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| 1 |
ID:
098091
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| 2 |
ID:
087366
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| Publication |
2008.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Poor farmers often lack credit to purchase agricultural inputs, and rely on their buyers to provide it. This paper considers the effects of mobile phones on traders of perishable foodstuffs operating between Tanzania's Southern Highlands and Dar es Salaam's wholesale market, with a particular focus on the importance of credit in the relationship between potato and tomato farmers and their wholesale buyers. It argues that the ability to communicate using these new information and communication technologies (ICTs) does not significantly alter the trust relationship between the two groups. It also suggests that farmers, in effect, often have to accept the price they are told their crops are sold for - irrespective of the method of communication used to convey this message - because their buyers are also their creditors. In this situation, many farmers are unable to exploit new mobile phone-based services to seek information on market prices, and potential buyers in other markets. Doing so runs the risk of breaking a long-term relationship with a buyer who is willing to supply credit because of their established business interaction. It is suggested that, under a more open system than currently exists in Tanzania, mobile-payment ('m-payment') applications should target these creditor-buyers as key agents in connecting farmers to the credit they so often require.
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| 3 |
ID:
165976
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article explores Kenyan citizens’ right to know details about sensitive security-related information in the context of a new era of social media warfare. It considers the public communications response to Al Shabaab’s January 2016 attack on Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) personnel in El Adde, Somalia, and then to a similar attack in Kulbiyow a year later. Drawing on Twitter posts, an official account of Kenya’s military activities in Somalia, and – unusually for the study of social media – on ‘offline’ methods of qualitative data collection, it asks why the KDF did not provide real-time updates about the El Adde attack, but did provide information about the assault on Kulbiyow? Three plausible explanations for the KDF’s differing response are considered. First, at the time of El Adde, the KDF was inexperienced in terms of social media communication. Second, El Adde taught the KDF that in order not to lose the all-important public opinion, it had to match its enemy and also disseminate credible information. Finally, the strengthening voice of Kenyan citizens and the potential for further reputational damage pushed the KDF from a ‘need-to-know’ frame of mind in terms of its sharing of information, to more of a ‘right-to-know’ mentality.
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