shuru.org

New technologies of communication, in particular mobile telephones, appear to expand the existing territory of public expression. This expansion is important for African countries and the developing world where decades of autocracy have led to the progressive stagnation of the public sphere. Restriction of the expansion of new technologies may also energise civil society by critically complementing the raft of issues around which it has usually organised. In this way, [communications technologies] generate a reason for, as well as a means of, social democratic activism.