Ken Wentworth

'In order to defend the position that current trends in world communication and their different forms of impact contribute to the disempowerment of people, it should be clarified what disempowerment means. The term 'disempowerment' literally means making people powerless. It refers to a process in which people loose the capacity to control decisions affecting their lives. Disempowerment is the reduction of people's ability to define themselves and to construct their own identities.

Disempowerment can be both the outcome of a deliberate strategy (the process is intentional) or the unintended outcome of human acting (the process is coincidental). In the case of the latter process, disempowerment can be the result of a series of mutually reinforcing factors that in themselves do not indent to incapacitate people. It may even be that acts aimed at enabling people have an unintended opposite outcome. Disempowerment as a strategy often employs the deceit of making people believe that existing conditions are desirable and preferred out of free will. The most perverse form of disempowerment makes people accept their own dependency and second rate position. Intentional disempowerment serves hegemonic purposes and is employed in a variety of social situations where some actors stand to benefit from the submissiveness of other actors.

In disempowerment strategies communication is often recognized by those intent on reducing peoples power as an effective tool. World communication furthers people's disempowerment since the major technological trend (digitization) creates new forms of dependency and vulnerability, the trend towards consolidation and deregulation reinforce censored access to information and limit use of knowledge resources, the trend towards globalization creates a cultural environment that victimizes people, spreads compulsive consumerism and reduces local cultural space.'   

Hamelink, C J. Trends in World Communication: On Disempowerment and Self-empowerment. (Southbound : Third World Network, 1994.)