Here’s the NYTimes article I promised you!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13anthropology-t.html
This link should work for reading the article all on a single page, but there are some great photographs that accompany the article, and I hope you’ll get a chance to see them online.
As you read the article, try to put yourself in the shoes of both the Nokia consultant, and the people he talks to and works with.
In our class discussion, I touched on an article about technology’s role in political transparency. Here’s the article. And correction, it was featured in the January/February 2009 Columbia Journalism Review.
http://www.cjr.org/transparency/a_see-through_society.php
i made a comment in class about how certain “third world” countries wouldn’t need such technologies since they live a simple life and another student gave me another perspective and reasoning as to why they should?
I actually change my mind on my original comment. It’s true, we are the already developed society and need to recognize the influence it had on our growth and how it can affect everyone around us. Actually, technology is changing daily, just to fit our needs and we’d be greedy if we didn’t share such influence.
The article has introduced me to a side of marketing I had never known about. It is awesome to see how intimate a company like nokia has been getting with people and places in the world where cell phones are estranged. Technology is a part of our everyday lives and it should be used to better the quality of it.
I agree with anniechen, at first I thought these countries wouldn’t need such technologies but as I read the article I realized that in some cases they probably need them even more than we do. In many cases theses technologies are luxuries for us, whereas in these countries they use technology to survive.
In regards to Annie, i would say new technologies, especially social technologies are such that is going to be the drive for a third world developing country. Sharing and adapting to new technology is only beneficial to these developing nations, in so it helps them achieve higher success. Communications become must faster and a voice reaches further and faster.
This article shows how technology needs to be really involved in other parts of the world to be apart of it. Since everyone needs communication and communication is becoming more advanced, so it is only neccessary that these developing nations have to become more involved with technology.