Seyram Avle

Seyram Avle
University of Massachusetts Amherst | UMass Amherst · Department of Communication

PhD

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29
Publications
25,818
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428
Citations

Publications

Publications (29)
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Through their combination of lifestyle and method, Silicon Valley models for tech production such as design thinking, startup incubators, lean management, etc. are spreading across the globe. These paradigms are positioned by product designers, politicians, investors and corporations alike as replicable routes to individual and national empowerment...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
HCI shapes in important ways dominant notions of what counts as innovation and where (good) design is located. In this paper, we argue for the continuous expansion of the body of critical and reflexive work that asks both researcher and designer to reflect on their values of design in the world. Drawing from ethnographic research in Accra, Ghana an...
Article
Full-text available
This article examines how returnee technology entrepreneurs in Ghana articulate and enact the notion of development through their motivations for return, work choices, and practices within the ICT industry. Drawing on interview data, the article shows the ways in which these returnees integrate a transnational outlook into a localized sphere of dev...
Article
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This article presents a combination of factors as a framework for examining how globalization and media impact developing democracies in the Global South. In particular, it pays attention to the interplay of changing technologies, regulatory regimes and local entrepreneurs with global expertise (obtained primarily through education overseas) and th...
Article
The increased access to smartphones in Africa and elsewhere in the global south has opened new markets and new areas for surveillance/platform capitalism/data colonialism to operate. This article attends to the socio-technical practices of Transsion, the Chinese maker of Africa’s top selling smartphones, and through these showcases how essential ha...
Article
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This paper explores the relationship between networked radio, media participation, and accountability in Ghana. Specifically, we examine how networked radio, the hybrid media space that is the convergence of radio and social media practices, works as a means of democratic accountability through citizen participation in media. We do this through an...
Article
Full-text available
This paper contributes to the development of an under-utilized area of focus for CSCW research and design: history. The design and evaluation of technology, as practiced in the field, has positioned CSCW as a largely forward-looking community. The enduring "presentism' and lack of historical view threatens to leave out a wealth of resources that ca...
Article
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This article proposes a feminist geopolitics of technology framework that analyzes the connections between global politics and techno-empires through the lens of feminist scholarship. This framework has three dimensions: (1) grounding in place, (2) attention to everyday surviving and thriving, and (3) community. We draw on two long-term, community-...
Article
This paper is about the politics of technological progress as it is being played out among a loose network of Ghanaian makers. It unpacks how the practice of ‘making’ unfolds as a site for positioning the self and the nation within a global imaginary of techno futures. The paper argues, first, that ‘making’ in Ghana is emblematic of a crossroads of...
Article
This article argues that the material history of mobile phones as they took shape in Ghana reveals them to be essential parts of radio’s infrastructure; one that is social, informal, and transnational. Using the radio tuning feature on mobile phones as an emblematic device, this article unpacks the sociotechnical infrastructure underpinning radio’s...
Article
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Techno-optimism, or the enduring belief that technology use and production are promising for humanity, is bound up in past and ongoing ideals of modernity, progress, and “development.” As a particular form of hope and aspiration, techno-optimism is harnessed for nation-building and economic development projects that invest in the promise of scaling...
Book
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O livro “Comunidades, Algoritmos e Ativismos Digitais: olhares afrodiaspóricos“, organizado por Tarcizio Silva, reúne 14 capítulos de pesquisadoras e pesquisadores provenientes e com conhecimento científico e experiencial dos Brasis e de países da Afrodiáspora e África, como Congo, Etiópia, Gana, Nigeria, Colômbia, Estados Unidos e Reino Unido. O p...
Conference Paper
This day-long workshop aims to support and grow the community of CSCW and HCI scholars that investigate the past to inform the design, critique and conceptualization of technology. At this workshop, we will learn from examples of historically-based CSCW and HCI work, explore issues in historical method that come up in such work, share methods and t...
Article
Full-text available
Workers are increasingly expected to take on the responsibility and effort of preparing for employment in the new economy, where digital technologies play a central role in bridging access to resources, connections, and opportunity. Drawing from multi-year studies of entrepreneurs in Accra and Detroit, two cities that continue to experience high ra...
Chapter
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The rapid uptake of mobile phones in the global South-that is, developing countries located primarily in the Southern Hemisphere-is a fact that is often repeated in popular discourse as well as academic research. In the years since it became a favorite factoid, there have been shifts in some of the most well-known patterns of use, with new data bei...
Article
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Responsible IoT may not need advanced technological solutions but commitments to accountability and responsibility.
Article
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From statistics and mapping to engineering and medicine, technology has long been a tool of governance, shaping how nation states control their own and other regions' populations and natural resources. More recently, a nation's capacity to cultivate citizens as tech innovators and entrepreneurs is considered an indicator of its economic prosperity...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper examines recent efforts by five global technology firms-Internet.org, Spacex, OneWeb, O3b, and Google Loon-to expand internet connectivity primarily to the global south. Eschewing the cable-based infrastructure that provides internet through the global north, these global connectivity efforts utilize new technologies like low orbit satel...
Article
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Information policy making in the contemporary global environment is complex and can be a difficult process. The difficulty lies, partly, in the divergent priorities of the state and civil society organizations (CSOs) and their transnational allies that often push specific laws in the global south. This article uses an analysis of the discourse arou...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Social media and mobile communication have facilitated new forms of interactivity online, as well as on-air on radio. In Ghana, old and new media intersect in ways that reveal broader changes to public discourse, particularly on issues of citizenship and class. Through an analysis of an urban English-speaking station's interactions both on air and...
Article
Full-text available
Information policymaking in the contemporary global environment is complex and can be a difficult process. The difficulty lies, partly, in the divergent priorities of the state and civil society organizations (CSOs) and their transnational allies that often push specific laws in the global south. This article uses an analysis of the discourse aroun...
Thesis
Full-text available
Extant literature on globalization acknowledges fundamental shifts in the global flow of people, capital and technology. Key among these is the knowledge generated by the various intersections of these flows and their role in social change. In this dissertation, I argue that these forms of knowledge, particularly as they relate to information and c...
Article
Full-text available
Global Flows, the Media and Developing Democracy in Ghana This article examines how globalization and the media influence young democracies in developing countries. It focuses on interactions between evolving technology, regulation and internationally savvy local entrepreneurs, analyzing their combined effect on media ecologies. Drawing on intervie...

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