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Category Archives: Master of Communication

Mobile News in Emerging Markets: Journalism, Rumor and Accuracy

Friday, November 13, 2009

In reading the articles When Radio Meets Mobile in Pakistan and Mobiles in Citizen Media, I found myself having a strange reaction for a media technologist. I became excited by the first article as it described the ways in which the widespread use of cellphones with built-in FM radio receivers in Pakistan has enabled access [...]

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Can the Middle Path Lead to the Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid?

Friday, November 6, 2009

In his article, “Connecting a Nation: Roshan Brings Communications Services to Afghanistan,” Karim Khoja provides a fascinating first-person account of the challenges of introducing a mobile phone network to Afghanistan. What little communications infrastructure the country had did not survive decades of war, so when Khoja arrived in 2002 he was part of an effort [...]

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Lack of Infrastructure frees the Developing World to Lead

Friday, October 30, 2009

The role of mobile phone technology in creating a conduit for the transfer of funds in countries with emerging markets is not a technical surprise. As far back as the 1970s, prognosticators accurately described how someday home personal computers would allow online banking. Even the cheapest cell phone available today has more processing power than [...]

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Mobile Connection in one Mexican Village

Friday, October 23, 2009

This past June’s New Yorker profile of the newest richest man in the world, Mexico’s Carlos Slim, could be taken as a case study in privatization of communication utilities. Or it could just be the story of one man and one country. Either way, I find it particularly interesting as I’ve had some visibility of [...]

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Food or Cell Phone? Needs, Status, and Decisions for the Future

Friday, October 16, 2009

Disagreements about applying resources to alleviating the suffering of poverty have deep roots. Two thousand years ago, in a oft-quoted passage from the Bible, Jesus told his disciples not to worry if they missed an opportunity to give money to the poor because “The poor you will always have with you,” and therefore there’s always [...]

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Two for One: Could eCommerce Coops Help Developing Countries? What’s the Point of Computers in the Classroom Anyway?

Friday, October 9, 2009

This is my Reflection Paper for week two of the Emerging Markets in Digital Media class. Free PDF download: The Case of the Occasionally Cheap Computer: Low-cost Devices and Classrooms in the Developing World In the first three chapters of “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits,” C. K. Prahalad [...]

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How can Digital Media Help the Bottom Billion?

Friday, October 2, 2009

The first weekly reflection paper for the class I’m taking this quarter in the Master of Communication in Digital Media program. The class is Emerging Markets in Digital Media, taught by Anita Verna Crofts, Director of Communication and Outreach for the Global Health Leadership Program.

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The Future of Social Networking Sites

Friday, May 8, 2009

This is the final paper for the Master of Communication, Digital Media program’s “Evolution and Trends in Digital Media” class, taught with enthusiasm by Ken Rufo. The assignment was to project the future of a chosen medium two, five, and ten years into the future. By the time I was finished prognosticating social networking, I’d [...]

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Précis: The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present

Sunday, February 1, 2009

This is another short paper for the “Evolution and Trends in Digital Media” class. I chose this book because it came out during my undergraduate studies when I was first being exposed to the Orality and Literacy concepts that Walter J. Ong and others had developed. Havelock was recommended to me by the amazing Charlie [...]

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The Unrise of BeOS

Sunday, January 11, 2009

I wrote this paper as an assigned topic for Ken Rufo’s “Evolution and Trends in Digital Media” class for the Master of Communication, Digital Media program. I chose this one because I had purchased a PowerComputing Mac clone during the period when they shipped with BeOS as well as MacOS, and I had followed the [...]

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