The Democratic Impact of ICT in Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID2303232
AuthorsAlexandra Dobra (0000-0001-7793-2197, University of Cambridge, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume47
Issue1
Pages73-88
Publication date2012-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAfrica Spectrum (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-0397 • E-ISSN: 1868-6869
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/000203971204700104
OpenAlexW1949167343
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited21

This paper takes a critical look at the view that the Internet can serve as a laboratory of political experimentation for reconfiguring the repertories of political actions. The overall discourses on information and communications technology (ICT) are too often focused on technology and infrastructure, when the question of its use should be central. In order to comprehend how ICT can serve as a democratic enhancer, this paper critically examines the African anthropology of the state and of the public sphere. It captures the African endogenous productions of political modernity and the subsequent way ICT is appropriated and indigenized by African local instances. African states and civil societies do not fit into prescriptive Western paradigms. In order to encourage the effective use of new technologies, this paper has developed the so-called 'African model of ICT practice', which proposes a set of hypotheses that aim to enable the effective usage and integration of ICT within the democratic process in the context of an African self-defined political reality

Context (archaeology · Democracy · E-democracy · Economics · Geography · Information and Communications Technology · Modernity · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Public sphere · Sociology · The Internet · Computer Science · ICT Impact and Policies · ICT in Developing Communities · Innovation and Socioeconomic Development · Law