new technologies: diffusion comparison diagram
I think about the diffusion of the Internet to developing countries. Getting onto the Internet depends on having a computer and a telephone connection. Most people who have computers already have telephones. Diffusion of the Internet to people with both is a relatively easy, inexpensive process. In developing countries few people have either computers or telephones. I suspect that the process of diffusion of the Internet will become much slower when it has exhausted the installed computer and telephone capacity, and new linkages will require both a new computer and a new telephone. I have seen estimates that a billion people in the world still don't have electricity. I suspect that the diffusion of Internet technology to illiterate people who not only don't have computers and telephones, but who don't have electricity will be quite a different process still. John Daly http://www.geocities.com/stconsultant http://stconsultant.blogspot.com
I've not seen it mentioned yet... Carleen Maitland and Josef Bauer, "Global Diffusion of Interactive Networks: The Impact of Culture," in Ess (ed), _Culture, Technology, Communication: Towards an Intercultural Global Village_, pp. 87-127. (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2001) Maitland and Bauer take the then available data on infrastructure, economic, and cultural factors for some 60+ countries, and undertake a quantitative analysis to determine what factors correlate with rapid diffusion of the Internet. Beyond the obvious - i.e., sufficient infrastructure and economic factors (which, on the whole, are comparatively more important) - they found three cultural factors played a statistically-significant role: English-language facility, comparatively high gender equality, and/or what Hofstede termed low uncertainty avoidance (i.e., relatively high risk tolerance). Hope that helps - Charles Ess Visiting Professor (fall, '03) Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication (DIAC) The IT University of Copenhagen Glentevej 67 DK-2400 Copenhagen NV Telephone: +45 38 16 89 63 Mobile: +45 22 46 06 35 Fascimile: +45 38 16 88 99 Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies Drury University 900 N. Benton Ave. Springfield, MO 65802 USA voice: 417-873-7230 fax: 417-873-7435 homepage: <www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html> Co-chair, CATaC '04: <it.murdoch.edu.au/catac>
participants (2)
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Charles Ess ＠ ITU -
John Daly