Neoliberal Visions and Revisions in Global Communications Policy From NWICO to WSIS

<jats:p> The author proposes that any account seeking to contextualize crucial policy debates connected to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) must engage with two necessary projects. First, it must historicize WSIS in relation to an earlier international forum similarly focused on global communications policy, the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). Second, it must theorize WSIS in terms related to neoliberalism, the dominant political economic system defining global relations today. This analysis brings into focus both continuities and changes in global communications policy during the formative period of the past three decades. </jats:p>