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Communication as information-seeking: the case for mobile social software for developing regions

Published: 08 May 2007 Publication History

Abstract

In this paper, we describe several findings from a multi-year, multi-method study of how information and communication technologies have been adopted and adapted in Central Asia. We have found that mobile phone usage is outpacing the rate of Internet adoption, that access to the Internet is primarily through public access sites carrying with it issues regarding privacy and surveillance, that people rely on their social networks as information sources, that public institutions tend to be fairly weak as citizen resources, and that information seeking and communication are conflated in people's usage patterns with different technologies. In addition, in the developed world social networking software has grown rapidly and shown itself to have significant potential for mobilizing a population. Based on the collection of findings from Central Asia and observing patterns of technology usage in other parts of the world, our research leads to the conclusion that exploring mobile social software holds significant potential as an ICT that meshes well with preexisting patterns of communication and information seeking and also leverages the most predominant pattern of technology adoption. Many of the findings from this research echo results from studies in other geographic areas, and so we anticipate that much of this research will be relevant to developing regions generally.

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cover image ACM Conferences
WWW '07: Proceedings of the 16th international conference on World Wide Web
May 2007
1382 pages
ISBN:9781595936547
DOI:10.1145/1242572
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 08 May 2007

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Author Tags

  1. ICTs
  2. Internet
  3. SMS
  4. cell phones
  5. central Asia
  6. cross-cultural
  7. design ethnography
  8. developing world
  9. emerging markets
  10. international
  11. mobile devices
  12. mobile social software
  13. social networks
  14. usage patterns

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WWW'07
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WWW'07: 16th International World Wide Web Conference
May 8 - 12, 2007
Alberta, Banff, Canada

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Overall Acceptance Rate 1,899 of 8,196 submissions, 23%

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  • (2023)Evaluating the Joint Use of Alternate Internet Delivery Models in Deterministic Rural Networks2023 32nd International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN)10.1109/ICCCN58024.2023.10230107(1-10)Online publication date: Jul-2023
  • (2021)Conceptualizing Hyperlocal Information Systems for Developing CountriesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34795095:CSCW2(1-26)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
  • (2019)Ethnographic research in software engineering: a critical review and checklistProceedings of the 2019 27th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering10.1145/3338906.3338976(659-670)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2019
  • (2018)Examining Security and Privacy Research in Developing RegionsProceedings of the 1st ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies10.1145/3209811.3209818(1-14)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2018
  • (2017)Framing M4D: The Utility of Continuity and the Dual Heritage of “Mobiles and Development”THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES10.1002/j.1681-4835.2010.tb00315.x44:1(1-16)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2017
  • (2016)mHealth in Resource-Constrained EnvironmentsE-Health and Telemedicine10.4018/978-1-4666-8756-1.ch031(619-636)Online publication date: 2016
  • (2015)The convergence of mobile and social media: Affordances and constraints of mobile networked communication for health workers in low- and middle-income countriesMobile Media & Communication10.1177/20501579156226574:2(252-269)Online publication date: 29-Dec-2015
  • (2014)Information Seeking, Information Sharing, and going mobileComputers in Human Behavior10.5555/2753876.275399832:C(324-334)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2014
  • (2014)mHealth in Resource-Constrained EnvironmentsInternational Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development10.4018/ijskd.20140101026:1(18-35)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2014
  • (2014)Information Seeking, Information Sharing, and going mobile: Three bridges to informal learningComputers in Human Behavior10.1016/j.chb.2013.08.00832(324-334)Online publication date: Mar-2014
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