Globally 1.5 billion people have access to televisions, and 1 billion to the Internet; yet overall the most actively used electronic gadget is the mobile phone, with over 3 billion users worldwide. Reaching the 4 billion mark before the end of 2008, that equals to approximately one cell phone for every two human beings. Under 30-years in existence, cell phones are one of the most rapid developing technology the world has ever known. According to Touré, Secretary General of the ITU, “The fact that 4 billion subscribers have been registered worldwide indicates that it is technically feasible to connect the world to the benefits of ICT and that it is a viable business opportunity.” According to Touré, “Clearly, ICTs have the potential to act as catalysts to achieve the 2015 targets of the MDGs.”
Mobile phones are the first telecommunications technology to be more popular in developing nations, than their developed counterparts, far outnumbering internet coverage (Zuckerman 2007). More and more people are using their phones to access the internet instead of computers. Soon there will be more cell phone users than literate people on the planet. This signifies a shift into a new age of digital literacy, where avatars, emoticons, pictures, sounds and videos often hold more power than names and numbers.
Economists around the world are hailing cell phones as the solution for ICT development and a ray of hope in bridging the digital divide. At the London Business School it was found, “for every additional 10 mobile phones per 100 people, a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) rises 0.5 percent.” With the power of decentralized networked communication, fisherman are able to monitor market prices in the next village over, and new applications are being brainstormed from the grassroots up.
Once again on the front lines of this new revolutionary technology are youth. According to the MSN/MTV Circuits of Cool report, “The mobile phone is ingrained into young people’s everyday lives, with 42% claiming it’s the first thing they look at in the morning and they last thing they do at night.” Mobile phones have been used by youth around the world as a tool for political mobilization, from getting youth out to vote, to organizing protests through social networks, blogs and text messaging. In Howard Rheingold’s book Smart Mobs, we are reminded of the incredible social ramifications of crossing hand held mobile devices with networked technology, allowing activists to communicate instantly through a variety of media.
Yet despite the range of global examples from Asia to Africa, little research has been produced about the potential of mobile phones as a medium for social change within the Latin American region. One of the only available resources online is MobileActive.org’s ¡Acción Móvil¡ Guía de Móvil Activismo para Latino América, highlighting a series of efforts from both NGOs and grassroots groups to harness the power of mobile technology for social change.
Yet what is missing in this document is the ways that everyday youth outside of formal social organizations are using mobile technology in their own lives. There is a vast difference between Greenpeace sending out mass SMS campaigns, v.s. a Costa Rican youth recording riot footage on his/her cellphone, or a Panamanian youth blasting a banned reggaeton song calling out government corruption as a ringtone. These are examples that fall beneath the radar of the mainstream; those which have no representation in peer-reviewed journals, nor newspaper publications. In the following paper I will expand on the activist potential of mobile technology, focusing on how mobile phones can be used to increase media democracy in Latin America and beyond, creating access for a new generation of young global citizens.
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