Sorry for piping up without an intro, but I just returned from Uganda. There community radio stations offer an email service to rural listeners. Friends can email you care of the radio station and, at a designated time, the radio will alert everyone who has received an email. The charge for receiving an email in this way is approximately 5 cents.
I was in Uganda creating a digital bookmobile, which would download public domain materials from the net, print and bind them into books and distribute them to rural schools and families. So a form of mediation, also? But you mention mediation by societal leaders - I'm not advocating that, just the use of humans as technical conduits to information for the benefit of massively nontechnical populations. - Richard Koman Program Director Anwhere Books www.anywherebooks.org Herman Wasserman wrote: > Cliff, this is a very interesting line of argument -- if this > way of using the internet through an intermediary is a > general practice in Africa because of the lack of > connectivity, it might mean amending some of the theories of > Internet communication from the idea of the Internet as a > many-to-one or individualised, customised form of > communication to one that is similar to the two-step flow of > communication, where information is mediated by leaders or > representatives in society. > > Can you perhaps point me to some case studies of this type of > mediation, or to specific examples? Thanks > > > Cliff Missen wrote: > >> Today, villager's messages are being delivered on paper to a Internet >> Cafe and then transcribed into email for delivery worldwide by someone >> who holds an email account. There may someday be a SERVICE that enhances >> this informal relationship to the point where a single "griot" can >> manage email accounts for hundreds of clients through a simple handheld >> device. It'll take a little tweaking of the current email and client >> software, but it's very possible. ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd For the GKD database, with past messages: http://www.GKDknowledge.org
