Dragon A.G. (2001) Prometheus Riding a Cadillac? Telecentres as the promised flame of knowledge, in Journal of Development Communication: Special Issue on Telecenters 12[2]
Online: http://ip.cals.cornell.edu/commdev/documents/jdc-dagron.doc
The author criticizes the idea that knowledge, coming from the North of the world, is the solution for development. He challenges the effectiveness of telecentres claiming that only one out of every one hundred telecentres are really useful for the local community where they have been set-up, in terms of supporting development and social change. More bitterly he claims that thousands of telecentres have been planted during the past five years and millions of dollars have been invested in buying computers and ensuring Internet connectivity; however, every time we are to mention the successful experiences, the same five or six places come to mind.
The author criticizes the excessive focus on technology and the forgetfulness of more basic issues as water, electricity, schools. He furthermore appoints that some of the reports of “success” are actually descriptions of good intentions taken from the original project documents, rather than independent evaluations or observations of the project sites. He stresses the need to monitor participation and community involvement, generation of local contents and general patterns of utilization of telecentres, suggesting that the most of the telecentres served the upper layer of the community. He finally underlines some factors hindering socio-economic impacts of telecentre: the obstacle of language (English and computer literacy); the lack of content relevant for the local community; the issue of choosing the appropriate technology; the excessive importance given to financial sustainability (telecentres= new public libraries).