From social media to social change?

Insights into digital development trends

Dr. Tobias Denskus Malmö högskola

Sida Development Talk ‘Communication for development and social change

in a new era’, Stockholm, 22 January 2014

Development & the digital age Between new digital possibilities & traditional rituals

Emerging research on social mediaAnalysing social media around the 2010 MDG SummitDevelopment blogging as reflexive engagement

Digital structural adjustment – or #OccupyICT4D?

Why ICT4D, social media and digital engagement need to be a little bit like a visit to the dentist…

Development is part of a growing & and accepted work- & lifestyle

Development as ‘industry’ has become embedded in the new/old economy

Development is part of the latest digital ‘buzz’, philanthropy & new (?) entrepreneurial environment

Development is instantly connected to digital debates (ICT, ‘big data’, digital activism etc.)

Digitally enabled campaigns (e.g. Kony 2012 or TED)

Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Bono: The influence of philanthropists and celebrity activists

Framing complex development topics into the mainstream

‘Somalia: Kidnap survivor seeks to become the saviour of a starving people’

The ‘30 page report’ as reporting gold standard for many aid agencies

New corporate buzzwords & management-style discourses

Emerging Research: Analysing social media around the 2010

MDG Summit

Qualitative & quantitative analysis of ~3,000 tweets & 108 blog posts

Are global conference & policy-making rituals challenged or digitally reproduced?

Methodological challenges around social media as ‘data’

Emerging research: Analysing social media around the 2010

MDG Summit (con’t)

World conferences are still a powerful, invited ritual space (and little has changed since the Earth Summit in 1992)

Virtual debate was dominated by global Northern experts

Celebrities (Clinton, Gates, Sachs) and celebrity content (TED presentations) were shared often

No communication between ‘blogosphere’ and official delegates

Emerging Research: Development blogging as reflexive

engagement

Qualitative research based on interviews with development bloggers

Blogging as reflective writing tool for students, aid workers & organizational learning

Positive change: Information space for students

Transparent career information (e.g. volunteering/voluntourism debate)

Emerging Research: Development blogging as reflexive

engagement (con’t)

Little impact on organizational processes Little impact on formal structures, power

relations & decision-making (s. previous case study)

Admittances of failure & insights into realities of the industry have introduced reflective writing to more people

Blogging remains a bottom-up process that has only begun to trickle up into formal places & spaces

Digital structural adjustment? ‘As Morozov makes clear, the “openness” agenda as embodied in British and American politics now follows an entrepreneurial logic (the logic of Silicon Valley)

and not a utopian one. It is perhaps predictable that the Anglo-Saxon political cultures, which invented neoliberalism in the first place, are so quick to manipulate otherwise idealistic terms used by software designers. We’ve seen how the language

(…) of openness, of platforms, of sharing and the social – is easily appropriated by politicians who use it to

spin their own ideological agendas’. (Justin McGuirk, Design and the right)

Or #OccupyICT4D? The governmentality of technology, big

data & (social) media needs more critical attention

ICTD4D community needs to get their hands dirty (literally & figuratively)

Are we repeating Western development failures in a digital environment?

It’s political will, stupid! Traditional discourses, rituals, organizations & power relations are still dominant

Development education & ComDev are transforming through social media

Emailtobias.denskus@mah.se

Bloghttp://www.aidnography.de

Twitter @aidnography