UNESCO Courier articles from February 1995

UNESCO Courier archives from February 1995

Regis Debray talks to Daniel Bougnoux. (Interview)
February 1, 1995... The French philosopher, essayist and novelist Regis Debray, who was born in 1941, is one of the most brilliant thinkers of his generation. A graduate of the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure, in 1967 he joined Che Guevara's guerrilla movement...

'New ways of being together.' (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?)
February 1, 1995... Communicating means sharing and establishing relationships. This being so, the extraordinary growth of the contemporary media, which is being accompanied by a transformation of cultures, identities and modes of exercising power and authority, is...

Unequal voices. (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?)
February 1, 1995... Globalization of markets and exchanges is creating new disparities between nations and may lead to a two-speed communication system as well as a two-speed economy. Communication (not only through the media, but also in the sense of exchanges...

The media: a modern scapegoat? (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?)
February 1, 1995... Many people were shocked when the 1991 Gulf War was turned into a world media event; they complained that by turning the conflict into a giant video game, communications had exceeded its mandate. They forgot that the media have never been neutral...

Interactivity - a matter of give and take. (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?)
February 1, 1995... A democratic communication system is inconceivable without fair exchange, plurality of viewpoints, direct contact between transmitters and receivers, decentralization and respect for privacy and freedom of expression. With each new wave of...

The Internet: journey into cyberspace. (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?)
February 1, 1995... People all over the world are taking their first steps on the information superhighway by joining the Internet. Chatting about science, sport or politics with someone on the other side of the globe; consulting the catalogue of the Library of...

From global village to global mind. (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?)
February 1, 1995... While television has turned the planet into a village in which we are all neighbours, telematic networks abolish time and space and suppress traditional bearings of personal and collective identity If books, especially novels, fostered and...

The shoals of freedom. (media freedom) (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?)
February 1, 1995... In central Europe 1989 marked the end of the state-controlled media. But after the first flush of excitement, the press is now having to come to terms with market realities while avoiding compromises and maintaining standards. Contrary to what...

Monopolies, minarets and videos. (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?)
February 1, 1995... Because of strict state monopolies and inadequate programme output, the Arab public is looking elsewhere for what it cannot find at home. In the Arab world, where demands based on identity and religion are forcefully pressed and where the...

UNESCO's strategy: interview with Henrikas Yushkiavitshus. (The Multimedia Explosion: Quo Vadis?) (Interview)
February 1, 1995... UNESCO'S Communication, Information and Informatics Sector, created in 1990, plays a leading role in the Organization's activities. The goals of its 1994-1995 programme, entitled "Communication, Information and Informatics in the Service of...

From the Cold War to the era of new technologies. (UNESCO)
February 1, 1995... After being a hostage of the East-West confrontation in the 1970s and 1980s, UNESCO can new encourage a wider and better balanced flow of information without any obstacle to freedom of expression. Some fifty years ago, the founders of UNESCO...

Reinventing the press.
February 1, 1995... Has the time come to reinvent the press? This question becomes particularly relevant against the background of two other prospective questions: what does the future hold for relations between the press (the "fourth estate") and the world of...

The great temple of Thanjavur. (India)
February 1, 1995... A magnificent sanctuary rich in murals, sculptures and friezes bears witness to daily life in southern India a thousand years ago. The reign of Rajaraja I (985-1014), the greatest king of the Chola Tamil dynasty, marked a glorious epoch in the...

Fuzuli: poet of divine love. (Muhammad ibn Suleyman)
February 1, 1995... The life of Fuzuli (c. 1495-1556), whom Arabs, Persians and Turks alike acknowledge as one of their greatest mystical poets, is an enigma. Apart from a few derails contained in a 17th-century Turkish biography (from which the portrait, left, is...

Clean driving: a green dream? (Greenwatch)
February 1, 1995... It is all too easy for a motorist enjoying a smooth drive along a good mad to forget that the mad and the vehicles that use it are far from harmless to the environment. In November 1989 the Council of Ministers of the European Conference6 of...

Salvador de Madariaga: intuition, intelligence and the making of modern man. (Transcript)
February 1, 1995... The Spanish diplomat and writer Salvador de Madariaga (1886-1978) was a humanist and democrat who fought against the Franco dictatorship (he left Spain in 1936 and did not return until 1976, after Franco's death). He was one of the originators of...

The heartbeat of jazz. (drums)
February 1, 1995... A jazz instrument originally used to keep the beat, the drum gradually became a solo instrument in its own right. Drums, an indispensable ingredient of popular music, are the only instruments "invented" by jazz. Resulting from the...