In order to contextualize ICT development within our region, we revised the ECLAC (CEPAL) document from 2003 by Katz and Hilbert indicating the "road towards an information society in Latin America and the Caribbean", which we had already seen when discussing the information society. The first noticeable idea is a clear and urgent call for a transition towards the information society in the region, framed almost as a "now or never" justified by a shortening window of opportunity. Not only is the window for entering the information society closing rapidly, they claim, but it would also be enormously costly for future generations if we do not heed this call. The authors also point out that we have wrongly adopted foreign (theoretical) models for understanding and pushing forward this transition. Wrongly, they say, because in our region there has been weak economic growth, unstable economic conditions, ICT has not been a national priority and public services and regulation are immature. This means that considering our peculiarities and priorities is critical for a successful reduction of international and intra-national digital divides in the region. For instance, we have the most unequal society in terms of income in the whole world and we still have pressing educational needs (high illiteracy in several countries in the region, such as Haiti). In addition, we have unequal conditions in terms of urbanization (ICT development has been highest in the most urbanized areas in the region). Moreover, we have a sizable (yet vulnerable) indigenous population which has been mostly excluded either due to specific educational or cultural considerations or because there is almost no indigenous (language) content for them (or generated by them) on the Internet. From a technical point of view, the region has not been successful in choosing or adopting strategic standards related to ICT (notably going against the majority of the world in the early adoption of the TDMA standard for mobile phone communication and not having a regional agreement in terms of digital television). Finally, in terms of software, we have been slow in adopting strategic applications for industry, given that the basic application services and software were not there in the first place to allow smooth evolution towards more sophisticated enterprise-wide systems. This is coupled to the lack of strategy and understanding of the risks and opportunities of free software (which may have a higher total cost of ownership when it is not adequately supported) vs. vendor-specific software (which may lead to a lock-in effect or potentially hurt technological sovereignty).
Things have changed since 2003 and we have made some important (yet unequal) progress in ICT in the region. Accordingly, we looked at another ECLAC document, this time from 2010 by Parada in order to have an updated view of ICT statistics and the current state of affairs. What is more meaningful in this document is that it contains the effect of national digital agendas which had mostly been put into place around the time of the first ECLAC document. The author reiterates on the main sectors that would benefit from ICT, as identified earlier by ECLAC: e-government, education, health care and productivity. The document clearly demonstrates an important increase in the number of Internet and mobile phone users in the region, though not evenly distributed and crucially still behind in terms of broadband access, with respect to OECD averages. A critical factor for this slow spread and adoption of broadband (and ICT in general) is the vicious circle between income and tariffs. The lower the income in a country, the higher the connection and access tariffs tend to be. This creates an obvious digital divide in which people from "rich" countries get to pay less for their broadband access than people in "poor" countries, which becomes even more apparent when it is considered as a percentage of GDP per capita. While in developed countries, consumers pay less than 1% of their income (GDP per capita) for broadband access, in our region it can be more than 95% of average income (e.g. Honduras and Bolivia). A major technical impediment for widespread broadband in the region are the main backbones of the Internet with submarine cables that do not reach beyond the coastline. This is part of yet another vicious circle: most Internet content is in English and based in the USA and even local content from Latin America is still mostly hosted in US servers, making traffic slower (to make a local connection or access local content, traffic often has to go back and forth through US-based servers) and again posing a threat to technological and information sovereignty.
Lastly, we considered Ngwenyama and Morawczynski (2009) in a paper that focuses on the key factors that affect ICT expansion in Latin American emerging economies (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Perú). For starters, they are critical about the role that ICT has for development in the region. On the one hand, ICT may have the spillover effects hoped for in ECLAC documents (health and governance, among others). On the other hand, development through ICT is not guaranteed and developing countries actually get less return on investments made on ICT than developed countries (the reasons for this include those discussed above in the ECLAC documents). Since their emphasis is on emerging economies, they assume that such economies are characterized by rapid growth together with liberalization and free market policies. The premise is that trough privatization and regulation, ICT expansion and use is more efficient. We must note, however, that they are saying privatization and regulation, not privatization and deregulation, suggesting that privatization needs to be coupled with effective regulation of the ICT sector in order for the benefits to reach more population. Although the authors are not specific about it, regulation means fighting monopoly, controlling tariffs, imposing standards and other measures which the US or the EU effectively use to promote a fair ICT market in their regions (for instance, enforcing a limit on roaming charges for mobile phone service providers as the EU did last year). Through a statistical study (using ITU and World Bank data), the authors test their hypotheses regarding the influence that (1) economic factors, (2) usage fees & tariffs, (3) human capital, and (4) geography & civil infrastructure have on ICT infrastructure expansion efficiency. Though the model mostly holds, it shows the limitations of such large-scale simplifications, producing results that are even surprising for the authors (Colombia was found as the most efficient between the five selected countries for the period 1994-2001). In the end, they suggest some policy recommendations centered around a careful assessment of local conditions and capacities, and a complementarity in the different ICT investment strategies through more synergistic nation-wide planning.
In order to bring down these macro-level analysis and data to the human level, we used a movie to illustrate some of the potential effects and perceptions of ICT for real people. When it comes to technology, a good source of critical thinking on its motivations and effects has often been found within a film genre which might be labeled "paranoid (post)apocalyptic sci-fi". This label includes movies (often based on books) such as Blade Runner, 1984, Brazil or Matrix. These films often serve as a social critique of current times, using the future as proxy and they vary between highly advanced futuristic technology (obviously gone wrong) to more plausible situations in the near future. In this case, and given our special interest in Latin America this week, we had a screening of Sleep Dealer, a Mexican film from 2008 which includes a water-based conflict together with the dystopian outcomes of social networks and outsourcing (virtual work) on a global scale, centered around the US-Mexico border. Although the film may be indeed placed as paranoid apocalyptic science fiction, it often seems disturbingly plausible in a not so distant future. That is, of course, unless we prevent it from getting to that point.
I believe that Katz and Hilbert article is aimed towards where they want to ICTs in Latin America, so this is a transition slowly growing, as these authors give their futuristic view, showing the advantages and disadvantages that can happen in Latin America with the advent of ICT. These authors focus their research on four factors, which include the Indian community in this society is not included in the groups as children, youth, elderly, women and persons with disabilities, and for indigenous peoples ICTs are not really important in their culture, it is concluded that digital divide will increase. They also highlighted the different standards if those standards explain how to strengthen or prevent ICTs in Latin America to fulfill their job efficiently.
ResponderEliminarParada’s article shows a more current situation of ICTs, relate how ICTs help in some other way to Latin America and the Caribbean to grow in small steps, as developing countries such as the time needed to advance technologically must be comprehensive.
Ngwenyama's article raises awareness of the different factors affecting the development of ICTs in Latin America and the Caribbean, which discusses in depth those factors which are looking for a quick fix for the ICT development is faster and efficient. There are four items which are involved in the efficiency and the expansion of ICTs, which are: Economic Factors, rates, Human Capital and the Geography and Infrastructure.
The film class was observed in Sleep Dealers, involves a lot of ICT, either in developed countries and small towns, these ICTs have targeted the man's work is more efficient. But in the case of the protagonist could analyze the behavior of the character, he had always listened to conversations futuristic ideas through a radio he had built, and dreamed of leaving the village where he lived to explore as well know that the world could offer. In the village where he lived the water was a resource privatized because it had to pay for it, which he and his family had to work to get water. Another character named Rudy Ramirez Jr. was a pilot a fighter plane ran through her body with a few nodes that were in his body. It all starts when the main character named Billy, put a radio where you hear everything in the antenna where the dam was water, so that the radio was found by those who privatized the water and sent to the pilot Rudy get rid of the radio signal as well as where it came from, this signal came from the house of Memo, which was his father. The pilot was only following orders from superiors and destroyed the house of Memo also killed the father.
Well, i think we can't know what is our future specially talking about technology, because it has a fast evolution with a unkown behaviour and taking a important role in the countries that is hard to specify how the technology is going to be in our lives. We can see it in the class papers, how some people could imagine the future based on the ICT role in 2003 and how is the reality in 2009, to much different. The important think to do is give the importance to the technologies in our lifes, don't take it like just a tool, and realize about its potencial and power.
ResponderEliminarAccording to that, the relevant movie aspect, for me, was the blindness of older "american dream" workers, how the use of technologies can blind you and you have to stay there and work anyway and how the technology forces you to do some things in its way, not in yours, and people stay there working and living in that way ..., that is to much power for some tools, app and infrastructure. We can't forget that technology is from people to people and the way that we use it largely depends on us... will see but i hope it.
The film shows the digital divide in full lenght, two societies completely (physically)separated and yet completely interdependent, in a global economy where technology drives economic growth and human aspects are ignored but resented by the caracters. In my mind two key phrases remain: "They got the work without the workers" and "Our future is in our past".
ResponderEliminarWe don't know the future, but our current actions will shape it, if humans factors continue to be overlooked, the future shown in the movie is indeed very plausible.
Como lo menciona Castells, la sociedad en Red está cambiando las dinámicas de muchas concepciones sociales y culturales. En la película de Sleep Dealer se aborda esta temática en términos de soluciones informáticas a uno de tantos problemas de la sociedad el trabajo y la mano de obra barata. De entrada se podría ver el tema del teletrabajo como un problema humanístico de la tecnología en cuanto se utiliza de una forma desmedida para la explotación del hombre. Esta explotación continúa fortaleciendo la brecha digital en cuanto no hay equidad de los beneficios de la tecnología.
ResponderEliminarIn Latin America we have a different economic model, we grow more slowly than Europe, hence the models used in Europe to reduce the digital divide will not work here, mostly because neither infrastructure nor the regulation is necessary for most people to have equal opportunity of access to technology. There are priorities that must be overcome before thinking in a digital society, or decrease the digital divide, the basic needs yet to be remedied, what good is having technology if no water or electricity?
ResponderEliminarWith respect to the film, being a dystopia, it shows how society would be undesirable in the future. While showing the "future ", I think it's more a reality because natural resources are no longer all, because you have to pay for them; the technology makes it ideal young people have to live fully as the digital age and have all the latest technology, leaving aside other aspects of life. Finally it seems important to emphasize that the most terrible, is that until we lose our natural resources are not going to be able to enjoy and care them.
Is interesting that after 10 years of the proposals of Ngwenyama and Morawczynski (2009), there is not a synergistic nation-wide planning yet. The government’s actual solution regarding ICT is just bring internet to rural areas. Athough there are no services intended to reach the new population that will be receiving this service; having internet access will not reduce the digital divide.
ResponderEliminarSome of my colleagues posted that the digital divide is appreciated between the people of the two countries; however the digital divide can be also appreciated among the Mexicans, there was the people who had “ports” and the people who hadn’t. Having ports gave that people the opportunity to make more money, by plugging themselves to remote machines or simply by plugging them to computers to extract their thoughts to sell them, and an example of it was when the main character was able to get paid due his job with and he sent “a lot of” money to his brother; Before the ports he and his family barely had the money to buy water.
La incorporación de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación TIC, en las diferentes actividades de los países Latinoamericanos no ha sido una prioridad, a pesar a que muchos países tienen planes para su incorporación. En el caso de Colombia están la Agenda de Conectividad y Vice Digital, que existen pero requieren grandes esfuerzos económicos, políticos, sociales y culturales para su desarrollo. También, esta incorporación se ha visto afectada por la diversidad de la población de los países Latinoamericanos, ya que la tecnología tiene que adaptarse a las características de su población, de lo contrario genera exclusión.
ResponderEliminarUno de los principales problemas que aqueja la incorporación de las TIC, es la infraestructura de acceso, por ejemplo el costo de contar con suficiente banda ancha es alto, debido a las condiciones geográficas de los países. El acceso a Internet ha aumentado, pero su acho de banda sigue siendo limitado, lo que restringe sus posibilidades. También, el proponer que la infraestructura de las TIC sea dada a las empresas privadas es peligroso desde mi punto de vista, ya que los costos de acceso dependen de la competencia del mercado y en muchos casos en los países Latinoamericanos esto no se da, porque se establecen monopolios. Considero que en el desarrollo de infraestructura de TIC deben intervenir tanto el sector privado, como el sector estatal.
Finalmente, en la película vista en clase, se muestra a lo que se puede llegar, al permitir que las TIC dependan del sector privado. Las decisiones, las toman las empresas y no los Estados. También, se aprecia en lo que se convertirán los seres humanos, personas dedicadas al trabajo y donde solo cumplen tareas para mantener a las empresas. Los derechos de las personas se perden.
Juan Carlos Guevara