Information for Social Change Issue 1 Editorial

• Main Author: Prof Chris Atton
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: ISC Collective 1994-12-01
• Series: Information for Social Change
• Subjects: information commodity; information commodification; information value; agent for social change; media ownership; capitalist world; voice of america on cuba; media manipulation; information terrorism; alternative press display; local libraries; information for liberation; rare books; emerging democracies; freedom of information; south africa
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4603794

It is a truism to say that information in all its forms is now a commodity, to be packaged and sold, along with all the other products of our age, in the high street superstores. As this commodification increases, so it is increasingly easy to forget that information has value far beyond the commercial world. It has a value as an agent for social change, for development, as it introduces people to ideas, creates forums for debate and speaks of the possibilities that are open to us- were we only permitted to know of them. The possibilities for change available to the people of the South, for instance, reside in the media ownership of ideas through the channels of CNN and Voice of America: a distorted, pro-capitalist view of the world, where the only mention of your own country is to tell you how dreadful it is (Voice of America on Cuba is the classic example). In the countries of the North media manipulation is more refined. The ways by which information is controlled and mediated have a serious influence on the ways people think, how they communicate, what they believe is the "real world", what the limits of the permissible are.