Public Access ICT Across Cultures
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Public Access ICT across Cultures Public Access ICT across Cultures Diversifying Participation in the Network Society Edited by Francisco J. Proenza The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England International Development Research Centre Ottawa • Cairo • Montevideo • Nairobi • New Delhi © 2015 International Development Research Centre and Contributors This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0) International License. Published by the MIT Press. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected]. A copublication with International Development Research Centre PO Box 8500 Ottawa, ON K1G 3H9 Canada www.idrc.ca / [email protected] This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN: 978-0-262-52737-8 ISBN 978-1-55250-569-4 (IDRC e-book) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Amy Mahan Contents To Amy Mahan ix Foreword by Bruce Girard xi Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction 1 Francisco J. Proenza I IMPACT ON PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT AND WELL-BEING 9 2 User Perceptions of Impact of Internet Caf é s in Amman, Jordan 11 Ghaleb Rabab ’ ah, Ali Farhan AbuSeileek, Francisco J. Proenza, Omar Fraihat, and Saif Addeen Alrababah 3 Impact of Public Access to ICT Skills on Job Prospects in Rwanda 35 Jean Damasc è ne Mazimpaka, Th é odomir Mugiraneza, and Ramata Molo Thioune 4 Personal Objectives and the Impact of Internet Café s in China 59 Francisco J. Proenza, Wei Shang, Guoxin Li, Jianbin Hao, Oluwasefunmi ‘ Tale Arogundade, and Martin S. Hagger 5 Problematic Internet Use among Internet Café Users in China 147 Wei Shang, Xuemei Jiang, Jianbin Hao, and Xiaoguang Yang 6 The Contribution of Five T é l é centres Communautaires Polyvalents to Cameroon’ s Rural Secondary Education 167 Sylvie Siyam Siwe, Laurent Aristide Eyinga Eyinga, Avis Momeni, Olga Balbine Tsafack Nguekeng, Abiodun Jagun, Ramata Molo Thioune, and Francisco J. Proenza viii Contents II FACILITATING INCLUSION AND ENABLING THE BUILDUP OF SOCIAL CAPITAL 197 7 The Appropriation of Computer and Internet Access by Low-Income Urban Youth in Argentina 199 Sebasti á n Ben í tez Larghi, Carolina Aguerre, Marina Laura Calamari, Ariel Fontecoba, Marina Moguillansky, Jimena Orchuela, and Jimena Ponce de Le ó n 8 Impact of Public Access to Computers and the Internet on the Connectedness of Rural Malaysians 233 Nor Aziah Alias, Marhaini Mohd Noor, Francisco J. Proenza, Haziah Jamaludin, Izaham Shah Ismail, and Sulaiman Hashim 9 The Capacity-Enhancing Power of ICT: The Case of Rural Community-Based Organizations in the Peruvian Andes 265 Jorge Bossio, Juan Fernando Bossio, and Laura Le ó n with the collaboration of Marí a Alejandra Campos and Gabriela Perona III IMPACT ON WOMEN 299 10 Women and Cybercaf é s in Uttar Pradesh 301 Nidhi Mehta and Balwant Singh Mehta 11 The Impact of Public Access to Telecenters: Social Appropriation of ICT by Chilean Women 315 Alejandra Phillippi and Patricia Pe ñ a 12 Cybercaf é s and Community ICT Training Centers: Empowering Women Migrant Workers in Thailand 341 Nikos Dacanay, Mary Luz Feranil, Ryan V. Silverio, and Mai M. Taqueban IV A PLACE TO LEARN, A PLACE TO PLAY, A PLACE TO DREAM, A PLACE TO FALL FROM GRACE 373 13 Public Access Impact and Policy Implications 375 Francisco J. Proenza with the collaboration of Erwin A. Alampay, Roxana Barrantes, Herná n Galper í n, Abiodun Jagun, George Sciadas, Ramata Molo Thioune, and Kentaro Toyama About the Authors 433 Index 443 To Amy Mahan Amy Kathleen Mahan ’ s career was marked by a commitment to research and its effec- tive dissemination to improve the communication opportunities of the disadvantaged, as a foundation for human and social development. The focus of much of her work was on telecommunication reform and information and communication technology (ICT) policies, particularly in developing countries. Although she was a productive researcher, Amy chose to devote most of her activity to helping others through her exceptional skills in research support, editing, and report preparation. She had a rare talent for integrating technical production and substantive content editing to make research results more reader-friendly. She strongly believed the weakest link in the research process was dissemination, and she demonstrated innova- tion and imagination to improve its effectiveness wherever she worked. She was a team player who preferred to work collaboratively. Amy Mahan coordinated the Learning Initiatives on Reforms for Network Econo- mies (LIRNE.NET) from Montevideo, Uruguay, and was a member of the Research Working Group of the Global Impact Study of Public Access to Information and Com- munication Technologies. She was also an active member of the Regional Dialogue on the Information Society (DIRSI) and a founder of Fundaci ó n Comunica. Amy left us at age 47 on March 5, 2009. She left suddenly, giving no warning. She did not want us to be distracted by her illness. She wanted to be known for what she thought, what she wrote, whom she helped. There are two predominant motivations for investing in and building physical spaces with computers and connections to the Internet: 1) because there is a scarcity of ICT resources that the endeavor seeks to fill (and perhaps benefit from); and 2) because there is a need to build up community resources . The literature assumes the importance of sustainability for community access points. But perhaps what is needed is a more holistic picture which widens the frame to view and accept some public access points as necessarily ephemeral and fleeting. In many instances what is required for adoption is the impe- tus (and attraction) of introduction to ICT services and applications, rather than a sustained relationship x To Amy Mahan to provide this access. The establishment of a community capacity building access point considers the broader skill base of the community in its evaluations. Likewise, a commercial (or non-profit) enterprise simply seeking to fulfill an access gap should also be posited in context of the community it is serving and in context of shifts in local ICT adoption indicators during its lifespan. As is often the case for social exclusion (gender being a key example), lack of data is still a key con- straint for measuring positive effects and progress generally. If the design for the telecenter or cybercaf é does not particularly target women and girls, or poor people, the handicapped, elderly, people who don’ t speak the official language, or others with special circumstances or needs, it is not likely to collect indica- tors on the access or use by these subgroups of the premises and ICT services. And, on the other hand, the challenges of simultaneously confronting ICT and a public place may prove insurmountable for some socially marginalized sectors. (From internal memoranda prepared by Amy Mahan, 2008) Amy Mahan ’ s foremost interest was in ICT as a tool for social inclusion and a means to help women and traditionally marginalized peoples improve their lives and com- munities. Amy was committed to academic rigor and to learning from field observa- tions and analysis to inform our investments and policy prescriptions, and she understood that rigor required thoroughness and an understanding of context. At the time of her passing, Amy had made substantial contributions to the research and design of two ICTs for development programs. It is with deep gratitude for her scholarship, personal courage, and humanity that we honor our friend and colleague by dedicating this book to her memory. Foreword Amy Mahan was no stranger to shared Internet use. While living in Quito, Ecuador, in the mid-1990s, she collaborated internationally on various academic and research proj- ects, including editing a book with colleagues in Denmark and Canada via what she called her sneakernet — a network configuration that involved putting her shoes on and jogging to the local Internet caf é to download email, conduct research, and share her findings. She worked from a home office, and shared access was the only option avail- able: Quito ’ s telecom infrastructure was notoriously poor, and commercial Internet access was a monopoly service provided by a bank determined to apply its usurious lending practices to its Internet business model. At the time, affordable access was often (and naï vely) seen as the only obstacle to the Internet for all initiatives in developing countries. The solutions proposed were equally simplistic: privatize telecoms, invest massively in infrastructure development, and enable telecenters, Internet café s, and other shared-use solutions for the poor. Fast forward to 2014, and the world has changed. The mobile phone is everywhere, more than 2.5 billion people are online, and as mobile phones are increasingly Inter- net-enabled, it seems that the ubiquitous Internet might even be within reach. Why should we worry about shared public access when “ everyone ” has a smart phone? The most obvious answer to that question is that in fact not everyone does have a smart phone. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimates that there are 83.7 mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in the developed world but only 19.0 per 100 inhabitants in Africa and 21.1 across the developing world.1 One of the reasons that shared public access continues to be important is that for many people, it is still the only access available. However, that is far from the only reason. Results from the Global Impact Study of Public Access 2 and from the research docu- mented in this book provide some surprising findings.