Chapter 1: ‘Revisiting the Magic Box’ does exactly that, it returns to the premise and the case studies documented in the first paper to find out what, if anything, has happened over the last two years and presents alarmingly sparse feedback on those studies. Undeterred by the lack of new information from the case studies, the chapter considers the premise of the ‘Magic Box’ paper and the guiding principles for good ICT interventions, and questions whether these principles still hold true today.
During the course of the research the authors realized the difficulty in searching for community-driven examples of local appropriation. Projects that operated without external support were less likely to have Web sites and documented materials, therefore desk-based research would have its limitations. To overcome this weakness three country-based studies were comissioned and are presented as independant case studies showing the ongoing appropriation of ICTs by grassroots organizations using a variety of ICTs.
Chapter 2: The Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), shares an evaluation of the information services offered to its members and provides a candid account of the constraints still facing the information-sharing network.
Chapter 3: Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE) turns the tenets of community radio activism on its head to broadcast globally over the Internet on issues such as gender, racism and the environment.
Chapter 4: Community radio in Mexico documents a number of community radio stations and networks and their attempts to stay afloat through increased networking and advocacy and by connecting to the Internet.
A short Conclusion brings together the varied examples of local appropriation to determine whether the guiding principles of ICT literature today give sufficient direction for ICT interventions in the future.
FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES
1 ‘The first mile of connectivity:
Advancing telecommunications for rural development through participatory
communication.’
SD Dimensions, July
1999
http://www.fao.org/sd/cddirect/cdre0025.html
2 FAO Sustainable Dimensions Web site:
Communication for Development
http://www.fao.org/sd/KN1_en.htm
3 Sabine I. Michiels and L. Van Crowder
‘Discovering the “Magic Box”: Local appropriation of information
and communication technologies (ICTs)
SD Dimensions, June 2001.
FAO
Sustainable Development
Department
http://www.fao.org/sd/2001/KN0602a_en.htm
