scholarly journals M-PESA: A Socio-Economic Assemblage in Rural Kenya

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Jerop Komen
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Mobile Telephony ◽  
Information Communication Technologies ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Ethnographic Interviews ◽  
Rural Kenya ◽  
Money Transfers ◽  
And Gender ◽  
A Site

The role of information communication technologies in development is contested between those who view it as facilitating broad based human development (Waverman et al., 2005; Jack, Suri and Townsend 2010) and those that  view it as counterproductive (Donner 2008, Castel et al 2007). Mobile telephony, in particular, is seen as the most techno-social transformation to occur. For instance, at a macro level, Waverman et al. (2005) note that ‘mobile telephony has a positive and significant impact on economic growth and this impact may be twice as large in developing countries’. Kenya’s M-PESA is a case in point. This paper looks at M-PESA as a site of inclusion and exclusion, focusing on two elements:  emerging accounts of M-PESA usage, and security on money transfers. The paper presents M-PESA as a social assemblage by adopting DeLanda’s (2006) assemblage theory, which opens up macro and micro dichotomies. Data obtained from ethnographic interviews shows that although M-PESA is meeting some needs, it also has deterministic tendencies, such as power and gender hierarchy distributions, though complex in nature. The paper has studied mobile money as a socio-economic assemblage that shows the dynamics of social change not as given, but as constantly forming and reforming.

scholarly journals My Mobile Phone, My Life: Deconstructing Development (Maendeleo) and Gender Narratives among the Marakwet in Kenya

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (16) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leah Jerop Komen
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Mobile Telephony ◽  
Development Programs ◽  
The People ◽  
Rural Kenya ◽  
Alternative Conceptualization ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Growth Change

The increased adoption of mobile telephony for development is based on the assumption that mobile telephony has the potential to foster social change. To some, such technology can aid most developing countries to leapfrog stages of development. Yet to others, the technology is at most counterproductive: development has been understood differently by the developed in comparison to the underdeveloped. Missing in this narrative is the people’s own conceptualization of the term development as well as their gender roles, often a component of development programs. This study presents findings on an alternative conceptualization of development, dubbed maendeleo, a Swahili term that denotes process, participation, progress, growth, change, and improved standard of living—as defined by the people or women themselves as they interact with mobile telephony in rural Kenya. Using Manuel DeLanda’s assemblage theory to analyze interviews, this study proposes an alternative conceptualization of development. This different perspective on development denotes both process and emergence, through the processes and roles that mobile telephony plays in the techno-social interactions of users, context, and other factors as they form social assemblages that are fluid in nature, hence challenging the Western proposition that new technologies produce development understood as social transformation.

Digital Divide and Social Cleavage: Case Studies of ICT Usage among Peasants in Contemporary China

2011 ◽  
Vol 207 ◽  
pp. 580-599 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhua Guo ◽  
Peng Chen
Keyword(s):  
Digital Divide ◽  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Rural China ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Information Communication Technologies ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Contemporary China ◽  
Ict Adoption ◽  
Social Cleavage

AbstractDuring its structural transformation, rural China witnessed the emergence of four types of village: traditional, industrialized, commercial and villages in cities. Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), including fixed phones, cell phones, television sets and the internet (with personal computers), are now commonly used in Chinese villages but in ways that differentiate villagers according to variables such as occupation, villager membership and social status. The adoption of ICTs by peasants not only represents but also accelerates growing peasant differentiation; in other words, the function of ICTs could not penetrate the barrier of social structure. Meanwhile, structural transformation in China has been an activator to shaping peasants' diversified ideas about information, and the demand for and usage of ICTs. An analysis of peasants' ICT adoption thus enables us to identify the basic trends and characteristics of social transformation in contemporary China.

The use of Information Technology as Tools of Developing Educational Communications for Realizing the Personal Potential of University Students

2020 ◽  
pp. 81-92
Author(s):  
Andrey Ivanovich Shutenko ◽  
◽  
Elena Nikolaevn Shutenko ◽  
Julia Petrovna Derevyanko ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Developmental Model ◽  
Learning Activity ◽  
Information Communication Technologies ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Informational Environment

The article is devoted to the problem of educational communications development as a sphere of implementation of modern information-communication technologies in the higher education system. The purpose of the article is to present the structure and functions of educational communications aimed at the development of personal potential and self-realization of students. Methodology. The study is based on the methodology of personal and communicative-informational approaches in education, psychological-pedagogical provisions on the structure of communication, the leading role of learning activity, didactic principles of building an educational-informational environment. In theoretical terms, the study is based on the idea of the indirect implementation of ICT in education through the development of educational communications. The developing structure of educational communications, including didactic, informational-gnostic, interactive, psychological, attractive-motivational, value-semantic components, is presented. The possibilities of developing personal potential in educational communications are considered. The author’s developmental model of ICT functions is presented, which includes clusters of actual and latent functions aimed at the formation of information-educational space for the development of students’ personal potential. In conclusion, a inference was made about the prospects of the indirect introduction of modern ICT as tools for the development and functioning of various educational communications. At the same time, it is essential that these communications perform psychological and pedagogical tasks and functions.

scholarly journals The intercultural component in an EFL course-book package

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 178-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzana Sándorová
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Information Communication Technologies ◽  
Intercultural Communicative Competence ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Sociocultural Background

Abstract Along with mastery of the grammar and vocabulary of a given language, contemporary students are also expected to acquire intercultural communicative competence (ICC), i.e., the ability to use the language efficiently with regard to the sociocultural background of the communicative situation. This requirement should also be reflected in FL course-books, which are considered to be fundamental didactic tools in FL education, even in an era of information communication technologies. Therefore, the aim of the present paper is to report the results of the research focused on the investigation of intercultural component in the New Opportunities Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate course-book packages. To validate the findings of the content analysis, as the main research method, the method of triangulation was used, i.e., the results of the course-book package analyses were compared with those of observation and interview analyses. The findings of the research revealed that in the investigated course-book packages only some aspects of the intercultural component could be considered relevant because they were suitably treated.

scholarly journals Citizens without Borders – new media and global accountability measures

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Geiselhart
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Information Communication Technologies ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Online Technologies ◽  
Accountability Measures ◽  
Global Indicators

In an environment of globalisation and rapidly expanding deployment of interactive digital communication, this paper takes a complex systems approach to the mapping of large scale global indicators onto electronic flows of information and intent. It argues that democracy is being transformed by online technologies, and that governments which embrace and encourage citizen inputs and monitoring of public information can establish vital groundwork for more effective forms of global governance. Growing awareness of issues that transcend jurisdictions makes such transformations both necessary and increasingly acceptable. The prism for this bird’s eye view is the Australian Government’s evolution in its uses of information communication technologies (ICTs) for citizen engagement.

MODEL FOR FORMING THE BASIS FOR UNIVERSAL EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES IN CHILDREN OF THE OLDER PRE-SCHOOL AGE BY MEANS OF INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES.

2021 ◽  
pp. 04-08
Author(s):  
A. Domikova
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Information Communication Technologies ◽  
School Age ◽  
Meaning Of Work ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Educational Organization ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Pedagogical Literature

The article reveals "universal educational actions", the main structures of this component, the problems of forming the prerequisites for universal educational actions in the context of the implementation of the innovative model of the use of ICT. For this study, methods of analysis of scientific and theoretical material and pedagogical literature on this issue are used. This work reveals the meaning of work experience in a preschool educational organization, reveals the specifics of work, methods and means of organizing information and communication technologies.

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