Benjamin P. and Dahms M. (1999) Socialise the modem of production - The role of telecentres in development, in Gomez R., Hunt P., Lamoureux E. (eds) Telecentre Evaluation and Research: a global perspective, Ottawa: IDRC

Online: http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/10_Soc.html

This article questions the role of telecentres as a vehicle for development in countries of the South with particular reference to South Africa. The organisation of the emerging Information Age is, in the words of Manuel Castells, 'Global Informational Capitalism'. There are forces that increase the power of a global elite while large numbers of people are excluded. This 'digital divide' puts at further disadvantage many people in poor areas in rich Northern countries and a majority of people living in African countries.

The imagery that surrounds the new Information and Communications Technology speaks of unlimited potential that can bring great benefit to development problems. While it is true that the technologies might have this potential, there are strong forces constraining the actual impact that they will have. Historical examples of the telegraph system and the introduction of railways into Africa are cited to show the difference between rhetoric and reality.

Technology bears an imprint of the culture that developed it, which often goes unseen. Telecentres are a form of technology transfer, either from Northern countries to countries of the South, or from richer urban to disadvantaged (often rural) areas within a country. As many examples have shown, technologies that have been transferred to new contexts often do not function as expected. The key issue here is the degree to which the local organisation can assimilate and adapt the technology for their own ends at a number of levels.

The various possible aims for telecentres are next discussed, concluding that actually they are a weak tool for addressing universal access to telephony, though there are many other objectives they can have. Greater clarity is required in deciding what telecentres projects are aiming to do. If these issues are not thought through, there is a risk that telecentres will either 'fail' and waste money, or will serve to bring the division between the 'information haves' and 'have-nots' into communities - creating a local digital divide. The idea of social capital is discussed in analysing whether the impacts of telecentres will increase or decrease division within a community. The paper ends with some tentative suggestions for telecentres development, putting the focus on experimentation and local participatory ownership.