The Medium is the Message: Bridging the Digital Divide in Tanzania
“Think like a system, act like an entrepreneur.”
Rowan Conway
Kondoa, Tanzania
Dr. Matagoro jokes that when he first piloted a model of community-owned internet in the town of Kondoa on the sparse plateau of central Tanzania, an elder asked him ‘What is this internet? Will it feed us?!’ Often taking hours on rutted roads just to reach it, the internet-powered march of progress could have easily bypassed Kondoa. But helped by a pioneering technology and Matagoro’s determination to leave no community behind, life here has changed. His TV white space pilot project uses gaps in unused television frequencies to broadcast the internet – and with it, the world – into remote communities as part of a ‘mesh’ network. As locally-administered systems of self-organising nodes which aren’t dependent on a central server, mesh networks are heralded as the ‘people’s internet’, and are revolutionising how isolated communities connect and communicate on the web. This is an internet closer to Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision; an open platform to which everyone could contribute, freely accessed by all. Back in Budapest, journalist Gergő Sáling’s story offered a stark warning as to what happens when the free flow of information is disrupted. Knowledge is power, as the old adage goes. Ensuring that we keep the internet open for genuine democratic exchange of ideas is one of the most pressing challenges of the information era – particularly if citizens are to become more engaged in politics.
“The medium is the message” was a phrase coined by communications theorist Marshall McLuhan in 1964. In other words, the extent to which communications technologies have historically had a ‘democratising’ effect on society has always been determined by the extent to which those technologies were themselves ‘democratic’, both in terms of access and control. The digital divide has until now excluded many whose stories might act as a counterbalance to the dominant (often western) narratives about what is true and what is good. In locking out swathes of the global population from accessing the debate, let alone contributing to it, we are losing valuable minds and ideas that see our current problems from a very different perspective. More than this however, even when access is available, control of the internet itself as a platform has now become heavily centralised, siloed and distorted either by unaffordable pricing, opaque search algorithms, data mining or government firewalls.
But mesh networks and people like Matagoro are changing that. Tech entrepreneurs have teamed up with rural communities to build their own networks and secure not only access to the internet, but to also put its ownership into the hands of the users themselves. As communities become more educated and digitally literate, they are able to learn from the wealth of knowledge available online, whilst also beginning to contribute their own content. In Kondoa, Mercy Kimambo understands this transformative effect well. Being widowed is hard enough for anyone anywhere, but in many Tanzanian communities the added struggles against customary laws and stigmatisation often leave widows heavily marginalised. It is common, for example, for women to be refused property rights without a husband. Out of the pain that so many widows faced came Kiwajako, a solidarity group that fights against stereotypes and ignorance. With the help of a technologically savvy younger generation and the internet afforded by the community network, Mercy says that she can now better understand her rights and release herself from the social stigma, and that the collective has allowed her, in her own words to “feel seen, and feel less inferior”. Once excluded from their community, the women of Kiwajako are now spreading their message globally.
In an age where the idea that everyone can contribute to shaping our awareness of the world is becoming an increasing reality, many lament the old, trusted institutions and guardians of truth, be that the national newspapers, academia or public broadcasters. Fake news and the difficulties of verifying information are undoubtedly challenges, but then again humans have been spreading gossip and false information since the taverns of ancient Sumeria. The only difference now is the speed at which it can spread. And of course, the other side of ‘fake news’ is government propaganda – also nothing new. In many ways however, the challenge of false information is slowly forcing us to sharpen our critical consciousness, even if this change isn’t happening overnight. As citizens become increasingly digitally literate and accustomed to the idea that ‘the truth’ is something to be discerned by themselves from multiple sources, rather than being spoon fed, the problem of ‘fake news’ is slowly being put into perspective. Which is to say, that we accept that there is no single story of the truth, and that we are all both subjects and agents in that multifarious reality.
Which brings us to the next challenge for democracy. We might use our critical intellect to discern from a broad diversity of worldviews available and find ‘our truth’, but what happens when we come across someone else who doesn’t share our views, someone who, for better or worse, we have to live with. How do we create cohesion from the chaos? How to reconcile these differences is at the heart of politics, and it is to this creative conflict that we now turn our attention.