Book Review

From rural village to global village: telecommunications for development in the information age

Heather E Hudson

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey, 2006, 179 pages ISBN 0 8058 6016 9

As a sequel to her earlier book When Telephones Reach the Village (1984), Professor Heather Hudson once more focuses on the rural village in her ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and development discourse. As she states in the preface, the objective of the book is to review research on ICTs and development in the past two decades while at the same time adding her own findings from fieldwork in ICT planning and evaluation.

Another flourishing theme in ICT discourse, contained in the book and reflected in its title, is that of the ‘global village’, initially envisioned decades ago by communications futurist Marshall McLuhan (1964), who was foreseeing an integrated world connected by media and communication technology. As a metaphor, this has been criticised for ringing hollow in relation to world realities. One of the critics, the International Communication scholar Cees Hamelink (1994), dispels the notions associated with the metaphor, arguing that in a real village most people know all about each other and what is going on in the village. However, in the ‘global village’ the opposite is true – the majority of the world's people know little about each other. It would be interesting to assess how many of the authors discoursing on the ‘global village’ are actually familiar with the lifestyle and socio-economic context of rural villages, especially in Africa where the population is predominantly rural. The challenging question to ask repeatedly is ‘Will the rural village ever be part of the global village?’

In its desire to become part of the global village, the rural village must take cognisance of the digital divide it will have to bridge if it is to fulfil its ambition. In the opening chapter, entitled ‘The Death of Distance?’, Hudson acknowledges developments in ICT that seem to collapse the time and space constraints and make nation-states feel closer to each other, yet also alludes to the gaps in ICT access which divide developing countries from the developed ones.

In the second chapter, on telecommunications and rural development, Hudson examines findings from research studies focusing on agriculture, fisheries, natural resources, crafts and rural businesses. In her own assessment, ICTs can contribute to socio-economic development but they do not do so alone, as they must complement other infrastructure, such as that for electrification and transport, for development to occur. This reviewer suggests, however, that Hudson should have elaborated on her understanding of development. Throughout the book it is clear that her particular interest is in ‘socio-economic development’, which leads her to favour the more social and economic aspects of discourse on ICT and rural development and to neglect the cultural and political factors.

In the subsequent eight chapters of the book, the author's topics include ICT applications in education, health and training; universal access strategies to bridge the digital divide; technologies for reaching unserved populations; the restructuring of the telecoms sector in developing regions; and policy issues.

In a chapter on telemedicine, Hudson looks at some ICT applications that have yielded some benefits, such as the two-way radio networks that allow medical personnel in Uganda to get help from rural clinics using portable VHF radios. In a project initiated by the US-based SatelLife, a Healthnet Knowledge network that uses a low earth orbit satellite enables medical practitioners to seek advice on the treatment of unusual cases from colleagues in other parts of Africa. Burns surgeons in Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda, for example, are reported to have used Healthnet to consult with one another on patient treatment and reconstructive surgery.

It is commendable that Hudson actually visited some of the rural villages to which she refers. However, her on-site presence is not noticeable in the text. Her book would have been much improved had she included participant observation narratives on the places she visited. As the book essentially reviews literature on research in ICT and development over the past decades, Hudson has not given sufficient weight to her own field experiences and assessments, which are subsumed in the extensive literature review. She conducts a largely descriptive review, rather than contributing forceful arguments to the debate on ICT for development.

In general, this reviewer would recommend Hudson's book as a useful read for those keen on the application of ICTs in the rural context. It is pragmatic in its orientation towards developing country situations on ICT deployment and the author paves the way for especially African authors, who are largely absent from the ICT and development literature, to come forth with further case studies from Africa.