"[...] Specifically, we argue that development programs with an eye on instrumental outcomes are well-served by the cultivation of an understanding of broader digital practices—of people’s increasingly digital lives. This work explores not only what devices people use, but also how they get onli
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ne and what they do once there. These representations of digital practices must be fluid and current, given the rapidly changing landscape of Internet connectivity and digital services, and must identify opportunities for new inclusive business models and behavioral interventions. Therefore, this report contributes to the evidence base for development practice and for theory in several ways.
Chapter One offers a sketch of Caribou Digital’s three-part overarching approach to understanding emerging digital practices in context, with an eye specifically on bridging the gaps between development and daily life, and between the micro-level perspective of individual users and the macro-level forces impacting the landscape of digital resources available to them. Chapter Two details results from extensive interviews with experts in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) that help place the current M4D wave in the context of more durable past and future factors. In Chapter Three, our reports on new primary research with users in Uganda, Ghana, and Kenya yield a broader and up-to-the-minute story of how mobile technologies are currently the center of users’ digital lives. Chapter Four concludes the report with a synthesis of these two streams, suggesting that our portrayal of users’ “Digital Days” can provide a user-centric lens to understand how technologies and practices are intertwined, how they vary between contexts, and how they might enable and structure development interventions." (Executive summary)
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"The five reports that make up this collection are variously concerned with humanitarian aid, social and cultural evolution, crisis response, the mitigation of cultural divides, and political unrest. The themes that bind them are an international movement towards public safety; a trust-based relatio
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nship between states and citizens; community led social development; and the capacity of social media and big data to make use of, and amplify, the thoughts and voices of under-represented elements of society. Importantly, the reports also begin to question the inluence these violent contexts are having on the development of social media, where communities in crises utilise and shape these new technologies though real-time engagement. The potential of these media is being maximised to such an extent that these platforms are under strain, and developers are increasingly learning how to adapt to the needs of a variety of audiences in volatile contexts." (Introduction, page 6)
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"Language is a major tool for governance and dissemination of information. Citizens need to participate effectively in discourse pertaining to their private and public interests and enterprises in order to understand matters of development and governance. The proliferation of vernacular radio statio
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ns in Kenya, which continues despite the absence of state moderating and promotion structures, could be an ideal platform for educating citizens. The aim of this paper is to find out the role that vernacular language as used by Kass FM radio station plays in development. The method that was used for data collection is purposive sampling. The results indicate that, vernacular radio plays a major role in creating awareness among citizens at the grassroots levels through topics revolving around education, agriculture, politics & governance and healthcare. This is done in among other ways through the borrowing and adaptation of technical words from English and Kiswahili.These stations need to be accorded direct government support in terms of diversification of programming and mainstreaming of vernacular language to achieve the Kenyan government developmental benchmarks enumerated in the vision 2030." (Abstract)
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"This paper explores the impact that emerging partnerships - particularly between freelancers and nonprofits - are having on the practices of contemporary foreign news reporting. Through an exploration of a widely published project on a health crisis in East Africa-funded by the Pulitzer Center on C
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risis Reporting and reported by the study's author-this study ultimately argues that issues of framing, representation, and ideology are not dominating foreign news production; they are being hotly contested within it. The importance of having a journalist on the ground and the urgency of "liveness", however, is argued to be losing significance within the current model, which often destines foreign news imagery to be decontextualized for universal appeal." (Abstract)
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"Campaigns and movements targeting corruption often face decentralized targets rather than an identifiable dictator or external government, and can be found both in undemocratic and democratic systems. Graft and abuse are manifested in a systemic manner rather than a hodgepodge collection of illicit
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transactions. Consequently, this research brings to light new applications of civil resistance beyond the more commonly known cases against occupations, such as the Indian independence movement, and authoritarian regimes from Chile to Poland. It also expands our understanding about the dynamics of how people collectively wield nonviolent power for the common good. The focus of this research is on citizen agency: what civic actors and regular people—organized together and exerting their collective power—are doing to curb corruption as they define and experience it. Hence, the analytical framework is based on the skills, strategies, objectives, and demands of such initiatives, rather than on the phenomenon of corruption itself, which has been judiciously studied for more than two decades by scholars and practitioners from the anticorruption and development realms. I selected cases that met the following criteria: they were “popular” initiatives. They were civilian-based, involved grassroots participation, and were led and implemented by individuals from the civic realm, rather than governments or external actors, such as donors, development institutions, and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs); they were nonviolent. They did not threaten or use violence to further their aims; they involved some degree of organization and planning, which varied depending on the scope—objectives, geographical range, duration—of the civic initiative; multiple nonviolent actions were employed (thus, instances of one-off demonstrations or spontaneous protests were not considered); objectives and demands were articulated; the civic initiative was sustained over a period of time." (Introduction, pages 2-3)
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"In Brazil, India and Kenya, a wide range of factors currently inhibit media from playing their full role in promoting awareness of child rights and in helping children realise their rights, says this report. Crucial issues identified in all three countries include lack of media coverage, inadequate
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professionalism among journalists, absence of children's voices in the public debate, and scarce coperation among the media and child rights advocates. For each country, a detailed chapter provides insights into the national media landscape, the child rights reporting practice (based on a content analysis), the "media perspective" (based on focus groups and interviews with media professionals), and the "civil society perspective" (based on focus groups and individual interviews). The report recommends creating more youth journalists by training young people to produce radio programmes; establishing incentives for journalists to specialise in child rights; improving networking among civil society organisations and media, and establishing and monitoring guidelines for reporting on child rights." (CAMECO Update 1-2015)
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"This article explores the factors surrounding the introduction of television broadcasting in Kenya, and those issues that have historically instigated how television producers in Kenyan television conceptualise audiences. It highlights that the political economic legacy of the beginnings of broadca
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sting in Kenya continues to influence the processes involved in the production of television programmes, and therefore how producers view the audiences of these programmes." (Abstract)
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"Education and language skills are the main factors that influence which platform women access most frequently. Daily TV use is similar for men and women but women tend to lag men in frequent radio and internet use. Once a country reaches a critical mass in mobile penetration, gaps between both male
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and female ownership levels decrease. The largest gaps exist in countries that are still developing mobile capacity." (Summary, page 35)
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"This paper seeks to identify the extent to which the national TV and radio programme Sema Kenya (Kenya Speaks), part of BBC Media Action’s governance work in Kenya, supported accountability, peace and inclusion at the time of the 2013 Kenya election. It shows the specific value placed on Sema Ken
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ya by audiences and experts at election time [...] Sema Kenya is a weekly programme, in the Kenyan national language of Swahili, involving a panel discussion led by questions from the audience. In its first season, episodes were recorded in 14 different locations across the country. Sema Kenya is not an election programme, which allowed it to tackle local and national governance issues and present a diversity of views and dialogue at a time when the rest of the Kenyan media maintained a very narrow election focus [...] The research also shows that at a time when media coverage and debate was influenced by a peace agenda, resulting in an avoidance of sensitive issues, Sema Kenya provided the public with arguably more detailed information than other media sources." (Abstract)
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"China’s concessionary loans and support to development projects have tended to shift balances of power by favouring certain actors over others and have challenged existing development paradigms, revitalizing ideas of the developmental state. Building on fieldwork conducted in Ghana, Ethiopia, and
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Kenya this article explains to which extent China’s entrance in the media and telecommunication sector actually challenges the dominant, Western-driven approaches to media development, promoting a state centred vision of the information society." (Abstract)
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"Kenya’s 2010 Constitution guarantees press freedom in a way the country has never previously seen. However, the concentration of media ownership and pending consensus on new media legislation are tarnishing the triumphs of Kenya’s media liberalization and development. Regulation of news content
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, including hate speech and political bias, as well as journalistic standards are also issues provoking discussion and sullying the image of Kenya as a role model for other East African countries. On May 21, 2014, international scholars gathered in Bonn to discuss their research under the heading “Kenya’s Media Landscape: A Success Story with Serious Structural Challenges”. This publication provides a supplement to the presentations and discussions held at the fifth annual DW Media Dialogue." (Publisher description)
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"Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fourth consecutive year, with a growing number of countries introducing online censorship and monitoring practices that are simultaneously more aggressive and more sophisticated in their targeting of individual users. In a departure from the pa
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st, when most governments preferred a behind-the-scenes approach to internet control, countries are rapidly adopting new laws that legitimize existing repression and effectively criminalize online dissent." (Page 1)
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"This article examines the discourse surrounding Kibera, a highly populated low-income community in Nairobi, Kenya. Based on 11 months of fieldwork and interviews with 56 Kibera residents, this article discusses the disconnect between the lives experienced by residents and the hyperbolic and essenti
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alised discourse that depicts Kibera as a community defined by sickness, crime and despair. While residents do not deny many of the hardships that are central to the Kibera discourse, they articulate maisha mtaani [life in the neighbourhood] as complex, diverse and contextual. Sadly, several groups that claim to serve the good of Kibera are partially responsible for perpetuating this harmful discourse. In fact, some NGOs, journalists and residents benefit from reproducing a discourse that actively marginalises Kibera and its people." (Abstract)
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"This Global Information Society Watch tracks the state of communications surveillance in 57 countries across the world – countries as diverse as Hungary, India, Argentina, The Gambia, Lebanon and the United Kingdom. Each country report approaches the issue from a different perspective. Some analy
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se legal frameworks that allow surveillance, others the role of businesses in collecting data (including marketing data on children), the potential of biometrics to violate rights, or the privacy challenges when implementing a centralised universal health system. The perspectives from long-time internet activists on surveillance are also recorded. Using the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance as a starting point, eight thematic reports frame the key issues at stake. These include discussions on what we mean by digital surveillance, the implications for a human rights agenda on surveillance, the “Five Eyes” inter-government surveillance network led by the US, cyber security, and the role of intermediaries." (GIS website)
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"Over five years Facebook has grown from practically no users in Sub-Saharan Africa to become the most widely used social media platform. In the four countries where face-to-face surveys were carried out for this research, between 14% (Tanzania) and 27% (Ghana) of all respondents were using it [...]
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Over the last five years, the number of Africans who own or have access to mobile phones, computers, laptops, smartphones and tablets has grown considerably. These both act as media carriers (a mobile with a radio or TV receiver) or a media in their own right (a mobile accessing the Internet and Social Media). African newspapers face the same dilemma as many developed country newspapers. Their print version generates almost all of their revenues but increasingly their online users are either close to or above their print readership." (Page 8)
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