This research tracks the impact of new media in the educational and research systems of three low-income countries: Kenya, Ghana, and Kerala (India). A fundamental question in studies of science and technology is the extent to which new technologies are associated with shifts in the structure of social ties. The principal objective of this project is to understand the impact of information and communications technology on the process of networking and knowledge generation, broadly conceived to cover research in traditional institutions such as universities and government research institutes as well as educators and professionals in other institutions. To address this issue, three main data collection activities are employed including: (1) a survey of scientists in the primary research and educational institutions within the capital regions, (2) focused qualitative and quantitative interviews on mobile phones among professionals and educators, and (3) video ethnography of a subset of these scientists and professionals, including scientists first interviewed in 1994. By employing these methods, this research sheds light on questions related to social connectivity and development, arising in debates surrounding the diffusion and use of communication technologies. The key intellectual questions examined include: (1) Why do most scientists have smaller international networks and why do women scientists, in particular, have fewer contacts locally even with greater access to the Internet? (2) Is the increase in Kenyan core networks found in previous studies a temporary phenomenon, owing to the adoption of mobile phones, or is this new technology fundamentally changing communication in sub-Saharan Africa? (3) Are these changes in networks associated with use of mobile phones also occurring in Ghana? (4) Does the use of mobiles? Squeeze out? The Internet, such that time and resources are spent on a technology that is primarily for local communication, with a consequent reduction in international linkages?
This project has several broader impacts: (1) providing opportunities for involvement of both faculty and students from major academic institutions in the five main project locations (Baton Rouge, River Falls, Nairobi, Accra, Thiruvananthapuram). This project also provides the opportunity for an expanded set of participating institutions, through the involvement of the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. In this way, the project will create a collaborative network for strengthening multi-institutional, international research and developing a long-term program trajectory focused on an emerging global phenomenon, the development and diffusion of information and communications technology; (2) extending the established, collaborative opportunities created in the PI's previous work to a broader network of researchers concerned with the study of science, technology, and development, e.g. the interest group formed at the 2008 meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science in Rotterdam. This project is poised to serve as a key node in this emergent network not just through communications but by hosting other scholars who wish to study these issues in Africa and India; (3) creating and improving the understanding of the relationship between technological and social change in the long term, by presenting the results in conferences and refereed journals and assisting in the organization of policy forums; (4) reaching beyond academic and policy audiences through video ethnography (our group produced two movies shown at the World Summit on the Information Society; and (5) providing results directly to the leaders of the scientific research systems in Ghana, Kenya, and Kerala.
