Estructura informativa y derecho a comunicar

Abstract

In recent years the notion of a new right has become widespread: the right to communicate. The conceptual framework of tbis new right is based upon a particular distinction ---one among many- of the notions of information and of communication. We may speak of information when messages flow in only one direction, without answer or reciprocity. Communication, on the other hand, presupposes interactiong and exchange on an equal ground. Starting from this distinction one sector of the experts in the communications field indicate that we can not speak of communication -but rather only of information- when we refer to modern means of diffusion. The fact that nowadays we speak of «a new world order of information and 01 communication» and not of «an international order of information» reveals to what extent this interpretation has become widespread. The new right to communication is presented as yet another step within a process whose stages were freedom of speech, opinion, of the press, of information and, more recently, the right to information, which now would become encompassed within the new right. We are not dealing with an attempt to do away with rights already achieved, but rather to situate them which emphasizes -for aIl- the active role of the right to informo The first allusion to this right was made by n'ARcY in 1969. From that point on, a number of work groups have been set up -the most renown being the group operating out of the University of Hawaiito develop this concepto International organizations such as the International Broadcast Institute, UNESCO and the Asian Mass Communication and Information Centre have dealt with it also. The Report of the International Commission for the Study of the Problems of Communications in the World (McBride Commission) contains numerous aIlusions to this right, even though it recognizes .that the present formulation is yet imperfecto The author of this paper considers that the most adequate treatment of the eventual basic human right to communicate is the one carried out by Desmond FIS H ER, with whom he is in agreement and shares bis criterion that we are dealing with a right that belongs to each individual first and then, as a derivation, to groups or collectivities at any leve!. FISHER'S schéma, which puts forth a hierarchical framework between the basic right, derived liberties and particular rights with respect to the exercise of human communication, is adequately articulated and sheds light upon legitimate limitations which could become established, motivated by the protection of the rights of others. In his final observations, the author sta tes that in spite of the distinction between information and communication, which in a certain sense may be considered arbitrary, the new concept could be of great utility, insofar as it signifies an attempt to avercome pure Liberalism, at the same time that, when considered as a fundamental human right, it constitutes a decisive rejection of the systems that have adopted the Soviet model or any other dictatorial varia ton of that modelo