Summary

Koert's article is the result of research he conducted in Indonesia, Peru, and Vietnam into the impact of democratic deficits on the access to and nature of electronic media for rural development. His purpose is to examine whether ICTs really possess the “liberating potential” that they are widely accorded in the current literature and dialogue. His basic premise is that the democratic deficit of a nation-state has a more decisive role to play in the actual role of ICTs in development than the potential of their “intrinsic interactivity.” Despite the de-centralizing nature of the Internet, the State apparatus is still able to restrict and control information flows, using either political or economic devices. His conclusion is that the contribution of technology to rural development remains determined by the socio-political and economic nature of a given state.

Key Points

In order to test his central assumptions, Koert combined the two concepts of “democratic deficit”and “interactivity” to develop nine ideal-types of electronic media flows. In defining the concept of democratic deficit, Koert attempts to move beyond the shallow definitions that are primarily reflections of the formal democratic elements such as representative government. Instead he examines the images of democracy using frameworks developed by other authors such as Kenneth Roberts, whose work extends the scope and depth of participation to include social and economic processes – qualitative indicators of democratic deficits; and Martin Tanaka, who introduces the concept of politicized media and argues that participation has moved from activism aimed at obtaining access to government resources to efforts aimed at directly influencing the electorate. These definitions are combined to form low-medium-high measures of democratic deficits.

Koert's other central concept, interactivity, utilizes a definition by Everett Rogers that describes it as, “the degree to which participants in a communication process can exchange roles [from sender to receiver] in, and have control over, their mutual discourse. One-way information flows such as mass broadcast media are thus excluded and the focus shifts to Internet exchanges and smaller media options such as community radio. Koert notes that the potential and actual levels of an E-medium's interactivity may vary widely depending on things like organizational measures and efforts to restrict access. Levels of interactivity are measured by whether an E-medium (i) is multi-directional; (ii) allows participant control; (iii) allows role-changing; and contains measures of (iv) feedback and; (v) synchronicity of communication. Low-medium-high levels of interactivity can thus be determined using these criteria.

When these two concepts and their relative values are placed on a matrix they produce nine ideal-types of E-mediated information flows. Koert then typifies these using the analytical concepts of “information traffic patterns” (ITPs) and the sociological concept of “actor roles.” The ITPs are reflections of the balance between individual and central control over (i) information storage, (ii) time, (iii) choice of subject, and, (iv) the speed of information reception. Four types of ITPs result, labelled: allocution (one way, central info provision), conversation (two-way info exchanges), registration (central data collection), and consultation (individual extraction from central sources) patterns. Koert's final analysis is based on the assumption that highly centralized states with high democratic deficits favour allocution patterns while states with low democratic deficits favour conversation patterns. The concept of actor roles is divided into political, social and economic roles each of which influences the nature and the content of the information. E-mediums perform political actor roles if they are primarily influenced by and directed towards strengthening of the State. Economic actor roles are primarily concerned with economic profitability, and social actor roles are focused on efforts to increase the individual freedoms of the people.

Koert synthesizes these evaluative models into a framework through which he analyzes the impact of ICTs and E-mediums on the rural development prospects of Vietnam, Indonesia, and Peru. In line with his original hypothesis, he finds that the social utility of E-mediums for rural development increases with lower levels of democratic deficits. Vietnam and its strictly controlled state media services, offers little opportunity for meaningful utilization of ICTs. The Indonesian situation offers slightly more, because the state maintains less control over communications and free speech. The opportunities in Peru are even greater although much of the utility of ICTs is concentrated in the economic actor roles rather than the social.

The environment for networked E-media improved with decreased democratic deficits in line with a shift from prioritization of communitarian to individual rights. In concluding, Koert suggests that his case studies appear to support the correlative models developed, and that a relationship exists between the values of democratic deficits and the levels of interactivity of E-media used for information dissemination in rural areas. He thus suggest that the true benefits of ICTs and E-media can not be fully realized without important reductions in democratic deficits, and that the ability of electronic media flows to “transcend national borders” and fulfill other liberating promises continues to be a long-way off.

Source: Robin Van Koert “The Impact of Democratic Deficits on Electronic Media in Rural Development” at First Monday: Peer-Reviewed Journal on the Internet

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