Lecture by Don Slater: New Media, Development and Globalization

Jun 11 2008

Don Slater from the London School of Economics visited the University of Helsinki for a lecture on ‘New Media, Development and Globalization’ on May 29. His presentation (followed by an estimated 50-60 people) was a mix of results and anecdotes from his field research, with the presented paper apparently being the introduction of his upcoming book titled “New Media, Development and Globalization” (looking forward to read it, but it’s still work in progress).

I enjoyed the opportunity to listen to Don live and thought to share some of my notes – better late than never. These are subjective for sure and by no means complete, please do not quote neither me nor Don Slater on these.

I naturally am biased by my personal focus of interest, but as a general summary I would say the points he made could easily be transferred from the “development policy” field into a more general context – terms like “participatory design” and naturally the discourse between “technological determinism” and the “social construction of technology” are coming to my mind… And the term “communicative ecology” he coined is definitely an interesting concept!

“Northern places”

• Replacing the somewhat inaccurate term of “Western world”, referring to the contrast between Northern America, Europe etc. to the developing countries
• Northern understanding of New Media: cyberculture, post-human, post-capitalist -> “Not the truth, not even a theory” (a cosmology?)
• Virtuality, disembedding through New Media
• “New modernity” in Northern cultures: a narrative universalized towards materialization

Research

• Ethnographic approach
  • About 8 years of projects with developing countries (for UNESCO and others)
  • Question: What is the impact of ICT on poverty reduction?

Development policy

• The history of “development” in general is a history of failure
  • Always on the search for the “magic bullet”: first building dams, now ICT?
  • Two photos of “Internet cafes” in the developing world: almost empty, built according to a Northern model, does not meet any requirements of the locals

Information Society

• The global Information Society as a technology-deterministic concept
  • Slater opposes the Castell model of the Information Society
  • Definition of technology -> people have to fix themselves

Anthropologizing the term “New Media”

• A performative rather than a descriptive term
• Marginalization: old vs. new
  • Old = Radio: ubiquitous, embedded in households
  • New = Internet: elite, cosmopolitan, urban
  • Community radio, one of the most important medium in many areas of the world, was completely ignored by the World Summit on the Information Society
  • Internet is not a unitary medium
• Slater puts the term “Media” in question: concept of “communicative ecology”:
  • the whole structure of communication and information flows in people’s ways of life
  • the complete ensemble of (symbolic & material) resources for communication in a locality
  • the mapping of media repertoires (resources) and mediation
• YA “communicative ecology” is…
  • …people constructing reliable communication
  • …an assemblage (heterogenous enginering)
• Examples for a “comm. ecology”:
  • Went to do a study in Sri Lanka, had prepared questionnaires and only in the field noticed that the most important Sri Lankan medium is missing: loudspeakers in public places
  • Rural Ghana: Most important expectation on electrification of a village is the desire for light as an enabler for enhanced sociality (see McLuhan: electricity as a medium)
• Asymmetry in points of view:
  • ICT as “access to computers” vs. ICT as the mother sending her son by bus to deliver a message to his brother who calls from a phone kiosk… (=assemblage)
  • Northern ICTs as a local experience

Anthropologizing the term “Development”

• ICT in the North:
  • New creative modes of work organization
  • Flattening hierarchies
  • Transformation of identity and belonging
• ICT in the South:
  • Narrowly instrumental tool
  • Used by humans who are reduced to basic needs
• Examples:
  • Discussion of development workers whether or not it is ok to install solitaire on PCs installed through a ICT project (=issue relevant in the North, but not in the South)
  • A PC room for vocational training of islamic women in Northern India; young women for the first time ever had a space or having friends, changed the use of the room totally from what was planned by the UNESCO project: vocational courses had to be held on hallway because the PC room was used to socialize and do graphics on the PCs

Anthropologizing the term “Globalization”

• Globalization as one way of scaling the world
• “Not the only game in town”

Asymmetries vs. symmetries

• Asymmetries:
  • ICT here vs. ICT there
  • Discrepancy in the meaning of “development” & “culture” for NGO vs. the Indian girls
• Symmetries:
  • Both UNESCO and moms were “development theorists”, moms expecting that a certificate from the vocational course develops their daughters chances, UNESCO expecting that internet PCs increase the professional skills of the girls

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