Kleine researched a Chilean town given the nickname "Algun", which is synonymous for "anyone" in Spanish. This town was among the rural towns in South America, and Kleine researched how the capabilities approach shaped the framework of this small town, and how ICT's proceeded to change the lives of the townspeople. The ICT's given to this town by the Chilean government were mostly used to communicate with their loved ones which had traveled for school and to direct business in order to grow Algun economically. This idea in Chapter 3 was reminiscent of an article we read for LIS 201 earlier in the year named "Networked Authoritarianism" by Rebecca MacKinnon, which discussed how poor the communication technology was in China. In the article, MacKinnon relays this statement: "People used the internet to address injustice at the local and personal level, expanding the public discourse and enabling people to speak out on a greater range of issues..." (MacKinnon, 33). While the Chinese are using ICT's to reach out to others for a governmental cause and the Chileans are using these technologies for personal connections, these remind me of one another. Both groups of people are making meaningful connections within their respective spaces or social groups, which in turn are allowing them to further reach out and affect a greater cause, whether it be a change of government or a chance at furthering ones economic status.
Another aspect which was similar was both groups had apparent obstacles in their way. For the Chinese citizens, even though they're able to communicate with one another about issues with the government, all of their Internet websites are either created or monitored by government officials, giving their freedom a certain ironic opacity, considering the Internet is meant to be "free". Likewise, Algun faces the uphill battle of finally becoming a developing country and getting the funds and education to the town so its citizens can develop with it. This is a challenging and all too real battle for the town, seeing as the list of developed countries greatly outweighs the list of underdeveloped countries.
Chinese Facebook named 'Renren', which is created by and easily monitored by the government:
(
http://thedailyq.org/2012/10/24/another-world-view-chinese-facebook-the-same-but-different/)
Algun exhibits cyber cafe's which might look like this one, give or take the dressed up appearance:
Lidia Rojas set up her internet cafe with the support of YBI Paraguay – Emprendimientos Juveniles : http://www.youthbusiness.org/spotlight-on-latin-america/
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