"The fact that a culture lies about what's really going on in warfare, that people are brutalized, tortured, maimed and killed, and somehow present this as moral is what horrifies me"
Francis Ford Coppola
May 2001

Internet and Globalization

Dissertation

In this state of global disorder it has become brutally clear that the world is interconnected through a complex web of transnational networks. Global interconnectedness is also what demarcates the Internet, a medium that allows people to communicate and interact with one another, regardless of physical proximity. Generally defined as the network of networks, the Internet can help us understand the world we live in, a world in which the growing significance of boundary-crossing networks is forcing us to reconfigure our societies as interdependent parts of a global whole.

This site is devoted to my work on Internet and globalization. For the time being, I am mainly applying my knowledge in the emerging field of ICT for Development (ICT4D). I work as a consultant for United Nations and bilateral development agencies, trying to identify suitable approaches for the strategic use of ICT to promote sustainable and equitable development in the developing world. My areas of specialization range from national and organizational ICT4D strategies to ICT as a tool for democracy and social development. Perhaps it is no coincidence that one my most well cited publications carries the title "Internet as a Tool for Social Development" and dates way back to 1997. You will find the paper on this site, in English and Spanish, along with subsequent publications.

This site also serves as a platform for the launch of my first book, my doctoral dissertation on Internet development in developing countries (see Press release in Swedish, 22 October 2001). Written in a relatively accessible form, the dissertation deals with the social and cultural characteristics of the Internet and how these relate to the broader, and often contradictory, processes of modernization and globalization. The research has been carried out through the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, under the supervision of Professor Ulf Hannerz. The dissertation was publicly defended on 30 October 2001, and the opponent was Professor Thomas Hylland-Eriksen, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture (TIK), University of Oslo. The full text of his summary is reproduced on this site, with his kind permission. You can also read a review by Karl Steinick in Sydsvenskan, 4 March 2002 (in Swedish).

On 27 September 2002 I had the honour of being officially promoted to the status of Doctor of Philosophy in the prestigious City Hall in Stockholm. The promotion is a Swedish tradition that dates back some 400 years, the aim of which is to award newly graduated PhDs with the official signs (a diploma and a laurel) of their recently acquired status. The magnificiently pompous ceremony takes place in the Blue Hall, the very same place where the Nobel Prize dinners are held every year.

Research

Publications

Resumé

Resources

About

"Information is
the torch of truth and its free flow is the bloodstream
of democracy."

Vint Cerf
12 September 2001

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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