionals in the communication media, including press, radio, television, cinema, video, media education, internet, and new technology. It is a non-profit organization with representation from over 100 countries. It was formed in November 2001 by the merger of International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audiovisual (OCIC) and International Catholic Association for Radio and Television (Unda). At its World Congress in Quebec in 2017, SIGNIS welcomed also former member organisations of the International Catholic Union of the Press (UCIP).
Riad Jarjour is a Syrian Christian clergyman who served as General Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches between 1994 and 2003. He was born in Aleppo and grew up in the city of Homs.
Communication rights involve freedom of opinion and expression, democratic media governance, media ownership and media control, participation in one's own culture, linguistic rights, rights to education, privacy, assemble, and self-determination. They are also related inclusion and exclusion, quality and accessibility to means of communication.
Media development involves capacity building for institutions or individuals related to freedom of expression, pluralism and diversity of media, as well as transparency of media ownership. Media development plays a role in democracy and effective democratic discourse through supporting free and independent media.
The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) is the largest international study of gender in the news media. It is also an advocacy organization that aims to change the representation of women in the news media. Every five years since 1995 the GMMP collects data on indicators of gender in the news, such as: the presence of women, gender bias, and stereotyping. The most recent study, conducted in 2015, encompassed 114 countries.
Women in media are individuals who participate in media. Media are the collective communication outlets or tools used to store and deliver information or data. The role of women in media revolves around the four axes of media: media freedom, media pluralism, media independence, and media safety. Women in media face the same difficulties and threats as men, and additionally experience gender inequalities, safety issues, or under-representation. Compared to men, women are much less likely to be included in the media globally. According to research, a minimum of twenty-five percent of news on television, radio and in the press mention women as a topic. According to a 2015 survey, only 19% of news experts and 37% of reporters worldwide were women. We recognize the gender-imbalanced perspective of society has the potential to promote and perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes, as behavioral scientists studying the underrepresentation of women in the workforce. It goes without saying that the media must change the way they portray the outside world, but who has the power to change the media itself ?
Media independence is the absence of external control and influence on an institution or individual working in the media. It is a measure of its capacity to "make decisions and act according to its logic," and distinguishes independent media from state media.
The Uganda Media Women's Association (UMWA) - is a nonprofit non-governmental organization located in Kampala, Uganda, focused on human rights advocacy and women's rights.
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