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The issue is thus not the fairly minor incursion against research ethics that Facebook has been caught doing, but rather what it tells us about what Facebook could and very likely is doing on a day-to-day basis
September 4, 2013
Much has been made of the role that the Internet is playing in restructuring the way in which governance is executed both at the national and the global levels. The role of the Internet in supporting the rise of wide-spread autocrat-challenging movements in the Arab world, the role of the Internet in enabling middle class protests against out of touch officials and political structures in democracies, the power of the Internet to sway elections and directly influence policies are all obvious and widely commented upon.
November 7, 2011
...in one study in rural Africa it was being found that the costs of mobile communications were absorbing up to 54% of the total net income of certain farmers
June 25, 2011
But in looking at this array of attractive intellectual baubles I’m left with one nagging concern. Amidst all this media and networking and mobility what exactly will be the content of this “Twenty-first Century University as global learning network”? Where will the content come from, that will constitute the “learning” component of this learning network? How exactly will the promise implicit in this statement—“digital learning is increasingly recognized as an important part of development worldwide” be realized in fact, and by whom, and ultimately in whose interests?
February 23, 2011
In this, I think that the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia have access to skills and resources which were unavailable to earlier movements that is—the Internet, social networking, mobile telephony and perhaps most important, the experience and knowledge of how to use these in support of collective social ends.
February 11, 2011
The app culture is one of individuals and individualized approaches. Apps enable and empower the individual as a consumer, as a communicator, as an information handler. However, many of the major issues in a developing world (and other) environment are not ones that lend themselves readily to individualized responses or individual solution. Issues involving citizenship and particularly the rights and responsibilities of citizens including political behaviours and governance, human rights, land rights, water rights and so on are often highly political and highly contentious with huge financial interests involved and where individuals no matter how empowered they may be matter for little against entrenched political power and financial strength.
Gurstein's Community Informatics
July 1, 2014
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