Information and Communication Flows through Community Multimedia Centers: Perspectives from Mozambican Communities

Abstract

Community multimedia centers (CMCs) are considered by initiating agencies as instruments able to inform, entertain and educate the population, as well as to offer them a voice into knowledge society and to public initiatives. This article presents a quali-quantitative content analysis of 230 interviews held with staff members, users of the venues, people of the community who listen to their radio component but do not use their telecenters, and community members not using CMCs. The sample includes 10 CMCs around Mozambique. The purpose of the study is to investigate the perception of local communities of inbound, outbound, and shared information and communication flows connected to CMCs. Results highlight how CMCs are perceived as inbound information enablers, mostly by means of their community radio component, and as means to share information and communication within the communities' boundaries. Yet, CMCs still do not appear to be widely recognized as participation means to a reality that transcends the communities' physical borders.

Keywords:

• telecenters
• community radios
• community multimedia centers
• Mozambique
• qualitative research
• social representations

Acknowledgements

This study is part of the broader project RE-ACT (social REpresentations of community multimedia centres in Mozambique and ACTions for improvement), a joint research and cooperation project between the NewMinE Lab – New Media in Education Laboratory of the Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano, Switzerland), and the Department of Mathematics and Informatics and the Centre of African Studies of the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Maputo, Mozambique).

Funding

RE-ACT Project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SFNS) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

Notes on contributors

Sara Vannini is a PhD Candidate in ICT4D at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI, University of Lugano, Switzerland), where she is exploring, in particular, the issue of public access and social representations of ICTs among local communities of Mozambique. At USI, Sara is also coordinating the ICT4D activities of the NewMinE – New Media in Education Lab. Sara holds a degree in Latin American Languages and Literatures from the University of Bologna, Italy. Her final dissertation focused on preserving and rehabilitating the Mapuche indigenous culture in southern Chile, and was conducted in collaboration with the Universidad Católica de Temuco, and the local NGO Gedes. Sara also takes part to the ProDoc School “CrossField” (CROSS-FertilizatIon between formal and informal Learning through Digital technologies), a joint venture of the University of Sankt Gallen, the École Politecnique Fédéral de Lausanne, and the NewMinE Lab.

Isabella Rega holds a Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and an Executive Master degree in Intercultural Communication from the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI). Her PhD dissertation dealt with the role of telecentres in socio-economic development. She is currently a Post-Doc researcher at the London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, University of London, working on a project about mobile learning for Community Health Workers in Kenya (mCHW). Formerly, Isabella was the executive director of the NewMinE Lab at USI and of the CROSS-FIELD Pro*Doc and has been involved as project manager in several ICT4D projects, focusing on eLearning and access issues, in South Africa, Brazil and Mozambique. Isabella has worked in telecentres, as a researcher and instructor, in Jamaica, Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea and South Africa, and collaborated as an online teacher for a distance learning university in Colombia. She co-founded Associazione seed, a nonprofit organization promoting the use of educational technologies in the nonprofit sector. She is also member of IPID, The International Network for PG Students in ICT4D and the ICT4D Collective at Royal Holloway, University of London, of IDIA and of IFIP9.4 Europe.

Lorenzo Cantoni graduated in Philosophy and holds a PhD in Education and Linguistics. Prof. Cantoni is full professor at the Università della Svizzera italiana (University of Lugano, Switzerland), Faculty of Communication Sciences. He is Dean of the Faculty and director of the Institute for Communication Technologies. He is scientific director of the laboratories webatelier.net, NewMinE Lab: New Media in Education Lab, and eLab: eLearning Lab. His research interests are where communication, education and new media overlap, ranging from computer mediated communication to usability, from eLearning to eTourism, and from ICT4D to eGovernment. Prof. Cantoni is UNESCO Chair in ICTs to develop and promote sustainable tourism at the World Heritage Sites.Lorenzo Cantoni is research professor at the Center for International Health Services Research & Policy, in the Washington State University and has collaborated/collaborates with Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Politecnico di Milano, and University of the Holy Cross (Rome, Italy). In the years 2003-2008 L. Cantoni has been President of the I.Re.F. - Lombardy Region Institute for Education and Training of Public Administration, the largest Italian regional public administration school.

Notes

1 The original statements have been translated from Portuguese into English by the authors of this paper.