The International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems was set up in 1977 by the director of UNESCO Ahmadou-Mahtar M'Bow, under suggestion by the USA delegation. It was agreed that the commission would be chaired by Seán MacBride from Ireland and representatives from 15 other countries, invited due to their roles in national and international communication activities and picked among media activists, journalists, scholars, and media executives.

The members of the MacBride Commission were:

• Alie Abel (USA)
• Hubert Beuve-Méry (France)
• Elebe Ma Ekonzo (Zaire)
• Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)
• Sergei Losev (Soviet Union)
• Mochtar Lubis (Indonesia)
• Mustapha Masmoudi (Tunisia)
• Michio Nagai (Japan)
• Fred Isaac Akporuaro Omu (Nigeria)
• Bogdan Osolnik (Yugoslavia)
• Gamal El Oteifi (Egypt)
• Johannes Pieter Pronk (Netherlands)
• Juan Somavía (Chile)
• Boobli George Verghese (India)
• Betty Zimmerman (Canada), in substitution of Marshal McLuhan, then ill

The commission presented a preliminary report in October 1978 at the 20th General Conference of UNESCO in Paris. The Commission's seminal session on new technologies to address the identified problems, was hosted by India at New Delhi in March 1979. The final report was delivered to M'Bow in April 1980 and was approved by consensus in the 21st General Conference of UNESCO in Belgrade. The commission dissolved after presenting the report.

Because of controversy surrounding the report and the withdrawal of support by the UNESCO leadership in the 1980s for its ideas, the book went out of print and was difficult to obtain. A book on the history of the United States and UNESCO was even threatened with legal action and forced to include a disclaimer that UNESCO was in no way involved with it. The MacBride report was eventually reprinted by Rowman and Littlefield in the US, and is also freely available online.

MacBride report

Many Voices One World, also known as the MacBride report, was a 1980 UNESCO publication written by the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, chaired by Irish Nobel laureate Seán MacBride. Its aim was to analyze communication problems in modern societies, particularly relating to mass media and news, consider the emergence of new technologies, and to suggest a kind of communication order (New World Information and Communication Order) to diminish these problems to further peace and human development.

Among the problems the report identified were concentration of the media, commercialization of the media, and unequal access to information and communication. The commission called for democratization of communication and strengthening of national media to avoid dependence on external sources, among others. Subsequently, Internet-based technologies considered in the work of the Commission, served as a means for furthering MacBride's visions.

While the report had strong international support, it was condemned by the United States and the United Kingdom as an attack on the freedom of the press, and both countries withdrew from UNESCO in protest in 1984 and 1985, respectively (and later rejoined in 2003 and 1997, respectively).

Well she seemed all right by dawn's early light

Though she looked a little worried and weak

She tried to pretend he wasn't drinkin' again

But daddy left the proof on her cheek

I was only eight years old that summer

And I always seemed to be in the way

So I took myself down to the fair in town

On Independence Day

Well word gets a round in a small, small town

They said he was a dangerous man

Mama was proud and she stood her ground

But she knew she was on the losin' end

Some folks whispered and some folks talked

But everybody looked the other way

And when time ran out there was no one about

On Independence Day

Let Freedom ring, let the white dove sing

Let the whole world know that today is a

Day of reckoning

Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong

Roll the stone away, Let the guilty pay, It's

Independence Day

Well she lit up the sky that fourth of July

By the time that the firemen come

They just put out the flames

and took down some names

send me to the county home

Now I ain't sayin' it's right or it's wrong

But maybe it's the only way

Talk about your revolution

It's Independence Day

Let Freedom ring, let the wight dove sing

Let the whole world know that today is a

Day of reckoning

Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong

Roll the stone away, Let the guilty pay, It's

Independence Day

Roll the stone away

It's Independence Day