Jenna Burrell - Internet research in Accra, Ghana
So I was strolling through the AOIR papers (triggered by a post from Lilia) and I came upon this one: "Telling Stories of Internet Fraud: how word-of-mouth shapes Internet use in Accra, Ghana." Having been in Accra last year to run a workshop on facilitation of online groups in Africa, my eyes took notice. Check out this great abstract (I wish the full paper was available online, but it looks only conference participants can access the full papers. :-( )Jenna Burrell: "This paper will explore how the Internet is received by face to face communities of cybercaf�users in the West African capital city of Accra, Ghana. Previous research by focusing primarily on online spaces populated by citizens of developed countries who use computers in private spaces has overlooked the ways these proximate communities relate to the Internet. Internet users in Accra collectively produce a model of Internet use by telling stories about it, by providing advice and suggestions, and by using the Internet together in cybercafes. This paper will contribute to the body of knowledge on social aspects of the Internet by providing an alternative notion of how face to face communities relate to the Internet. Rather than asking how Internet use affects social relations in communities, we are asking how communities collectively shape Internet use.
Now I'm wondering if this study was done at BusyInternet, which I believe is the largest cybercafe in Africa!Looking closely, this might also be a story about Community Indicators!
...
In terms of the stories told about the Internet, cybercafe users in Accra described the Internet as an ambivalent technology, as both capable of effecting positive personal development through legitimate means, or alternatively as making new forms of criminal behavior possible including e-mail scams and credit card fraud. However, this ambivalence converges with the conviction held by many cybercafe users that the Internet is an extraordinarily powerful tool for effecting personal development whether by honest or dishonest means.
While Internet users frowned upon fraudulent practices, these stories bolstered their belief in the effectiveness of Internet use in realizing ones ambitions and they had a powerful effect on how they made use of the Internet. Many Ghanaian cybercafe users devote a great deal of time to collecting foreign chat partners in Yahoo chat rooms in an effort to build social capital. They believed that they could call upon these foreign contacts for help with financial problems, emigration plans, or for business partnerships. In practice most found this sort of partnership difficult to realize, although many continued to spend significant amounts of time and money on it despite evidence that this form of use wasn’t as effective as they had expected. Cybercafe users in Accra relied on models of sponsorship and patronage drawn from traditional notions of reciprocity and wealth distribution, the vestiges of colonial relations, and contemporary systems of development aid. This paper will demonstrate how forms of Internet use are socially influenced and deeply cultural.
Accra, Ghana, Internet, community_indicators
posted by Nancy White at 8:43 PM
8 Comments:
Please keep writing, I'm enjoying your blog. When I was a Geekcorps volunteer in 2001, BusyInternet was still under construction...
joyfish, it is a huge active place now. It was very different from many other internet centers and cafes I had been in Africa. We held out trainings there and the staff was incredible. But the thing that was different is this: every computer had headsets and when at computers, people did not talk to each other. That was a different experience for me!
Nancy (and others),
email Jenna if you a copy of the paper...
Hi Nancy, Lilia pointed me in the direction of your blog. I'll e-mail you a copy of the paper and anyone else who wants it can have it too. I did indeed do a large portion of my research at BusyInternet, a fantastic and fascinating place. I lived about 5 minutes walk from Busy. Busy however was a really atypical Internet cafe and I spent much of my time at other smaller neighborhood Internet cafes. My work is turning out to be primarily about young men in Accra because those are the "typical" cafe users although Busy attracted a much wider range of people, old and young, male and female and consequently the Internet was being used in many diverse ways that I didn't see at the other cafes.
Thanks, Jenna! And I agree with your observations about Busy. It was very different from other places. But it also has a very different management structure and goal, from what I could observe (short time!)
I'll email for the paper. THANKS!
Choconancy, remeber me? Francis, member of CARDI Online Facilitator Workshop. Checked your blog as you suggested and saw the blog on Ghana, my homeland. I was at home in mid October 2005 and I tend to agree with the profile of the cybercafe users. I did not vist BusyInternet but I heard about it. Of the once I used, the patrons were typically male youths. The few females I met were either foreigners or professional Ghanaians.
Francis, of COURSE I recognize you! Thanks for stopping by the blog. I'm amazed you found this older post. I loved being in Ghana (also home to some of the best cocoa production which makes me, choconancy, very happy!) The cafes were male dominated. I wonder why?
I just want to leave a comment about the internet cafes in Accra, Ghana. They are most probably being used to scam woman like me, young men claiming they love you after a month on the net, asking for money, gifts and proclaiming their devotion to you. How can that be 20 years older than they are but they get to you until 1 day they start asking for more money. I just want to alert other ladies out there, if they sound too good to be true they are.
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