The Telecommission Studies Moment: From a Canadian-to-Global Perspective on Law and Communication

This chapter will shed light on the context within which the Telecommission worked, tracking the route that led to its vision by mapping the general social, political, cultural, and intellectual atmosphere in and outside Canada during this time. This is not to argue that the Telecommission necessarily adopted prevailing attitudes and approaches—for example, the widespread fascination with technology in and of itself—without regard for their social, cultural, and human consequences. Rather, this contextual information is intended to help explain how remarkable and challenging it was for the Telecommission, working within the ideological and empirical constraints of the time, to propose a novel perspective on law and communications—the right to communicate. The chapter will overview the Canadian connection to UNESCO and the MacBride Commission through the work of Jean d’Arcy and Betty Zimmerman.