COM547: Mobile Technologies

The James & Verteeg (2007) article the authors surmount a well reasoned argument that current methodologies for mobile phone research in Africa are skewed.  They do eventually suggest that usage would be the best estimate measure in considering social practices and to assess the digital divide.  Although they still acknowledge even that methodology has problems at this time.  They hint at an issue similar to last week’s discussion questions – Is it possible for western academics (or any academic on the good side of the digital divide) to study and determine valuable usage reports on quality if they compare quality to western definitions?  Will researchers first determine what Africans consider as quality and then adjust studies appropriately?  James & Verteeg suggest that this has not occurred in studies on mobile phones in Africa, and therefore there is a significant research gap that must be addressed.  I would also say they imply that this research cannot be done from afar.  Compiling numbers for review and comparison just won’t succeed.  

Quite interesting to consider is how well James & Verteeg demonstrate the invalidity of several common methods researchers used to look at mobile phones in Africa.  Access, ownership, subscribership, quantity and quality are all deflated by the authors, and personally I was quite thoroughly convinced each one indeed has substantial flaws.  Clearly having read this first will influence the remaining readings!

Kyem and LeMaire (2006) propose we look at the digital divide through the lens of economic development.  I continually noted the authors used studies that referred to access (penetration) and subscription rates, yet never questioned their validity. 

The authors also threw a zinger in at foreign corporations by stating it was important to note that growth in mobile phones is “propelled by factors that have more to do with profits for foreign companies than the raising of economic and social wellbeing of Africans.”  Are corporations villains because they desire profits for their risks rather than just doing something that risks their capital position for the non-repaid benefit of another?  Would that statement (or the implied importance) have been made by the authors had the corporations not been foreign?  Would a non-profit be any better, if not even equal, in the ability to provide cellular service so that economic and social wellbeing is the concern before profit?  I don’t think so.  Hey, I believe democracy and capitalism together form the best dysfunctional system yet to be put in place.  So no, I don’t think the world has a Rawls based requirement to provide Africa mobile phones.      

I was very happy to get to the part of the Kyem & LeMaire article that places the onus on African governments.  They make a good point that ICT alone is not enough, and other drivers of economic development must coincide.  The same sentiment is found in the Castells et al chapter.  This would make it seem that mobile phone use should be a part of any African country’s economic development plan.  But one caution that was not discussed it whether or not Africans consider their state of living as lower in quality.  It sometimes felt that the authors had in mind creating an Africa that was just as technologically addicted to success and life as the world (considered modern in their mind of course) they live in.  Although I believe in democracy and capitalism and love my technological devices, I don’t fully believe that all others in the world should or must live in the same way.  Poverty and being downtrodden is bad, but we must be careful in how we define it and how we consider the definitions of not living in poverty.  Adding ICT in rural areas might also create new complications and shift power in ways that are just as bad.  What to do the African people in those areas want?  Are we just in deciding for them on the basis that they just don’t understand what they need?