Vexations, volumes, and volunteers: institutionalization and the veneration of information at a small international NGO

textThe author performed action research over the two years between March 2006 and February 2008 with the Instituto Dois Irmãos (i2i), a non-governmental organization (NGO) in a low-income area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil consisting of a group of approximately 3-5 locals and 2-30 foreigners at any one time that in March 2006 offered few services and lacked the expertise or confidence to offer more. Together, participants and the author improved and increased the NGO’s services and implemented a reading room – a place of information and literacy – for Portuguese-speaking students of English. This dissertation describes participants’, the organization’s, and the author’s journey to transform the i2i into a better functioning organization and to create the NGO’s reading room. The analysis focuses on the practical learning that took place within the i2i. Throughout the research process, the author both made use of and questioned the concepts of participation and development. In the text, she also draws on the experiences of the i2i’s leaders and volunteers to question the prevailing notion of information as a social good. A critical understanding of these three notions is essential for the work of librarians, development professionals, and policymakers alike.Informatio

Pay Television Among Low-Income Populations: Reflections on Research Performed in the Rio de Janeiro Favela of Rocinha

This paper presents the results of a study performed in Brazil's most notorious shantytown (or favela), Rocinha, located in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Over 150 residents with pay television subscriptions responded to questions regarding their television viewing habits before and since subscribing. The author contends that pay television was used primarily to gain better or increased access to Brazilian programming and a small number of particular types of foreign programming. She questions whether pay television viewership in Rocinha should be characterized as evidence of cultural imperialism and suggests that, in places such as Rocinha, where having access to only broadcast stations can effectively mean having access to a single television channel, it could be useful to extend conventional notions of the "digital divide" to include non-"interactive" media such as television

Vexations, Volumes, and Volunteers: Institutionalization and the Veneration of Information at a Small International NGO Committee:

To the Instituto Dois Irmãos, the Two Brothers Foundation, and all of the neighbors and friends who make their and my work possible. Acknowledgements How is it that one can bear one's soul over the course of months and several hundred pages and then encounter such difficulty in producing a few pages of acknowledgements? There are so many names, so many good deeds, so many kind words that deserve mention that I cannot hope to do them all justice. For this I apologize, and I hope that none of those whom I fail to name individually will take offense. Philip Doty calmly, patiently, and skillfully served as my committee chair these seven years; I cannot thank him enough for the insightful comments, food for thought, and occasional reality check he has offered me, not to mention a shoulder to cry on, if, fortunately, only figuratively. Although their personalities are quite different, Joe Straubhaar has played a strikingly similar role, ever since I became his advisee in the Department of Radio-Television-Film in 1998. Joe has also served as the Brazilianist on my committee, someone with whom I could share frustrations and questions that might make little sense to my other committee members or that might perpetuate stereotypes t