Resources

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Academic articles and literature

Arora, P., Rangaswamy, N. 2013: Digital leisure for development: reframing new media practice in the global South, Media Culture Society 35: 898-905.

This article invites ICT4D and new media practitioners to join efforts and rethink new media practices in the global South by looking at the implications and impacts of ICTs as leisure (entertainment/pleasure/ play) artifacts in the context of developing economies and emerging markets. 

Castells, M. 2013: The Impact of the Internet on Society: A Global Perspective [online]

An essay that presents the main ideas of the Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells in an accessible and easy-to-read format.

Denskus, T. & Esser, D.E. (2013): Social Media and Global Development Rituals: a content analysis of blogs and tweets on the 2010 mdg Summit, Third World Quarterly, 34:3, 405-422

The article is presenting the finding in a research case where the social media coverage of the MDG summit in 2010 was investigated. Denskus and Esser looked at key words used in a sample of blogs and tweets. In this research social media did nog make a significant contribution towards global democratic participating in agenda setting.

Mayer-Schönberger, V., Cukier, K. 2013: Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. London: John Murray Publishers

A book that introduces Big Data and the impact that it can have on business and society. With the ‘datafication’ of society, information can be taken from almost everything. This includes the ones that we never used to consider to be information, for example a person’s location. Analyzing an incomprehensible amount of information, looking for correlations instead of causality, big data can provide insights we otherwise would not have. The book also discusses the implication and risks of using big data.

Morozov, E. 2013: To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, New York, NY: Public Affairs.

A book on the temptation to find a solution to everything (from crime to obesity) by digitally quantifying, tracking, or gamifying behavior. Belarusian thinker Evgeny Morozov contends that technology can be a force for improvement, but that not every imperfection needs to be fixed in a liberal democracy.

Schuurman, N. (2013) Tweet Me Your Talk: Geographical Learning and Knowledge Production 2.0, The Professional Geographer, 65:3, 369-377

An article discussing the way new media affect the way we learn and produce knowledge. Based on recent evidence, Schuurman argues that the Internet is reshaping our learning processes.  Geographical knowledge production and translation are shaped by rapidly changing work styles that favor concise and highly accessible methods of academic production.

Singhal, A., Svenkerud, P.J., Malaviya, P., Rogers, E.M., & Krishna, V. Bridging digital divides Lessons learned from the IT initiatives of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.In Hemer, Oscar & Tufte, Thomas (eds.) Media and Glocal Change. Rethinking Communication for Development. Buenos Aires, Göteborg: CLASCO/Nordicom, p.427-433.

An essay about the lessons learned by the IT initiatives from Grameen Bank. The essay introduce the Grameen Telecom’s Village Phone Project (VPP). A project  created in order to improve the connectivity in Rural Bangladesh. The essay show how capitalism productively can help bridging the digital divide and serve marginalized groups of society.

 

Other articles, reports and books

A new global partnership: Eradicate poverty and transform economies through sustainable development. The Report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (2013)

A presentation of the Post 2015 Sustainable Millennium Goals.

Fox, K. (2011) Africa’s mobile economic revolution, The Guardian, 24 July 2011

An article about how new technology, focusing on mobile phones, can create a new enterprise culture. The journalist investigate how mobile phones are used to improve banking, agriculture and health care. In the end of the article some cases are presented.

Lerman,  J. (2013) Big Data and Its Exclusions, Stanford Law Review. Online 55

This essay focus on the risk of exclusion of big data. Billions of people remain in a big data periphery. This means that their information is not regularly collected or analyzed. There is consequently a risk that their preferences and needs will be routinely ignored when governments and private industry use big data top shape public policy.

Letouzé, E. (2012) Big Data for Development: Challenges & Opportunities, New York

Global Pulse White Paper “Big Data for Development: Opportunities & Challenges highligts the opportunities, as well as concerns and challages regarding the use of new digital data sources in the field of development. aims to highlight the opportunity, as well as some of the main concerns and challenges, raised by utilizing new, digital data sources in the field of international development, as concretely and openly as possible, and to suggest some ways forward.

Evans, Angela M. and Campos, Adriana (2013). Open government initiatives: challenges of citizen participation. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 172–203.

This article addresses the links between the citizens and open government initiatives in the USA. It focuses on open data and how to provide access to objective, relevant, and reliable information to improve citizens’ understanding of government’s legislation and procedures.