Community Advocates and ICT Diffusion in a Poor Community A Measure of Community Informatics
Sheelagh Mary Walton, Graeme Johanson · 2011
This paper is an account of managing an ICT diffusion study after unanticipated findings were encountered in a poor South African community. It was expected that a small group of tutor-mentored learners would be eager to act as change-agents within their community, sharing their newly-gained ICT knowledge with their community, in the expectation that a new innovation, a Digital Doorway (DD) or computer kiosk, which provides free community access to computer technology, would be readily adopted and enjoyed by the whole community in Zandspruit. It did not happen, despite the commonly-voiced opinion that 'the community was very ready' for the DD. It was surprising to learn from people from the community that they were uninformed about or disinterested in the computer kiosk. These initial findings exemplified some of the challenges that arise from unexamined assumptions, and highlight the need for flexibility when working with dynamic and devastatingly poor communities. The term 'community' (as used in developed countries) is not an adequate descriptor for the complex situation encountered in Zandspruit. Using community informatics techniques, the challenges were identified first, and then managed by rethinking the focus of the research instruments; making the DD more apparent; modifying the perceived initial thinking of the DD; and providing evangelistic strategies (as part of an Action Research approach) to the tutor-mentored teenagers. The paper suggests that local cultural resistance may be stronger than technological diffusion. Any sense of inherent 'community' belonging or sharing was hard to find.