Paying for access or content? Blurred understandings of mobile internet data in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda

The paper addresses the blurred understandings of what developing country mobile internet users feel they are paying for. The move towards increasing online news and music consumption around the world has resulted in low growth in paid content consumption and a digital advertising market that is not highly favourable for news or entertainment providers. From a major study conducted on mobile phone based internet behaviours in ghana, kenya and uganda in 2015, we find consumption in these countries reflects the trends observed in more mature markets where the decline in news purchase revenues and advertising rates raises fundamental questions about the business models of independent media. While users enjoy the personalized content benefits of the mobile web, they feel that paying for data (i.e. Mobile connection and data bytes) is sufficient and conflate it with paying for content (i.e. Content in an online newspaper or online music). We argue that deconstructing misunderstandings of paying for mobile internet access and paying for content (including ascertaining whether they are genuine misunderstandings) is important for understanding how to achieve a free and fair internet, where content is accessible but generates enough profit to be sustainable

The complex position of the intermediary in telecenters and community multimedia centers

The critical role of the information intermediary in supporting community participation in telecenters and community multimedia centers [CMCs] has been recognized for some time. However, the literature has largely taken a neutral/ positive perspective (that the center manager/staff are necessary social connectors and should ensure equitable access) or a negative one (that they may replicate hierarchies, be unwilling to help, or direct users toward “undesirable” information). Drawing on how identities are embedded within and formed by networks, this article takes a third perspective: Telecenter and CMC information intermediaries are in the complex positions of brokers and translators, and their roles are constantly negotiated and performed within multiple, dynamic, and constructed networks. This interpretive, narrative analysis of interviews with the center manager and staff at Voices CMC in India illustrates that intermediaries can be in an ontologically insecure position, bridging these multiple networks, but can also navigate their roles and create their “spaces of development” within these same networks. Therefore, the article argues that it should not be taken for granted that these intermediaries are simply executing policy; instead, further research into how they interpret and perform it in vernacular terms is necessary because this, in turn, can shape user perception of CMCs and telecenters

WhatsApp, Facebook and pakapaka: Digital lives in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda

LSE’s Schoemaker and Emrys Schoemaker explore how young people in Ghana, Kenya and Uganda use mobile internet

Women’s income generation through mobile internet: a study of focus group data from Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda

For many women in resource-constrained environments, mobile phones are the first and foremost information and communication technology (ICT) used. In theory, the increasing pervasiveness of mobiles and mobile Internet across developing countries should provide growing opportunities to women, especially in terms of earning through small, on-the-fly jobs, using the very mobility aspect of the devices. Using Donner’s six affordances of mobile Internet and Cornwall’s discussion of what women’s empowerment means, we analyze data from 30 focus groups conducted with 18 to 25-year-olds earning under $2 a day in peri-urban areas of Nairobi, Kenya, Accra, Ghana and Jinja, Uganda). We explore the relation between the affordances of mobile Internet and structural changes in the economic and societal status of subjects, as reflected in the narratives of women adopters. We find that such affordances, while leading to new mechanisms for income generation, at least in our focus groups, do not result in changes of societal structures: older cultural stereotypes are built around adoption of the new technology, and policies underlying economic activities are hardly challenged by digitalization. This problematizes the extent to which the mobile Internet can be universally conceived as a tool for income generation, and by extension as a long-term, secure means for the empowerment of many women

Gender, mobile and development: The theory and practice of empowerment

This introduction to the Special Section sets out the rationale for our focus on gender, mobile, and mobile Internet. We explain our aims in planning a dedicated section and introduce each of the four selected articles across different country contexts. We examine how these articles juxtapose the theory and practice of empowerment. Finally, we raise issues with the way that empowerment is used and applied in ICTD work and we draw on Cornwall’s framework to support our view that access for women (an often-used variable) is not always accompanied by changes in law, policy, or men’s and women’s consciousness or practices; therefore, access does not de facto lead to empowerment. It is this space that we believe needs further exploration. A focus on access and digital literacy for women, while important, is not in itself a sufficiently meaningful criterion for empowerment through mobiles and mobile Internet

The complexities of "community participation" in community multimedia centres : the case of Namma Dhwani in India

In the last decade, community multimedia centres (centres integrating computers with other technologies such as community radio) have been established in developing countries by governments, development organisations and NGOs. It is often argued that these need greater "community participation" in order to be locally relevant and sustainable. Yet, this research argues there is insufficient discussion on what constitutes community, and how processes of participation occur in these initiatives. The key research questions of this thesis ask: what is meant by community participation here? What is meant by a "community"? How does a community "participate"? The thesis also reviews telecentres and community radio as components of CMCs. The research begins by briefly reviewing the democratic principles of participation and debates on its process and value in information systems, development and community media. These discussions are then applied to assumptions in CMCs, telecentres and community radio: the notion of a holistic community or definitive "local culture", the idea that stakeholders can be identified, that participation is directly empowering or disempowering, and that the intermediary simply channels equitable participation. Instead, this thesis applies three middle range theories- the influence of social networks, Erving Gottman's performance and Judith Butler's performativity - to argue that participation is not only heavily influenced by the networks actors belong to, but that as these networks are cognitive, community, participation, and community participation are constructs which are performed in multiple, dynamic ways. Thereby, community and participation are not easily and objectively defined, but constantly performed by actors linguistically and spatially to justify their practices. This argument is made using an interpretive case study of the UNESCO supported Namma Dhwani CMC in the Indian village of Budhikote, researched principally over six months in 2006. Narrative analysis in particular illustrates the fluid ontology of actors when discussing community and participation. Policy implications include the need for deeper understandings of the communicative ecologies of community media sites, e.g., by using ethnographic action research.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Who is the community in community radio?

Despite the enthusiasm for community-owned radio, a movement which has been steadily gaining pace since the implementation of new legislation of 2006, we are yet to find an understanding of who the community is in community radio. Through an extended case study, this analysis shows how "community participation" is constantly shifting. It presents three arguments: "community" is not a discrete entity; communities are dynamic; and communities are cognitive constructs

Using Stakeholder Theory to Analyze Telecenter Projects

Involving stakeholders is often seen as a means to more successful information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) projects. Hence, it can be appropriate to research ICT4D projects by taking both the perspective of stakeholder theory and using the tools of stakeholder analysis. This paper uses the example of telecenter projects to illustrate the application of a stake- holder perspective, selecting the specific case of the Gyandoot telecenters in Madhya Pradesh, India. It finds stakeholder analysis can be used both as a best practice template to assess what has been done with stakeholders on an ICT4D project and as an analytical tool to understand who stakeholders are, their behaviors, and the ways in which they are managed. However, it also finds there are problems with applying a stakeholder perspective that must be understood including lack of openness among stakeholders, the problems of identifying who stakeholders are, and the subjectivity of stakeholder classification