Beijing, 9 October (AKI) - The managing director of Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency and the Tehran Times newspaper, Parviz Esmaeili has questioned whether globalisation and digital communication have created freedom of information and democracy.

In a wide-ranging speech delivered at the World Media Summit in the Chinese capital Beijing, Esmaeili deplored the unequal access to Internet available to users in industrialised and developing countries and the dominance of US giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter over news dissemination.

"Globalisation of the media and the plurality of voices do not show that a democratic climate has been created in the media.

"From a Western point of view, the use of the Internet is a prerequisite for the spread of democracy and freedom of information...but the tools of information have not been distributed equally," he told the summit, taking place from 8-10 October.

Unless all citizens have access to communications networks they will be denied the "basic right" of information, he argued. Only five out of every thousand people in Africa had access to the Internet in 2008, he noted.

In some areas of the world, users cannot access websites or face the problem of censorship through filtering or monitoring by governments, Esmaeili pointed out.

He said the flow of information is unequal, with developed countries processing "information packages" that are produced in developing countries and sent to them "like raw materials".

Some 70 percent of news websites are in English, most search engines use the English language, and most of the hosts are based in the United States, he noted.

"The tools for the dissemination of information are still somehow monopolised by a particular group, and in reality, giant communications companies exercise great influence on societies," he said.

An increase in the quantity and quality of information tools will not end these disparities, he argued.

"Information is the most important manifestation of power in the digital age. Thus, the monopolization of information is the main tool of neocolonialism. And this has strengthened unilateralism," he stated.

A key issue is how the dissemination of news is controlled by giant networks like Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. in the United States, and who benefits from it, Esmaeili said.

"The news market is chaotic and unequal. Now we are facing an unequal and manipulated situation in the news market, and that is why advances by the Third World are not reflected properly, Islam is equated with terrorism, and Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities are depicted as a threat to global security."

Esmaeili criticised free services now being provided by the world's major news networks in the face of a "tsunami" of news, competition in news coverage, and the need to gain a wider audience.

Such free services prevent competition, allow governments to dominate the media, turning media outlets "into political institutions, which is a threat to freedom," he contended.

Amid a string of bankruptcies, major media outlets are now seeking a way to stop the cost-free provision of news services, he said.

The Internet, "the backbone of the digital age", still has major legal loopholes and many drawbacks including a lack of more efficient protocols and the ease with which hackers can disable websites.

The "still rampant" intrusion of privacy is another problem and the ability of governments to spy on citizens owing to their control of the technology, said Esmaeili.

Other unresolved issues include copyright, piracy and intellectual property rights. "Unlike the traditional media, there is no place for moral training in digital journalism," he stated.

The digital age risks creating a 'virtual society' rather than an 'information society', according to Esmaeili. "Digital media should fill the gap between groups and nations, but actually we are witnessing an information gap between societies," he said.

"The virtual community does not lead to the consolidation of social cohesion in the real community. If the relationship between man and machine becomes stronger than the relationship between man and man, then social cohesion is threatened."

But Esmaeili praised the rise of citizen journalism, saying it had played a major role in news coverage of events like the 11 September 2001 attacks against US cities, last November's terrorist assault in the Indian city of Mumbai and the crash of a passenger jet into New York's Hudson River in January.

"This shows that the mass media is becoming more pluralistic and more democratic," he said.

"The involvement of citizens in the digital age could serve to reinforce democracy."