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TRANSCRIPT
Cuban digital identity: A summary of recent evidence
Authors:
Guy Baron and Gareth Hall, Aberystwyth University, UK
European Languages
Hugh Owen Building
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DY
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Cuban digital identity: A summary of recent evidence
Abstract
With the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, many people predicted the imminent
collapse of the Cuban authoritative regime and some critics saw the Internet as playing a
major part in that collapse. But this has simply not been the case as Raúl Castro followed his
brother Fidel into power and the socialist system remains today. It is a widely held viewpoint
that Internet use in Cuba is restricted due to a number of factors and this paper intends to
examine those factors and asks to what extent the lack of access to the World Wide Web has
helped to maintain (with some evident changes) the socialist status quo on the island. The
article will also examine how the Internet is used to represent the nation externally and
ultimately argues that the Cuban government is negotiating a fine line between taking full
economic advantage of what the Internet can offer and hampering its use as a mechanism for
the subversion of the Revolution in the face of continued US aggression.
Keywords: Cuba, Internet, Identity, Technology, Digital, Revolution,
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‘Secrets are over [...] We are facing the
most powerful weapon that has ever
existed, which is communication.’
(Castro, 2010)
With the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, many people predicted the imminent
collapse of the Cuban authoritative regime. As Bert Hoffmann (2003: 296) points out some
critics saw the Internet as playing a major part in that collapse. But this has simply not been
the case as Raúl Castro followed his brother Fidel into power and the socialist system
remains today. It is a widely held viewpoint that Internet use in Cuba is restricted due to a
number of factors and this paper intends to examine those factors factors and asks to what
extent the lack of access to the World Wide Web has helped to maintain (with some evident
changes) the socialist status quo on the island. The article will also examine (via an analysis
of a number of websites) how the Internet is used to represent the nation externally and
ultimately argues that the Cuban government is negotiating a fine line between taking full
economic advantage of what the Internet can offer and hampering its use as a mechanism for
the subversion of the Revolution in the face of continued US aggression.
The Cuban telecommunications industry was nationalised in August 1959 and ‘by the
end of 1960 the regime had effectively asserted control over print and broadcast media’
(Kalathil and Boas, 2001). As the Cuban Constitution says (quoted in Díaz Rodríguez and
Sokooh Valle, 2013: 66) the mass media forms part of ‘state or social property and cannot be
the object, under any circumstances, of private property,’ (author’s translation). Over the
course of the next 40 years a number of institutions were created to deal with
telecommunications and new technology (the Ministry of Communications-MINCOM-was
established in the early 1960s). In the 1970s the USSR agreed to help Cuba develop a
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computer industry and the first computer assembly line produced 100 minicomputers in 1976
(Valdes and Rivera, 1999: 141). Cuba first engaged with the Internet in 1981, sending its first
email to the USSR with a primitive connection, but the Cuban government did not see
information technologies as important for developing the economy until the collapse of the
Soviet Union a decade later. It wasn’t until 1989 that Cuba made its first email contact with
another source outside the Soviet Union, making contact with Peacenet in Canada (Venegas,
1999). From the outset, however, even before the first network connection, Cuba realised that
the Internet would become an important phenomenon, that ‘it would have a profound impact
on individuals, organizations and society’ (Press, 2011). But since those early days Cuban
connectivity to the World Wide Web has not developed as many would have hoped.
The Cuban government’s Internet priorities have largely followed that of the UN
through UNESCO (United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization). As
Cristina Venegas (1999) points out, in 1997 UNESCO’s Executive Council discussed the
problems that face developing nations with respect to information technologies and agreed to
focus attention on ‘community programs and the strengthening of development sectors like
education, prior to wiring each individual home’, and Cuba’s Internet development has
largely followed this line of argument partly due to economic restraints – the obvious
difficulty in a developing country in getting everyone connected domestically.
As Hoffmann (2003: 299) points out Cuba was the leader of new technology in Latin
America before the Revolution with the most televisions per head of population, but after
1959 communications were not seen as part of national development, only as important for
national defence and security. For example, until 2000 the heads of MINCOM were always
members of the military. In 1996 Cuba decided to connect to the Internet, creating the
Ministry of Information and Communications [Ministerio de la Informática y las
Comunicaciones] (MIC) in 2000, from which the Programa Rector para la Informatización de
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la Sociedad (PRIS) was implemented. According to López García (2013: 69) this was a state
policy to gain access to the benefits that derive from information and communications
technology. López García argues that Cuba recognises the potential of the Internet but that
connection to it privileges institutions and businesses that have the greatest impact on Cuban
society. But the combination of an ageing telecommunications infrastructure, much of it from
the 1940s, and the economic crisis beginning in 1989 made any technological advancement
extremely difficult and so Cuba began to lag behind other Latin American and Caribbean
nations in terms of Internet connectivity.
But the Cuban government has always been suspicious of the advancement of new
technologies and the effects that they may have on the maintenance of the socialist system,
especially when these technologies emanate from the US. As Venegas (1999) points out:
‘The Helms-Burton law of 1992 calls for the improvement of telecommunications
connections and information exchanges with Cuba, in order to increase the potential for
change.’ There has been a history of using communications to bring down the Cuban regime
and a certain amount of paranoia about new communications technology is entirely
understandable, resulting in the necessity to maintain some form of control over Internet use.
Previously, communications had been signalled as viable means for bringing about
the end to the Castro regime. In 1983, The Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act
established Radio Marti, followed by Public Law 101-246 in 1990 which created TV
Marti. Both Radio and TV Marti, ironically named after José Martí, Cuba’s greatest
hero of independence, broadcast anti-Castro propaganda funded by the US
government, with the goal of disrupting the social and political environment on the
island. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Torricelli, the emboldened senator from
New Jersey authored the Cuban Democracy Act (1992) which in addition to
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tightening the embargo, called for improving telecommunications connections with
Cuba in order to force change. (Venegas, 1999).
So, for a number of reasons explained below, Internet use in Cuba is severely restricted at
domestic level.
RESTRICTIONS ON INTERNET USE IN CUBA
By 1996, the Cuban government decided that it would engage with the Internet and took
control of its use on the island. In their study of Internet use and control in China and Cuba
Kalathil and Boas quote Decree Law 209, passed in June 1996 to govern Cuba’s connection
to the Internet. The law: ‘stated that access would be selective and would be granted “in a
regulated manner […] giving priority to the entities and institutions most relevant to the
country’s life and development”’ (Kalathil and Boas, 2001). This can be read either as in line
with UNESCO’s policy as described above or as something more sinister; a desire and
intention to censor and restrict Internet use at the level of the individual citizen. As opposition
to the Cuban regime was already using the Internet by this time from the US to promote
counter-revolutionary activity, this type of reactive response was understandable. In their
study, Kalathil and Boas suggest that ‘authoritarian regimes are finding ways to control and
counter the political impact of Internet use’. In the case of Cuba, they argue that the
government has maintained state control of the Internet through both ‘reactive and proactive
strategies.’ Although Cuba has no central government agency involved in censorship of
Cuban media, the control of content is often left to editors who are tied to the power structure
and benefit from maintaining it – as Kalathil and Boas say, these people ‘share the
perspective of regime elites’.
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According to Larry Press there are a number of limitations to Internet use in Cuba, not
just financial or lack of access to a computer. Cubans are allowed direct access to computers
at various sites, including hotels and recently instigated Internet cafes (although in both
places at around 4-5 CUC an hour with the average wage around 15 CUC a month, the cost is
often prohibitive). As del Valle (2013) recently reported in Juventud Rebelde, this service
was extended in June, 2013 at 118 ‘salas de navegación’ across the country. The price to
connect to the national intranet is only 60 cents per hour, but to surf the web costs around
4.50 CUC an hour. Recent developments also include a pay-as-you-go, universally available
internet access service, but again, the cost for the average citizen is prohibitive and of course
the service requires an internet-enabled device, again a costly product for the average Cuban.
But he says that the filtering of content and activity also limits Cuban’s access via what is
known as the AvilaLink ‘information management’ programme, apparently used in places
where multiple computers are in use (Press, 2011). Cuban users, Press argues, are fully aware
of the possibility that their Internet use is being monitored and so this would automatically
restrict their experience. Uxo (2009: 12.5), however, argues that this monitoring is both
‘erratic and arbitrary’, ‘dependent to a great extent on the administrator of each area, where
filters or controls governing one Internet connection may be completely lacking for others.’
As García Pérez et al (2006) say: ‘Internet policy has been one that has been heavily
regulated by the state.’ But the official argument for the lack of Internet access on a daily
basis in Cuba is that there are limited resources and technology to deliver it to everyone and
the official line is to not fear counter-revolutionary information being spread over the
Internet. Melchor Gil Morel, vice-minister of Informática y Telecomunicaciones has said:
‘No le tenemos miedo a la información contrarrevolucionaria. La información contrarrevolucionaria
se basa en mentiras’ (Hoffmann, 2003: 314).
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Reactive strategies then are important for the Cuban regime to counter the huge amount
of subversive material that comes from outside the island, over which the regime has no
control. ‘The largest share of Cuba–related political information on the Internet emanates not
from domestic sources, but from foreign–based organizations trying to influence Cuban
politics and U.S. policy toward Cuba’ (Kalathil and Boas, 2001). Kalathil and Boas go further
to argue that the more subversive material that exists against the regime, the more the
position of the regime’s hardliners with respect to Internet control is strengthened, and so
anything regarded as a ‘tool of US aggression’ has heavier restrictions placed upon it.
Watchful of organisations that have external links, the Cuban government:
is undoubtedly concerned about the potential use of e–mail for logistical organization
among politically threatening CSOs [Civil Society Organisations]. As a result, it has
carefully meted out access among CSOs according to their political orientation.
Dissident and human rights organizations openly opposed to the regime have little hope
of gaining Internet access: most have their telephone calls regularly monitored, and
several have had computers confiscated by the authorities. (Kalathil and Boas, 2001).
Cuba is seen as an Internet enemy by Reporters Without Borders, the largest press freedom
organisation in the world. According to their 2009 report, although Cubans are allowed to
access the Internet in hotels for example, the cost of doing so is prohibitive. The report also
quotes Vice-Minister Boris Moreno: ‘The use of the Internet [must serve] to defend the
Revolution and the principles in which [Cuba] has believed for years’ (Reporters Without
Borders, 2011a). This defence has included, according to Reporters Without Borders, the
repeated arrest and interrogation of bloggers like Yoani Sánchez (the last time in October
2012), whose Generation Y blog is highly critical of the Cuban government. Other bloggers,
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such as Luis Felipe Rojas, have been arrested several times and Cuban dissident and
cyberjournalist Guillermo Fariñas Hernández (“El Coco”), winner of the 2010 Sakharov Prize
for Freedom of Thought awarded by the European Parliament, was arrested three times in
less than 48 hours in January 2011. Punishments are apparently severe for online opposition
to the regime, although there are no journalists currently in prison on the island. The last one,
according to another report from Reporters Without Borders was Albert Santiago Du
Bouchet, who arrived in Spain in April, 2011, along with 36 other Cuban dissidents who were
released on condition that they agreed to go into exile (Reporters Without Borders, 2011b).
As is well known Cuba has a state interventionist model when it comes to the economy,
typical of socialist countries, the state becoming the owner of the means of production and
the distribution of goods and services. The same then applies to the Internet and the use of it
when globalisation becomes a central issue in the development of the economy. As
previously said, for Cuba the development of the Internet was not a priority in the 1990s due
to the forced austerity of the Special Period but such development is highly significant, as
Hoffmann points out, due to state monopoly of the media. He quotes Article 53 of the Cuban
Constitution:
Se reconoce a los ciudadanos libertad de palabra y prensa conforme a los fines de la
sociedad socialista. Las condiciones materiales para su ejercicio están dadas por el
hecho de que la prensa, la radio, la televisión, el cine y otros medios de difusión masiva
son de propiedad estatal o social y no pueden ser objeto, en ningún caso, de propiedad
privada, lo que asegura su uso al servicio exclusivo del pueblo trabajador y del interés
de la sociedad. (Hoffmann, 2003: 296).
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So the Internet immediately poses a dilemma for the Cuban government in the potential for a
lack of control over such a mass medium, but at the same time its power as an economic,
social and political force must be recognised and harnessed. To this end a more proactive use
of the Internet developed as early as 1996 when the Cuban air force shot down two private
planes flown by an anti–Castro exile group. As Kalathil and Boas (2001) say: ‘the recently
established online edition of the state newspaper Granma Internacional was the only way for
foreign audiences to read the Cuban government’s version of events.’ So, as Kalathil and
Boas point out, in addition to the strategy of access restriction, ‘the state has also promoted
Internet development in areas it considers priorities. According to its “plan for
informatization of Cuban society,” the regime seeks to guide and channel the growth of the
Internet so that like other media its primary impact is to serve the political goals of the
revolution.’ Partly this has been as a defence against the regime’s negative image in
international media. There are a number of government–affiliated websites that offer official
perspectives on current events, with frequent criticism of the United States. For example the
recently established site cubavsbloqueo.cu (Cuba versus the blockade), for instance, rallies
opposition to the US embargo of Cuba and the international edition of the Communist Party’s
newspaper Granma can be read in six languages.
All of this seems to point towards a desire by the Cuban government to control Internet
use on the island and use the medium to promote Cuba’s socialist system. But an important
question to ask is whether the increasing use of the Internet at the level of civil society
actually promotes and encourages democratisation of authoritarian regimes? Corrales and
Westhoff (2006, 911) try to explain differing Internet use across nations and they find a
‘complex relationship between political liberties and Internet adoption’ in which ‘not all
authoritarian regimes discourage Internet use similarly [but]states that repress political and
economic rights [...] are less likely to adopt liberty-promoting new technologies,’ adding that
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authoritarian regimes tend to encourage television use as it is relatively easily controlled, but
that they often discourage Internet use. They attempt to describe the type of Internet control
used by authoritarian regimes. ‘We suggest that there are three types of state policies to
control the Internet: blockage, access restrictions, and content control. They range from the
most to the least draconian. At the most extreme level, an authoritarian regime might seek to
block the Internet entirely. This is more likely to happen in the poorest authoritarian regimes,
where the state presumably has no interest in the economic gains afforded by the Internet, and
societal demand for the Internet is low’ (925). If any of this is true in Cuba it would appear
that access restriction is the main source of control over Internet use for the Cuban
government.
Cristina Venegas (1999) argues that simply equating technological freedom and access
to information with some kind of democratic change is teleologically naive. She cites Enrique
González-Manet, a professor of Communication at the University of Havana, who has been
one of the country's leading exponents of the uses and possible repercussions of technology
in developing nations. He sees the emergence of the Internet as a type of revolution that
cannot be stopped but warns that views of it as a great equalizer and force for democracy are
misleading since we must take into consideration that in the Third World, ‘75% of the
population barely has access to 10% of communications media, 6% of the telephones, 5% of
the computers, and 2% of the satellites.’ Kalathil and Boas (2001) agree and argue that
although most media commentators believe that the Internet is inevitably a force for
democracy, ‘no significant body of scholarly work has sought to address the widespread
popular belief that the Internet will undermine authoritarian rule.’
But it appears that there is some truth in the reasoning suggested by Corrales and
Westhoff that authoritarian regimes seek to somehow repress new communication
technologies. According to Larry Press (2011) there are three reasons for the lack of free and
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open access to the Internet in Cuba: ‘the US embargo, the Cuban economy, and the
government's fear of information freedom’. The embargo has made it difficult for Cuba to
obtain the raw materials necessary to set up an Internet infrastructure (routers, modems etc
are extremely expensive and not freely available). Due to the collapse of the USSR (Cuba’s
main trading partner) and the subsequent Special Period in Peacetime that Cuba suffered, it is
understandable that those first tentative steps to Internet connectivity were delivered a
significant economic blow even before the project could really get off the ground. At that
time (early 1990s) Cuba was not as open to foreign investment as it is today and so the
development of such an expensive project was all but halted.
HOW DO CUBANS CONNECT TO THE INTERNET?
Many Cubans have a restricted connection to the Internet on a daily basis as the government
has been gradually developing networks in the workplace for this to happen; there were nine
of these in 1992 but dozens of public domestic networks and hundreds of “local”, “private”
networks today (Valdés and Rivera, 1999: 142). This access is in line with government policy
that regards the Internet from a ‘collectivist perspective’, as a ‘social tool controlled by the
state with a view to benefitting the community’ (Uxo, 2009: 12.6). The Internet in Cuba has
not been regarded from an individualistic perspective as it is in liberal democracies and so it
would not be politically or socially palatable to simply open it up to everyone. But perhaps
this is slowly changing. So most Cubans access the Internet in public companies and
institutions, or at school but according to Hoffmann: ‘Users have to sign a document that says
they must not look for content that violates national laws that are racist, pornographic or anti-
Cuban’ (Hoffmann, 2003: 315). He says that each company has someone responsible for
Internet security and websites are regularly checked. It is also worth pointing out that the
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term ‘Internet connection’ does not mean the same thing to everyone. For Cuban officials it
can often mean simply sending emails or using the national intranet, rather than the liberal
democracy definition meaning to have the ability to surf the World Wide Web freely.
The limited connection that Cubans have gives them access to public services and
information and is organised according to a number of principles, according to (López
García, 2013: 71), such as:
The defence of security, sovereignty and technological independence.
The integration and interconnectivity of standards.
To share wherever possible the existing infrastructure.
To guarantee the visibility of content.
The bodies of the state central administration are responsible for the content and the
services provided.
But all this takes place under difficult economic circumstances and, as already observed,
there is a relatively low level of Internet penetration across the general public. In fact,
according to López García (72), only 15% of women and 12.6% of men regularly use
computers and 75% of men (70% of women) say that they never do. Resolution 73 from the
Ministry of Culture on 16 September, 2009 established the Law on the National Registry of
Websites (Reglamento del Registro Nacional de Sitios Web - RNSW). Under this law
websites are obliged to declare a thematic profile, objectives, potential users, and dates of
use, thus prohibiting the publication of content and services without the authorisation of a
state institution that becomes ultimately responsible for the site. This therefore severely limits
the creation and development of virtual communities as they need to search for state entities
to support them.
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However, as Hoffmann (2003: 315) says some people access sites such as hotmail or
yahoo illegally at work. He uses as an example the Faculty of Literature at Havana university
which has a room with 20 computers ‘where the students can send emails and surf the web
with little interference (supervised however)’. But, although there are a number of networks,
private, individual access to the Internet is not easy in Cuba; such access is simply not a
priority for the Cuban government. As Kalathil and Boas (2001) say: ‘the Cuban government
has endeavoured to leverage the capabilities of the Internet to improve the social conditions
of the Cuban people.’ As such its principal effort in this area involves Infomed, a medical
information network operated by the Ministry of Public Health. Since its inception in 1992
Infomed has connected medical centres around the country to such services as electronic
journals and searchable databases. The system has been a boon for Cuba’s otherwise
struggling health system, which is plagued by shortages of paper and difficulty in distributing
information. Infomed has featured an international e–mail link since its beginning, and with
its connection to the Internet it helps to promote Cuba’s health system abroad and facilitate
relations between Cuban doctors and their foreign counterparts.
But it is well known that an increasing number of users manage to connect to the
Internet illegally from home, using passwords from their workplace or accounts acquired
through the black market or personal connections. According to García Pérez et al (2006):
‘Despite the efforts of the government and resources put in place obstructing any flow of
foreign information, more and more Cubans are managing to access information—sometimes
about Cuba—from sources outside the country. They do so for curiosity, entertainment
purposes, or looking for news about the outside world and also about their own country not
provided by the local media.’ But estimating precisely the extent of this underground Internet
use is impossible, although it is undoubtedly limited by the considerable expense and
difficulty of obtaining an Internet–capable computer. A study of 38,000 people by the Cuban
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National Statistics Office (ONE) in 2009 illustrates that only around 2.9% of respondents had
had direct access to the Internet in the previous year (Dirección de Turismo, Comercio y
Servicios de Cuba, 2010). However, according to Andrea Rodríguez of Associated Press,
‘outside experts estimate the real figure is likely to be 5 to 10 percent accounting for black
market sales of dial-up minutes’ (Rodríguez, 2012).
The majority of access to the Internet in Cuba (around 60%) is done at school according
to the ONE survey, while access at home accounts for some 20%. Only around 20% of the
Cubans in this study accessed the Internet at least once a day while most said they connected
between once a week and once a month. In relative terms Internet use is expensive and slow
in Cuba and so Internet use is not as frequent as it is in developing nations, but this is only to
be expected. Table 1, taken from the ONE survey illustrates just how infrequent Internet use
really is in Cuba.
[Insert Table 1]
In terms of geographic location, in tune with government policy as a rule, Cuba’s Internet
provision is well dispersed nationally with the main internal networks (Infomed, serving the
health community and Tinored serving the NGOs for example) spread across the island in all
areas. Havana still has the largest percentage of Internet access but other areas are also
connected. Connecting externally is a continuous problem though as Cuba has to rely on
satellite connectivity and so connections are slow by comparison with the developed world.
The Internet is more than simply a technical tool and possesses huge potential to generate
transformative processes and, as Díaz Rodríguez and Sokooh Valle (2013) point out, can
provide for inclusive and productive dialogue between individuals and state institutions. But
currently Cubans are isolated from the World Wide Web in global terms and this implies a
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type of social exclusion that might have detrimental long term effects on the island’s
population.
HOW DOES CUBA PRESENT ITSELF ON THE INTERNET?
In this section we examine how Cuba is presented to Internet users from around the world by
presenting a provisional snapshot of how Cuban society, culture, and politics is presented to
‘observers’ of Cuba through the medium of the Internet, but also to determine the interest in
and engagement with Cuban websites from Internet users. We conducted two analyses on
Cuban data, first using web analytic software of the most recurring and visible websites and
second, by performing a thematic analysis of Cuban website content.
To conduct our explorative pilot study, several domain names associated with Cuba
were used to inform our initial searches (e.g. .cu; cuba.com), but also specific key word
searches relating to Cuba. These domain names and keywords were generated through
examples from Deibert, Palfrey, Rohozinski & Zittrain (2008), as well as search strategies
used in media framing analysis (e.g., Giles & Shaw, 2009). The domain names were entered
into several search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) and initial sites were recorded into a
database where any duplicates were noted, and dead / dummy sites removed.
In total we examined 256 websites between the period of August, 2012 and January,
2013 and through analytics software (Alexa) could only identify a limited number of websites
with an IP address located in Cuba including, for example, an official government website
and that of Havana University (see table 1 for list of websites). As such, we did not remove
websites based on geographical location of the IP address given that external hosting of
websites is not an uncommon practice; it might also be indicative of the lack of infrastructure
in Cuba to host websites.
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Overview of results
In our analysis, the majority of websites were dedicated to promoting tourism or education
and current affairs and in this respect is similar to any other country that uses the Internet to
inform individuals about daily news, events and culture. In our first phase of analysis we
obtained descriptive statistical data about the Cuban websites through web analytic software
(Alexa) that provided data about the sites’ global ranking, number of pages visited, time spent
viewing the website, and its bounce rate (the percentage of visits to the site that consist of a
single page view). For illustration, an outline of the 20 most recurring websites obtained
across the search engines are provided in Table 2. Unlike other countries, data demonstrates
that despite these websites being some of the first to be found through search engines, and
therefore highly visible to Internet users, they attract very little attention in terms of length of
time and pages viewed by visitors. Visitors spent less than five minutes on each website and
this is also evident in each website’s low global rankings that show low popularity relative to
websites across the world. Some speculative conclusions for the limited time spent on each
website might be the relatively limited quality of the website and navigation where some
links and pages do not work or do not have any content. Paradoxically, the alternative might
be that visitors may have actually found the information they wanted quickly. However, the
former conclusion is likely given the very low global ranking of many of the websites, but
also in some instances little or no data was retrievable through web analytics suggesting
limited interest in Cuban websites. The only website to have visitors spend an average time of
more than five minutes was the site of the national ballet (http://www.balletcuba.cult.cu/)
and attracted visitors primarily from Mexico, Spain, the USA, and from individuals within
Cuba. For those websites with higher global rankings, a similar pattern emerged to less
popular websites regarding time spent on each website, further suggesting limited interest and
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engagement with Cuban websites, and in some cases (e.g. http://www.cuba.cu/ ), from
Cuban citizens.
Despite low global rankings of Cuban websites, there are still hundreds of thousands
of individuals accessing these sites and often leaving very quickly, too. However, these
individuals are leaving with an impression of Cuba that may confirm stereotypes about
Cuban culture and society. In fact, in Psychology research, impressions about objects and
individuals can be made within 100ms of exposure and become particularly difficult to
change if they confirm an already held belief.
In our second analysis, we used qualitative methodology to examine how these
websites present an image and impression of Cuban society. In order to examine the websites
and generate common themes about Cuban society, culture, and politics, a thematic analysis
(TA) was performed using Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six step procedure. In general, TA is a
method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data that minimally
organise and describe any given data set.
Thematic analysis identified two core themes running through the Cuban websites. As
expected, there was a clear distinction between promoting Cuba for tourism, and Cuban
current affairs that usually focussed on Cuban political figures or US political news. In
general, the tourism websites naturally promote Cuba as a culturally rich, diverse, and
modern progressive society whilst emphasising its traditions. The current affairs pages often
discussed Cuban or US political affairs, but also promoted Cuba as a leader in the pursuit of
education and science. These two themes are discussed further below with examples.
[Insert Table 2]
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Theme 1: Cuba as a modern, progressive and culturally rich country
Many of the websites that promoted Cuban culture were often aimed at tourism describing
Cuba as possessing a modern but diverse culture that is enriched through its traditions, sport,
landscape, and arts. However, some sites also target Cuban nationals, such as those related to
sport and the arts. Sport and tourism were primarily promoted through a growing ‘Cuban
Style’ and ‘Surfing Revolution’ surf scene (http://www.havanasurf-cuba.com/) promoting
Cuba to US travellers as a non-traditional location for surfing, giving advice on how to
prevent US immigration from knowing you had visited Cuba. Interestingly, this site also
promotes a growing female surf scene, aimed at young teenage female surfers rather than
adults. Baseball, Cuba’s national sport, has one website dedicated to promoting the sport in
Cuba and is more directed at Cuban nationals. Baseballdecuba.com provides information
about baseball teams in Cuba and the current league system and its players. This site also
incorporates some blogs although much of the site is difficult to load and not active. Directed
at both national and international visitors is Ballet Nacional de Cuba, which provides
information about learning ballet at the school for international students, as well as providing
touring dates and workshops. In terms of attracting specific tourists, one site is dedicated to
offering gay friendly holidays (http://gaytourguidecuba.com/). As part of the holiday, tourists
will benefit from a personalized tour of Havana and Cuba as well as suggested clubs and gay
friendly events and areas. However, specifically within sites directed at tourism, tradition is
emphasised specifically through images of the island. For example, Cuba’s cultural heritage
is typically displayed using photos of architecture, music, dance, and automobiles, as well as
beautiful resorts and beaches. Some websites also expand upon the heterogeneity of its
population in terms of ethnicity. For example, Cuba is described on one website
(http://www.hicuba.com/) as a ‘melting pot of cultural events’ brought by immigrants from
Spanish conquistadors, African slaves, French settlers from Haiti, as well as those from the
19
Iberian Peninsula, American, Swedish, Japanese, and Jewish settlers. Such a range of
ethnicity is further described on a TV production company site
(http://www.islandfilmcuba.com/) aimed at international film producers to persuade them to
come to Cuba to take advantage of specific locations. Their photo reel uses models of all
ethnicities.
Theme 2: Cuban current affairs
The second core theme to be identified related to current affairs, marked by political news
and reports about Cuban political figures and events. Across the websites identified, eight
featured critical news items about US politics and policies. For example, the website
cubasi.com, devoted columns critiquing US policies that included anti-terrorism laws to
policies allowing US citizens to take cruises to Cuba while Cuba is opening up travel to all its
citizens. A more diverse current affairs website, cuba.cu is a highly visible site in the search
engines that aims to promote Cuban culture and politics where articles and links were often
promoting the current political status (as well as reporting US politics), Cuban education, and
Cuban science, as well as Cuba as a destination for travel. The website also features links to
DVDs that provide an official account of Cuban history and politics, as well as portal links to
related sites that promote technology and science in Cuba. Perhaps the most anti-American
and pro-revolution website is cubasocialista.cu the site of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party. This website provides links to other anti-US sites, such as
antiterroristas.cu that give accounts of US actions and policies against Cuba, in particular the
injustice and inhumane treatment of the ‘Miami 5’ imprisoned 14 years ago. Many of the
images of both sites feature members of the Communist Party and Fidel Castro.
In summary, the presence of Cuban based websites on the Internet is very small in
comparison with other countries. What is available presents an image of Cuba as a
20
welcoming tourist destination with a unique identity of its own despite the on-going tensions
in their relationship with the US. Technologically, the websites are unsophisticated in
comparison with UK and US internet sites and the few that are translated well are unlikely to
be seen or read by those outside Cuba.
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET IN CUBA
Since the announcement in 2007 of the laying of a fibre-optic cable between Venezuela and
Siboney in Cuba’s Eastern province, talk of fast and individual Internet connections has been
rife in Cuba. The project is called ALBA-1 and should have been completed in July 2011 at a
cost of $70 million, which includes a link from Cuba to Jamaica. However, news of this cable
recently has been extremely hard to come by. But, according to senior analyst at Renesys
Corporation, Doug Madory, Cuba has been using the cable service since January, 2013 (The
Gleaner, 2013) and the recent opening of the 118 ‘salas de navegación’ appears to confirm
that the cable may now be in operation. Andrea Rodríguez of Associated Press on the ground
in Cuba wrote in May 2012 that, although the cable has been laid, it is not even mentioned in
official reports, and nobody seems to have an official stance on what is happening to it.
However she says, ‘[p]eople talk quietly about embezzlement torpedoing the project and the
arrest of more than a half-dozen senior telecom officials’ (Rodríguez, 2012). The cable was
meant at first to enhance the networks of hospitals, universities and other official institutions
while the Cuban populace would have to wait, but a number of employees from official state
institutions have reported no improvement to their Internet connections. ‘Multiple attempts to
get Cuban and Venezuelan government officials to comment were unsuccessful’ (Rodríguez,
2012).
21
Obviously there is no logic to investing $70m in an undersea cable for it not to be used
but there has been speculation as to why the island has apparently not yet been properly
connected to it. Cuba’s network infrastructure is severely limited; computers and systems are
out of date. It may just be that the internal infrastructure needs to be updated in order to carry
the new service that the cable will eventually provide. This is backed up by comments from
the Deputy Minister of Informatics and Telecommunications, Jorge Luis Perdomo reported in
xinhuanet.com who says: ‘the arrival of the fibre-optic cable is not a “magic wand”. The
country still needs to develop domestic infrastructure of telephony and data, which cannot be
done overnight’ (Deng, 2011). But the intentions of the Cuban government towards Internet
access for its citizens are presented enigmatically at best. As Perdomo says: ‘There is total
commitment of the Cuban government to further develop the telecommunications sector in
terms of economic and social development of the country.’ Boris Moreno Cordovés, Vice-
Minister of MIC, spoke recently at the National Assembly saying: ‘we will continue to
intensify access [to the Internet] where it is necessary for the development of the country’
(Fontana Sábado, 2011). He commented that there did exist the will to improve Internet
services if and when economic resources allowed the necessary development of the
infrastructure to allow this to happen. He also made it clear that the US government had made
Cuba’s access to important content and tools on the Internet very difficult, these measures
forming part of the continued blockade of the island that makes it impossible for them to
participate in electronic commerce for example.
But what that means for day to day access for Cuban citizens is not clear. It is certainly
the case, according to a computer engineer who is part of a special government group that:
‘Priority will go to improve government, business and social service networks in health and
education’ (López, 2011) and that the Cuban people should not be expecting an Internet
revolution any time soon. But there are signs that access to the Internet in Cuba is improving,
22
as the recent opening of the ‘salas de navegación’ show. Recent news also hints at the
possibility of gaining Internet access on mobile phones in Cuba (although at a cost) (Café
Fuerte, 2014). Perhaps the Arab Spring has made the Cuban government think again about
allowing free and easy access to the World Wide Web, as Rodríguez (2012) suggests, and it
is well known that Raúl Castro has warned of a supposed plot by enemies of the Cuban state
in the United States to wage a cyber-war against the island. ‘In 2011, a Cuban court
sentenced US subcontractor Alan Gross to 15 years after convicting him of crimes against the
state for importing restricted communications equipment that he insists was only meant to
help the island's Jewish community gain better Internet access.’
CONCLUSION
This article has attempted to examine the use of the Internet in Cuba at a number of levels. It
has shown how diffusion of the Internet in Cuba is severely limited by a number of factors, as
Kalathil and Boas (2001) say: ‘including the country’s economic situation, the U.S. embargo,
and the regime’s strategy of controlling the Internet by limiting public access.’ This strategy
is obviously in place to limit any potential threat to the long-established socialist Revolution
and Internet use in Cuba is not regarded as an individual right but should form part of the
collectivist consciousness of the revolutionary process. But this is only part of the story.
There is an evident desire to foster Internet use in Cuba in order to benefit the country as a
whole; in terms of the Cuban economy the Internet will be vital for Cuba’s development in a
global arena, given that historically Cuba has been dependent on external factors to keep the
economic motors running. As Mauricio de Miranda Parrondo (2003: 17) says the role of the
state in the economic development of countries like South Korea, Israel, Taiwan and
Singapore has been fundamental. The Cuban state must play a similar role then in order to
23
improve the Cuban economy, and the Internet needs to play a significant part in that
development. When people speak of an ‘agricultural age’ or the ‘industrial age’, what they
really speak of is economic development that comes out of those ‘ages’ (land and industry in
these two cases) (Suaiden, 2013: 4). The ‘information age’ is no different; technology,
information and communications are at the heart of economic development today and for
Cuba to develop it must embrace this area. It is obvious then that the priority for the Cuban
government is Internet development at the level of the governmental and structural and not at
the level of the individual. But a new ‘literacy campaign’ at the level of civil society is also
necessary in Cuba as Díaz Rodríguez and Sokooh Valle (2013) say. A type of
‘tecnodeterminism’ (López García, 2013) seems to be developing in Cuba whereby, in
accordance with Marcus Leaning (2005), the way in which the Internet is used in Cuba has
more to do with the organisation of society than with the inherent nature of the technological
medium itself. This might prove to be highly restrictive being that for developing countries
the cultural dimension of ICT is extremely important for national development and the
creative use of technology such as the Internet by non-state bodies is essential, as López
García (2013) says. The Cuban government is treading a fine line between individual and
collective use of the Internet and there appears to be a move towards recognising that Cubans
must have more open access to the Internet at an individual level. But this implies a profound
change in the way that the Cuban government sees the development of the Internet and
perhaps it has no bigger internal challenge.
24
Table 1: Internet access frequency (percent)
Frequency Total Me
n
Women
At least once per day 22.6 23.1 22.1
At least once per week 35.6 34.9 36.3
At least once per month 30.8 32.1 29.6
Less than once per month 11.0 9.9 12.0
Dirección de Turismo, Comercio y Servicios de Cuba (2010).
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Table 2:
Website Bounce rate (%)*
Number of pages viewed
by visitors
Time spent on website (mm:sec)
Origin of Main Visitors Global rank
1 http://www.cuba.cu/ 61 1.5 1:44 Cuba 118,1742 http://www.cubacreditunion.org/ 93 1 0:49 - 2,228,7063 http://www.cubana.cu 41.6 2.3 2:29 Mexico/Canada 263,9694 http://www.bc.gov.cu 42.3 1.5 2:22 Cuba 740,3395 http://www.cubatravel.cu/ - 1.3 1:22 - 3,743,6206 http://www.balletcuba.cult.cu/ 43.7 5.0 5:54 Cuba, Mexico,
Spain, USA37,274
7 http://www.insmet.cu/ - 1.2 2:10 - 3,199, 277
8 http://www.cubasocialista.cu/ - 2 - 3,189,0159 http://www.santiago.cu/ - 1 - - 2,535,47010 http://www.cubasi.cu/ 55.6 1.9 3:25 Cuba, Spain,
USA60,068
11 http://www.uh.cu/ 63.5 2.2 2:28 Cuba, Spain 245,42112 http://www.cuba.com/ - 2.0 1:56 - 1,778,71913 http://www.hicuba.com/ 47.3 3.1 3:47 Cuba, Mexico 158,55914 http://www.havanasurf-cuba.com/ - 5.00 2:54 - 9,462,648
15 http://www.floridita-cuba.com/ - 7.00 1:52 - 6,688,08816 http://www.acrosscuba.com/ - - - - -17 http://gaytourguidecuba.com/ - - - - -18 http://www.baseballdecuba.com/ 50 1.40 1:58 - 1,592,06019 http://www.islandfilmcuba.com/ - - - - -20 http://www.santiagoencuba.com/ - 1 - Spain 4,402,356*Bounce Rate (%) Percentage of visits to the site that consist of a single page view
26
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