Beyond the Digital Divide: Language Factors, Resource Wealth, and Post-Communism in Mongolia

This chapter explores the interplay between society and Internet technology in the context of the developing former socialist country of Mongolia. This chapter goes beyond questions of access to the Internet and explores three factors of the global digital divide. First, this chapter explores how language factors such as non-Roman domain names and the use of the Cyrillic alphabet exacerbate the digital divide in the impoverished country of Mongolia. ICANN’s initiation of international domain names is an initial development toward achieving linguistic diversity on the Internet. Second, this chapter explores how post-communist settings and foreign investment and aid dependency afflict Internet development. A rapid economic growth in Mongolia has increased access to mobile phones, computers, and the Internet; however, the influx of foreign capital poured into the mining, construction, and telecommunication sectors frequently comes in non-concessional terms raising concerns over the public debt in Mongolia

Linguistic Diversity on the Internet: Arabic, Chinese and Cyrillic Script Top-Level Domain Names

The deployment of Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic top-level domain names is explored in this research by analyzing technical and policy documents of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), as well as newspaper articles in the respective language regions. The tension between English uniformity at the root level of the Internet׳s domain names system, and language diversity in the global Internet community, has resulted in various technological solutions surrounding Arabic, Chinese, and Cyrillic language domain names. These standards and technological solutions ensure the security and stability of the Internet; however, they do not comprehensively address the linguistic diversity needs of the Internet. ICANN has been transforming into an international policy organization, yet its linguistic diversity policies appear disconnected from the diversity policies of the United Nations, and remain technically oriented. Linguistic diversity in relation to IDNs at this stage mostly focus on the language representation of major languages that are spoken in powerful nation-states, who use the rhetoric of national pride, local business branding, and inclusion of non-English speakers. This situation surfaces the tension between nation-states and the new international governing institution ICANN

“A Girl Move”: Negotiating Gender and Technology in Chess Online and Offline

The confluence of gender and information technology in chess is explored in this chapter based on a small empirical interview study. By interviewing nine women chess players who compete in men\u27s tournaments, the chapter examines the underrepresentation of women in the traditionally male domain of chess and discusses the role of computers and the Internet in women players\u27 work/play routines. Five in-depth interviews were conducted Face-to-Face (FTF) and four interviews were conducted over the Internet using the textual chat feature of the International Chess Club during the summer of 2010. How women negotiate gendered identity and how they position themselves in regard to information technology are discussed. The interviewees\u27 reflexive accounts discussing gendered practices and the changing notion of gender in chess challenge technologically infused male culture in ways that help us to understand the role of embodiment in mastery and expertise

The Public Interest and Mongolian Digital Television Transition

Since 2010 Mongolian television has been in transition from analogue to digital. This article introduces the process of digital transition of television, and then discusses challenges television stations face in terms of the audio-visual market and policies. The Mongolian media market has structural constraints typical to those in the small media states. In addition, new challenges like the financial dependency on the mining sector tax, an unsustainable number of politically affiliated commercial television stations, and the remnants of socialist institutional routines in media organizations also shape the television sector in Mongolia. The study also explores the state of public interest media services and opportunities due to the increasing convergenceo f televisionw ith the Internet. The argumentsa re built based on an analyses of existing legal and market studies, and in-depth interview data with professionals representing media, government and civil society institutions in Mongolia

The Media Convergence Blog Project

This project is one of two major projects students complete in a Writing and Design for Digital Media class. In this lesson, I provide the project overview, rationale, assignment description, and teaching materials. This project can be incorporated into various media studies courses in mass communications, online journalism and digital humanities at the sophomores and junior levels. The goal of this lesson is to introduce media convergence and explore how media convergence blurs various social, institutional, and cultural boundaries

MONGOLIA’S INDEPENDENT INTERNET?

AOIR 2021 conference theme “independence” of the internet provides an opportunity for researchers to reevaluate internet development in the global south by applying theories of “informational capitalism” (Castells, 2000; Schiller, 2000) and “surveillance capitalism” (Suboff, 2019). This paper aims to trace the development of informational society in Mongolia, a 30-year-old democracy in the Central Asian steppe. With a nomadic culture, a Buddhist tradition, and a communist past, Mongolia’s information society has unique encounters with global corporations such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM). The paper focuses on juxtapositions of information society with traditional, cultural, political, and social aspects of Mongolian life. I establish how Mongolia is positioned in various global information society perspectives, by investigating tensions that have not been addressed in this nation’s context of a communist past and an ongoing nomadic lifestyle. I also trace the historic development of information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives during the socialist and post-communist eras. Online speech controversies, misinformation, and commercial speech on social media all tested Mongolia’s new Constitution of 1992. The constitution promulgates a free press and the freedom of speech in the zeitgeist of the 1990s to prioritize the eradication of communist-era political censorship and communist party control. One cannot help but notice the gap in the legal frameworks of Mongolian institutions between the current and the “aspired to” states of democratization and protection of human rights and cultural experiences

The appropriation of privacy: Policies and practices of everyday technology use

Privacy is a complex concept involving dimensions of access and control of shared information, expectations of intended audience, and appreciation of the context in which a communication takes place. As new technologies are introduced and become ubiquitous, they intersect with influences of culture and experience to influence and appropriate privacy’s interpretation and meaning. This panel will explore how conceptions of privacy are shaped and understood by examining the implications that everyday technologies, and the policies and practices embodied therein, hold for the realization of privacy goals. Culture, mobility and utility of new media forms challenge the conception and construction of privacy in these multiple contexts, and these in turn seize and shape our sociability and interactions with others. Intensely cultural, conceptions of privacy highlight the dialectical tensions between public/private and individual/community. Cultural conceptions of privacy inform, are reproduced and embodied in societal norms and political frameworks, and not only impact the individual in physical ways, but also as the body is digitized in communicative acts. Our first presenter will present findings of how mass media in China reproduce the ideological individual/community tensions that surface through the use of human flesh search engines, and how this is embodied in policy and political frameworks. Without clear privacy laws, the Chinese state may easily appropriate the concept of privacy away from the legal terrain of information control or human dignity and toward individual selfishness and shame. Our second presenter will introduce the emerging infrastructures of augmented mobility technologies, and critically interrogate their impact on conceptions – and expectations – of privacy in our infosphere. Emerging augmented mobility platforms are wearable devices that promise to provide new ways of conceiving of our world through the layering of locational information and real-time informational objects onto a physical environment. Location-aware mobile Internet applications provide new layers of information to aid in navigation, decision-making, and social interactions. But they also require widespread tracking, collecting, and aggregating of users’ precise locations, and the sharing of that locational data with third parties, creating the potential for panoptical surveillance and a reengineering of reality that carries ontological consequences. The contextual nature of privacy reinforces an understanding that disclosure contexts and intended audiences are meaningful and relevant. Traditional mechanisms for privacy regulation are challenged by the characteristics of social media, as disclosure is more permanent, sharable and searchable. As these technologies become more ubiquitous and approach near-invisibility in everyday life, understanding the tension between their use and privacy regulation processes becomes more critical. Our third presenter will explore how the utility of social media forms relates to privacy enactment by examining the perceived privacy/sociability trade off. By examining the intersection of sociability and privacy practices among social media users at varying ages we are provided insight into how the utility of these media challenges the conception and understanding of privacy in everyday life. Finally, our fourth presenter will examine the complicated relationship between anonymity and privacy by undertaking a legal and policy analysis of ‘doxxing,’ or public shaming. Recently, in response to online sexist and misogynist speech acts, there has been a series of compromises to online anonymity intended to make an offending individual accountable for their actions. But while public shaming may seem to be an effective solution to those who engage in sexist or racist speech acts, it can just as easily be used to further hateful attitudes towards marginalized groups. This presentation will demonstrate how regulating hate speech may not only hold the possibility for negative consequences for online privacy, but also for desired speech such as activism and protest. By examining privacy and privacy goals through the complex and varied perspectives of technological contexts, practices, and policies, this panel attempts to contribute to our understandings of how privacy is enacted, understood and potentially appropriated in everyday contexts. In doing so, we hope to enhance and refine our understanding of privacy as a desirable and valued outcome