Cyberspace and Globalization
Dr. Mladen Milicevic
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California, USA
Abstract
This paper focuses on the effects of globalization and the uses of the telecommunication technologies in
Africa. Examination of the current situation in Africa shows that mobile phone technologies represent a much
more feasible option then the Internet technologies may be. Internet connectivity will be coming with the
mobile phone connectivity, and that’s enabling clinics and schools and other local institutions and
businesses to have wireless Internet on computers linked to the mobile networks. However, in addition to
wireless Internet, a rollout of undersea broadband fiber cable is underway along east and west coasts of
Africa. A brief consideration of the projects and the organizations whose work concentrates on promoting
literacy through the telecommunication technologies is provided, focusing on Nicholas Negroponte’s One
Laptop Per Child project.
Introduction
The term cyberspace literally means "navigable space" and it is derived from the Greek word kyber (to
navigate). In William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer, the original source of the term, cyberspace refers
to a navigable, digital space of networked computers accessible from computer consoles; a visual, colorful,
electronic datascape known as "The Matrix" where companies and individuals interact with, and trade in,
information. Since 1984 the term cyberspace has been re-appropriated, adapted and used in a variety of
ways that all refer to the computer-based conceptual space within information and communication
technologies
Globalization has become the most important economic, political, and cultural phenomenon of our time. This
process is reshaping the world economy, creating new social classes, and reordering the lives of thousands
and thousands of people. The word globalization stands for all kinds of different things depending on who
uses it. It could stand for the so-called progress and modernity of western culture, or American domination of
world culture or the arrival of worldwide hypermodern chaos loaded with inequality and instability for almost
everyone.
One of the important aspects of cyberspace and globalization has to do with the "tyranny of the place" that
was always a synonym for restraints on liberty that puts restrictions, both political and economic, on where
people can live and go, what to buy, eat, read, hear or see. Globalization by its nature brings down these
barriers and empowers the individual with "unlimited" choices. One can live in England but eat Greek food,
read Suddeuche Zeitung on the Internet, buy books from Amazon.com in Seattle, and visit Egyptian
pyramids without changing money or having a passport. All this increases people's freedom to shape their
identities in a way that their ancestors could not have possibly imagined. This picture of the world as global
village may appear to be very appealing and interesting to dwell in, but this is only one side of the coin—the
western world-view side of the coin. This will be perfectly illustrated by looking at the following statistics that
reveal a very uneven distribution of wealth, and consequently selective privilege regarding who can and
cannot gain access to the cyberspace information.
Knowing that most of the Internet users live in the western world makes it difficult to claim that the Internet's
role as a medium is globally powerful. On the contrary it is rather limited to the very small percentage of
world's wealthy population who own a computer, or may have access to one.
There may be a significant impact of the Internet on the global level, as in case where it played an important
role in the victory of Barak Obama during the US presidential elections. Thus, Obama as the president of the
US may have substantial influence on the general global situation in the world. However, in many parts of
the developing world, there is still a tremendous shortage of telephones, let alone computers. There are
fewer telephones in sub-Saharan Africa than in Manhattan, and for the most people in the world, the World
Wide Web and the entire cyberspace is just another unobtainable American toy. CNN and MTV worldwide
have more influence than Internet does, because there are more people globally who own a TV set than
those who own a computer.
Issues of Western Culture
While developing countries struggle with political uncertainty, poverty, health issues, and literacy—to name
st.
the few, the western world of 21 century is concerned with disorientation of contemporary life, the decline
of historical consciousness, confusion of real and virtual, breaking away from religious values and
narratives, all of which produce emotional numbness and detachment. The contemporary western society,
which is becoming more and more globalized, is faced with all kinds of novelties and raptures loaded with
myriad of unrelated events and phenomena. People are increasingly faced with an urgent need to organize
their experiences in a way that would replace disorder and discontinuity with orderly structures providing
more certainty and therefore stronger feeling of highly desired security. [Best & Kellner 2001] Contemporary
world economies and societies are greatly influenced by transnational corporations that are replacing the
nation-state as arbitrators of economy in an emergent stage of transnational capitalism that erases previous
boundaries of space and time that produces an ever-expanding global marketplace and division of labor,
with novel forms of speculative capital, new forms of production and distribution, rapidly expanding
emigration and class restructuring, and cornucopia of new consumer goods, information technologies, and
services. [Best & Kellner 1997] Even though, this is largely a Western discourse, it affects, in one way or
another, the entire world as in the case of war “on terrorism” or the latest world-wide economic collapse.
So, the question is how the developing countries are going to reach a point of having the same kinds of
sociological and cultural problems as their counterparts in the west? Let me start with addressing the digital
divide in Africa.
Digital Divide
The term “digital divide” represents the inequality of possibility in relation of access to information,
knowledge and communication networks. The fast development of information and communication
technologies in recent years produced a serious imbalance between info-rich and info-poor, between the
haves and the have-nots of the information society. The existence of this digital divide impedes the
possibilities of improvement that such technologies can offer to the most underprivileged. It holds back the
production and exchange of information, highlights economic slow down and severely amplifies the shortage
of understanding between peoples. More than 80% of the population of the planet is literally excluded from
the global information networks that provide economic, cultural, political and social interactions.
Closing a digital divide would require a redesign of global society because the digital divide is not a
technological problem to begin with, but rather an economic, social, and political issue. The digital divide is
not only a gap in the access to and benefits from technology, but it also an expression of a more general
divide in wealth and power. The problem we are facing is a symptom of much deeper, more important
division: of income, development and literacy. [Fuchs 2007]
Most commentators view "digital divide" in purely economic terms. However, two other types of divide will
have much greater impact in the years to come. Economic Divide in its simplest form, the digital divide is
manifested in the fact that not all people can afford to buy a computer. In areas like North America, Europe,
Australia, and Asia's advanced countries, computer cost is no longer an issue. Dell's cheapest computer
costs $379 (with a monitor), but how about the developing countries where cost of a computer exceeds by
multifold the annual income per capita.
Usability Divide may be far worse than the economic divide is seen in the fact that technology remains so
complicated that many people couldn't use a computer even if they got one for free. Many others can use
computers, but don't achieve the modern world's full benefits because most of the available services are too
difficult for them to understand. Almost 40% of the population has lower literacy skills, and yet few websites
follow the guidelines for writing for low-literacy users. Lower literacy is the Web's biggest accessibility
problem, but it seems that nobody cares about this massive user group. [Nielsen 2006]
Essentially we are still experiencing the effect of hundreds of years of colonial and post-colonial exploitation,
exclusion, and dependency of the Third World that has caused the very conditions that Africans have to face
today.
Very few people in poor countries own computers and have access to the Internet simply because they are
too poor, illiterate, or have other more vital concerns, such as food, health care and security. So even if it
were possible to wave a magic wand and cause a computer to appear in every household on earth, it would
not achieve very much: a computer is not useful if you have no food or electricity and cannot read.
Rather than trying to close the divide for the sake of it, the more sensible goal is to determine how best to
use technology to promote bottom-up development. And the answer to that question turns out to be
remarkably clear: by promoting the spread not of PCs and the Internet, but of mobile phones. [The
Economist, 2005]
So, in order to bridge the “digital divide” between rich and poor, the mobile phone, not the personal
computer, has shown the highest potential. In Africa where the availability of other forms of
communication—roads, postal systems or fixed-line phones—is often limited, mobile phone technology
becomes the single most transformative force for development. Over the past decade, the number of mobile
phone users in Africa has grown faster than elsewhere in the world. According 2007 African Mobile Phone
Statistics, the continent's mobile phone usage for the past five years has increased more than 200%
percent.
At the end of 2007 there were 280.7 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa, representing a penetration
rate of 30.4%. The chart below shows the historical numbers up until 2007, with projected growth and
penetration rates through 2012.
2007 African Mobile Phone Statistics by HASH on August 1, 2008
Overcoming barriers to market penetration is clearly in the best interest of everyone involved: in a typical
developing country, a rise of ten mobile phones per 100 people boosts GDP growth by 0.6 percentage
points.
Africa’s Mobile Phone Operators (carriers)
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MTN - 73.9 million subscribers
Vodacom - 33.4 million subscribers
Orascom - 32.4 million subscribers
Zain - 30.6 million subscribers
Orange - 27.7 million subscribers
Mobile phones technology helps many different user groups. Here are some beneficiaries of mobile phones
at the village level:
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Entrepreneurs who are selling phone services to villages on a per use basis.
Sellers of prepaid phone cards including poor urban youths and small business owners.
Users of phones who gain business and employment opportunities mentioned above.
Mobile phones save people living in rural communities the financial costs and time involved with
travel.
Many small businesses in Africa claim that they had increased their profits as a result of mobile
phones.
Over 85 percent of small businesses run by black individuals in South Africa rely solely on a mobile
phone for telecommunications.
One can buy airtime from the bank account, receive airtime from another phone user, top up
another phone user and pay the bills.
Health-care workers in the rural areas summon ambulances to distant clinics via mobile phone.
[Butler 2005]
The solution for charging a mobile phone is often a car battery owned by someone who does not have a
prayer of acquiring a car. So, a person running a mobile phone charging business has to keep a battery in
her shop, then take it by bus 20 or so miles to the nearest town to recharge it in a gas station. For 80 cents
each, neighbors can charge their mobiles from the battery. [LaFranier 2005]
To power many remote mobile phone sites across Africa, diesel generators with lead acid batteries are
used, providing back-up power should the diesel generators fail. However, groups such as Safaricom are
trying to reduce diesel usage by integrating wind turbines or solar panels into the systems powering mobile
phone sites. For example, Laisamis is a remote town of 1,000 people of the Soboto tribe (related to the
Maasai), has no electricity, no running water, no sewers, no radio, no TV - but it does have cell phone
service. Getting to Laisamis from the capital Nairobi is a 24+ hour drive and the household income is very
low, the new mobile phone base station has changed the lives of the local people. This new mobile phone
base station is handling thousands of calls a day. The Safaricom is planning to add a wind-powered battery
charging station to their base station facility. Mobile phones allow children to talk to parents who have gone
to work in the major cities, law enforcement to spread the word on cattle thefts, and clinicians to seek the
advice of doctors. [Aola Ooko 2008]
Villagers in the two jungle provinces of Congo are so eager for mobile phone service that they have built 50foot-high tree houses to catch signals from distant mobile phone towers. One man in Congo uses his mobile
phone as a public pay phone. Those who want to climb to his platform and use his phone pay him for the
privilege. One woman living on the Congo River, unable even to write her last name, tells customers to call
her mobile phone if they want to buy the fresh fish she sells. She doesn't have electricity, she can't put the
fish in the freezer, so she keeps them in the river tethered live on a string, until a call comes in. Then she
retrieves them and readies them for sale. [LaFranier 2005]
During the 2006 local government elections in Senegal, Radio Sud used reporters and correspondents with
cell phones to call in what they saw. With communication and cell phones, this is where it is difficult to cheat
in elections now. The figures announced at the district level are reported by the mobile phones and thus
cannot be changed on the road to the capital. Mobile phones allowed independent media, especially radio,
to provide accurate coverage of elections and make it more difficult for ruling parties to cheat and get away
with it. [Steere 2008]
While Africa has experienced tremendous growth in the mobile services market and still has room for growth
with only 50% of Sub-Saharan Africa covered by a mobile signal, future expansion faces some hurdles. The
largest of these is the cost of handsets. [Butler 2005] High taxes and duties imposed by many governments
on handsets and services, often just as growth in the sector starts to take off. It does seem strange for
countries to say that telephone access is a public-policy goal, and then put special or punitive taxes on
telecoms operators and users. To avoid taxes and duties, many mobile operators in sub-Saharan Africa do
not subsidize handsets like their counterparts in Europe and the United States and few rural Africans can
afford the prices of the latest mobile gadgets. Thus, mobile operators in Africa generally rely on customers to
get the handsets on the black market. Used handsets are available for $50 or less in South Africa.
Meanwhile the handset-makers are racing to develop cheap handsets for new markets in the developing
world.
Another reason why some governments might impose high barriers to cell phone usage—mobile phones
increase the costs of repression. A network of opposition activists armed with cell phones and textmessaging capability can more easily coordinate political action against a repressive government. [Drezner
2005]
The growth rate in Africa over the last couple of years has been phenomenal, and will likely continue for the
next 3-5 years.
Major drivers of increased growth include:
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Subsidization of handsets
Pre-paid offerings
Continued liberalization of the telcom sector
Low penetration rates
Expected uptake of 3G services
Growth inhibitors include:
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Taxation - especially in East Africa
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Low income across the continent hampers growth
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Widespread illiteracy decreases the growth of value added services, even SMS
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Unreliable electricity supplies
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Corruption
[HASH 2008]
Bridging the Divide
There are numerous projects and organizations whose goals are to help bridge the digital divide in Africa.
The Millennium Villages project offers a bold, innovative model for helping rural African communities lift
themselves out of extreme poverty. The Millennium Villages themselves are proving that by fighting poverty
at the village level through community-led development, rural Africa can achieve the Millennium
Development Goals by 2015 and escape from the poverty trap.
The Earth Institute of Columbia University is now in the process of partnering with a number of African
universities for sharing online material for what we call global classrooms that are linked together through
Skype or Internet-based video conferencing. So the education side will benefit tremendously.
The Digital Solidarity Fund is an African initiative with objectives of reducing the digital divide, putting
information and communication technologies at the service of human development, and building a solidaritybased and inclusive information society. Objectives of the Fund are to ensure affordable and fair access to
the information technologies and their contents for everybody, especially marginalized groups. They also
promote such access as a basic right in both the public and private domains, irrespective of market
fluctuations, growth and profitability, with respect for an information society that is socially, culturally,
economically, financially and ecologically sustainable. There is a hope to guarantee access to information
and knowledge to everybody, contribute to the autonomy and healthy development of each individual, and
strengthen the commitment of local collectivities at the social, political, economic and cultural levels. Their
goal is reducing economic, social and cultural disparities by the mobilization of fresh resources generated by
innovative financial mechanisms for development, in particular the “one percent for digital solidarity”
principle, a financing tool specifically devoted to the fight against the digital divide.
The mission of Computers for Africa (CFA) is promoting sustainable Information and Communications
Technology (ICT) development in rural African communities. Their program is developed by African and
USA personnel, which starts with American volunteers refurbishing computers into ready-to-set-up labs and
ends with a cluster of sustainable ICT programs in a rural African district. However, with this approach may
be a danger in exporting old computers to developing countries is that the latter will become dumps for
electronic waste just like many Western corporations and countries consider them as dumps for atomic
waste.
UbuntuNet Alliance is boosting the African research capacity through a high speed network link connecting
the to the international research community via the GÉANT2 network. The connection between the
UbuntuNet Alliance’s network hub in London and the GÉANT2 network enables researchers and scholars in
Sub-Saharan African universities and research institutions to share information and data and to collaborate
through a 1 Gbp/s link with their peers in Europe and the rest of the world.
Project Masiluleke, which spun out of a talk by HIV campaigner Zinny Thabethe at Pop!Tech 2006, is
attempting to wrestle back some initiative in the HIV-Aids crisis in Africa. The first step for Project M: a text
message information campaign run in conjunction with one of South Africa’s biggest cell networks, MTN.
The scheme will see a million messages sent for free every day (using free space in so-called “Please Call
Me” SMS system that’s prevalent across the continent) sending people information about HIV.
One Laptop Per Child, is trying to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by
providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software
designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool
they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become
connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.
One can purchase the award-winning XO laptop for a child and change the life of children all around the
world. The XO laptop was designed especially for children. It has a rugged plastic exterior, built-in wireless,
a unique dual mode display that is readable under direct sunlight and software designed for children to
encourage exploration, creativity, and collaboration. For $399 one can give a laptop to a child in a
developing country and receive one for a child in one’s own life. Alternatively, one can make a cash donation
for $199, the cost of a laptop, to help One Laptop Per Child ‘s mission to provide laptops to children. A third
option is to participate in the Give100 or Give1000 program and make a difference to a whole school or
community.
The XO laptop is designed specifically to improve the quality of education to children in very remote and
sometimes harsh environments. The XO's "dual-mode" screen designed to be viewed clearly in broad
daylight because many children in the developing world attend school outdoors. The wireless range of the
XO is several times greater than most laptops so it’s easier to share a wireless Internet connection. It's also
rugged to withstand rough treatment and extreme environments. And perhaps most importantly, it's highly
power efficient using only about 4 watts. Because One Laptop Per Child is a non-profit organization, most of
the people working do so on a volunteer basis. XO's have been given to children and schools in over 30
countries, for almost 2 years and the results have been astounding. Rwanda, Nepal, Mongolia, Haiti, Peru,
and Uruguay just to name a few. In almost every case both students and teachers have given the program
rave reviews. Once the laptops are introduced school attendance goes way up, and behavior problems go
way down. And in many cases, the kids go home after school and teach their parents how to use the
computer. However, not surprisingly, Microsoft and Intel are critical of the $199 laptop because they see it
as competition for profit and customers in developing countries.
With permission from his widow, Yoko Ono, a digital John Lennon stars in a new commercial for One Laptop
Per Child. The clip features Lennon’s voice seemingly digitally sewn together. “Imagine if every child, no
matter where in the world they were, could access a universe of knowledge,” the virtual Lennon says. “They
would have a chance to learn, to dream, to achieve anything they want. I tried to do it through my music, but
now you can do it in a very different way.” The One Laptop Per Child program is one Ono obviously believes
in, as she has been very hesitant to lend Lennon’s image to ads in the past. [Kreps 2008]
The "digital divide" refers to the fact that certain parts of the population have substantially better
opportunities to benefit from the new economy than other parts of the population. Most commentators view
this in purely economic terms. However, two other types of divide will have much greater impact in the years
to come. Economic Divide in its simplest form, the digital divide is manifested in the fact that some people
can't afford to buy a computer. In areas like North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia's advanced
countries, computer cost is no longer an issue. Dell's cheapest computer costs $379 (with a monitor).
Usability Divide may be far worse than the economic divide is seen in the fact that technology remains so
complicated that many people couldn't use a computer even if they got one for free. Many others can use
computers, but don't achieve the modern world's full benefits because most of the available services are too
difficult for them to understand. Almost 40% of the population has lower literacy skills, and yet few websites
follow the guidelines for writing for low-literacy users. Lower literacy is the Web's biggest accessibility
problem, but it seems that nobody cares about this massive user group. [Nielsen 2006]
Fiber-Optic Cable for Africa
On November 27, 2008, France Telecom-Orange signed a memorandum of understanding leading up to the
installation of a submarine fiber-optic cable that will provide over 20 countries within the West African coastal
region with Internet access. This 12,000 km cable, called ACE (Africa Coast to Europe), will extend from
Gabon to France, and from 2011 will connect Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Gambia, Cape Verde, Mauritania, Morocco, Spain,
Portugal and France. An extension to South Africa is also being studied. For this project, France Telecom
and its subsidiaries Côte d'Ivoire Telecom, Orange Bissau, Orange Cameroun, Orange Guinée, Orange
Mali, Orange Niger, Orange Spain and Sonatel have teamed up with numerous international operators.
This new cable will benefit from the latest high-performance technology currently used in submarine cables
providing excellent international connectivity. It will contribute to the development of telecommunications
networks, a determining factor in West Africa's socio-economic development. [Southwood 2008]
The overwhelming demand for increased bandwidth in East and South Africa grows greater each day. The
construction of an undersea cable along the east coast of Africa, is to serve South Africa’s bandwidth needs
for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup and the 2010 soccer World Cup in South Africa, while also supporting
sustained East and South African economic growth, is on track and in a mature stage of development. The
cabling systems company will assist communication carriers in South and East Africa through the sale of
wholesale inter-national capacity to global networks through India and Europe. The SEA Cable System, or
Seacom, will provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing
the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting East and South African economic growth. The 13
700-km undersea cable system will connect South Africa to Europe and India, with the route passing along
the East Coast of Africa and through the Red Sea before terminating in Italy. In addition, it will land in
Mozambique, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates along the route. The undersea
cable system will be about ten times the current capacity of the South Atlantic-3 cable, which runs along
Africa’s West Coast and connects South Africa to Europe, enabling greater availability and lower cost for
high-demand services, such as Internet, peer-to-peer networks, high-definition television and Internet
Protocol television. [Haskins 2008]
Conclusion
Does this entire telecommunication forecast look like a bright future for prosperous Africa? That is about to
be seen. In the coming decade the greatest challenges are facing the humans on their adventure on this
planet. When political and economic forces put their spin on virtually anything, the outcome is clearly
unpredictable, especially on the long run. Weather we are going to survive as species or not, is greatly
dependent on using our intelligence and technology to constructive rather then destructive ends, while
learning to live together peacefully in spite of our differences, and respecting the importance of ecology and
reverence for life.
References
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