People's Communication Charter

AGENDA VOOR ACTIE NEDERLAND

  • Het oprichten van een meldpunt voor klachten inzake overtredingen van het handvest. Dit meldpunt heeft een verwijs functie;

  • Een anti chip-kaart platform (actie om banken te dwingen tot betere garanties inzake privacy);

  • PCC als onderdeel van het Tactische Media Netwerk;

  • Actie voor gratis publieke informatiediensten en tegen tariefsverhogingen bij telefonische inlichtingen;

  • De formatie van een pressie-groep voor redactie-statuten in alle media;

  • Opname van computer-ethiek in de curricula van lager, middelbaar- en hoger onderwijs;

  • PCC als belangrijk onderdeel van de Next 5 Minutes 3-conferentie in 1999 te Amsterdam.

  • Een prijs voor de organisatie, beweging of individu, die zich het best in lijn met het PCC gedachtengoed heeft geprofileerd. Maar ook de organisatie, beweging of individu die het ernstigst heeft misdragen krijgt een prijs.

AGENDA FOR ACTION INTERNATIONAL

  • Organize a day of "Action for the Cultural Environment," including a Parents' March, teach-ins on college campuses and town meetings in selected cities, in collaboration with affiliated and supporting groups.

  • Convene a Second International Broadcast Standards Summit of CEM affiliates and supporting organizations, media executives, and representatives of producers and creative workers in participating countries, to develop a mechanism for regular consultation and broad participation in the development of media policy standards and international trade.

  • Set up a Global Marketing Awareness Task Force to expose the "dumping" of cultural products worldwide that drive out home- produced and quality materials.

  • Initiate a formal complaint procedure to investigate and publicize violations of the People's Communication Charter. A People's Media Inquiry, in collaboration with local and regional affiliated and supporting organizations, would hold open hearings and publish a report at the end of the year.

  • Support a Women's Roundtable committed to strengthening women's voices in male-dominated media.

  • Arrange a Media Literacy and Critical Awareness Program Development and Coordination project, culminating in an international assembly of leaders of the movement.

  • Advocate that schools, churches, youth organizations in the community include media literacy in their programs. Attend school board meetings, promote candidates, support teachers and students active in the media literacy movement. Oppose the use of media literacy as a public relations tool to rationalize the existing media system.

  • Hold forums with community leaders and media professionals devoted to creating alternatives for the cult of violence and brutality that hurt our youth, cultivate meanness, glorify domination, deform masculinity and sexuality, and polarize our society.

  • Promote the development of and access to successful resource- generating and organizing models for independent productions and journalism. Explore what mechanisms (e.g. media laws, direct and indirect subsidies) democratic societies around the world use to support independent voices.

  • Enhance regular monitoring of media ownership, employment, and content, and release annual reports of the health and diversity of the cultural mainstream. These reports should include assessments of and guidelines for: (1) diverse and equitable media ownership and employment practices; (2) fair and realistic gender, racial, ethnic, aging, disability and mental illness portrayal; (3) health- related presentations, including depiction of addictive substances without consequences, promotion of prescription drugs to the public, the aggressive marketing of pharmaceuticals as "miracle drugs," and other inducements for "pill popping" that, together, make for a drug culture; (4) fast and reckless driving both as a dramatic and sales feature; (5) violence with invidious patterns of victimization and without realistic consequences or suggesting alternative approaches to conflict, and; (6) impossible standards of beauty, especially for high fashion, diet programs, cosmetics, cosmetic surgeries, and other products that imply that normal women are defective.

  • Conduct cross-national comparative studies to document trends in global homogenization vs. diversification.

  • Publish major CEM documents widely, including full-page advertisements with lists of affiliated and supporting organizations and donors, soliciting other affiliations, and announcing forthcoming action.

  • Develop a Center to serve as an information service, clearinghouse, speakers bureau, and newsletter editorial office to coordinate action on the national and international levels. Publish a calendar of events to link independent producers and publications to in local communities. Include notification of teach-ins, town meetings, open hearings, policy briefings, and activities of affiliates.

  • Use CEMNET and Internet as organizing tools and forums for independent voices, while also noting that powerful technologies are used most effectively by powerful institutions; there is no technological fix to social and cultural problems.

  • Propose ad-free zones for schools; oppose the use of school time and space for commercial messages.

  • Design a cultural environment education course showing how media- driven consumer lifestyles impact the environment.

  • Devise a pilot program to promote communication skills through storytelling and to counteract media-driven expectations. Propose at least one storyteller's presence in every school or school district.

  • Launch a campaign for the establishment of a National Endowment for Telecommunications to support alternatives to cultural dependence on private corporate advertising.

  • Explore the feasibility of a Constitutional challenge of the give- away of the public airways for private profit.

  • Join legal action to (1) reverse media monopoly; (2) force strict compliance with EEOC diversity and FDA food and drug testing and disclosure rules; (3) limit surveillance of consumers in the market place and employees in the work place, and (4) to encourage and protect Micro-Radio projects of low power broadcasting (5) ensure that all individuals have equitable access to new communication technologies at affordable rates, and (6) to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and strengthen the Equal Time provisions of the FCC, and (7) restore the family viewing hour and require substantial quality children's programming per week, some of it in prime-time, as a licensing requirement

  • Create a CEM Awards and CEM Censure program that (1) honors outstanding media challenges to media stereotyping and other harmful or wasteful practices, and (2) exposes the most flagrant examples of media "pollution."

  • Establish an Award category for productions, including children's programs, that promote portrayals of older adults, especially women, as vital productive persons in realistic, believable situations with the full range of human emotions, hopes and desires.

  • Start a network for mentoring young, alternative-oriented media professionals through internships with affiliated and supporting organizations and media.

  • Work with communities of faith and spirituality to help express their views and concerns about diversity and freedom in the cultural environment.

  • Collaborate with the AFL-CIO and the media workers unions (1) to develop labor participation in CEM and leadership in communications and cultural policy-making, and (2) to create public support for diversity efforts and avoid policies that result in loss of jobs in the cultural industries.

    • PCC, p/a Maatschappij voor Oude en Nieuwe Media, Nieuwmarkt 4, 1012 CR Amsterdam, tel: 020-5579898, fax: 020-5579880 pccmaster@waag.org, gironummer Postbank: 62 17 066 t.n.v. ISOVE/PCC

the Charter