Information and
Communication Technologies in
Melanesia
Building a Research Community
20 – 21 April 2015
Crawford Seminar Room 3
JG Crawford Building
Lennox Crossing
ANU
Contact: [email protected]
0420 589 291
#SSGMICT
Monday 20 April: Literatures, Debates and Methods
Time
09:15
09:30
09:30
10:30
10:30
11:00
11:00
12:00
Name
Abstract
– Dr Sarah Logan Introduction
(SSGM, ANU)
– Associate Professor Ethnography in a Digital World.
Heather
Horst
(RMIT)
This talk explores the consequences of the
presence of digital media in shaping the
techniques and processes through which we
theorise and practice ethnography. To do so I
introduce five key principles for doing digital
ethnography with, through and in an
environment constituted by digital media. In
addition to the development of new and
innovative research methods, I argue that doing
digital ethnographic research has invited us not
only to theorise the digital world in new ways
but also to re-think how we have understood
pre-digital practices, media and environments.
– Morning tea
– Professor
Gerard Inventing Mobile Communication: From
Goggin (University of the Nordic Countries to Melanesia
Sydney)
Mobile phones first appeared commercially in
the late 1970s and early 1980s, and by the late
1990s were the subject of a burgeoning
research literature. In this talk, I consider the
‘invention’ of mobile communication, how this
has been understood and approached, by
different actors, across particular sectors and
disciplines, in a diverse range of cultures,
societies, and places.
While mobile communication is, on the one
hand, a transnational, global, increasingly
digital media technology, reliant on
international networks, protocols, standards,
value chains, and political economies (Goggin,
Global Mobile Media); on the other hand,
mobile communication only takes shape,
assumes meanings, and has social practices and
ideas associated with it, in specific cultural
settings.
So, while, for instance, we can speak of the
specific cultural and media forms, and
communicative architectures, that pertain to
mobile communication; we also need to attend
to the ways in which mobile communication is
implemented, imported and exported,
translated and transported, assembled,
appropriated, and recirculated in particular
places. Local (and translocal), national, and
regional cultural and media histories matter
greatly for how mobile communication takes
shapes in particular societies (cf. Goggin &
McLelland, Internationalizing Internet Studies
2009; Routledge Companion to Global Internet
Histories 2016).
Thus my argument is that, as it unfolds in
different parts of the world, mobile
communication continues to be reinvented,
reshaped, and reimagined. As a consequence,
our understanding of mobile communication as
a global phenomenon, and eminent
international technology, stands to be
significantly altered in the process. The early
research on mobile communication in Europe,
especially the Nordic countries, was influential
on our understanding of the transformed nature
of public/private through mobiles, or, later, text
messaging cultures. Thus the emergent
understanding of, and research upon, mobiles
in Melanesia, and the Pacific generally,
challenges us to rethink the nature of
communication and media themselves.
12:00
1:00
1:00
2:00
– Lunch
– Dr Amanda Watson Mobile phone-based research methods in
(SSGM
Visiting Melanesia
Fellow, ANU)
New research methods have been enabled by
the proliferation of mobile phone handsets in
Melanesia in recent years. This presentation
will consider benefits and drawbacks of new
methods, as well as ethical considerations and
impacts for researchers. Four innovative
research methods will be considered:
a) Phone interviews,
b) Survey forms installed on handsets,
c) SMS data collection, and
d) Smartphone applications.
2:00
3:00
– Associate
Robert
(ANU)
Professor Social Media and Development
Ackland
How we can assess the impact of social media
on social and economic development? Social
media enables the formation and maintenance
of inter-personal networks which can facilitate
the exchange of resources such as information,
provide emotional support and foster trust. We
can therefore draw from research into social
networks and social learning to assess the
potential development impact of social media.
In the context of economic development, social
learning can involve technology adoption (e.g.
of a productivity-enhancing technology or
practice), but it is also key to aspirational
change, whereby poor households become
more future-oriented in their thinking, leading
to investments in, for example, education.
What about social networks and social and
political development? In societies where
democratic values and processes are not well
understood, it has been argued that weak ties
may be effective in transmitting novel
information about unfamiliar political
institutions.
The paper also argues that country-specific
factors make it difficult to draw definitive
conclusions about social media and
development. First, social media requires
telecommunications
infrastructure
and
education levels such that it will be used by the
relatively well-off in developing countries and
there will be urban/rural disparities in social
media access and use. Second, the role of
government is important. Governments
allocate resources and develop policies relating
to ICT infrastructure. Government policy
influences the extent to which citizens have the
education and digital literacy to benefit from
access to the Internet. Government policy
towards Internet censorship and surveillance
may limit the activities of protest groups
aiming to bring about social and political
change. Government’s own Internet presence
will also be important, in terms of delivery of
government services and the provision of
authoritative information relating to, for
example, public health and emergencies or
disasters. Finally, cross-cultural differences in
social media use may affect the impact of
social media on social and economic
development
3:00
3:30
3:30
4:30
– Afternoon tea
– Professor
Deborah Digital
Sociology:
Definitions,
Lupton (University of Developments and Directions
Canberra)
In this presentation I discuss how the subdiscipline of digital sociology may be defined,
how it has developed and the directions in
which it may go, drawing on and extending the
arguments in my new book Digital Sociology
(Routledge, 2015). My interpretation of digital
sociology positions it as incorporating a
number of elements, including sociologists’
use of digital technologies as part of their
professional work, their use of digital datasets
for sociological inquiries and their
investigations into how people use digital
technologies in their everyday lives (and how
this use is influenced by social categories such
as gender, age, race/ethnicity, social class and
geographical location). In addition to these
elements, another strand of digital sociology
has emerged, in which scholars take a critical
and reflexive approach to the methods of
researching digital society and digital data
objects, big data and the emergence of
algorithmic authority and the digital
knowledge economy and their own position as
digitised assemblages and knowledge
producers in this economy. For me, the most
exciting and original elements of digital
sociology involve the incorporation of these
perspectives on sociological research and
theorising. This has implications for the
discipline of sociology as a whole. My vision
for the directions in which digital sociology
4:30
4:45
– Dr Sarah
(SSGM, ANU)
may go emphasises sociological research and
theorising that is able to understand the
manifold ways in which human embodiment,
selfhood and social relations are digitised and
recognises the vitality of digital data. I am
interested in using innovative and creative
ways of researching digital society and will
finish the presentation by giving some
examples of how this may be accomplished, as
part of working towards a ‘lively’ digital
sociology.
Logan Closing
Tuesday: Projects and Proposals
Time
Name
9:15 – Dr Sarah Logan
9:30
(SSGM, ANU)
09:30 – Associate Professor
10:30
Heather
Horst
(RMIT)
and
Professor
Robert
Foster (University of
Rochester)
Abstract
Opening
The Moral and Cultural Economy of the
Mobile Phone in the Pacific
The mobile phone represents one of the first
truly global digital technologies (Goggin 2010).
Spreading far beyond the industrialized centres
of Europe, Asia and North America, almost 5
billion of the world’s 6 billion mobile phone
subscriptions are found in the developing world.
The rapid uptake of mobile phones in these
regions has provided people with greater
capacity for interpersonal communication and
access to Web-based media platforms as well as
new services such as banking and money
transfers. Our project seeks to understand this
profound change by foregrounding the role of
information and communication technologies in
shaping the moral and cultural dimensions of
socioeconomic life. We organize the research
comparatively through case studies of two
countries in the Pacific – Papua New Guinea,
where a single service provider (Digicel Group
Ltd.) now dominates the market, and Fiji, where
the same provider struggles against a larger rival
(Vodafone). Building upon the investigators’
experience analysing the social, economic and
cultural effects of mass media and new forms of
communication in developing countries, the
project investigates how engagements with
mobile phones and related digital media
generate and regenerate cultural and personal
identities; remake social practices including
civic participation and economic exchange; and
reconfigure relationships among consumers,
companies and states. This presentation will
focus upon the research framework and interim
findings from our ongoing historical and
ethnographic research.
10:30 – Morning Tea
11:00
11:00 – Dr Amanda Watson Phones against corruption: preliminary
12:00
(SSGM
Visiting findings of user experience research
Fellow, ANU)
There is presently much economic activity and
growth in Papua New Guinea (PNG). However,
these increasing resources face considerable
capacity gaps at national and subnational level
in terms of implementation and financial
management, which undermine effective
delivery of decentralised services and open up
spaces for corruption. It is important to minimise
the risk of corruption, which can be done
through various means, including citizen
participation. In the communal societies of
PNG, it is often difficult to report corrupt
practices. This being said, most citizens do not
know how to denounce corruption. Corruption
reporting mechanisms need to be expanded
across the country, in a context of limited reach
of most media and communication technologies,
with the exception of widespread mobile phone
coverage.
The Department of Finance (DoF) has
established, with support from the Provincial
Capacity Building & Enhancement Program, an
option for DoF staff to anonymously report
cases of corruption using mobile phone text
messaging. All reported cases are referred to the
DoF’s Internal Audit and Compliance Division
for further investigation, in collaboration with
relevant state bodies. Depending on the success
of this project, the SMS service may be opened
up to the public.
This paper presents preliminary findings of user
experience research conducted with DoF staff.
User experience research is being undertaken in
order to: determine the effectiveness of the pilot;
recommend any changes to the service; and
determine whether or not the service should be
opened up to the public. The paper will present
findings from four focus groups: one in Port
Moresby and three in Lae. Further focus groups
will take place later in April.
12:00 – Lunch
1:00
1:00 – Dr Tim Sharp (ANU Observations on the use of mobile phones in
1:30
SSGM)
the PNG betel nut trade
In 2007, during a nomadic ethnography of the
PNG betel nut trade, I witnessed the arrival of
Digicel and the democratisation of mobile phone
access amongst wholesale betel nut traders and
other marketplace actors. Here I recount the way
in which mobile phones are used in the trade,
and how their increased availability has shaped
the flow of information and misinformation, and
altered power relations. I also emphasise the
importance of social relationships in mediating
this technology – information does indeed flow
more quickly, but the quality of the information
is what is most important. I conclude by raising
some questions about mobile phones and trade
in PNG.
1:30 – Dr John Cox (SSGM, Into the Shadows of the Internet
2:00
ANU)
In Utah, a blogger claims that someone has been
in touch with him and has invested USD100,000
in the International Bank of Meekamui (IBOM).
IBOM has created an account wherein these
USDs have been converted into BVK, the
'Bougainville
Kina',
a
fictitious
currency recognised only
by
the Bougainvillean fraudster Noah Musingku as
part of his elaborate Ponzi scam, U-Vistract. In
the fullness of time, so investors in this scam are
assured, the deposit will mature and they will
have millions of BVK that they will be able to
exchange for any currency they please. The
investor is worried that they may have been
duped and so the blogger puts the call out: has
anyone ever exchanged BVK for USD? Silence
on the web.
This scenario is part of research that I am doing
on the fast money scheme U-Vistract. Originally
I thought this was a very clever scam run by
Papua New Guineans and targeted with great
ingenuity to the 'modern social imaginary' of
middle-class PNG. However, from what I can
see on the web, the scam has grown and at least
a few people who are clearly not middle-class
Melanesians are 'investing' in the scam. This
paper raises some questions about how to do
research in the shadows of the internet
where information may be placed there with the
purpose of deceiving people and where
transnational criminal networks are running
investment scams and who knows what else. In
the
shadows evidence
is
disembodied,
unreliable and sketchy and so arguments rely on
corroborations and likelihoods. How to conduct
research in this shadowy realm?
2:00
2:30
2:30
3:00
– Dr Jenny Munro Visibility and reachability: Mobile phones,
(SSGM, ANU)
sex workers and HIV services in Manokwari,
West Papua
Being connected via mobile technology might
generate increased visibility and reachability,
which are important concepts in aid and
development practice. But can mobile phones
also interfere with visibility, presumed
connections, and reachability? During my
research on HIV and sex work in Manokwari,
West Papua, health workers deemed young
women referred to as ‘mobile phone sex
workers’ unreachable and nearly invisible
because they communicated with their clients
over the phone, and did not, for example, hang
out at market places to attract clients. This view
enabled health workers to largely ignore this
group of young women at risk for HIV. This
situation prompts an exploration of notions of
reachability and visibility in relation to health
services and mobile phone technology.
– Tait
Brinacombe Young Women’s Dialogue and Networking
(LaTrobe)
Online & Offline: Proposed Research
This paper presents a proposed research project,
in the early stages of development, to be
conducted throughout 2015/16. This paper
explores the aims and objectives of this research,
the supporting literature and the key research
questions as well as some initial thoughts on
methodological approaches, with a view to
encouraging feedback and workshopping of
ideas.
Women in the Pacific are often excluded from
participation in decision-making and dialogue
due to the patriarchal nature of decision-making
institutions and structures and gendered
assumptions about leadership as an inherently
male trait. Young women face a double
exclusion – increasingly marginalised from
traditional avenues, which tend to be dominated
by older generations of women. As such, young
women are increasingly turning to nonconventional avenues for participation including
through online platforms and social media as
they source new avenues for voice and agency.
This is of particular relevance in a Pacific
context, given that the Pacific is in the midst of
a technological revolution with rapid advances
in internet infrastructure and increased
connectivity throughout the region.
The proposed research aims to explore the
reality of young women’s experiences online,
and the benefits and/or limitations of
participation in online platforms. In addition it
aims to explore how online platforms are
opening up new opportunities for young women
in the Pacific to assert their voice and agency or
conversely how they are limited or constrained
in this respect. Adopting a flexible and adaptive
methodological approach, the proposed research
will engage in two stages of data collection: (i)
online through participation in online dialogues
and forums, crowdsourcing data through social
media, and the development and distribution of
an online survey, and (ii) offline through incountry fieldwork in 2-3 locations with data
collected through in-depth interviews and focus
groups.
Some Questions:
1. What is the best way to navigate ethical issues
in online research, particularly around informed
consent?
2. What is the best way to store, manage,
catalogue and analyse a range of data collected
through online tools and platforms, including
crowdsourcing?
3. What are potential sampling strategies for
offline data collection?
3:00
3:30
3:30
4:00
4:00
4:30
4:30
4:45
– Afternoon tea
– Dr Kerry Zubrinich Mobile Phones and the 2014 Solomon Islands
(SSGM, ANU)
elections: Early Findings
This presentation draws on recent extensive
survey work conducted during the 2014
Solomon Islands elections. This survey
collected basic mobile phone ownership data in
the Solomon Islands, much of it the first such
data to be collected. It also suggests findings
concerning the role of mobile phones on
campaigning behaviour.
– Dr Sarah Logan Facebook and Protest in PNG: Logic of the
(SSGM, ANU)
Disconnected?
This presentation draws on research conducted
during the 2014 constitutional crisis in PNG. It
analyses posts to a popular facebook group
associated with those protests and asks what
they reveal about the role of facebook in
organising, documenting and discussing protests
in PNG. In doing so, the presentation asks
whether PNG’s experiences in this regard
discount or confirm Lance Bennet’s Logic of
Connective Action and other work on the role of
social media in political protest.
– Dr Sarah Logan Workshop close
(SSGM, ANU)