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| Mobile Warriors: Costa Rican Youth, Mobile Phones and Social Change |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
Costa Rican Twitter users are marginalized on the web as it is dominated by English, but within their home circles their online social network culture is also misunderstood. While the Costa Rican Twitter community is still small, at around 150 people within the country, theirs is a strong movement of Tico Twitter users that is growing daily.
Now that Twitter has been hacked to work with mobile phones and sites like Hi5 have been mobile enabled, activism that permeates public domain online social networks and private mobile communication will soon emerge. That said what we share in public and private are clearly different. It is important that we do not generalize mobile media and the internet as being one and the same.
Further studies must be done to examine how mobile phones are being used globally by youth as tools for resistance. That way, we will better understand their effects. It is clear that mobile phones have revolutionized the ways that society lives, works, and communicates, creating access to networked communication and information transfer.
When looking at new media communication, it is clear that the digital divide is still apparent across class, race and gender lines. Yet everyday youth are working to bridge these gaps by creating alternative networks and brainstorming new functions that CEOs had never dreamed possible. As innovations in Citizen Media continue to rise, many gaps remain, blocking people from self-expression and access to the digital commons.
While it is obvious that Costa Rican and Panamanian youth are using new technologies such as Social Networks and Mobile Communication, when one compares the two countries there is an obvious gap in access. While Costa Ricans have a nationalized telecommunications network, ICE (The Costa Rican Institute of Electricity), Panamanians have to rely on private networks in order to participate in the digital commons.
According to MobileActive.org’s section of International Mobile Data, Costa Rica has significantly higher access to the Internet, but mobile phone use is higher in Panama. This data draws out the realities of the countries’ economic structures: Panama has a huge gap between the rich and the poor and Costa Rica has a more middle class economy.
The average Costa Rican cellular phone plan is $4.20, while the average Panamanian one is $18.10. The Internet is, on average, $10 more expensive for Panamanians than for Costa Ricans, even though the level of poverty in Panama is over 5% higher. While Internet use in Panama is popular in the urban context, the majority of the country remains without access. While mobile phone subscriptions in Panama occur at the rate of 28%, the Costa Rican rate is only 22%. Yet in Costa Rica personal computer rates remain 22% with Internet use at 29%. In contrast, Panamanians have a personal computer rate of 0.4%, and an Internet use rate of 0.78%.
This data challenges us to look at the deeper structures of national media hegemonies. Costa Rica’s public electricity corporation ICE was created in 1949 as a part of a larger movement for national sovereignty and to protect against the harmful effects of hydroelectric energy. In the year 1963, ICE went into telecommunications. ICE boasts a 97% coverage rate for electricity and a telephone network that covers 95% of the population. Most of the connections are home lines. ICE has a mission for the environment and to give marginalized populations access.
By contrast, the telecommunications industry in Panama is a free market monopoly run by two main companies: Cable and Wireless and MoviStar. Much like in Canada, the lack of competition between companies, motivated by a for-profit mandate, drives telecommunications prices up. The Internet and computers in general are unaffordable for a country that has a 7.2% poverty rate.
With these statistics in mind it is important to postulate the implications of new media technology in constructing a functioning democracy:
- How does access to digital networks on computers, and cell phones allow people to act as citizens, creating community media that is instantly shared across the world?
- How can governments work towards providing their citizens with access to these new forms of citizen media?
- How can youth utilize these technologies to gain agency in society and participate in activism and advocacy?
These questions will serve well in further studies on this topic, as academics work on creating measures. For such research to happen there must be collaboration between the public and private domains: telecommunications companies can benefit as much as social activists from this data.
On June 4th, 2008 the Costa Rican President Oscar Arias passed new legislation in accordance with the Central American Free Trade Agreement, making it legal for private companies to offer cellular phone and Internet services. This signifies the breaking of ICE. Corporations can use Walmart-style tactics to drive out the state competition, and then raise prices once a monopoly is established. It is imperative to examine the periphery factors affecting access to Citizen Media during this transitional period.
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Comments
circulating a film on AIDS thru mobile nielu patekar | Mar 30th, 2009
is it possible? if yes, how?
whom to contact?
hello,
i am a woman writer-director-actress-cinematographer from mumbai, india.
have you seen my following films?
a film on AIDS, ‘it’s just unjust’ duration 3 min. access to the link,
http://tigurl.org/uk0xo4
a film on baba amte , dur 7 min.s access the following link to view it in two parts.
http://tigurl.org/spytmi
I would like to share these with you, your family, friends , groups & your communities by including them in your video section, you can put the respective url s on your site so that visitors to your page can view it.
pl. also let me know your comment on viewing my films.
Regards,
neelkantee
Thank You! Timothy G. Branfalt Sr. | May 3rd, 2009
My younger brother died of aids at the age of 32. You are an incredibly determined mind that is of what this world needs more of. I live in Costa Rica, and if you ever seem to dwell on over, Me Casa es Su Casa!
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