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.
A fundamental question in studies of science and technology is the extent to which new information and communication technologies are associated with shifts in the structure of social ties and the nature of knowledge production. For this project this is interpreted to mean changes in professional and organizational network structures but also changes in publication productivity and use of technologies over time. The goal of this grant was to track the impact of new media in the educational and research systems of three low income countries. Louisiana State University and the University of Wisconsin (River Falls) along with a multinational set of partnering institutions, examined changes in research networks and the impact of mobile telephony. By conducting a survey of scientists in the primary research and educational institutions within the capital regions, a survey of mobile telephony among professionals and educators, and video ethnography involving a subset of these professionals, the project shed light on key questions related to social connectivity and development, arising in debates surrounding the diffusion and use of communication technologies. Our findings thus far concern gender differences within the research setting of Ghana, Kenya, and Kerala. Our results indicate that over a period marked by dramatic increases in access to and use of various ICTs, the composition and size of female researchers core professional ties have either not changed significantly or have changed in an unexpected direction. Indeed, the size of women's ties are retracting over time rather than expanding. Results also indicate very few gender disparities in publication outcomes with one exception: productivity in international journals. We show that substantial gains in access to technology and higher education by women have not reduced the gender gap on this important career dimension. Finally, our results, as they relate to gender differences, also indicate clear gender disparities within an increasingly technologically saturated environment. Over time, both men and women report significant increases in access to and use of various technologies, yet, even after controlling for other factors, women continue to be less technologically oriented than their male counterparts. Although women adopt new technologies around the same time and display similar patterns of email use as men, they are less intense users of both email and the web and they use the web less diversely than men. While these findings indicate clear and persistent gender differences, our most recent research indicates that these differences may be exacerbated for women in universities. Indeed, in a paper examining gender disparities in men and women's assessment of the social and organizational environment of the two sectors, few differences emerged between men and women in national research institutes. In universities, however, a number of statistically significant differences emerged between men and women. In light of this important finding, future papers will adopt a more explicit focus on gender disparities in publication productivity, professional networks, and access to and use of technology across sector. Finally, recent analyses suggest the digital divide in connectivity (in terms of access to computers, email, and the Internet) may have largely closed for the scientific community. In contrast to 2000, where the majority of scientists viewed themselves as users of email but with shared and irregular access to computers and the Internet—access to technology has become almost universal, but with significant regional differences in use. This project has several broader impacts: (1) our findings related to gender differences in science hold implications for national and global policy makers. A variety of efforts have been implemented worldwide to encourage the participation of women and girls in primary, secondary, and postsecondary education in the hopes of rectifying the gender imbalance in universities and other research institutions. Based on the results of our study, we argue attention must be paid to the organizational structure within which scientific work takes place if these efforts are to be successful; (2) it provided opportunities for involvement of both faculty and students from major academic institutions in the five main project locations (Baton Rouge, LA; River Falls, WI; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India). In this way, the project created 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; (3) and this project produced the only longitudinal research on the impact of mobile phones on core networks in Africa and Asia, and the only panel data on the impact of the Internet on scientific networks in these locations.
