Researching the impact of ICTs as change catalysts in Africa

Abstract

Compared to about a decade ago, following the advent of the modern “mass” Internet (especially the World Wide Web), e-mail and cell phones around the mid-1990s, academic and general interest in the impact of these new information and communication technologies (ICTs) has increased tremendously. One of the most popular realms of interest has been the influence of digital ICT media on political expression and change, an area where opinion has been sharply divided between optimists (utopians) and pessimists (dystopians), with realists (pragmatists) trying to bridge the rift. A key issue ICT researchers have been concerned with is whether to come up with new theories and methods or to use old or existing ones in humanities and social sciences (especially in the fields of media and communications). Related to this, and not restricted to the field of ICTs, is whether researchers from non-Western regions like Africa should expect to make a meaningful contribution to academia and to their countries’ policies and “life world” if they use perspectives originating from the highly industrialised world.