Towards reimagining the ‘digital divide’: impediments and circumnavigation practices in the appropriation of the mobile phone by African journalists
Towards reimagining the ‘digital divide’: impediments and circumnavigation practices in the appropriation of the mobile phone by African journalists
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重新构想“数字鸿沟”：非洲记者挪用手机的障碍和绕行做法
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发表时间：
2020
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
H. Mabweazara
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
H. Mabweazara
移动电话在非洲的迅速普及常常被以一种确定性的方式庆祝，这种方式盲目地回避了与“数字鸿沟”挑战相关的严峻而复杂的现实。同样，人们也很少关注公民（与移动电话运营商和制造商合作）通过谈判解决这些挑战的复杂方式。在此背景下，本文利用2008年至2016年间进行的采访，探讨非洲记者将手机作为新闻和日常交流平台的经验。它具体审查了面临的本地化挑战以及为解决这些挑战所采用的策略。研究结果表明，为了保持联系，记者作为专业人士和公民，通常会根据个人和集体机构以及移动电话运营商和制造商的创造性创新来部署策略。综上所述，这些策略提供了一个机会，可以重新构想“数字鸿沟”的概念，将其视为嵌入在社会行动者、他们的直接“实践”背景和更广泛的社会环境之间相互作用中的多层面的、内在的情境体验。
ABSTRACT The rapid proliferation of the mobile phone in Africa has often been celebrated in deterministic ways that blindly eschew the stark and intricate realities associated with the challenges of the ‘digital divide’. Equally, very little attention has been paid to the sophisticated ways in which citizens (in association with mobile phone operators and manufacturers) negotiate their way around these challenges. Against this backdrop, this essay draws on interviews conducted between 2008 and 2016 to explore the experiences of African journalists in their deployment of the mobile phone as a journalistic and everyday communication platform. It specifically examines the localised challenges faced and the strategies employed to circumnavigate them. The findings show that, to remain connected, journalists as both professionals and citizens, generally deploy tactics hinged on their individual and collective agency as well as the creative innovations of mobile phone operators and manufacturers. Collectively, these strategies, as the paper argues, present an opportunity to reimagine the notion of the ‘digital divide’ as a multifaceted, inherently contextual experience embedded in the interplay between social actors, their immediate context of ‘practice’ and the wider social milieu.