Understanding the international ICT and development discourse : assumptions and implications
Date
2002
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Southern African Journal of Information and Communication (SAJIC), The Edge Institute / Research ICT Africa, Braamfontein, ZA
Abstract
This paper seeks to understand the assumptions underlying the international public ICT and
development discourse and the implications of these assumptions for policy makers and
development practitioners. The argument is situated within a power-knowledge framework
and in broader critiques of the development industry. A discourse analysis of the public ICT
and development discourse was conducted. Three main themes have been explored: 1) the
construction of the category of ‘information-poverty’, 2) the construction of what counts as
legitimate/valuable information and knowledge, and 3) the developmental aims of these
programmes, in particular models of progress and catch-up to industrial country ideals. The
paper argues that assumptions of technological determinism and a view of technology as a
neutral tool for development underlie the ICT and development discourse. The use of
technology as an index of development reproduces the binary opposition between the
developed and the underdeveloped that has been widely critiqued within the field of
development. The commonly assumed model of ICTs and development is grounded in these
assumptions of technological determinism, which allow the complex political factors
influencing poverty and inequality at local, national and international levels to be hidden, or at
least go largely unquestioned.
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Keywords
DEVELOPMENT THEORY, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, GLOBAL