Discussions of the cultural and economic impact of the Internet, wireless, and mobile phones tend to focus pretty exclusively on the developed world-- the U.S., western Europe, and East Asia (or even more specifically, Silicon Valley and a few other high-tech American enclaves; Scandanavian cities; Japan and to a lesser degree Korea).
At one level, this is perfectly logical: these are the places with the densest communications networks, the best access to high tech, and the longest traditions of hacking and playing with computers. Plus, they're rich markets. Studying them makes sense.
But there are also built-in limits to such an approach. For one thing, technology and culture are inseparable: you can't understand why technologies evolve without reference to the environments in which they evolve, and always focusing on the same set of countries-- which themselves share many similiarities-- limits your ability to understand how that relationship works. Further, if you're interested in technical and social creativity and innovation, you want as diverse a range of cultures in your sample set as possible. Easy access doesn't necessarily lead to creativity: some of the most innovative experimentation is driven by scarcity, not abundance. Put another way, profligacy can lead to certain kinds of creativity, while scarcity leads to others. Both are worth studying.
A third reason for looking beyond the normal iron triangle of North America, Europe, and East Asia is that there's a chance that major technical and product innovations will come from companies working outside those markets. Clatyon Christensen and Stuart Hall argue that companies serving the "base of the pyramid"-- those 4 billion people who make less than $2,000 a year-- can experiment with new technologies and products in ways that companies in richer markets cannot. Poor markets don't have giant installed technology bases that hinder adoption of newer technologies, as many wireless companies have found. Companies that serve these markets also learn to be lean, mean, and resourceful: Japanese electronics and auto companies grew up serving what was essentially a Third World economy, and this made them tough competitors when they went global.
So when a detailed study of high technology adoption and re-invention in an unfamiliar part of the world appears, it's worth knowing about. Such a study came out in the latest issue of First Monday: "Black star: Ghana, information technology and development in Africa," a study by Gregg Zachary (full disclosure: Gregg is a friend of mine) of computer use in Accra. Here's the abstract:
Accra, the capital of the West African country of Ghana, is technologically marginalized by any measure. But over the past ten years, the introduction of the Internet, wireless technology and freer radio broadcasts have vastly expanded communications and information. The Internet is widely available. E–mail usage is soaring. Wireless telephony is growing rapidly. Radio stations are proliferating. Once mired in information poverty, the people of Accra, Ghana now face the challenge of using information and connectivity to their best advantage. In examining how Accra adapts to technological change, we gain a better understanding of how people in poor African cities use technology and what they want from it. Debates over the so–called "digital divide" can be enriched by close studies of lived experience in parts of the world where the revolution in information technology remains more prospect than reality.This follows up an earlier report sponsored by Columbia University's Center for Science Policy and Outcomes.
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