Description
Book SynopsisNew media, development and globalization are the key terms through which the future is being imagined and performed in governance, development initiatives and public and political discourse. Yet these authoritative terms have arisen within particular cultural and ideological contexts.
Trade Review''Communications media play an accelerating role in social change and global connections. But what people make of them is not determined by technology nor by the way technologies are used in rich countries of the global north. With rich ethnographic narratives, Don Slater offers a truly global look at how the meaning of technologies is shaped by people who use them in settings from Sri Lanka to Ghana to Trinidad. People working in development agencies and living in local communities become part of the same analysis, as Slater wisely and helpfully stresses the kind of symmetries identified by Paulo Freire's model of learning.''
Craig Calhoun, Director, London School of Economics and Political Science
''This is a book of really major importance that could have been written by no one else; its core thesis is both powerful and urgent. Slater draws on a remarkable series of empirical projects on “new media for development” which enable him to speak with real authority about what is wrong and what might remain useful about notions of “development” and the use of networking resources in “development” settings. It will have a major impact in the fields of media sociology and media studies, media-for-development and media anthropology.''
Nick Couldry, Goldsmiths, University of London
''In this book, Slater brilliantly brings together a range of ethnographic engagements with theoretical interests in reshaping our understandings of “media,” “development,” and “globalization.” His analysis speaks powerfully to questions of knowledge production and social justice in emerging contexts of both global inequality and global coalition.''
Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements vi
1 Introduction: Frames and Dialogues 1
2 Communicative Ecology and Communicative Assemblages 27
3 Media Forms and Practices 68
4 Making Up the Future: New Media as the Material Culture of Development 99
5 Scaling Practices and Devices: Globalizing Globalization 130
6 Conclusion: Politics of Research: Forms of Knowledge, Participation and Generalization 155
Notes 189
References 191
Index 205
