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Category Archives: Academic

Mobile Connection in one Mexican Village

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 [...]

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

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 [...]

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

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 [...]

How can Digital Media Help the Bottom Billion?

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.

The Future of Social Networking Sites

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 [...]

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

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 [...]

The Unrise of BeOS

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 [...]

CRED+STAMP: Proposal for a Persuasive Social Media Metric

This is a paper I wrote in Fall Quarter 2009 for the Master of Communication, Digital Media program’s “Research and Methodology”core class. The assignment was to propose a research project, with the grade being given on the form and thoroughness of the proposal. The CRED+STAMP metric I propose is one way to approach the problem [...]