East-West Divide on the Web

Different needs, different stories

by Evgeny Morozov, September 27, 2007

Source: Valleywagl

Source: ValleywaglSource: Valleywagl

Are we talking past each other?

1. DailyKos2. BoingBoing3. LiveJournal

4. Michelle Malkin5. Porn

6. Sports

green—one-way links

blue—reciprocal links

source: Discover Magazine

How receptive is the Internet to non-English speakers?

Whose story is more important?

or

Pictures not words

The “true” history of Web2.0

But this “cartoon” means almost nothing to most users in the developing world...

Same tools; different causes

vs

Chocolate shops around the world

Or land distribution in Bahrain?

Mobile phones are an even better example

Different needs drive different uses

Mobile Reporting (voices of africa)Mobile Financing (mukuru.com)

Mobile Health (data transfer; connecting clinics)Mobile Trade (connects buyers and sellers via

SMS to price)

Ambivalence of Technology

“technology is not a thing in the ordinary sense of the term, but an "ambivalent" process of

development suspended between different possibilities... technology is not a destiny but a

scene of struggle. It is a social battlefield...[it's] a parliament of things on which civilizational

alternatives are debated and decided”

Andrew Feenberg

Subversive rationalization

“Differences in the way social groups interpret and use technical objects are not merely intrinsic but make a difference in the nature of the objects themselves.

What the object is for the groups that ultimately decide its fate determines what it becomes as it is redesigned and improved over

time...”

Andrew Feenberg

Whoever is capable of this

is also capable of this...

and this...

Thank you!

Questions?