East-West Divide on the Web Different needs, different stories by Evgeny Morozov, September 27, 2007
Jul 02, 2015
East-West Divide on the Web
Different needs, different stories
by Evgeny Morozov, September 27, 2007
Source: Valleywagl
Source: ValleywaglSource: Valleywagl
Are we talking past each other?
1. DailyKos2. BoingBoing3. LiveJournal
4. Michelle Malkin5. Porn
6. Sports
green—one-way links
blue—reciprocal links
source: Discover Magazine
How receptive is the Internet to non-English speakers?
Whose story is more important?
or
Pictures not words
The “true” history of Web2.0
But this “cartoon” means almost nothing to most users in the developing world...
Same tools; different causes
vs
Chocolate shops around the world
Or land distribution in Bahrain?
Mobile phones are an even better example
Different needs drive different uses
Mobile Reporting (voices of africa)Mobile Financing (mukuru.com)
Mobile Health (data transfer; connecting clinics)Mobile Trade (connects buyers and sellers via
SMS to price)
Ambivalence of Technology
“technology is not a thing in the ordinary sense of the term, but an "ambivalent" process of
development suspended between different possibilities... technology is not a destiny but a
scene of struggle. It is a social battlefield...[it's] a parliament of things on which civilizational
alternatives are debated and decided”
Andrew Feenberg
Subversive rationalization
“Differences in the way social groups interpret and use technical objects are not merely intrinsic but make a difference in the nature of the objects themselves.
What the object is for the groups that ultimately decide its fate determines what it becomes as it is redesigned and improved over
time...”
Andrew Feenberg
Whoever is capable of this
is also capable of this...
and this...
Thank you!
Questions?