Medicoscapes: notes on effects of media ubiquity – The Somaliland Telemedical System for Psychiatry

Abstract

The article presents theoretical comments on the theme of ‘media ubiquity’, as an introduction to the presentation of an information and communication technology ‘4’ development (ICT4D)project in the Republic of Somaliland: The Somaliland Telemedical System for Psychiatry. This project is based on use of resources of the global civil society emerging in global ‘transformations’ related to migration, media and ‘the social work of the imagination’. Whereas much new media debate departs from the assumption of media ubiquity affecting our notions of reality, the article will attempt a different perspective. It will ponder issues of collective imagination as exerted by way of such effects, i.e. in cultural forms that emerge out of media-roles in the ‘complex connectivity’ in globalisation processes.

Keywords:

• new media
• ubiquity
• effect
• ICT4D
• diaspora
• migration
• complex connectivity
• cultural imaginaries
• Somaliland
• telemedicine