Sci&Tech History

Currently, I’m working a paper on ICT for development. The study delivers me to ask about ICT and development relation: are we improving ICT for development or are we developing for ICT? Looking The Digital Divide Report launched by UNCTAD, ICT development tends to answer the second possibilities. Our success is represented by number of internet per person, not by its use. To explain this tendency, Harindranath and Sein (2007) divide ICT for development into four paradigm. First, functionalism: modernisation perspective of development and neutral view of ICT. Second, social relativism: modernisation perspective of development and situated view of ICT, third, radical structuralism: alternative perspective of development and neutral view of ICT, and last, neo-humanism: alternative perspective of development and situated view of ICT.

What happened in ICT development in Indonesia shows that we tend to develop ICT as a neutral tool. There are several good cases as seen in reformation era when internet was used as communication tools among activst, but there are also unexpectedeffect as pornography. The question arose: those ICT really neutral? By comparing internet and e-government, we can see that ICT is not neutral. The medium is the message.

As Onno W. Purbo said, “The barrier [is] actually not the tool. The barrier would be the education process. To educate the society to share the knowledge within the society, to encourage the society to produce their knowledge in local languages. That’s a major barrier. So, it’s not the tool, it’s not the money, it’s not the funding, actually the education process would be the barrier. Of course, the government also creates some sort of barrier in the public regulation. We need to liberalize the regulation to enable community broadcasting as well as low cost Internet access.”

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