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ABSTRACT
Two main perspectives characterize current research on Internet cafés in the developing world. The “inclusionary” perspective represents these public digital spaces as the most important source of connectivity and inclusion for the global population. The “transitional” perspective represents Internet cafés as a dying business whose obituary is long overdue. This study describes a search for two dozen Internet cafés in Ghana, based on establishments first identified in 2003, accompanied by interviews with patrons and café attendants. Our initial exploration supported the transitional prediction that cafés would be shuttered or replaced by traditional businesses. However, an expanded search led us to the conclusion that “walking distance” replacements for all cafés remained available, supporting the inclusionary view. Qualitative interviews revealed the shift of cybers to business services and their continued importance as online spaces for disadvantaged populations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Matthew LeBlanc is a full-time lecturer at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. He received his Doctorate in Sociology from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. His research focuses on using Qualitative methods, specifically Video Ethnography, to study ICTs and their interactions within society.
Wesley Shrum is Professor of Sociology & heads the Video Ethnography Lab at Louisiana State University. For over two decades he has investigated new information and communication technologies in Ghana, Kenya, and Kerala (India). He directs the Ethnografilm festival in Paris, France, and the Fringe Performance Archive for the National Library of Scotland.
Notes
1. These sources were located using LexisNexis Academic and searching for periodical articles referencing “Internet Cafes” over the past three years.
2. We spent one month for each of three summers in Ghana. The discovery process began in 2012, continued in 2013 with pilot interviews and additional cafés were discovered, and primary interviews in 2014.
3. It was not until 2014, the year these interviews were conducted, that we did not have any need to go to a single Internet café. This was the first time this had happened since we began using them in the early 2000s.
4. One impediment was based on the “invisibility” phenomenon, that is, the decreasing visibility of technology as it becomes reutilized and embedded in daily life. Just prior to the 2003 study of cybercafés in Ghana, we mapped “technology symbols” in Accra, contrasting them with a similar region in Paris by (1) walking a pre-defined route in a business (shopping) district of the city and (2) photographing all images that contained references in text or images to ICT services. We found that signboards and advertisements for ICT services were much more common in Ghana than France. This was in a period where mobile phones had recently been introduced to Ghana, and the services provided by cybercafés, chip and scratch card vendors, and other telecommunication businesses were relatively unfamiliar to the West African public. As it consequence, much more signaling was required that targeted potential customers, and ICT symbols were more prominent in public spaces.
5. The majority of the interviews were conducted in 2014. However, during the discovery process in 2012 and 2013, a large number of conversations were held with attendants who also informed our study.
6. The summer of 2014 was significantly affected by the Ebola epidemic raging in West Africa. While Ghana ultimately proved not to have a single case of the virus, rumors that Ebola was already in Accra and that the country would soon be the center of a new epidemic was widespread. We do not believe that this affected our results given our particular research questions; it might have affected the number of café patrons that we saw during our visits. Again, we are not sure if the number was lower, e.g. for fear of infections in public places, or higher, e.g. as Ghanaians sought information about the outbreak.
7. The Cita café in Banana Inn region was open in 2013, but had closed down when we returned to conduct interviews in 2014. The Kinda house Internet café was actually named Willidziks Ghana Ltd. but when we returned to conduct interviews in 2014 it had moved to a new location.
8. Google Maps satellite view was very helpful in many situations.
9. Ashongman estates, and Atomic Junction were the only two “regions” where finding a café was exceptionally difficult.
10. This distance was reached using the Google Maps measurement tool and is by no means meant to represent a distance generated by a professional geographical mapping instrument. This number is only meant to show that in regions where multiple cafes are located, one could walk less than a mile and find an alternative Internet cafe.
11. Their mean age was 28 (median 25).
12. The new Ghanaian cedi was valued at two for one US dollar in July 2013 and just under 3.5 in July 2014.
13. Sakawa is a colloquial term for online scamming, also called 419 scamming. Internet scammers are often referred to as “Sakawa Boys.” A more direct translation of Sakawa could be blood magic or dark magic; the public perception being that successful scammers owe their ill-gotten gains to unholy pacts with evil forces.
14. At most locations the owner and attendant were on duty. There were also a number of locations where off duty attendants were spending time on a computer or visiting with the attendant on-duty. Though rare, a few cafés had multiple attendants on duty.
15. There is no hard evidence for this, but it is a widespread perception held by the staff.
16. All offered wired connectivity and three quarters offered wireless access.