Information Technologies and International Development
Where there's a will there's a way: mobile media sharing in urban india
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Kelsa+: digital literacy for low-income office workers
ICTD'09 Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Information and communication technologies and development
Facilitated video instruction in low resource schools
Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development
Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference
Knowledge management in LLiSA ICT4D projects
Proceedings of the South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists Conference
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development: Full Papers - Volume 1
Marginality, aspiration and accessibility in ICTD
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development: Full Papers - Volume 1
Dealing with the digital panopticon: the use and subversion of ICT in an Indian bureaucracy
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development: Full Papers - Volume 1
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Amplification theories of information technology argue that technology is primarily a magnifier of existing institutional forces. In this paper, these ideas are synthesized and augmented for an amplification theory of "information and communication technology for development" (ICT4D), the study of electronic technology in international development. Three mechanisms for amplification are identified, arising out of differentials in access, capacity, and motivation, and the ideas are developed using examples from telecenters, television, and mobile phones. The amplification thesis contradicts theories that imply that technology's impact is additive or transformative in and of itself, e.g., that access to technology levels the playing field of power, or that the Internet, per se, democratizes access to information. The consequences of an amplifier theory for ICT4D are that (1) technology cannot substitute for missing institutional capacity and human intent; (2) technology tends to amplify existing inequalities; (3) technology projects in global development are most successful when they amplify already successful development efforts or positively inclined intent, rather than seek to fix, provide, or substitute for broken or missing institutional elements.