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Doctoral thesis

What do local people think about telecentres? A key issue for sustainability

    19.02.2010

235 p.

Thèse de doctorat: Università della Svizzera italiana, 2010 (jury note: Magna cum laude)

Telecentre
ICT4D
social representations
social meaning
South Africa
eGovernment
information and communication technologies
international development
English The subject of the study are telecentres, public places where people can access information through ICT, and which should fulfill the communication needs of the communities in which they are located. The central question of this thesis sprang from the study of the available literature and from nine exploratory field studies carried out in West Africa (in Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea and Mali). This thesis aimed at developing a cognitive tool to capture the extra-technological dimensions, which have an impact onto sustainability, studying the awareness and the understanding that different social groups have of telecentres. The social groups taken into consideration are the representatives of the founding organization, local staff, users and non- users of a telecentre. The research was undertaken in South Africa, namely in 4 eGovernment telecentres, called Cape Access Centres, set up by the Western Cape Government in communities throughout the region. This thesis explored the adoption of the theory of social representation and concept mapping techniques in telecentre-related researches and developed a cognitive tool to study and analyze telecentre conceptualizations. This approach brought interesting results in deepening the knowledge the research community has of telecentres. Furthermore, the developed tool is a useful instrument to detect interesting case studies and to assess telecentres effectiveness.
Language
  • English
Classification
Information, communication and media sciences
License
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https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1318228
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