Bringing the News to India's Poor

Photo by rajkumar1220

A project called CGNet Swara is a fascinating glimpse of how mobile technology can provide news and information to people unlike anything they have ever had before.

The essence of his project is this: The Internet, cable television and newspapers reach only a fraction of the 80 million people in the rural tribal region of central India, but about half the population now has access to mobile phones, which cost the equivalent of only $15 or $20. These people, citizen journalists, supported by a small group of professional editors, can collect and deliver news through what amounts to a portal reachable by a phone number. It is, in effect, a voice version of news websites with a menu of stories available for listening.

It has now been about fifty years since the advent of transistor and battery-powered radios made an enormous impact on these rural areas. But the news on the radio stations is still very tightly managed by the state (there are no independent or private news stations). And, of course, the information only goes one way. That is what makes the mobile project so promising. For the first time, news can be made available from across the region in several languages, provided by reporters in towns and villages in a way that substantial parts of the community can engage.

"The real power of the mobile phone," wrote Sam duPont in a comment for NDN, a Washington think tank, "is in the fact that people around the world are adopting them of their own accord. . . . Mobile phones have leapfrogged not just land-line phones, but television, radio and nearly every other information and communications service and brings information into citizens' hands directly."

I've been fascinated lately by the possibilities of the iPhone as a media production tool but the change this brings pales in comparison to what last years mobile tech can bring to these people's future.

The Atlantic: Bringing News to India's Poorest People

Bringing the News to India's Poor

Photo by rajkumar1220 A project called CGNet Swara is a fascinating glimpse of how mobile technology can provide news and information to people unlike anything they have ever had before.

The essence of his project is this: The Internet, cable television and newspapers reach only a fraction of the 80 million people in the rural tribal region of central India, but about half the population now has access to mobile phones, which cost the equivalent of only $15 or $20. These people, citizen journalists, supported by a small group of professional editors, can collect and deliver news through what amounts to a portal reachable by a phone number. It is, in effect, a voice version of news websites with a menu of stories available for listening.

It has now been about fifty years since the advent of transistor and battery-powered radios made an enormous impact on these rural areas. But the news on the radio stations is still very tightly managed by the state (there are no independent or private news stations). And, of course, the information only goes one way. That is what makes the mobile project so promising. For the first time, news can be made available from across the region in several languages, provided by reporters in towns and villages in a way that substantial parts of the community can engage.

"The real power of the mobile phone," wrote Sam duPont in a comment for NDN, a Washington think tank, "is in the fact that people around the world are adopting them of their own accord. . . . Mobile phones have leapfrogged not just land-line phones, but television, radio and nearly every other information and communications service and brings information into citizens' hands directly."

I've been fascinated lately by the possibilities of the iPhone as a media production tool but the change this brings pales in comparison to what last years mobile tech can bring to these people's future. The Atlantic: Bringing News to India's Poorest People