Shrinking Fourth World? Mobiles, Development, and Inclusion
Jonathan Donner · The MIT Press eBooks · 2008
This chapter focuses on the role of mobile communication devices in economic development in developing and underdeveloped communities. Information on the Fourth World, a part of society excluded from information technology, is presented, along with the role that mobile communication will play in diminishing the inequities characterizing the Fourth World. The implications of mobile technologies for the Fourth World, including the micro-economic impacts of mobile use and cross-cultural approach complications with regard to mobile theory, are presented. The chapter highlights the mobile communication usage pattern of emerging urban middle classes in the developing communities and compares it with their counterparts in developed communities.