This article examines the politics of technology and information by exploring a case study of local information service provision in Medellin, Colombia. Local Information Service (LIS) is defined as a community centre where information deemed relevant to local communities is generated, stored, organized and disseminated through print and digital means. Using a social construction of technology approach, the article attempts to deconstruct the implementation and delivery of LIS in Medellin, Colombia and analyse how empowering and disempowering discourses form through relationships between institutions and citizens laden with social and economic inequality. The article analyses the development and deployment of this artefact and positions LIS as a socio-technical system, embedded with political, social, cultural, and economic values. We describe the unintended consequences of this deployment through a multilevel perspective of the head organisation and the smaller 195 local institutions that support it. The article challenges and operationalises the social construction of 'local' in local information by highlighting practices of social exclusion and resistance embedded within the design of the service. This case provides a vantage point from which to examine how relevant social groups interpret and engage with technological devices and the implications of this for the communities the device is intended to serve.
PurposeThe research examines the simultaneous processes of value co-creation and value co-destruction in the implementation of a mobile banking application in rural Colombia. Rural communities experience digital and financial deficits and often become the object of technology-based initiatives. In the town, vulnerable female heads of household received a government subsidy through a mobile app, becoming an experimental group for this government–private bank collaboration. In an effort to create the first cashless society in Colombia, the bank engaged the entire town and local government to create a service ecosystem, constituted by operant resources.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses a qualitative, ethnographic approach to investigate the experiences of stakeholders in engaging with a mobile banking app. The empirical data is drawn from 34 interviews, representing different layers of this service ecosystem. The study identified and analysed actor engagement behaviours that occurred in the micro-, meso-, macro- and meta-layers of this ecosystem that shaped the perception and usage of mobile payments and digital money for rural consumers.FindingsThe study found that simultaneous manifestations of the co-creation and co-destruction of value present in different layers ultimately diminished the value proposition for this digital money system. We shed light on how actor engagement transitions across different layers of the ecosystem and that negative interactions in the meta-layer of the ecosystem can affect perceptions of value in the micro-layer.Originality/valueThis study has contributed to the service literature by integrating epistemological cultural theory into value co-creation and co-destruction construct. In doing so, we provide a broader context for understanding how actor engagement can negatively impact on the value creation process and offer a meaningful contribution to the development of midrange theory of the value creation process.
This exploratory research identifies and investigates factors that affect the delivery of local information in a developing country. The service provider and 195 local institutions based in Medellin, Colombia collaborate through an online portal, Infolocal, constituting a local information landscape (LIL). The study implements a conceptual framework for the LIL and highlights deficiencies in traditional local information service models. A Delphi study was conducted with global experts of local information services (LIS) in order to refine the traditional Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model constructs for the Infolocal information service. Second, a survey was developed based on the revised categories (effort expectancy, performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, organisational support, and affective commitment) and disseminated to the local institutions to assess their perceptions of the service. This data was then evaluated using exploratory factor analysis. The study found that theories of technology acceptance were insufficient in explaining the disjunctions in the information landscape of this service. This study contributes to closing a gap in understanding the perceptions of LIS practice from the perspective of institutions that engage directly with citizens’ technology acceptance and use behaviour in a multilevel relationship. This article captures, compares, and analyses the disjunctions between the theoretical frameworks as espoused by experts and the practices of LIS.
The purpose of this study is to identify how current and related the education in information and communication technologies-ICT for the program of Library and Information Science of the University of Antioquia is according with library education in Latin America and the ICT global trends. A compilation of the different undergraduate programs of library and information science was conducted for Latin American countries. The results are compared with the trends that several studies from different countries reveal about where ICT education should lead for new and future librarians. Findings reveal many commonalities for the topics on ICT in library science programs in Latin America, not only among them, but also in relation to those taught in the Interamerican School of Library and Information Science-ISLIS. However, the international trends on ICT that will impact the information sciences differ significantly from the contents offered in Latin America and ISLIS of the University of Antioquia. Hence, this study suggests the need to review these international trends and reflect on their incorporation into the library and information science curricula.
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