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- Convenor:
-
Sharath Srinivasan
(University of Cambridge)
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- Location:
- C2.05
- Start time:
- 28 June, 2013 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the methodological innovations and ethical challenges of the use of new information and communication technologies (ICT) in the study of political and social change in Africa.
Long Abstract:
This panel explores challenges and benefits of the use of new information and communication technologies (ICT) in the study of African political and social dynamics. New ICT offer valuable tools and create new spaces of expression and mobilisation North and South of the Sahara. Yet ICT are not only an object of research: academics use them daily to engage with actors, retrieve information and even generate data. Here, the ethical and methodological implications have been understudied. Moreover, new ICT in Africa have become hugely popular with international donors, development partners, NGOs, opinion polls organisations and other business actors, and the frontiers of research and academia have become particularly porous. Papers will explore the ethical challenges involved in these different configurations, as well as the methodological approaches to collect and analyse ICT based data, especially on topics such as conflict early warning and public opinion, offered by ICT, particularly when combining 'old' and 'new' media tools/spaces. They will also analyse the specific challenges and advances contained in using new ICT and/or focusing on the use of new ICT when conducting ethnographic field research. Last but not least, they will interrogate how these interactions impact scientific production and knowledge on the politics of Africa.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Last Moyo (University of Witwatersrand)
Paper short abstract:
The textualisation of space by the Internet has led to advantages and disadvantages in researching Africa. While time and space have clearly been compressed for the benefit of an often poorly equipped researcher, there are still major ethical and philosophical questions that need to be addressed.
Paper long abstract:
The textualisation of space by the Internet has led to advantages and disadvantages in researching Africa. While time and space have clearly been compressed for the benefit of an often poorly equipped researcher, there are still major ethical and philosophical questions that need to be addressed especially in relation to online ethnographies of conflict. Using the case of Zimbabwe's most violent election in 2008 and what has been widely referred to as the Arab Spring; this paper explores the inherent dangers of what I see as a rise in the dependence on virtual realities. In exploring the ethical concern, the paper problematizes the relationship between the online virtuality realities and offline physical realities in conflict. The running commentary mainly addresses the question what happens to space when text becomes text? The paper therefore unravels the ontological and epistemological issues of reality in researching conflict. However, its aim is not to dismiss the validity of virtual ethnographies, but to call for reflexivity in its deployment not only in relation to ethics, but philosophical perceptions of the 'real'.
Claudia Lopes (University of Cambridge)
Paper short abstract:
This paper reflects upon the methodological and ethical challenges of the project "Africa's Voices" aimed at surveying public opinion through SMS and interactive radio. The discussion will be framed on the wider question of how ICTs are promoting new forms of political participation in Africa.
Paper long abstract:
In several African countries, radio stations communicate with their audiences online or through mobile phones during talk shows or for audience research. These technologies can also be used to gather audiences' opinions on social and governance issues using polls. In this context, SMS offer an easy and accessible way to collect opinions in a short period of time. Large numbers of SMS can be stored and managed using software (e.g., FrontlineSMS) installed in stations computers connected to a modem. The potential of these technical innovations to create spaces for public consultation and debate between journalists, citizens and other political actors is explored in "Africa's Voices". This one year pilot is guided by a quasi-experimental approach to develop a tailored methodology for opinion polling in radio stations in Africa. The first insights of the project lead to fundamental questions related to perceptions and effects of ICT based polls on stations and communties. How stations interact with new M4D tools to create spaces for community participation? In which formats audiences tend to express their opinions using SMS and why? How important is confidentiality and anonymity to African audiences? What kind of topics generate more engagement from the audiences and journalists? Are existing social cleaveages being reinforced by "Africa's Voices"? The project offers a basis to discuss these questions and reflect on how debates generated by "Africa's Voices" can shape social representations and identities and empower citizens by giving them a "voice" that may spread to other forms of political participation.
Iginio Gagliardone (University of the Witwatersrand) Emanuele Fantini (IHE Delft Institute for Water Education)
Paper short abstract:
This paper, based on an ethnographic study of Star FM, a Nairobi based radio station broadcasting in Somali to North-East Kenya and South-Central Somalia, explores the methodological and ethnical challenges of researching the role ICTs play in collecting and articulating voice in conflict areas.
Paper long abstract:
South Central Somalia has been engaged in conflict since 1991 and ICTs, both old and new, have been variously perceived as a component of the war or a tool that could bring peace and reconciliation in the region. The absence of a government has led to a proliferation of media outlets, mostly radio stations, acting as mouthpieces for warring factions, supporting partisan agenda and playing a role in protracting violence. On the other hand, actors such as the United Nations and Somali journalists in the diaspora have heavily invested in communication, establishing and founding radio, TV stations and other media initiatives with the aim of creating a common ground for Somali to discuss a path for peace or of helping "legitimate" voices gaining trust among the population.
By focusing on Star FM, a radio initially targeting the Somali population in Kenya and which has progressively extended its reach and opened branches in South-Central Somalia, this paper analyses the challenges and opportunities of doing in-depth research on and through ICTs in a highly politicized conflict area. In such a politicized environment, where accusations of serious crimes on the part of journalists themselves are rife, the paper stresses how corroborating data can be a challenge but it is also a priority. It also discusses ways to cope with sensitive information about journalists and the audience in a context when journalists are actively targeted by militia groups such as al Shabaab but similarly accused to be part of the conflict.
Vincenzo Cavallo
Paper short abstract:
The Kenyan eParticipation platform Ushahidi generated a techno-discourse about the rise of African Cyberdemocracy and the power of crowd-sourcing that is probably more relevant than the real impact that these eParticipation platforms had or will have on the life of normal citizens and media activists.
Paper long abstract:
An eParticipation ecology is composed of five elements: actors, contents, traditional culture of participation, existing media skills and practices, discourses in conflicts (establishment vs. antagonists) and three macro-dimensions: cultural/traditional, political and socio-technological, in which the five elements are interacting with each other (Cavallo, 2010).
The term eParticipation is used to define a specific field of study that attempts to investigate how ICTs can be applied to improve citizen/community participation and consequently their capacity to influence government decision-making processes. In this respect, eParticipation projects are considered strategies to influence power in a specific direction.
It is important to specify that in the context of this article, eParticipation is not considered a neutral space in which different actors communicate amongst themselves.
In this article we will explore the possible applications of the eParticipation Ecology framework to the analysis of the most relevant Kenyan Techno-Discourses emerged in the last five years at local and international level.
Furthermore, in this article we will investigate eParticipation in relation to international development and the history of "North-South" relations in Sub-Saharan Africa from colonialism up to now.
Guy Grossman (University of Pennsylvania) Gabriella Sacramone-Lutz
Paper short abstract:
We use a field experiment to study the effects of access to new IT channels of political communication on the efforts voters take to influence their representatives.
Paper long abstract:
We use a field experiment to study the effects of access to channels of political communication on the efforts voters take to influence their representatives. We presented randomly sampled constituents in Uganda with an opportunity to send a text-message to their MP at one of three randomly assigned price levels. In assessing who chose to contact their representatives and what they chose to communicate, we seek to determine whether ICTs can flatten interest articulation and whether strategic considerations result in price-induced changes in the types of communication sent to politicians. Take-up rates of the new technology are about 5% which represents a moderate level of engagement relative to traditional forms of contact. Critically, contrary to concerns that new technology privileges the already privileged, this engagement corresponds to a statistically significant though substantively small, flattening effect, with a greater share of marginalized populations using this channel compared to traditional channels. Nevertheless these new users do not differ on our measures of preferences from the general population or the traditionally engaged population. Price matters too, but we find that the effect of price is more quantitative than qualitative. Making messaging free to voters yields a a 50% increase in messaging but this increase does not substantially alter the representation of marginalized populations or the types of messages that are sent. From an MP's perspective new technology changes the volume but not the information.