Popular Digital Imagination: Grass-Root Conceptualization of the Mobile Phone in the Global South

Abstract

In the realm of digital technologies, imagination is often evoked to describe the creative quality possessed by visionary technology developers. In contrast, we describe the idea of gaining a "digital imagination" as a process through which the non-elite, here potential and new users of digital technologies in Myanmar and rural China, envision something that is not yet part of their lives and thus begin appropriating it. The digital imagination is a framing that prefigures everyday uses of technology and is shaped by individual aspirations, the organization of society and images of digital media that exist in the surrounding environment. A locally grounded imagination can provide locally appropriated innovation that is often lacking in digital technologies developed in urban areas.

Warm experts for elderly users: Who are they and what do they do?

“…According to Leong (2017), warm experts are sometimes very concretely involved in the actual downloading and installation of applications. However, Oreglia and Ling (2018) noted that they also are important assets when it comes to "digitalimagination." Oreglia and Ling defined this as "the process by which individuals within a society develop an understanding of the potentials, the limitations, and eventually the threats of digital technology" (p. 2).…”

“…The younger generation provides the devices yet understands that they cannot just hand them over without installing and adjusting them so they are usable. Thus, in a sensitive way, they make the devices meaningful in the context of their parents' everyday lives (Oreglia & Ling, 2018).…”

“…Without knowledge about the devices she already has-brand, model, and so on-it is not easy to purchase compatible components. Also, even if components are appropriate, they must be installed and adjusted correctly, as well as explained and contextualized (Oreglia & Ling, 2018).…”

Informal mhealth at scale in Africa: Opportunities and challenges

“…Instead, they are appropriated, co-opted and used in ways that were not necessarily intended (or desired) by manufacturers. A wealth of recent scholarship has documented the appropriation of mobile phones in many different contexts (see overviews by Ling and Horst, 2011 , Oreglia and Ling, 2018 ). For example, the phenomenon of phone-based Keitai novels in Japan ( Nishimura, 2011 ), or the proliferation of new language forms that SMS texting has generated in Senegal ( Lexander, 2011 ), exemplify the inter-weaving of the local and the global in new cultural forms.…”

Coworking Spaces in the Global South: Local Articulations and Imaginaries

“…This leads us to argue that the online Filipino freelancers in this study have come to adopt a state of mind wherein they are merely sustaining a positive vision of coworking spaces based on its global vision/image despite not actually benefitting from its promises just yet. Drawing from the notion of the context-specific ways in which individuals utilize imagination and draw from their own socio-cultural positions as a way to make sense of the world, despite having only a limited set of tools and knowledge (Oreglia and Ling, 2018), we refer to the state of mind being internalized by online freelancers with regard to coworking spaces as "aspirational belonging".…”