New Media, Knowledge Acquisition and Participatory Governance in Rural Bangladesh
The paper documents how a rural village in Bangladesh has started to integrate the new media as part of its community-based communication system and in so doing, has enhanced its knowledge acquisition capacity and improved the quality of its participation in public affairs. The paper argues against the notion of the new media as a panacea for societal inequities. Rather, it sees a process where before the new media can contribute to participatory governance, it needs to be incorporated as part of the villagers everyday communication system and that the information acquired from this new infrastructure needs to be incorporated into the local knowledge system. To support its argument, the paper investigates a Rural Knowledge Center in Mirsarai Up-azila, Chittagong District, Bangladesh. Using a qualitative and exploratory design, key informants includes opinion leaders and residents in the community. Findings indicates that residents have started to integrate the new media as part of the community-based communication system-composed of informal, formal and mediated networks. Residents use the new media to download many types of government forms, obtain examination results/certificates, search jobs online, update about weather conditions, etc.. Village youth have taken trainings in Microsoft Office applications to increase their employment potential while opinion leaders have accessed information about agriculture, health and other information relevant to community residents to enhance their participation in public affairs. In this sense, the new media has, to some extent, improved the communitys knowledge acquisition capacity and in doing so, enhanced the quality of participation in governance.
new media governance knowledge management rural village
Jude Genilo Marium Akther
Media Studies and Journalism Deportment, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh ULAB),Bangladesh Media Studies and Journalism Department, University of Liberal Arts Bonglodesh,Bangladesh
国际会议
2009 World Congress on ICT for Development(2009世界信息通信与发展大会)
北京
英文
474-482
2009-09-10（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）