Symposium on Multimedia Convergence - Activités Sectorielles

The entertainment and mass media industries are in the business of capturing the imagination, sparking new interests, and keeping us informed of events around the globe. They ply the public with music, films, video clips, newspapers, journals and radio broadcasts: they cater to every taste. Almost every member of society is able to name at least one entertainer, editorialist or film-maker who has broadened his horizons, awakened his curiosity or simply amused or informed him.

Widespread public awareness of the products and services of these industries -- and the immediate, almost intuitive, response to new offerings -- have made the entertainment and electronic media industries dynamic, prolific and rich. With rising incomes, educational levels and expectations, middle-class consumers have committed an ever-larger portion of their resources to entertainment. In 1995, for example, Americans spent an estimated US$400 billion -- about 8 per cent of total consumption -- on entertainment.⁽¹⁾ Growing audience expenditure on entertainment services has pushed this sector to the forefront of industry earners, and the media portion of the industry is expected to be among the fastest-growing segments. Indeed, increased consumption of leisure and information products has been one of the hallmarks of the post-industrial, information-based economy.

Despite their tremendous variety, the products of the entertainment and mass media industries share one core characteristic. Whether edifying or merely amusing, these products are knowledge-intensive. Teams of highly skilled writers, editors, performers, designers and technicians provide the imagination, inventiveness and technological sophistication which make each product unique. It is the sum of their creative talents, their diverse skills, and their mastery of information technology which instils value into the paperback books, plastic discs and cassettes which consumers buy. Indeed, one might well argue that the multiplicity of material forms in which these products appear -- cassettes, records, newspapers -- merely disguises the fact that only one product is being sold, and that product is electronically processed information.

This central shared trait makes it possible and increasingly necessary to consider the media and entertainment industries, not in their historical specificity, but in their ever-growing digitalized unity. Thanks to advances in computerization and communications technologies, previously distinct information-based industries -- such as printing and publishing, graphic design, the media, sound recording and film-making, along with the carrier industries of broadcasting and telecommunications -- are converging into one. Information is their common product.

Each of the industries cited above has its own origin and history. Until recently, each had its own technology too. But with the advent of digitalization, technological convergence has been set into motion. Today all forms of information -- whether based in text, sound or images -- can be converted into bits and bytes for handling by computer. Digitalization has made it possible to create, record, manipulate, combine, store, retrieve and transmit information and information-based products in ways which magnetic tape, celluloid and paper did not permit. Digitalization thus allows music, cinema and the written word to be recorded and transformed through similar processes and without distinct material supports. Previously dissimilar industries, such as publishing and sound recording, now both produce CD-ROMs, rather than simply books and records.

The impact of digitalization has not been limited to the products of these industries, but also includes their means of distribution. If the common product is now information, the common service will be its electronic exchange and delivery. The convergence of the computer, telephone and broadcasting sectors into a communication and distribution industry is paving the main thoroughfares of the global information highway, along which information products and services will travel in the twenty-first century. The capacity to transmit digital products at the touch of a button anywhere in the world, without interference or degradation of quality, may sound like a scenario for the future. But the future is coming soon.

As analog systems are gradually replaced by digital ones and broadband transmission paths come to link homes, businesses and community centres around the world, information products, often in multimedia formats, will become available on-line when and where the consumer chooses to view, listen to and perhaps interact with them. The need for the material supports on which these products currently rest -- the paper on which the news is printed, the cassettes which contain musical or video recordings -- will be eliminated, but only if affordable, high-performance telecommunications systems are available.

Multimedia convergence deserves our attention for reasons which go far beyond the entertainment, mass media and telecommunications industries. The technological revolution which has made multimedia convergence possible will continue apace, creating new configurations among an ever-widening range of industries. The digitalization of information processing and delivery is transforming the way financial systems operate, the way enterprises exchange information internally and externally, and the way individuals work in an increasingly electronic environment.

These changes are important not only for their immediate economic and social impact, but also because they are taking place at the formative stages of the information economy, in which information will not merely be a resource, but the very basis on which the economy will grow. Knowledge-based industries, such as today's entertainment and mass media industries, will be among those which surge to the forefront of tomorrow's economy. The changes now occurring therein may thus serve as harbingers of developments in the twenty-first century, revealing to us what it means to live and work, produce and consume in the information society.

Technical innovation and the speed of change

The capacity to process and communicate information electronically has speeded up work processes enormously. Within a decade of the introduction of automatic page make-up, the pre-press stages of the newspaper industry had been radically altered, becoming a unified, integrated digitally based production process. Journalists and editors working on-screen could feed text directly to page make-up, which eliminated the need for rekeying and shifted preliminary typesetting functions from the production to the editorial staff. In book publishing, digitalization has speeded up the editorial process, which used to be sequential, by allowing the copy editor, art editor and layout staff to work on the same book simultaneously.

But digitalization has not merely speeded up old production processes. In educational and scientific publishing, where timely delivery of up-to-date information is essential to the value of the product, digitalization has forced a fundamental rethinking of what it means to publish. On-line dissemination of academic journals has already taken off -- some journals exist purely in electronic form -- and peer review of articles is carried out on the Internet. Tailor-made textbooks, composed of chapters chosen from a 150,000-page database, combined with professors' class notes or other articles, are already available on some 900 American campuses.⁽²⁾ And the day is not far off when electronic delivery of constantly updated academic texts to local printers will allow micro-print runs to meet the needs of a seminar.

But technological innovation has not come alone. Regulatory change, the liberalization of markets and the global ambitions of media conglomerates have created synergies that further hasten the pace of change.

Regulatory and structural change

If technology has made media convergence possible, regulatory and structural change has made it "doable". In some countries, limitations on cross-media ownership have been relaxed, allowing large media firms to acquire highly diversified holdings in film-making, music, radio and television broadcasting as well as in book, magazine and newspaper publishing. This horizontal integration allows one media product to be commercialized in a variety of formats (books, films and sound recordings) as well as in distinct end-markets (cinemas, television, and video rental shops, for example). Despite the complexity of ownership structures and contractual relations, horizontal integration concentrates control and marketing power in the hands of surprisingly few big players. In 1995, for example, just five record companies accounted for over 70 per cent of sales in the US$40 billion global pre-recorded music market.⁽³⁾ However, even the largest music firms may form only one segment of much greater media and electronics empires.

Vertical integration is also occurring, though sometimes with a new face. A striking example of the impact of regulatory change on industry structure can be seen in the results of the 1984 review of the "Paramount decision", which allowed Hollywood studios to re-enter the distribution business, from which they had been barred for 36 years. Within five years, studios were reaping some 80 per cent of box office receipts.⁽⁴⁾ Distribution had become their core activity, though studios oversaw film products "from conception to consumption" by providing funding and distribution channels to independent producers. Actual film-making, however, was carried out by networks of production companies and their subcontractors, linked to the studios through contract and investment, rather than through ownership.⁽⁵⁾

The deregulation of telecommunications has introduced a whole new set of players into a previously protected domain of the information industry. Telecommunications monopolies are ceding ground to private service providers, as nations on every continent move to privatize their state-owned telecoms and to liberalize access to communications markets. One result has been a tremendous expansion in the volume and types of services offered. Telecom operators have evolved from being simple carriers of conventional telephony services to become providers of a rich array of value-added services, including mobile communications, data transmission, Internet access, cable television and satellite operations -- all of which support electronic media convergence. Even in conventional telephony, services have expanded tremendously in recent years. Globally outgoing international traffic totalled 30.4 billion minutes in 1990, reached 54.4 billion minutes by 1994 and is expected to climb to 90 billion minutes by the year 2000⁽⁶⁾ -- a tripling of output in less than a decade. Clearly, the global information-based economy is raring to be born.

The dynamism and volatility of the telecommunications industry are demonstrated by the upsurge of private service providers grabbing market share from public rivals, even as the market grows. In 1990, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom and BT carried 42 per cent of all outgoing international traffic; four years later, no publicly owned firm was among the top four service providers, which together accounted for 57 per cent of a vastly expanded market.⁽⁷⁾ In 1995, the telecommunications industry commanded global revenues estimated at US$1,430 billion, equivalent to 5.9 per cent of the world's gross domestic product.

The information superhighway

The premise on which the notion of an information society is based is the construction of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII), often referred to as the information superhighway. The GII is in fact nothing more than the physical plant -- the nuts, bolts and optical fibre -- of the telecommunications systems of the future, which are to provide broadband access to homes, enterprises and community centres in all parts of the world. Universal access to the superhighway would ensure that advanced media and information services would be readily available, not only to major institutions and corporate customers, but also to small businesses, non-profit organizations, schools, hospitals and individuals. At least that is the idea.

Currently, universal access is far from assured, even for basic telephony, let alone for the sophisticated cabling and switches needed for interactivity. Worldwide, "teledensity" varies sharply from more than 60 phone lines per 100 inhabitants in the richest countries⁽⁸⁾ to fewer than one per 100 in the poorest,⁽⁹⁾ and there is a direct correlation between access to telecommunications, economic wealth and social development.

Even within the industrialized world, where telecommunications have become ubiquitous, the penetration of personal computers (PCs) in the home, Internet access, and cable connections to households and businesses varies tremendously from country to country. Within countries, there are also wide discrepancies in service provision, based on personal income and educational level.

As telecommunications are increasingly deregulated and investment follows the lead of market forces, it is feared that the information highway could end up providing seamless interconnection among the world's wealthy enclaves, while further exacerbating existing inequalities between the information "haves" and "have-nots". Those who are currently ahead would gain further advantage, while those who now lag behind would be further disadvantaged. Today, over 60 per cent of Internet host computers are located in the United States; fewer than one per cent are in Central and South America.⁽¹⁰⁾ Access is, of course, possible from every continent for those who have the equipment.

As the world gradually becomes interconnected and distribution capacities become more global, cultural taste is reasserting its regional or national flavour. The music industry provides a telling example. In 1990, 90 per cent of the music sold in Central Europe was international; today the Polish music market carries roughly 50 per cent Polish recordings. Approximately 80 per cent of the pre-recorded music now sold in Latin America is performed by Latin American artists, 60 per cent of Asian sales are of Asian recordings. Although emerging markets are small, they are extremely fast growing. In the first half of 1995, the Brazilian music market expanded by almost 60 per cent, the Indonesian market by almost 45 per cent and the Polish and South African markets by roughly 40 per cent each. The "big five" recording companies are investing billions of dollars in regional recording studios, plants and distribution networks in order to develop local repertoire, but regional independents are giving them a run for their money. Fans want to hear songs sung in their own language and in tune with their cultural sensibilities, and regional independents are well placed to spot local talent.⁽¹¹⁾

Small enterprises

The picture drawn so far has focused largely on the technology and the major players in the convergence process. But convergence has another face. Just as technology has given large media and communications firms a global reach, it has also encouraged the proliferation of small players: individuals, teams and small and medium-sized enterprises able to create high-quality multimedia products, such as CD-ROMs, or to provide niche services, such as building Web sites or developing on-line advertising campaigns. A plethora of small electronic publishing and multimedia service companies in Europe and the United States generate much of the content, as well as much of the employment, of this emerging industry. Many of these might qualify as micro enterprises, composed of two to ten employees. While some specialize in providing such products and services directly to local clients, many others work through subcontracting arrangements which channel their products further upstream.⁽¹²⁾

Electronic mediation has made possible the growth of "virtual" enterprises, in which employees basically work alone, distant from each other, but connected by a modem and a telephone line. An editorial production firm, for example, can easily employ its writers, editors and art directors at different locations, as long as their computers can communicate to exchange and combine their work.⁽¹³⁾ In such virtual firms, employers and individual workers may not even know each other, except through their email messages and the quality of their output. Freelancers -- many of whom may be teleworkers -- form a large portion of the workforce, in effect becoming "virtual employees". When such enterprises combine the work of employees based in more than one country, these distant workers may find themselves without the normal protection offered by their national legislation.

Employment

For some occupational groups, particularly those engaged in providing creative content, the multimedia revolution promises tremendous growth in opportunities for work as distribution channels multiply. In 1995, the production of films and audiovisual products employed more than 850,000 people in Europe, compared to only 630,000 a decade before. At least one observer believes that by the year 2010, films, multimedia and television will be the single largest employer in Europe.⁽¹⁴⁾ Musicians are the notable exception to this optimistic forecast for creative content providers. Technological developments, such as the synthesizer, have been remarkable in the degree to which they have eliminated the opportunities for paid employment.

For other workers, particularly those in craft occupations tied to particular technologies, the challenge will be to acquire new skills and adapt to new modes of working in a context of diminishing opportunity in their former specialities. Examples abound of the labour-shedding tendency of advanced technology. One might mention the miniaturization of camera equipment, which rendered obsolete the cumbersome mobile TV units of the past -- staffed by camera operators, sound specialists and support personnel -- and replaced them with a single reporter carrying a lightweight camcorder. In the motion picture industry, computer-generated "synthetic reality" now provides an alternative to the construction of expensive film sets, threatening the livelihood of the carpenters, decorators and electricians who build and light them. Digital video sampling allows the creation of dozens of "synthetic characters" from the images of a few. The crowd of 50,000 demonstrators in Forrest Gump, for example, was generated from the images of fewer than 1,000 extras.⁽¹⁵⁾

If, as some claim, the digital economy is "a massive job-creation engine", it might be added that opportunity will favour the well-educated, multi-talented jobseeker whose skills portfolio is constantly expanding. Amid large-scale loss or downgrading of employment for those with lesser qualifications, burgeoning opportunity is foreseen for those with the skills mix needed to work creatively in an information-intensive networked environment. Yet most workers, even highly qualified professionals, may expect unstable, impermanent employment, with multiple job changes in the course of their careers. And many workers will find themselves employed on a contingent basis, working part time, temporarily or for more than one employer at a time.

Many future jobs will be based on technology which is today in its infancy; these jobs will call for undreamed-of skills. The speed with which the software houses of Silicon Valley responded to the special effects desires of Hollywood producers gave birth to a flourishing computer-generated visual effects industry within the space of a few years.

Though technology will continue to leap ahead in digital bounds, human skills acquisition will likely progress incrementally "in an analog mode", building on a base of previously acquired skills. When computer colour separation was introduced, for example, the preliminary processes of colour printing were transformed, but the expert eye and technical knowledge of photolithographers who had undergone retraining were much in demand to ensure quality control of the final product. Many trained typographers made the transition from Linotype to computer composition, applying the aesthetic judgement of their former craft to a new mode of work.

At the same time, technology has erased or reduced the entrance barriers to much technical work by becoming more user-friendly. The gradual emergence of industry standards among information technology producers makes skills more easily transferable from one domain or type of equipment to another, enabling more crossover among technical and non-technical staff. Page make-up has become a white-collar job and those entering the field may never have had formal training in the print industry. Indeed, many of those entering the field will find employment in non-printing firms for which the processing and distribution of information is important.

Education and training

Where will the new skills come from? How can firms be assured of finding the skills they seek? How can workers be sure that the skills they acquire will actually prepare them for the job market? There is much room for concerted efforts on the part of governments, employers and workers to minimize the mismatch between available skills and those in demand and to prepare the workforce for the changes ahead.

High-quality basic education is the broad foundation upon which all new skills will be built in the information economy. Such education goes beyond high levels of literacy and numeracy; it should instil a love of learning and the capacity to adapt to change. Many countries are actively engaged in getting computers -- and especially computer skills -- into classrooms in order to familiarize children with the rudiments of interacting with electronically mediated information.

But basic education only goes so far. Higher levels of general education and the acquisition of specialized skills, including a large dose of computer skills, will increasingly be the norm among entrants into the multimedia job market. While many job-specific skills are acquired in the workplace, either through employer-provided training schemes or informally through the sharing of knowledge among colleagues, employers will increasingly expect applicants to come to the job with a skills portfolio which is already well stocked.

Will training programmes, as they are currently designed, meet the needs of these employers and potential employees? Will they adapt quickly enough to rapidly changing needs? Or will they lag behind, braking the smooth transition from school to work by preparing young people for the jobs of yesterday rather than for those of tomorrow? This is an area which could potentially benefit from tripartite cooperation.

Large-scale employers are the best equipped to set up training programmes to meet the specific needs of their enterprises. Jointly sponsored training schemes, along with apprenticeship systems, have also proven their worth in the past. But the information economy poses two great challenges to enterprise-based training. First, the employment structures of many firms in these converging industries rely on a diminishing core of permanent, or at least long-term, employees and on a growing portion of contingent workers employed part time, temporarily or on a project-by-project basis. Because of their part-time status and especially in the instance of short-term engagement, these employees would rarely, if ever, benefit from employer-provided training packages, which are largely directed to permanent staff.

Second, small and medium-sized enterprises account for the most dynamic employment growth in the information sector. Many operate with just a handful of employees; few are able to offer training themselves or to release staff from ongoing work. These employers depend almost entirely on the skills that their employees have acquired before being hired, whether through formal education, previous work experience or at their individual initiative.

Many observers thus expect that in the future much of the burden and expense of training may ultimately fall on the shoulders of individual workers, whether in terms of initial preparation, ongoing education and training, or adapting to new professional orientations.

Labour relations

The transition to the information age is unlikely to be a smooth one. Just as in an earlier time, the industrial revolution disrupted the lives of millions, forcing rural workers to shed their agrarian habits and adapt to mechanical processes, so the information age will shake the foundations of our current economic structures, shatter dearly held assumptions and give rise to a new set of expectations. The chaotic nature of the change in progress, its accelerating pace and the difficulty of foreseeing outcomes exacerbate fears that the global information society will be polarized, fragmented, or even "atomized". Some fear a future in which individuals will be forced to struggle for survival in an electronic jungle. And the survival mechanisms which have been developed in recent decades, such as relatively stable employment relations, collective agreements, employee representation, employer-provided job training, and jointly funded social security schemes, may be sorely tested in a world where work crosses borders at the speed of light.

Social dialogue and tripartite participation in the search for socially acceptable solutions are the principal guarantors of a smooth transition to an information economy. Yet developing the practical mechanisms for social dialogue in this emerging multimedia industry will prove a challenge, for the convergence process highlights a certain structural mismatch of economic forces, political frameworks and social institutions. The rapidity of change, the extent of industrial restructuring and the degree to which work is being transformed will test current institutional mechanisms for workers' representation.

Privatization and the restructuring of telecommunications firms provide an example of the types of challenges being faced. High levels of retrenchment in well-established, traditional service providers have been observed and the increasing recourse to outsourcing has also reduced the level of direct employment. British Telecom cut 70,000 jobs between 1990 and 1992; AT&T announced the elimination of 40,000 staff positions; Japan's NTT is planning to cut nearly 50,000 jobs through early retirement and voluntary redundancy; and Deutsche Telekom may face the loss of 60,000 posts. Although overall employment in telecom-related work is expected to expand owing to the demand for new types of communications services, much of the new employment will concern contingent workers and arise in non-unionized firms or in non-telecom workplaces.⁽¹⁶⁾ How can the interests of these workers best be represented?

A multimedia industry structure is emerging based on major conglomerates and myriad small enterprises. It is often the small firms which create the "content" sold upstream through intermediaries to the major players. Because of the small size of these companies and the varied skill composition of their workforces, terms and conditions of employment are often negotiated on an individual basis. Traditional bread-and-butter issues appear to be of less importance to these white-collar workers than their opportunities for job enrichment and professional development. Unionization rates are low and the institutional mechanisms for social dialogue are often lacking. Again, how can the interests of these workers best be represented?

Those who work in these converging industries have much to learn from each other and to convey to other occupational groups entering the information economy. In industries such as telecommunications, for example, where the workforce has been employed for the most part on a full-time, quasi-permanent basis, tremendous uncertainty has been engendered as contingent work patterns have emerged. Yet the protection of contingent workers has long been the principal activity of actors' unions, for example, and this is an occupation where unionization rates often remain exceptionally high.

Until recently the complex labour relations structures of the entertainment and mass media industries have made it difficult for workers' organizations to communicate across industries, occupational groups and jurisdictional lines. Because their past experience has been so varied, some have operated in relative isolation from each other, although evidence suggests that the convergence process has encouraged wider-based cross-sectoral dialogue. Workers in telecommunications and cable companies, for example, have recognized a commonality of interests.

Workers in the converging multimedia industry should enjoy the same rights, in terms of freedom of association and collective bargaining, as other workers, in line with ILO principles as contained in the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87), and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98), and in the related jurisprudence of the ILO supervisory bodies. Moving from the principle to the practice is the task which lies ahead.

National systems of social and labour protection may also need to be adapted to meet the needs of tomorrow's workforce. It is important to develop the legal and contractual framework (labour law, collective agreements, industrial relations) which will allow firms and individuals sufficient flexibility, while providing adequate security to workers. Two fast-growing employment groups may need special consideration: part-time workers and teleworkers. Two recently adopted ILO Conventions and Recommendations should prove to be of particular interest to these two groups.

The Part-Time Work Convention, 1994 (No. 175), and its accompanying Recommendation (No. 182), encourage improvements with regard to remuneration, statutory social security systems and other forms of social protection for part-time employees. Governments may wish to re-examine their national legislation with a view both to facilitating access to productive and freely chosen part-time work and to ensuring that part-time workers are not unintentionally penalized.

The Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177), and its accompanying Recommendation (No. 184), have as their objective to encourage the promotion of equality of treatment between homeworkers and other workers, particularly with regard to freedom of association, protection against discrimination, occupational safety and health, remuneration, statutory social security, access to training, minimum age and maternity protection. Those who work on-line from home or in other premises of their choosing may be covered by their provisions, unless such staff are legally considered to be independent workers under national laws, regulations or court decisions.

Opening the dialogue: The role of the ILO

Previous ILO work in the media, culture and graphical sphere as well as in the telecommunications sector has made evident within specific industries a number of the employment impacts of information technology cited above.⁽¹⁷⁾ None, however, has looked across the spectrum of industries to examine the impact of multimedia convergence as a whole.

In January 1997, the ILO held a three-day Symposium on Multimedia Convergence in order to discuss the social and labour issues arising from this process. The ILO selected for examination in this Symposium a handful of industries within the media, culture and graphical sphere, along with the telecommunications industry, which supplies support and transmission capabilities. These industries span a wide variety of occupations, employment structures and labour relations. No uniform pattern can therefore be expected to take form as they are confronted with converging products, processes and services. As a whole, however, these industries do offer a cross-section of the social and labour issues raised by the advent of the information economy. Underlying the industry-centred debates were three main concerns: (1) the information society: what it means for governments, employers and workers; (2) the convergence process: its impact on employment and work; and (3) labour relations in the information age. The Symposium was thus intended to stimulate reflection on the policies and approaches most apt to prepare our societies and especially our workforces for the turbulent transition towards an information economy.

The Symposium on Multimedia Convergence offered an opportunity for governments, employers and workers to engage in open-ended, exploratory discussions of the social and labour issues arising from multimedia convergence. Participants were invited to prepare presentations on the labour issues raised by the convergence process in their specific industries and countries, highlighting the impact of current trends on employment and conditions of work. These were organized as a series of panel discussions and individual presentations, each of which was followed by a period of general discussion. These presentations and the subsequent discussion have been summarized in this report. Texts have been grouped thematically in chapters which recall the format of the Symposium itself. Each chapter begins with one or more individual speeches followed by comments from other participants and then the responses of the speakers. The final chapter summarizes a discussion on the possible future activities of the ILO in the media, cultural and graphical sphere. In accordance with the decision of the Governing Body at its 265th Session (March 1996), no conclusions or resolutions were adopted. The purpose of the meeting was to have an exchange of views on the social and labour issues related to multimedia convergence; in this, the meeting was fruitful and of benefit for all three sides. It furthermore provided the Office with many suggestions and proposals on activities to be carried out in the future on behalf of the media, culture and graphical sector, particularly in the fields of employment, training and labour relations, as well as regional activities and seminars.

The insights gained in these tripartite discussions will certainly stimulate further reflection by governments and the social partners on how best to prepare the workforce to live and work in the information economy. Although technology has spurred the convergence process, it is the social actors who will guide its course.

Participation

The Symposium was chaired by Mr. Marc Blondel, Worker member of the Governing Body. The Employers' Vice-Chairman was Mr. Walter Durling, Employer member of the Governing Body. The Workers' Vice-Chairman was Mr. Chris Warren, Joint Federal Secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance of Australia, Mr. Werner Ringkamp of the Government of Germany served as coordinator of the Government group.

Total attendance at the Symposium was 66, of whom 41 were titular members.

Governments: 11 members from: Canada, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, United Kingdom, United States. Turkey attended as an observer.
Employers: 15 members.
Workers: 15 members.
Advisers: 12.
Observers: 12.
Governing Body: one.

A total of 11 women attended: four Government delegates and one adviser; two Employers' delegates; one Workers' delegate and one adviser; and two observer advisers.

Part 1

The information society:
The challenges ahead

Challenges of the information society
Kari Tapiola, Deputy Director-General of the ILO

It is my great and sincere pleasure to welcome you to this Symposium on Multimedia Convergence and to extend to you the greetings of Mr. Michel Hansenne, Director-General of the International Labour Office. In accordance with decisions taken by the Governing Body of the ILO we have invited you to this Symposium to explore some of the labour and social issues arising out of the development of the information society. This Symposium takes place within the framework of the ILO Sectoral Activities Programme.

The term "information society" has entered common usage in recent years. We talk about wired societies, many of us work in network environments and we communicate electronically with our colleagues and partners inside and outside workplaces; in fact these same workplaces can now extend to all parts of the world. The whole notion of a workplace is changing from one rather finite entity to a potentially very extensive network. A generation ago cellular telephones, email and hand-held computers belonged, if not to the realm of science fiction, at least to something very sophisticated and very distant. Today they are everyday tools for those who work in the information economy.

The industrial and organizational structures which have been familiar to us are giving way to new configurations. Small local newspapers struggle to survive while media and communications empires traverse the globe. Major telecommunication firms, among the rock solid employers of the past, are expanding their core businesses while they are downsizing their own workforces. And, at the same time, thousands of medium-sized, small or even micro enterprises generate much of the content and much of the new employment in this information industry. Virtual enterprises composed of employers and workers linked to one another only by computer communications are expanding with very little regard to national borders.

The information technology revolution is a key element of globalization. It forces more and more countries to open up to international competition and to enter the so-called information age. It is a key component of a one world economy. But what are the real implications for governments, employers and workers and their organizations when information becomes the worlds' principal economic resource and when the economy restructures itself accordingly? How can we prepare ourselves for the changes ahead and how will we redefine ourselves as economic and social actors? The evidence suggests that nations, enterprises and individual workers who are able to acquire, transform and use information productively and imaginatively will benefit from the technological advances now set in motion. The OECD has estimated that more than half of the total GDP in the rich economies is produced in knowledge-based industries, such as telecommunications, computers, software and entertainment. Wealth, power and strategic advantage are liable to accrue to those nations and companies which are able to master the forces of technological change and draw maximum benefit from a rapidly globalizing economy.

By some estimates, knowledge workers account for eight out of ten of all new jobs in the advanced economies. Almost undoubtedly, many of these workers will find deep satisfaction when their new job calls forth their creative potential. But what about the others? What about the economies which are left behind? And what about those members of society and of the workforce who are slow to respond to the new demands -- the ones whose skills are rendered obsolete by technological advance, those who do not have the education and training to reap the benefits that the information economy will bring? Even if up to 80 per cent of new jobs are knowledge-related, this does not yet automatically mean that all of them are challenging, well-remunerated and satisfying.

One of our tasks in the ILO is to map out the roles and responsibilities of governments and of employers' and workers' organizations in regard to this change. This calls for a comprehensive review of the kind of society we are facing. Pundits tell us that we are heading for an information society that may be polarized between information haves and have-nots. Signs of polarization are already evident, both between nations and within them. Sweden has 68 telephone lines per 100 inhabitants. The least developed countries have fewer than one line per 100. How can this gulf be narrowed? Personal computers and fax machines have become ubiquitous in the business world but tend to be present only in better-off households. How can universal access to the tools of the information economy be assured? Will we be forced to accept two-tier societies in which good employment, incomes and wealth coincide with access to information and communication, but where those without access are left, at best, in a secondary role and, at worst, dropping out at the margins?

The focus of this Symposium is the impact of the digitalization and industrial convergence on employment and work in the media and entertainment industries. The convergence process has brought together producers of content, providers of communication and distributors. It has created a vast information industry: printing and publishing, new media, sound recording, film-making, broadcasting and telecommunications are all represented in this room. The media and entertainment industries are living and working on the cutting edge of change. Many of you have certainly experienced in your professional lives not only satisfaction but also the turbulence and instability that is expected to be one of the hallmarks of the information economy of tomorrow. You have witnessed the destructuring of the traditional workplace and the restructuring of working time. You have seen the electronic displacement of work and the growth of a competitive global labour market. You may have felt the stimulation of working in a knowledge-intensive environment together with the stress of information overload. You might also have seen how much of the burden of adjustment falls on those with the fewest skills and the lowest wages. In short, I dare to assume that you have seen both the economic benefits and the social costs of change in a very prominent, exposed and international sector of activity.

The technological revolution which has made multimedia convergence possible has ramifications which go well beyond the industries represented here today. It is already transforming the way financial systems operate, the way production and distribution systems structure themselves and the way employers, workers and their organizations and the self-employed relate to each other. Your professional experiences may serve as harbingers of the changes which will affect vast segments of society in the years ahead.

This Symposium holds special significance for the ILO because the questions you are asked to address in the coming days are fundamental social questions of our time. They focus on employment, training and labour relations, that is, how we work, how we learn and how we relate to each other as social actors. It is important to analyse how the nature of work is being transformed by the technological advances and the global economic forces at play. Will employment in the future necessarily become more precarious? How will education and training needs be met as skills requirements continue to climb with every technological breakthrough? Will virtual enterprises become the norm? What will be the future of labour relations when close partners are physically located at great distances from each other, communicating and sharing their work in real time in an electronically mediated environment? What kind of universal labour standards are appropriate as work profiles become even more highly individualized? It is symptomatic that my opening remarks include an unusually large variety of questions. We are trying to grasp a phenomenon which is in swift motion -- and to capture it we have to use a very fast film.

The ILO has consistently promoted respect for basic human rights at work such as freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of forced labour, of child labour and of discrimination and the promotion of equality of opportunity and treatment between women and men. The changes now under way do not call into question these principles. They do challenge us to find appropriate mechanisms to reinforce them and to extend social dialogue.

Through dialogue between the social partners and government we can ensure that the information society will be an open, democratic one in which all can participate, respecting the need for social justice. New policies may have to be developed to balance better the concurrent need for employment security and for labour market flexibility. Traditional occupational, sectoral or even national borders may no longer be the only -- let alone the most appropriate -- ones in which the social partners can find solutions. Social dialogue may need to be extended to areas which go far beyond the bread-and-butter issues of the past to include aspects of globalization, enterprise innovation, competitiveness, job creation, adaptability, or the ongoing acquisition of portable skills.

This forum is an open one. Unlike many meetings in this house, the Symposium does not foresee any negotiated outcome in the form of joint resolutions, conclusions or recommendations. You are invited to engage in a great conversation in which your hopes, your concerns, your critical analysis and your own conclusions and suggestions will find expression. What we are seeking is the widest possible exchange of views among our tripartite constituents as well as your guidance regarding the challenges to be addressed by the ILO and its member States in order to ensure that we approach our goals of greater social justice as we enter the twenty-first century.

Part 2

The meaning of the information
society for governments,
employers and workers

Towards a new partnership for government,
employers and workers
Barbara Motzney⁽¹⁸⁾

The issues paper prepared for this Symposium provides an important point of departure for my remarks today. It suggests that the evolution of leisure and information products industries -- what I will call the "content sector" -- is an indicator of the emerging post-industrial information based economy. It may be a harbinger of the future, showing us what it means to live and work, produce and consume in the global information society, the GIS.

This is a relatively new idea. For years, national and international discussion and research have focused on the value, nature and policy frameworks for the infrastructure. It is only in the past couple of years that the truly transformative power -- not only economic, but social and cultural -- of the deployment of information and communications technologies has been generally acknowledged. The research and policy agenda is beginning now to consider the content. Why is this critical? We believe that there are two reasons.

First, because the industries which make up the content sector are, by their very nature, knowledge-intensive and based upon the information and communications technologies, the ICTs. An examination of these industries will provide important indications of how the GIS will affect the world economy as a whole.

The second reason arises from our vision of the GIS. In Brussels in 1995, the G7 ministers articulated eight principles for the GIS, which were subsequently supported in spirit by APEC and by over 40 countries at the Information Society and Development Conference in South Africa in May 1996. One consistent principle affirms the need for cultural and linguistic diversity of content. With this principle, countries have acknowledged that in order to fully participate as producers and consumers in the information society, people need to see themselves reflected in the products and services that flow over the infrastructure. The growth of vibrant, creative and competitive indigenous content industries will contribute strongly to the information economy. Creative talent -- that of a painter, a computer programmer, an actor -- will be integral to the development of 3D imaging and digital cataloguing of cultural artifacts, or in the construction of attractive, user-friendly, on-demand banking services over the Internet. These new products must be produced, created and developed. Like all goods and services, they must be distributed, marketed, retailed and purchased. However, all this will take place in a new value-added network linking players from many different traditional sectors as they come together to deliver new products and services.

What is the status of the content sector in Canada? Canada is a small, geographically dispersed market in very close proximity to the world's strongest international player, whose entertainment industry is the dominant player in all of our cultural sectors. Canadian cultural policies are founded on the principle of ensuring Canadian spaces for Canadian choices and Canadian voices. The arts and culture sector, as traditionally defined, and new content industries like multimedia will be a catalyst for cultural and linguistic diversity of content. It will also be an important economic and employment engine for Canada. According to 1993-94 estimates, the direct impact of the arts and cultural sector in Canada reached $29.5 billion, with direct employment totalling 900,000 jobs. When expanding this definition to measure Canadian content in the information society by including culture and information services as well as relevant aspects of telecommunications and the computer services sectors, the value increases to more than $50 billion, or 9 per cent of the total economy, and employment totals some 1.25 million jobs.

Looking at its key components in 1993-94, Canadian broadcasting created almost 55,000 jobs and contributed $3.5 billion to the Canadian GDP. Canadian broadcast and cable industries provide broadcasting services to households. Ten years ago this meant that broadcasters created, produced or acquired television and radio programming that was scheduled and provided to households over the air or through cable. Today, this sector includes programmes and services, conventional, pay, pay-per-view and speciality programming distributed over the air, by cable, through direct home satellite or other communications technologies. Over the next five years, as the GIS emerges, broadcasting and cable technologies will define a range of audio, video, digital programmes, services and transactional undertakings from around the world that can be accessed by households through a selected technological link.

The broadcast and cable television industries have a critical strategic advantage for the information society, a technological link into the household. Technology which used to provide one-way programming is poised to become the household link to a range of products and services. The impact of this potential has begun to be felt in Canada. Over the period 1990-93 the number of cable subscribers grew by 9 per cent and revenues from discretionary cable services, primarily new speciality channels, more than doubled. In 1996, for the first time in almost a decade, total hours of television viewing increased in Canada.

This strategic advantage will not last long. New distribution technologies, such as direct-to-home satellite, the telephone industry, wireless providers and off-air broadcasting, are all positioning themselves to access households from within and across borders. The broadcasting and cable industries must be organized to meet this challenge. For the Canadian broadcasting and cable industries to effectively compete in the GIS, this means exploiting the potential of new technologies, responding to a revenue base changing from advertising to subscription revenues, and diversifying into new markets, both geographic and those created by new technologies and new market segments.

This complex and dynamic environment is reflected in the increasingly professional and highly skilled broadcasting workforce. In 1996, preliminary work was undertaken to examine employment in the ICT industries. While not definitive, results indicated that in the period 1986 to 1991, the number of people working in the broadcasting field grew by 14.5 per cent. The composition of that workforce changed significantly over the same period. Employed workers without training beyond high school dropped from 44 to 38.5 per cent of the workforce. Over the same period, employment of those with college certificates grew by some 26 per cent and those with university qualifications by almost 25 per cent. This growth in employment of those with more than secondary school training was felt in both the management and clerical fields. Similar trends are evident in the emerging multimedia sector where creative and cultural content are being brought to bear in non-traditional areas and new product extensions.

In Canada this young industrial sector is growing at a rate which outpaces the general economy. In the five years ending 1993-94 the traditional cultural industries most closely involved with CD-ROM production, book publishers and exclusive agents, showed revenue growth of 16 per cent and film producers reported a 71 per cent increase in revenues during the same period.

Preliminary research has revealed that Canadian multimedia companies are relatively young, privately held and marginally profitable. They tend to be short-lived project-based consortia, multidisciplinary and involved in a range of activities. They are focused on the business, educational and government markets. Key factors in their success include innovation, domestic and international market research, the relevancy of the product, the demand for Canadian products, access to production financing and human resources. It is interesting to note that the multidimensional project orientation of these companies, which brings together creative, technical and administrative talents, is similar to that of traditional Canadian cultural industries. This new segment of the content sector is not that different from its predecessors. Here again the main policy challenges will be to ensure that Canadian producers have access to the new distribution systems, both domestically and internationally, and that Canadian voices have a significant presence in the information society.

So what does convergence and the GIS mean for the Canadian worker in the content sector? The content industries are looking for skilled, educated and flexible workers who will contribute effectively to the projects at hand. Knowledge is the key resource, especially strategic knowledge of ICTs and their implications. Independence and flexibility are the key approach. The current content workers appear to fit these requirements according to an analysis of the 1993 Canadian Cultural Labour Force Survey undertaken last year. It found that 22 per cent more cultural workers had post-secondary education and 24 per cent more had degrees than the average worker in the Canadian labour force. It also showed that 30 per cent of cultural workers worked exclusively as self-employed and another 25 per cent did some work on that basis. However, although 65 per cent of the cultural workers surveyed reported that technological change had affected their work in the cultural sector, 30 per cent had not received training in response to the change. Two-thirds of respondents did not report a need for training at all and the most effective training fora cited were on-the-job professional development and university. Primary reasons for not taking training were cost and time. In many cases, the occupational groups most likely to have expressed a desire for training without having received it were the same groups who were most often self-employed. These findings, although preliminary, highlight a critical issue for employment in the information society. There is a clear requirement for a strong academic foundation and a broad range of technical and inter-personal skills which are continually honed and updated. How can this be achieved by the self-employed worker with no training budget or time allowance and when on-the-job training is not an option?

One of the key challenges for policy-makers, workers and employers in the emerging GIS will be access. There are three basic aspects of access necessary to develop and maintain a skilled workforce: first, physical and technical access to products and services. Do people have direct daily contact with the tools of information technology and the network services available?; second, affordable access to information networks and indigenous content; and third, education, skills and aptitudes appropriate for citizen access. Do people have the know-how to work constructively with the bit-stream? Are they digitally literate? Without access, one cannot participate in the global information society as an employee of the economic engine, as a citizen in this source of social cohesion and community, and as a consumer of new products and services.

So what should be the role of government? In the 1990s, financial imperatives and a citizenry seeking greater transparency and accountability in the action of government led to a critical and continual rethinking of the core responsibilities of national-level governments. Officials and politicians are now asking: Should the government be involved? If so, how? Can anyone else -- another level of government, the private sector, civil society -- do this more efficiently and effectively? Will this enhance the ability of our citizens to meet the challenges and changing patterns of employment required in a globally integrated economy?

The role of government is to serve its people. Governments must balance the social and economic needs of its people as citizens -- for cultural heritage preservation, to ensure a national presence in the information society and for job creation -- with the needs of its people as shareholders, employers and workers requiring an environment of fair and sustainable competition. Policy deliberations and debate centre around finding the balance between these seemingly conflicting bottom lines: citizen values and consumer or market-place values. The G7 principles are our vision. Government must act through leadership and by creating a facilitating national environment in which these principles will be realized. Efforts must also be made to ensure that national environments harmonize on a multilateral level for the full vision to become reality.

What does the GIS mean for governments, employers and workers? It means a new partnership. Nowhere is the global information society fully operational and integrated. The movement towards a global information society, in which the full potential social, cultural and economic benefits accrue to all who seek them, involves significant structural and organizational adjustment as well as a rethinking and recasting of the roles of all actors in society. The traditional value chain describing production in the industrial society, in which each linear step adds value, is being replaced in the information society by a complex, open and constantly changing value-added network.

This value-added network will depend on effective individuals who are able to participate actively as citizens, consumers and employees using and producing with new technologies; high performance teams, which bring the right people together from many disciplines, acting flexibly and innovatively to serve the needs of clients or accomplish a task; and innovative organizations able flexibly to recreate themselves through extended enterprise linkages. Realizing these objectives for the employment environment will depend upon a framework which includes access to information and technology, recognition and support for the non-traditional employment related to the information society, and collaboration between business, workers, unions and government to explore opportunities for training and continual learning. This framework also requires an enabling policy and regulatory environment, both domestic and international, to create a balance between consumer and citizen values while protecting basic rights. Creation of these value-added networks which successfully meet the challenges of the global information society, can only be achieved through unprecedented levels of cooperation and partnership.

In conclusion, I would pose a number of questions which might lead us to a better understanding of the impact of convergence on the content sector. The arts and culture sector, regarded as one of the principal content providers, has not traditionally been seen as an integral part of or link to other business sectors of the economy. This linkage must be better understood. How are the ICTs relating to employment and the workplace? Are new content jobs different from those in the traditional cultural sector? Who is creating these jobs and how? What are their characteristic forms? How do they grow? What government policies could support this new growth?

As policy-makers, we need to identify emerging employment trends in order to invest in the right education and training opportunities. Do we have the right information? Are we asking the right questions, collecting the right data? Are we using industrial society models to describe the information society? Does this provide the accurate picture we need to make the right policy or business decisions? How can individuals, business, labour, communities and institutions work together to promote a culture that values skills and lifelong learning?

The GIS is all about linkages, the linking of networks, content and people through a variety of technologies and in a variety of new ways. These linkages among industrial sectors, governments, companies, institutions and individuals are the foundation of the way forward.

The German approach to the
information society
Jürgen Warnken⁽¹⁹⁾

Multimedia convergence is an extremely important topic for the future. When the German Institute for Labour and Employment Research looked at employment in information-related sectors, it found that roughly half the workforce was already employed in this sector. According to their prognosis, the figure will be over 55 per cent by the year 2010. The United States has very similar figures. Early last year, the German Government undertook an extensive analysis in order to draw up a report on the German path to the information society. We wanted to describe it, to examine its features and to identify the aspects needed to ensure competitiveness in this field for our country. Based on this work, we elaborated an action programme which touches several areas of the economy, such as the hardware and software industries, network service providers and those who provide content. Taken together, all these business activities might be called the "information sector". It is probably impossible to distinguish strictly these areas: there are already enterprises which provide both networks and content, and there are strategic alliances between enterprises in various sectors which can therefore no longer be considered separately.

There are two basic tasks which we have set for ourselves: first, the creation of an adequate legal framework; and second, the development of a policy which supports the integration of scientific discoveries and technical innovations into business practice and raises the level of acceptance among employers and workers who are affected by them. The objective of this policy might be summarized as "enhancing the speed of diffusion".

Let us first look at the legislative field. In Germany we are currently discussing a new Information and Communications Services Bill, which would cover all kinds of new information providers, such as on-line services. Employment legislation is not contained in this new Bill, because the Federal Ministry of Labour currently considers present labour legislation to be sufficient and appropriate to deal with employment issues in the media sector. Therefore, there is no need at present for legislative action in this area. Although the definition of "enterprise" might have to be amended in some cases -- in order to include homeworkers or teleworkers, for example -- these and other adjustments can probably be carried out by the social partners in the process of collective bargaining or at the enterprise level. There is already an indication of the first collective agreement between German Telecom and the German PTT, which covers these new forms of enterprise.

Let me now come to the second major task. A wide dissemination of policy information, a high rate of diffusion of technical knowledge into innovation, and increased acceptance amongst the population at large and, of course, among workers in general as well as for those who are employed in the information sector, are crucial for a country's success in a global economy. The German Government is active in several areas and I would like to highlight a few of them. We are trying to intensify the dialogue with all groups -- the scientific community as well as trade unions. Furthermore, we have created a forum called "INFO 2000", in order to bring information society questions down to the enterprise level. One hundred and fifty institutions took part in the opening congress of INFO 2000 and various working groups are currently dealing with specific topics, such as "Work in the information society", or "Questions of re-skilling, of acquiring new knowledge and adapting to the new circumstances".

In addition, government-based agencies also have a very important function as catalysts or initiators -- by starting pilot projects, for example on telework, or by adopting new information and communication technologies for improving public administration or public health services (telemedicine). Clearly, in the field of new telecommunication technologies, it is particularly important that we do not limit ourselves to the national framework. An inherent part of the action programme we have designed includes cooperation with European and international organizations. The European Commission has already begun to examine the effects of these new technologies in the field of employment, for example. In its first consideration on future research activities it has stated the need to intensify efforts in this field of R&D. Furthermore, one has to appreciate that the European Commission in its Green Paper "Living and working in the information society", clearly placed the person, the human being, at the very forefront of all considerations. Finally, I welcome the fact that the ILO, by organizing this Symposium, has become involved with these questions. Bearing in mind these basic developments on national and global markets, we have to ask what the outcome will be for employment, the organization of labour and social security.

I now want to mention two specific issues related to the information society: education and training, and telework.

Regarding qualifications, more and more jobs in the future will demand an ability to solve complex and abstract problems. Current measures regarding professional or vocational training and further training may no longer be adequate. Initiatives have to start in school. The competence of pupils and young students will have to be greatly enhanced. To this end an initiative has been taken by the federal Government and various other sponsors to encourage schoolchildren to find out about electronic communication media, such as the Internet. The market for electronic educational products is expanding and providing a wide range of opportunities for schoolchildren and students. Familiarity with information technology has become an important precondition for success. It has to be acquired at an early age in order to provide the basis for the lifelong learning process.

Telework, from our point of view, is definitely a form of work for the future -- both in Germany as well as in most other European Union countries. There are very few people who work in this particular way today, although the number is greater than one might think. In Germany current estimates put the number of teleworkers at between 10,000 and 150,000. This wide span is basically due to different definitions and indicates that there is still some uncertainty as to who can be considered a teleworker.

We have taken an initiative to identify obstacles to telework and to increase its acceptance in the future; we have also drawn up an overview of the current situation.

An information and motivation campaign is being launched. It will include a consultation package which will cover such questions as the organizational and economic aspects of telework as well as some legal background. We have asked for expert opinion in this area, since telework can be viewed from different legal perspectives depending on whether it is done by homeworkers or carried out by independent, self-employed workers. Telework should, in our view, be carried out -- as far as possible -- in a well-defined and legally determined framework, preferably in the form of an ordinary employment contract. This would help to increase its acceptance amongst the population. We would also envisage a type of alternating telework, in which some working hours would be spent doing telework and others spent doing the job in the normal manner in order to give workers the opportunity to maintain contacts with their colleagues. The resulting consultation package will be discussed with the social partners and give rise to recommendations. This should help to remove some of the obstacles and objections to telework, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises, so that we can actually mobilize people's interests in this particular type of work and enhance its employment potential. In order to achieve this goal, there is a need to have the necessary protection for teleworkers, but this has to be coupled with the flexibility which is required for enterprises. It would be very helpful to have an international-level consensus on these topics. The motivation campaign with the consultation package is the very core of our action; but there are also other elements, for example, an attempt to make the tariffs for telecommunications in this field as attractive as possible. Furthermore, the federal Government is discussing with regional authorities whether promotion of telework in rural areas can be a successful instrument to improve the economic base of such regions.

Finally, I would like to add that several federal ministries are trying to set an example by launching pilot projects for teleworkers within their administration. To sum up, I do not think it is sufficient for governments to simply limit themselves to legislative activities. They have to be actively involved. Promotional activities such as pilot projects, which provide fora for dialogue as well as educational measures at a very early stage, have to be supported and promoted by the government. It is also important for this dialogue to take place in conjunction with employers and workers so that the result can be acceptable for all the social partners. Furthermore, cooperation at the international level is essential. We must also ensure that despite the changes ahead, new forms of employment will be organized on the basis of accepted social standards.

Issues affecting the workforce in the
transition towards an information society
Chris Warren⁽²⁰⁾

Anyone who follows the discussions on new technologies in the popular media is immediately struck by the high degree of enthusiasm for new technology. This heightened sense of techno-enthusiasm among technology's partisans has in many areas substituted hype for genuine debate. Of course, there is genuine substance behind the enthusiasm. Indeed, for those of us who work in the media and entertainment industries, the packet of changes that fall under the heading of media convergence mark the most fundamental changes in how we work and how we see ourselves since the development of popular entertainment and mass media over 100 years ago.

But the changes are not just matters of technology; they are not just matters of bits and bytes. I want to illustrate this point by highlighting a few coincidences from my own country, Australia. This month, my union is signing a new collective agreement with Rupert Murdoch's Newsgroup, which covers, among other things, electronic uses of the works produced by the journalists, artists and photographers employed by the group's daily newspapers in Australia. Also this month we are negotiating an agreement for performers and technicians working at the Newsgroup's new Fox Film Studios being built in Sydney, which will be one of the largest film-makers in the world, probably the largest outside Hollywood and India. This month we have also served a claim on News Limited on behalf of the professional footballers employed by the group's breakaway competition set up to attract subscribers to the Fox pay television channel in Australia.

I highlight these three things not to brag about the activities of my union, but to highlight two points: first, convergence is now the rule not the exception in the information industries; and second that convergence is driven more by financial and economic imperatives than by technological ones. As academic writers on technology are fond of pointing out, new technologies are not found by accident, they are found because people are looking for them. In the media and entertainment industries, these technologies are being found and developed because there is money to be made out of them and power that can be wielded through them. In other words, the changes that affect us as workers in the information industries are as much, if not more, social and economic as they are technological.

How do these changes affect us in our day-to-day work? First, the sort of people we work for are changing dramatically. We are more and more likely to be working for fewer and fewer employers. The information industry is, more than most, dominated by large global corporations. At this stage there is no clear trend as to the type of companies these may be. Some are large content companies like News Limited; some are toying with content-carrier mergers, such as the agreement between MCI and the Newsgroup; some are software-hardware mixes, like Sony; and some are just old-fashioned conglomerates like Westinghouse. Clearly the tensions within these transnational corporations are common to other industries, but they undermine the industrial and creative control that workers had in traditional media and entertainment companies. It also heightens the struggle for the use of the material we create.

Having paid us a wage, large companies seek to extract multiple uses out of our work for no additional payment and often with no say on the part of the original creator as to how their material is used or misused. For workers in the information industry, control and regulation of intellectual property are one of the central domains of struggle. It need not be of course, because the struggle is first over money -- fair pay for the work we create -- and second, for the moral integrity of our work. Most employers would at least pay lip-service to these principles -- but, in practice, few employers anywhere in the world have been prepared to negotiate seriously with their employees on these issues. Yet nothing goes so much to the heart of the employer-employee relationship for creative workers as the use of the work we actually create.

The second issue, which is related to the first, is that our employers are now more likely to be operating in the private sector than the public. In all countries there is a declining commitment to the concept of the media as a public service, which can be seen most evidently in the decline in governmental support for public broadcasting.

The third issue concerns the growth of the contingent workforce in the information industry. Whether they are known as casuals, freelancers, fixed-term contractors or teleworkers, we are seeing an increasing use of contractual arrangements that fall outside the traditional concept of direct, continuing and relatively secure employment. This reduces the security of all workers and provides greater opportunities for employers to seek greater control over the information itself. We can see this most crudely now in the attempt of the major North American publishers to use the enormous disparity in negotiating power to impose contracts on their freelance writers which give all rights over their work for all uses to the publishers. This is the reality of exploitation that underpins those user-friendly buzz words of an independent and flexible workforce.

This is also affecting the distribution of work on a global scale, as large corporations are able to use technological change to distribute work from organized, high-wage countries to unorganized low-wage countries, whether it be information data-processing in the Philippines or the development of cartoon frames in the Republic of Korea. Related to this is the changing composition of the workforce within the information industries. There has been and continues to be a substantial decline in traditional jobs in what can be described as information delivery systems, telecommunications maintenance and newspaper publishing, to use the most obvious examples, and there has been a contemporaneous increase in employment in content creation and generation. Parallel to this internal shift has been a change in the gender composition of the workforce. Women are an increasing component of the workforce and in many sectors are the majority. This changes the nature of industrial demands and both organized labour and employers have to respond to meet those needs. Indeed, there is a responsibility on all the industrial partners -- unions, employers and governments -- to ensure that the pattern of discrimination and, indeed, in many cases, outright exclusion of women from traditional information sectors, is not replicated in the new information industries.

The centralization of ownership within the information sector of the economy also seriously threatens the cultural diversity of the world. For workers in the media and entertainment industry, this in turn provides a major threat to our ability to carry out our work. The battles around the world for local and national media entertainment structures are important because of the jobs they create in their own countries. However, they are important in their own right as well as a way of protecting and extending the genuine cultural diversity of our planet.

Finally, it also needs to be noted that, while technology has largely been used to strengthen centralized control over the information industry, it also contains its own alternative. It does provide niches for new sources of information and new ways of delivering this information. It should provide the means by which integrity and quality are strengthened, not undermined. We as workers in the industry may sometimes find ourselves in conflict with individual employers regarding changes to our work. To a certain extent, that is inevitable. However, I believe that the information industry and the communities we serve both benefit greatly from a trained, skilled workforce with a genuine stake in what we do and what we create.

General discussion on the meaning of
the information society for governments,
employers and workers

Tony Lennon of the Workers' group opened the ensuing debate by pointing out that the role of governments was not only important in terms of facilitating the development of well-regulated information technology but also in terms of content -- particularly since States were significant producers of content. In many countries it was the State which either owned content providers, such as film and broadcasting companies, or subsidized them, such as the arts industries. Although there might be a decline in these tendencies, the State as a content producer still played a considerable role in multimedia.

Michel Muller of the Workers' group stressed the importance of levelling out the increasing inequalities of the information society we were facing. For governments, this task included both providing access to the new technology for all and improving knowledge via training. Governments should not lessen their involvement, but rather participate and help reduce inequalities. For business people and entrepreneurs, the imperative of reducing inequalities meant meeting their social responsibilities, which could be achieved either through collective bargaining agreements or through international rules.

Walter Durling, Employer Vice-Chairman, observed a certain amount of pessimism about new technological developments among the Workers' group. In his view, current developments had not created greater inequality but just the opposite, namely greater access to information and, consequently, liberation. He welcomed the absence of regulation as a boost for human creativity which could not flourish or blossom in an atmosphere which was over-regulated. Humanity should be given the opportunity to travel along the newly created information superhighway without any road signs. Everybody ought to have access to this highway.

Tony Lennon stressed that there was neither fear nor a negative assessment of the new technological developments on the part of workers, as the Employer Vice-Chairman had implied. Yet these developments had brought a whole range of social issues in their wake, such as an increase in unstable forms of employment and a shift in social policies of governments due to the growth of transnational ownership. All these issues had to be addressed. To simply leave the market alone in its aim to maximize profit was certainly insufficient if smooth development was the paramount objective.

Pier Verderio of the Workers' group stated that we were witnessing a transition period with an unknown outcome. The final results depended not only on technological developments, but on various other aspects as well, such as privatization, market liberalization and globalization. All these were interrelated. No one could know with certainty the number and nature of jobs which would be created by the convergence process. None the less, negotiations, dialogue and, above all, regulation were indispensable during this ongoing transition. There was clearly a need for rules. Even the call for flexibility had to be tackled within a regulated framework. Multimedia convergence could provoke a crisis in taxation. It was tremendously complicated to tax the added value of immaterial products in the content sector. There was the very fundamental problem of how to finance the social security system in the future.

Frank Werneke of the Workers' group observed that it was not the information sector in general which faced deregulation -- new legislation in Germany and the EU proved rather the opposite -- but merely the social aspects which lacked regulation. For the Workers it was unacceptable simply to exclude the labour factor from new legislation. Governments should be urged to tackle these issues immediately. Many problems had already emerged, such as the disappearance of conventional, permanent jobs. On both the employers' and workers' side, many members were no longer linked to organizations. This made collective agreements difficult or even impossible. Governments ought to provide a legal framework in order to lend structure to the information and communication society as it developed.

The Workers' group urged that in a field as heavily populated by freelancers as the media and graphical sectors, so-called independent workers ought to be treated exactly the same as permanent workers, as far as that was possible. They should not be viewed as employers in their own right.

Kevin Tinsley, the representative of the Government of the United Kingdom, drew attention to the clash between workers' desire to see the self-employed provided with the same rights as the employed and the need of enterprises for a high degree of flexibility in order to respond quickly to changes in the market. Governments had to find the balance between these two conflicting desires. Existing inequalities between employees were not entirely negative, since one person's inequality was often another person's incentive. However, access was a crucial question. More access could only be obtained by making equipment cheaper. Strong market competition was generally the best way to achieve cheaper prices.

Tony Lennon approved of the principle of balancing job security with flexibility, but argued that a fair balance had not yet been achieved, at least not in the United Kingdom, where creative content workers had been asked for flexibility on working time, on periods of employment, on rates of pay and even in their home lives, whilst, at the same time, being forced to do without job security, social benefits or regular salaries. It was crucial to correct the existing imbalances in the rights of workers employed in the multimedia industries. If the issues of that core sector were not solved from the outset, then it might well happen that the problems could soon spread to other industries.

Dominique Schalchli, the representative of the Government of France, called for a clearer distinction between the different levels of the discussion. First, the impact of multimedia convergence on the information and media sector was at the heart of the debate. Second, the effects of the new information technology on the world of work in general might be discussed. The future of teleworking was one issue within this wider category. Finally, the importance of the convergence process for society as a whole formed the broadest scope of the debate. There was a need to distinguish clearly between those very different levels and to avoid generalizations.

Katherine Sand of the Workers' group drew attention to the difficulties of reconciling the demand for preserving local content and linguistic and cultural diversity with notions of making products cheaper. Quality entertainment did not come cheap. Local content was in the interest of nationals in all countries as well as of the workforce. She asked for further information on the experience of Canada, a neighbour of the largest entertainment provider in the world.

Philip O'Reilly of the Employers' group evaluated the growth of multimedia convergence overall as a positive thing both for employers and workers. The role of governments was to facilitate the growth of the information society in order to avoid lagging behind a global evolution which inevitably would come. Convergence was likely to be a job creator rather than destroyer, and governments had a vital role in ensuring that such job creation happened. He disagreed with the assertion that the multimedia environment entailed more capacity for abuse of journalists' work and that the trend to internationalization in the media's control had caused a threat to indigenous content. In the newspaper industry in his own country, New Zealand, indigenous content was guaranteed despite major ownership from abroad. Journalists were very positive towards the alternative use of their work in a multimedia or on-line environment.

Eszter Gérecz Kertészné, the representative of the Government of Hungary, stated that the information society and concomitant globalization offered fantastic opportunities for small countries, such as her own, to participate more fully in international science and business via networked computer systems and worldwide electronic connections. In accordance with the suggestions of a 1995 paper on its national information strategy, the Hungarian Government has tried to take part in education and training in new technology in order to enable the citizenry to actively use opportunities.

Response of the panel members

Barbara Motzney made clear that the role of government as a facilitator was not a passive role but a very active one. However inevitable in its nature, the convergence process could and ought to be influenced and directed. It was not the objectives themselves which governments had to change but the means of achieving them. Thus, a modification of the ways government had carried out its policies was under debate. In the content sector, the Canadian Government had tried to comply with the ongoing changes by launching a new convergence policy in summer 1996, which followed the move towards a more competitive environment whilst, at the same time, maintaining an appropriate contribution by all players in the Canadian content sector and broadcasting system. The idea of government as a producer and owner of content was unfamiliar in Canada, where government saw itself as a facilitator and catalyst. Instead certain support mechanisms for the arts and cultural industries had been set up to secure "Canadian voices and Canadian choices". These mechanisms had to be re-examined as to their suitability for a multimedia environment, where new industries and different players were emerging. The Canadian Government was developing a strategy for Canadian content in the information society which should be ready by the end of 1997.

Jürgen Warnken stated that opening the market for information providers was the primary task for governments. Concerning the question of new legal measures in Germany, such as the recent Information and Communications Services Bill, the area of labour law had been left out for a number of reasons. First, it was still not possible to determine exactly the extent and the type of amendments which would be required in that field. Existing legislation had proved to be sufficient in meeting current employment trends. Responses to new phenomena, such as telework, could well be provided within the existing framework of normal labour legislation; consequently, new rules were not yet required. On the specific issue of freelancers in the creative content sector, the high percentage of self-employed journalists, artists or entertainers was not a new trend but a traditional one. Many of those workers would not wish to be forced into a network of regulations. Although various cases had illustrated that some self-employed workers in this sector were simply pushed into such unstable forms of employment, these cases were not yet on a very large scale. Therefore, this issue had to be kept in mind and carefully followed for the future.

Chris Warren listed three essential tasks for governments. The first and major responsibility was to ensure access to the new technology. This required a clear proactive strategy, often including substantial public infrastructure investments. Second, governments had to encourage local content in a very active way in order to gain domestic cultural benefits from changing technologies and to avoid the total dominance of the United States. The third responsibility for governments was to refrain from the temptation to censor new technologies, such as on-line services. Even the United States, traditionally a guardian of freedom of speech, had not been immune to that temptation, let alone countries with more dictatorial predilections. The multiple use and reuse of works produced by creative employees was an important issue. While those workers welcomed new technical opportunities, they still had a right to share in the financial benefits that employers got out of multiple uses of their work. Moreover, cultural workers should have the right to decide on the multiple uses of their output. Moral rights were a matter of enormous importance in a converging environment. Finally, regarding the increasing number of self-employed workers, the argument that these workers wanted flexibility in their work and, thus, preferred being self-employed, might well be true -- but that did not imply that they wanted to give up the fundamental social and industrial rights that full-time employees had. They had asked for these rights but employers had refused them.

Part 3

The information society:
The global challenge

Information haves and have-nots:
The global challenge
Kareem Boussaid⁽²¹⁾

In 1994 at the World Telecommunications Conference, the American Vice-President, Mr. Al Gore, stimulated the imagination of the participants and the public in general by sharing with the delegations his view of what he calls the global information infrastructure. He highlighted a problem that the ITU Conference and all bodies, be they intergovernmental or non-governmental, need to consider and try to solve, that is, the gap which could be created within the information society between what we might call the information "haves" and "have-nots". Action needs to be undertaken to try to reduce the gap separating the developing and developed countries in terms of telecommunications.

There can be no information society without a telecommunications network because all of the applications depend on this network. The gap in the development of these networks is quite clear. The high-income countries, where 15 per cent of the world's population lives, have 71 per cent of the world's telephone lines. Telephone density -- that is, the number of telephone lines per 100 inhabitants -- has gone from 38 to 49, which represents an increase of 11 per cent in those countries, whereas in the rest of the world the progression has only been half a per cent from 2 to 2.5. This unequal distribution of telephone lines in the world has not really changed much in the last ten years. Some 50 million people are on official waiting lists for a telephone and in reality there are probably quite a few more than that waiting. In a recent study, the ITU estimated that the unsatisfied demand in India was at least 10 million people, that is three times the number of people who are officially on a waiting list. In 1992 some 50 countries, representing more than half of the world's population, had a telephone density of less than one. As long as the world's population does not have sufficient telecommunications infrastructure, the vision of a global information society will be purely utopic.

If we move from one region to another, the figures vary. The most striking case is that of Africa, which is very much behind in terms of developing its basic infrastructure for a number of reasons. Whenever it begins to catch up, the progress achieved is overwhelmed by the increase in population. Despite positive growth in absolute terms, in relative terms the overall figure is negative due to population growth. A second obstacle is the lack of investment. We have to look at this from two standpoints. First, investment in basic infrastructure has only reached about 25 per cent of telecommunications revenues, whereas you need at least twice that much in order to achieve a satisfactory result. The second problem is that such investments are not creating the same level of development because the basic infrastructure is not in place. You need 1,500 subscribers for example in an OECD country in order to set up a functioning network, but you need 25 per cent more in a developing country. These countries have to purchase their equipment with foreign exchange and that creates a serious problem because of international indebtedness.

Two further obstacles of increasing importance have to do with inappropriate structures, whether in terms of regulation or a lack of sufficient regional cooperation in the area of telecommunications. We have a regional organization that covers virtually every geographical area. In Africa, this organization exists on paper, but is not really functioning. In the Middle East the telecommunications union was dissolved and the council connected with it does not have the resources needed to establish adequate telecommunications policies.

The economic dimensions of the information society are enormous: some $500 million were spent on telecommunications alone last year, but trillions more in electronics, electronically controlled financial transactions, transport, aviation, etc. The tremendous wealth involved should not lead one to assume that the demarcation line between information "haves" and "have-nots" falls along the same line as that between developed and developing countries. Some developing countries, such as Malaysia, with well-defined information and telecommunications policies have moved rapidly ahead, whereas within even the wealthiest countries wide gaps can be observed in terms of access to information technology.

At the beginning of my statement I said that telecommunications are the basis, the foundation, the backbone of the information society. Telecommunications require basic infrastructure and, in turn, serve as a basic infrastructure to all other services. In order to weigh the obstacles in the way of achieving such an information society and of partaking fully of information resources, we need to include other parameters, in particular, the penetration of the information industry. Here we need to look at the distribution of computers per thousand inhabitants, software distribution and that of interface and protocol industries. The information society rests on the convergence of telecommunications, the computer industry and the content industry. This third element, which includes databanks, information services, audiovisual production, films, photos and other audiovisual products, is very important.

In the developing countries the content industry has hardly been developed with two exceptions: India and Egypt. The computer industry is under-represented with the exception of a certain amount of software development in India and the emergence of an information technology industry in South-East Asia. As for the communications industry, the carrying capacity of telecommunications networks in developing countries is so low that an emergency plan including investments of at least $200 million would be required in order to really get it on its feet. In order to reduce this bill, we are calling on partners in industry, the private sector and in government as well to adapt regulations in order to facilitate the introduction of new technologies, cable network, satellite networks and broadcasting networks.

Multimedia convergence and labour issues
in the telecoms industry in Malaysia
Mohd. Shafie BP Mammal⁽²²⁾

Telecommunications is the largest growth area in the Malaysian economy. The developments that are taking place are aimed to keep abreast of the changes occurring in the technology of telecommunications, computer and satellite transmissions. We are fast approaching the convergence of the three services as the industries progress towards the information society. Malaysia is a world link to the global information and infrastructures which form the path to the information economy. Upgrading the existing technologies and services, Malaysian telecom network operators are eager to upgrade the network and also to create a pool of workers who will be multiskilled. The newly commissioned Telecom University, the University of Malaya and the various technical colleges are offering courses which teach the applications of new technologies. Multimedia is a "hot" subject among students who know that whatever field they major in, they will need appropriate technical knowledge as well. The convergence of the various information systems into one information superhighway is unbeatable.

Structural unemployment has resulted as manual operators in analogue systems have been made redundant at Telecom Malaysia and other operators in the telecommunications sector. Government, employers and workers helped by trade unions are finding ways and means to contain the impact of the mismatch between available skills and those in demand. Quality education is a government priority and many restrictions on foreign study have been lifted to prepare young workers to gain high quality education and multiple skills. Institutions are well aware that the students should be exposed to a large dose of computer skills so as to equip them for the future.

Changes in labour relations. The emergence of multimedia and the convergence of information industries have had a tremendous impact on the labour market and on wages for permanent workers, contingent workers and part-time workers. The permanent workers are unionized. The union makes sure that the members who are displaced or become redundant get retraining to fit into a new environment. But people who sign contracts and work at home on the home computer or on a network and those who are paid at piece-rate -- according to their output -- are outside the control of the unions and associations which look after permanent workers. The terms and conditions of the contingent workers are negotiated on an individual basis and thus the rate may fluctuate according to supply and demand. This trend is going to affect the effectiveness of trade unions, because the contingent workers and independent contractors have no one to represent them and to coordinate their social and industrial relations with their employer. The federations of unions in telecommunications are best able to tackle the issues involving representation for multimedia workers.

As we approach the information superhighway, there are some uncertainties that we are unable to address at this juncture, for example, whether the replacement of old skills with new ones is taking place as fast as developments in the multimedia industry and information technology. We notice there are clear distinctions between simply acquiring new skills and adapting to new modes of work as the old skills are phased out. The Government is looking seriously into providing schoolchildren with a large dose of computer knowledge while they are still in school.

Future industrial relations for IT and multimedia workers. The National Labour Advisory Council in Malaysia, being a tripartite body, is the right place to discuss the impending changes in employment patterns rising from the convergence of the multimedia services. The outsourcing of routine multimedia work will be the subject of future discussions in the council.

Multimedia convergence: Focus on Africa
Wilfred Kiboro⁽²³⁾

In Africa in the closing years of the twentieth century the newspaper industry faces serious and immediate challenges. The reader frequency of the newspapers is going down and younger readers are turning to other media for information and entertainment. Given this scenario, the newspapers' ability to attract classified advertising is gradually being eroded and also the newspapers are facing increasing competition from the World Wide Web as providers of information and as a medium for advertising. The physical medium is becoming less and less important, indeed almost irrelevant. Magazines are now being published electronically. Books are becoming interactive. Laser discs contain screenplays. Interviews appear in almost any kind of media. The media no longer flows from the artist to the consumer in fixed forms, but has become very malleable.

This multimedia symposium gives us the first opportunity -- as governments, employers and employees -- to talk together, to re-examine some of the impacts that these developments are causing in our various situations and perhaps to come up with some recommendations regarding areas of mutual concern as we go forward. That multimedia is becoming increasingly popular for a wide variety of businesses is in no doubt. Entertainment, educational applications, marketing presentations, video games, information services, television, cable television, and so on are all becoming highly interactive. It has become difficult to tell where television and cable stop and where interactive applications begin.

In developing countries and in many other parts of the world, information -- that primary ingredient of multimedia -- is still controlled by governments. The licensing of newspapers, radio and television stations and even journalism, in some cases, still remains a means of controlling information flow and creating a form of censorship. Those countries in Africa and other developing countries which still see the need to have rather draconian licensing should perhaps re-examine their position because some of this legislation is not particularly conducive to the development of the media and may cause their countries to lag hopelessly behind. In the world today, trying to confine technology within a very narrow geographic boundary does not seem to make a great deal of sense.

The second point I would like to make is to note the obvious imbalance between the developed and the developing countries in terms of access to information. Most of the Internet host computers are in the United States and the others are mostly in Europe. Those of us from developing countries do have a certain apprehension as to what that means. Will the "haves" continue to dominate the "have-nots" just because they happen to have access to information and superior technology?

Finally, the radical shifts that are taking place in the workplace are generating widespread concern. In the years ahead, the definition of a worker is going to become even more difficult. In content creation in the multimedia environment, it is very difficult to know who the journalist is, who the editor is, and who the technologist is that will bring it all together. At what point will telecom workers become involved as well as the people in television and other entities that come to create new products? Traditionally in the print media, for instance, we had printers, journalists, sales and marketing staff and so on, but now all of them are working on one floor from one desk. I can see the concern of the unions at the thought that they are going to be losing ground. Employers should not dismiss the workers' concern in this regard. If there is the loss of a platform for collective bargaining, are the workers' rights going to be taken care of automatically by the employers? Can the workers expect that the employers will take care of their own individual rights, and so on? Although these issues may not be addressed in this Symposium, I hope that the three groups represented here will at least end up with a better appreciation of the other groups' concerns.

I represent an employers' group. From the employers' point of view, the critical issue is survival in the business. The name of the game is to remain in business, to survive in business and to prosper in business. If we do not do that, the workers cannot be guaranteed their jobs. On the other hand, the workers must have genuine concerns about whether they will have jobs tomorrow.

It is my view that the people with a good basic education are going to find it probably much easier to integrate and adapt to the new areas that multimedia convergence will bring about. But in Africa -- and in other developing countries where most of the workers probably have not even had a secondary education -- these changing demands create a whole new ball game. These people are not easily retrainable to cope with the new challenges to which this new environment is giving rise -- and this problem needs to be addressed at some point.

Among the global challenges posed by the proliferation of the multimedia in the workplace, we should think about the following issues:

the shift in the definition of workers. This calls for adjustments in such inputs as the education system that will prepare future workers for the challenges of tomorrow's workplace. Training systems within companies need to focus on creating multiskilled workers, since having a single skill is no longer adequate in today's labour market, let alone tomorrow's;
the security of information, particularly when it involves cash transactions;
the declining influence of unions, the loss of collective bargaining power by the workers and all that that implies; and
the various laws that the governments must surely enact related to multimedia.

Finally, the huge gap in the level of technology between the developed and the developing countries needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. Related to this concern are the continued domination of Third World countries by developed countries in controlling global information flow, the threat to indigenous culture and the need to find the means to protect our cultural diversity.

Information technology needs to be brought to affordable levels. I have a dream that perhaps in our lifetime in Africa, we will see villagers being able to access Internet from their rural villages where today there is no water and no electricity. We hope they will be able to watch Sky News on their portable televisions, but maybe this is just a dream.

Multimedia convergence: The Egyptian experience
Nagwa Abdalla Abd-El Hafez⁽²⁴⁾

The world today, through the use of international networks such as the Internet and the nascent superhighway, is becoming one society, a global information society. The Egyptian Government has expressed a clear desire to participate in this society and has thus emphasized the development of high technology industries, especially software development. Much work has been carried out at the school and university levels. A cabinet-level Information and Decision-making Support Centre, IDSC, has also been established. It is a major centre providing high-level training for the brightest graduates from universities. It employs experts and consultants to assist government agencies or businesses to build computer centres or to carry out other activities.

I would like to say a few words about multimedia, its impact on children, and what we are doing in Egypt today to prepare children for the information society of the future. We have been carrying out practical trials using multimedia programmes to transfer information to children and nowadays the software programmes available to any can access this information, which is communicated to children in an attractive way through graphics, cartoons, music and video clips.

We have developed a new media production city called 6 October, with an information centre specifically for children. The centre is equipped with a computer network which provides access to children's cultural entertainment and educational information through touch-screen computers in an amusing and enjoyable way. The aim of this centre is to familiarize children with multimedia and information technologies generally. We began by making tailor-made software to serve as a multimedia guide. We have also created a multimedia programme so that visitors can have any information about any place in this city, or any event of interest.

Second, we have set up an electronic library. We have brought together encyclopaedias and other information converted from books onto compact discs, and made them available to everybody. We have used a CD tower, consisting of 35 CD drives, and connected it to the network via a multimedia programme. The child can select the required information or CD by simply touching the appropriate icon. The provision of this electronic library was the second aim of the centre.

Our third task was to set up a standard book library for children. The title and date of publication of the book can be entered and the child can retrieve it easily. In order to attract the child to use the computer and be familiar with it, we have added something which is particularly interesting for children, that is, a summary form. After reading a book, the child can write a personal evaluation of the book on the computer by himself, print it out and take it home. Afterwards we can collect these summaries and criticisms which give us the opportunity to re-evaluate the books from the viewpoints of the children themselves.

The fourth aim of this network is to provide Internet access. The whole computer network is now connected via a leased line to the Internet.

[The speaker then showed a video of children at the centre working with computers. The recording included a demonstration of the tailor-made software for the media production city. Touch screen access provided information in a combination of text, sound and video clip. A child working with the electronic library selected a CD on music as he was finding out about various musical instruments. Finally, a young schoolgirl spoke about the summary she had written of a book.]

As a developing country preparing our children for the information society of tomorrow, we must start with the schools. We need to make children computer literate from the beginning. We in Egypt have begun by familiarizing children with computers as a source both of entertainment and of information.

General discussion on the information
society: The global challenge

Thomas Lukusa Tshiananga of the Workers' group reminded the participants of the disastrous situation in his own country, Zaire. The Government had deliberately destroyed the public telephone network system, fostering the private sector and satellite telephone networks instead. Few people had access to these services. For most people, the cost of obtaining even basic information was too high. The price of a daily newspaper was several times the monthly salary of an official in the public administration or even of a university professor or doctor. Most Zairians had to confine themselves to reading the headlines while walking along the streets.

Chris Pate, Secretary of the Workers' group, stressed that globalization had clearly aggravated the polarization between rich and poor in terms of multimedia development. This could be illustrated by the specific case of the printing industries in Zimbabwe and Zambia which were in serious danger of being destroyed altogether through the opening of the borders to greater international trade. Destroying domestic printing industries, however, would mean depriving those countries of the basis f