As 75 percent of the world’s mobile subscriptions are in developing countries, studies of use patterns are essential to broader understanding. However, scholars should engage with existing theory and literature in order to operate within a framework and expand readership. Rigorous and ethical research from a variety of methodological perspectives is encouraged.

In this paper we present results from contextual interviews and observations, which we conducted in Tanzania over a period of six weeks. In our interviews we focused on use cases and benefits that the mobile phone introduced in these areas. Specifically we were interested in the impact of mobile ICTs on social networks in general and communication with friends and family in particular. The goal of the study was to identify potential areas where ICTs could improve people's lives. Based on an analysis of the results from this study we created personas, which describe archetype mobile phone users and their respective needs and goals. The paper concludes with a number of directions for further research in this area.

The purpose of this thesis is to offer an ethnographic account of the interactive relationship between mobile phones and urban youth in Botswana, a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although the adoption, consumption and meanings of the mobile phone among youth have received huge mention in the literature in relation to developed nations, to date there is very little similar research from many developing countries in the global South, where young people's lifestyles are influenced by their distinct traditional cultures and characterised by unique socio-economic challenges such as rural-urban migration, unemployment, poverty and the digital divide. Using the three methods of qualitative research, namely non-participant observations (including diaries) and focus group discussions with twenty-eight urban youth aged between 18 and 25 in Francistown and Gaborone; as well as semi-structured interviews with thirty other people who interacted with youth participants in the study...

Mobile phones have long surpassed traditional landlines as the most common voice communication technology – particularly due to the marked growth in new mobile phone users in most so-called developing countries (Feldmann, 2003). In South Africa, a country still trying to escape its legacy of dramatic racial inequalities, mobiles have enjoyed spectacular growth over the past decade, with more than 60% of all South Africans above the age of 16 already owning a phone themselves (Research ICT Africa [RIA], 2009; All Media and Product Survey [AMPS], 2008). This rapid growth – up from just 18% in 2000 (International Telecommunications Union [ITU], 2001) – is at least partly due to the immense popularity of prepaid subscriptions and low-cost phones (Hodge, 2005; Esselaar & Stork, 2005), which have made it possible even for many of the country’s youth (most of whom remain in stark poverty) to own or use a phone themselves. But this growth extended beyond the number of young people texting o...

The effects of wireless communication on society emphasise one of the discrepanciesthat exists between developed and developing countries like South Africa. Mobile commerceis experiencing a growth rate in the developed world unlike in South Africa. Wirelesscommunication in the form of mobile communication is being adopted at a significantpace, especially among urban emerging youth markets in South Africa. This market’sconnectivity is mainly via SMS. The most pertinent finding of the research is that the roleof cellular phones as an m-commerce application in the emerging youth market is oneof connectivity, lifestyle and usage convention.

This paper examines the specific appropriation and adoption process of cell phones and computers in the African context. It shows that there is no need to prefer cell phones over computers and that only a superficial observation can let us think that computer adoption is not on its way ...

The aim of the study is to explore the potential of the telephone in the Mozambican social ecosystem, in particular, in multiple social functions in the new realities, Mozambique, particularly in the processes of electronic transactions, monitoring of governance and strengthening of the media to reach new audiences previously margin -alized by traditional means of communication. Based on empirical studies by UNESCO entitled Reading in the Mobile Age and research entitled The Evolution of Information Systems in Africa: A Road to Security and Stability, the article proposes to reflect on the three aspects: the role of cellular in social, economic and policies. The study mapped the impacts of cell phones on society, supporting arguments that support the inclusion of " marginalized " communities in the digital society. The structure of work is built on 5 fundamental points that revolve around the mobile phone: Communication in general; financial system; monitoring of governance; agriculture and the media. All points have led us to the fact that the mobile phone is one of the devices that is operating political transformations, through the civic engagement of the citizen; financial inclusion of the citizen through the facilitation of basic transactions and savings and the revaluation of the media, in particular, the community radios through telephone transmission.