The WSIS as a world of words: building a common vision of the information society?

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has been a global event within which interesting dynamics have been deployed; dynamics that we analyse as a contribution to the wider debate concerning the transformation of global politics and the very meaning of the global governance concept. In looking at the WSIS process we tried to work operationally with the idea of multi-actor governance in order to assess the potentialities and shortcomings of adopting a multi-stakeholder approach in the global governance of communication. Our underlying questions were: has the multi-stakeholder exercise at the WSIS promoted habits of cooperation, collective choices and legitimization from below? Has there been any relocation of authority or is it foreseeable? Is it possible to evaluate the top-down or bottom-up nature of the process? Our understanding of the process is grounded on personal knowledge and on an empirical analysis of written outputs.