lirneasia_colloquium_jan_08.ppt

A Colloquium will be conducted by Robin Mansell on the 19th of January 2008 at the LIRNEasia office in Colombo.

Robin Mansell, Ph.D., joined the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) in 2001 where she is Professor in the Department of Media and Communications. She is Honorary Professor at the LINK Centre, Wits Graduate School of Public & Development Management, South Africa, as well as Honorary Professor at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex. She is also a Trustee of IDS (Institute of Development Studies), Sussex, and is an elected academic Governor of the LSE from 2005. She is President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). She was elected in July 2004 and serves for four years.

Robin’s research and teaching are concerned with the social, economic and policy issues associated with information and communication technologies. Her research examines the integration of new technologies into society, interactions between engineering design and the structure of markets, and sources of regulatory effectiveness and failure.

Live blogging of the colloquium follows.

Technology has lead to greater efficiency in the past. The main focus a decade ago was how to make existing processes better and faster using these technologies. But today the focus has moved to communication. This leads to the thesis that technologies have moved into communications and the assumption that the single handset can and will solve all problems.

Providing the bandwidth and the network may not always result in the provision of ICT’s and communications to all. This has resulted in the concept of ‘advanced learning’.

However, these new technologies are only limited to the privileged groups within the industrialised countries. Is this therefore the a solution to the problems faced by the world poor?

Robin questions if it can be assumed that the market will ensure that benefits from technology will trickle down to the lower levels of society?

The technology push argument has been thrushed upon the people of the last decade upto a situation where it is not even contested. A situation where it has infiltereated into the minds of people and actions that perminate due to this.

Often the progressiveness of technology is exaggerated so as to justify the large amounts of capital that enters the system. It seems to that environment around technology has evolved to the point where this progression or its direction is not questioned and threatened.

Robin noted that lurking behind most of the dominant thoughts related to technology is based on the rationalist perspective. Is there an alternative to this existing technology paradigm?

She argues that technology needs to be looked at in an endogenous environment where the focus is on people and the relationships between them.

‘Human relationships seem to be an attractive topic that results in much debate however, the core of the problem which is power is ignored’.

The concept of media power in content development and ownership is still rather uncontested. Often the user generated contents are either revised or assembled by professionals. There is also the creation of social networking however even this is often administered and restricted by offices with authority.

She also touched on the problems faced with multiple personalities a struggle that most State governments are attempting to grapple with. This leads to problems associated with radical behaviour that is often downplayed by mainstream media. She noted however that most of the research done seems to be concentrated in the European and American region.

Professor Samarajiva noted that Korea is also generating a significant amount of data in this regard.

She also moves on to the issues relating to hacktivism and now this ties into governance issues. Does a great deal of governance result in an infringement of civil liberties? Are government labelling civil movements that use technology to reach its audience as hacktivism? The concept of cyber crime has now been labelled as cyber terrorism. This has resulted in the lack of importance of civil liberties in the face of cyber terrorism.

She says ‘so what’s new? not much’….. the hype and speculation about the future of technology continues with the government gaining more control due to the concept f cyber terrorism.

Proffessor Samarajiva said that in our countries where technology itself is exogenous it seems to be a platform to change the governance structure. The technology also allows for the ‘shaking up’ of the institutional structure.

Helani Galpaya noted that the use if technology by itself cannot be used to revamp an institution and the ideal situation is a combination of technology, know-how and people’s relationships.

Professor Samarajiva noted that with his experience in regard to the disaster project done by LIRNEasia the technology played the greatest role.

Harsha de Silva noted that problems associated with technologies and civil liberties will not converge for many decades to come. Also with the advancement of technologies parties will have access to superior methods of communication but the final stroke will be determined by those who hold the power.

Robin responded saying that governments will continue to shut down certain organisations and access to technologies that they see fit. She notes that the emphasis should be on whether the direction that technological innovation has taken is in the people’s best interest.

Harsha de Silva argued that maybe mobile telephony is the answer to taking technologies to the lower quintiles of society. This would increase the number of people that could access ICT’s.

Robin noted that there is a need to look beyond the concepts relating to access. She also noted that access brings in advantages and disadvantages when entrenched in social norms and culture.

Helani Galpaya questioned as to what a developing country like Sri Lanka should do? A country where getting access to the people is a greater priority than the societal consequences.

Robin argued that access is important but deciding that social implications of technologies need to be addressed as well.

Professor Samarajiva noted that access also allows the empowering of people. It creates a conducive environment for people to be able to debate about a spectrum of issues.

Harsha de Silva noted that the discussion regarding the adaptiong of technologies takes place within the developing world in the real world… often with the stakeholders leveraging their power as the debate continues.

Luxman Siriwardena noted that the initiative e-Sri Lanka was an unique one. The objective being to reform the public sector through an e-gov system. There was a push for a much more broader objective that the mere ‘technology push’.

Robin noted about the problems surrounding meta data. Is there more effective ways of converting technologies and social science to the real world?

Professor Samarajiva noted that University academics/research often do not get involved in the initial stages of an initiative.

Harsha de Silva also noted that this depends on how dynamic the university literature is.

Professor Samarajiva noted that can be assumed that there is two types of knowledge, one that deals with university generated knowledge and the other that generates tacit knowledge.

Robin argued that in today’s context it can be argued that the luxury to having segments of knowledge does not exist any more?

Nirmali Sivapragasam questioned as to why the beneficiaries of this research studies are never brought to the decision table? Robin responded saying that including people into the debate is required and essential but it does not eliminate the power struggle that exists within that system. Therefore the more important factor is to learn from previous studies and build on what is already present.

Robin responded to the question on virtual organizations as saying that online world cannot exist without the offline world.