The author addresses international human rights law within multilateral organizations, particularly within the United Nations. Based on those of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas' concepts which pertain to discourse ethics, she exmaines how contractualism inherited from political modernity might be translated into international regulation in areas such as the writing and implementation of international human rights treaties.

© 1999 -France AUBIN - All rights reserved.

This article situates the concept of the public sphere within the context shaped by the double process of industrialisation and commodification of culture. Firstly, we will review Jürgen Habermas' take on the development of the press as a constitutive part of public space. By focusing, in particular, on the market's takeover of print media, the uses of J¸rgen Habermas' analysis for understanding the current transformation of the public sphere become clear. In the same vein, the more recent writings of Yves de la Haye and Bernard Miège are presented; these build on the concept of "generalised public relations", a concept pertinent to showing how the public sphere has evolved in the last twenty years. Finally, consideration is given to how these two concepts might inform certain studies, carried out over the last decade, of journalists' role in societies which believe themselves to be democratic.

© 1999 - Éric GEORGE - All rights reserved.

At the dawn of democracy in the first half of the 90¹s for the East-European countries, mass media in Bulgaria established themselves as the most active participants in the societal self-reconstruction and self-reflection. This case study draws material from the most popular Bulgarian newspapers as well as from the author¹s professional observations. The focus is on the dynamic of «economic journalism» and the still continuing economic reform in the country as background. The launching of the first specialized « business periodicals » and the increasing amount of economic information in the other political and independent periodicals are the two axes that organizes the empirical data in this study.

© 1999 - Slavka ANTONOVA -All rights reserved.

On February 1st 1996 the U.S. Congress voted almost unanimously in favor of the Communications Decency Act, a law aimed at controlling the use of profanity and pornography on the Internet. On that day, on behalf of the entire nation, 416 senators made an important decision pertaining to content on the Internet. One might question the near-total absence of public consultation pertaining to the adoption of the CDA. Was the vision of the senators free of self-interest and formed on the basis of general public interest? The aim of this article is to show how difficult it is for non-elected parties to be heard, even more so if their opinions represent those without political and economic power, in this so-called democratic society. This article sets out to depict the scope, limits and paradoxes of contemporary American society.

© 1999 - Nina DUQUE - All rights reserved.

Research in media and technology use is characterized by its wide diversity, both in its objects of research, the problematics it has developed, and the theoretical positions which underpin it. This article attempts a synthesis of three approaches to the study of uses: diffusionist approaches, innovation approaches and appropriation approaches*. The intellectual context in which each approach emerged, the postulates upon which each is based, and the paradigm in which each is embedded is discussed. The inherent model of the user and various understandings of the notion of "use" are then addressed, permitting a better understanding of the theoretical and methodological divides which separate these approaches.

*The section on the diffusionist and innovation approaches (first installment) may be consulted in COMMposite's prior issue, v98.1. The article presented here (v99.1) is restricted to the appropriation approach.

© 1999 -Florence MILLERAND - All rights reserved.

Following the trilingual conference "The Right to Communicate and the Communication of Rights" two of the key participants -- the conference director and the moderator of the working group on Gender Perspectives -- present their takes of the event. Each proposes a synthesis of the discussions raised on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

"Cyberspace" is living out its final moments, braced to shatter and anxious to let a thousand applications contend. But while cyberspace still exists -- in our heads, that is -- let us remember that, even in that shadowy place, real life oscillates between physical and virtual realms. It is doubtful that a summary of such lived places is possible, but certainly, one can trace the material actions, thoughts, and sweat which built them in the first place. "Démarrage" suggests the political context behind the Virtual Conference, from the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) to the Global Information Infrastructure (GII), and the right to communicate caught in between; "Interface" recalls some of the organising principles which guided the design of a space to think about it.

© 1999 -Bram ABRAMSON - All rights reserved.

This paper provides a brief summary and analysis of some of the central tensions and debates arising out of the Gender Perspectives Working Group of the Virtual Conference on the Right to Communicate and the Communication of Rights, hosted in the summer of 1998 by Videazimut. The paper explores three central dialectical openings: virtual reembodiment, space and place, and regroupment and agitation in counter public spheres.

© 1999 -Sheryl HAMILTON - All rights reserved.

© COMMposite v99.1 - 1999 - All rights reserved.