Carrying forth the discussion on digital divide and globalization from the last post, let me share another interesting bit. This one is from a Bengali-speaking Dutch researcher who gave a fascinating talk at the just-concluded South Asia conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Lotte Hoek, a social anthropologist at the University of Edinburgh (and previously at the University of Amsterdam), spent many months in the darkrooms of the Film Development Corporation (FDC) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The film industry is caught between 60s technology and traditional mores on the one hand, and the hyperactive output of satellite tv and cultural globalization on the other. This disruption is the context of Dr. Hoek’s work, and she documented a great example of bridging digital divides with localized ingenuity.
To bring the film industry up to date, the Bangladesh government has imported and installed digital editing hardware and software in the FDC editing labs. The installed machines are able to transfer frames from celluloid film into digital editing software. All filmmakers submit their rolls to the FDC, and state-employed technical editors then do their part.
So far so good. The problem is, the government did not install any machine to do the reverse transfer, from digital to film, after editing.
So what do the technicians do? They say, “dorkar nai” (we don’t need it). And undaunted, they finish their editing, then display the digitally edited parts on their screens, frame by frame, while someone shoots the display on regular film camera, frame by frame. This, of course, yields interesting colors and effects, and sometimes the portions can’t even be reconciled, since the fps (frames/second) rates are different for digital and celluloid media.
Nonetheless, films are produced, edited, and released to an enthusiastic audience. They simply call this “half-digital,” and life goes on.
I think being in America there are things we take for granted, but in this case it shows the creativity of the film industry with its limited resources. But let’s not kid ourselves, closing the digital gap won’t happen on its own via people’s initiatives, but rather the government should promote policies and develop institutions which can close that digital gap, in order to benefit the country. Jalal, I know you have already addressed the availability of cheap telecommunications, but how is Bangladesh fairing in investments in human resources in relation to information and communications technology, and does Bangladesh have a national strategy towards closing the digital gap.
Denis, Bangladesh does have a national strategy that it has started to implement. It’s called Digital Bangladesh. By 2021 the planners hope to establish a countrywide high-speed 3rd gen ICT network. Education and health sectors are aimed to be big beneficiaries. But it’s not totally clear yet what will be done for providing access for low income groups.
World Bank’s governance blogs have some interesting ideas from around the world where sms-s and low-cost technologies are being used to help drive better governance.
http://blogs.worldbank.org/governance/
The film industry example is an interesting phenomenon to exemplify the digital divide. I think the digital divide is actually a part of the disruption between uneven development and fast-paced globalization. While pointing out the digital gap, the posting sent some positive signals, such as local ingenuity to narrow the gap, and the government support by importing relevant software and hardware. But the article also mentioned” hyperactive output of satellite TV”, which is very likely to shrink the demand in film industry if many film-goers start to turn to home entertainment. Therefore, I think in addition to government effort to close the gap, booming film industry is also a key factor to push to half-digital on way to be fully-developed. If we go further, i think national strategy and market dynamics should go hand in hand to try the narrow the overall digital divide.