Search

Purpose: To explore ways in which social and economic interactions are changed by access to mobile telephony. Method: This is a mixed-methods study of mobile phone use among 52 urban professionals with vision impairments in Bangalore, India. Results: Interviews and survey results indicated that mobile devices, specifically those with adaptive technology software, play a vital role as multi-purpose devices that enable people with disabilities to navigate economically and socially in an environment where accessibility remains a significant challenge. Conclusions: We found that mobile devices play a central role in enabling and sustaining weak ties, but also that these weak ties have important gender-specific implications. We found that women have less access to weak ties than men, which impacts women's access to assistive technology (AT). This has potential implications for women's sense of safety and independence, both of which are strongly related to AT access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship and implementation in information and communication technologies for development (ICTD/ICT4D) have seen an exponential increase over the past decade. In spite of enormous headway in both research and application, ICTD lacks a clear unified framework that can guide contextually grounded user-focussed design of ICT. This shortcoming results largely from the field's unusual placement at the intersection of research, policy, and practice, each driven by different philosophical traditions and application intentions. We argue that this gap can be overcome by adopting design-based approaches in ICTD. Towards this end, we advance a design framework – capable and convivial design (CCD) – that appropriates Sen's idea of capabilities and Illich's notion of conviviality. We contend that these two sets of complementary theoretical traditions are markedly well suited to guide the design of contextually relevant and user empowering ICTs. We test the CCD framework against multiple input shared computing, a well-documented ICTD case, to illustrate its analytical usefulness and improve its analytical precision. Annika Andersson, Åke Grönlund and Gudrun Wicander are the accepting Guest Editors for this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do developing nations react to rapid conversion into information societies? This article examines the growth of information and communications technology in India, with the state's universal internet access policy (part of its 'IT for All' initiative) at the center of its investigation. The rapid development of technology and access to telecommunications over the next decade is inevitable in India, and what the universe of 'universal access' will be is open to speculation. India's human development, especially the geographic structure of education and economic opportunities, threaten to create a divisive threshold. Since the organization of the information society is reliant principally on skill and knowledge networks, the benefits system may exponentially increase, and perhaps entrench, the gap between the haves and the have-nots if the speed of basic development does not catch up with that of technology spread. Will the factor of relative disempowerment outweigh the benefits of 'IT for All' in India? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misinformation on social media in the 2019 general election not only reached people through forwarded WhatsApp messages, but often circulated online through legitimate political entities. Our research utilizes social media posts from an archive of fact-checked articles , circulated widely and classified as fake or dubious by fact-checking organizations, in the campaign period from early March to late May 2019. Our sample of stories posted by major parties across the political spectrum shows that they incorporated online misinformation into their campaign strategies, which included both lies about their opponents as well as propaganda and other positive-themed information to show themselves in a good light, with the vast majority (N = 41) from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC); both parties were also sources and targets of misinformation. We discuss examples of misinformation as well as the predominant topics of BJP- and INC-targeted misinformation, including the campaign, corruption, religion, celebrity, nationalism, gender and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This decade has marked a rise in social movement-originating political parties, many of which have gained considerable political power and achieved surprising electoral success. In doing so, these parties have challenged traditional definitions and conceptualizations of party institutionalization. One such party is the Aam Aadmi Party in India, formed in the wake of the massively viral 2011 India Against Corruption (IAC) movement. Through interviews and observations, as well as digital artefact analysis, we trace the process of the Aam Aadmi Party's institutionalization through an analysis of its media and communication practices. We argue that party workers' drive to institutionalize into a durable electoral force has pushed AAP into projecting contradictory images and embracing conflicting narratives, both online and offline. However, the durability of the party and recent electoral successes point to the ways AAP can nonetheless inform conceptions of institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]