Content is knowledge - knowledge is money

["Irfan Khan" <khania@super.net.pk>]

Content is knowledge - knowledge is money

By : Keith Yeomans
Date : 2002-04-11


11 April 2002

'Content is king' as media moguls are fond of saying. Keith Yeomans
asks whether this holds true for development and if so, where is the
crown and how do we make sure it lands on the right head?




‘Content’ is not helped by being called content. We can only begin to
assess its value and impact by unpacking this rather indigestible
term. Even then, phrases like ‘cultural diversity’ and
‘global/indigenous knowledge’ hardly set the pulse racing.

It is easy to see why content is nudged to the back of the queue
behind infrastructure (at least you can usually see what you are
getting for your money, even if the word is worse than ‘content’) and
training: always a virtuous option. There is also the truism that you
cannot have content until you have access to the kit, can afford it
and know how to use it.

This approach offers the ideal excuse to those who would rather deal
with boxes or people on the ground rather than some nebulous
commodity or public good over which they have little say. But, while
logically so, the linear approach to ICT in development can at its
worst lead to empty telecasters whose potential users remain unsure
what they should be using their new skills to achieve.

Equally unnerving is the largely unchallenged belief that content is
knowledge, that knowledge is what makes people in the north richer
than those in the south, so if we can only deliver bundles of
knowledge to poor people they will also become rich. Again, the
superficial sense of this argument mars an understanding of the
cultural and economic complexities it masks.

The reality is that ‘content’ is the reason for the technology’s
existence. It is shaped by, and shapes, the patterns of boxes, wires
and signals spreading across the world. It embraces everything from
the latest mango price through the Malian music you have just bought
at the airport, the Andhra Pradesh land title map, the Bollywood
movie animating a video café on the Deccan, the falling share prices
that just closed a factory, the tense telephone reassurances between
a migrant worker and her family, to the stories stitching the fabric
of traditional African society and the dried milk advertisement on
the rickety township hoarding.

Valuable content is the holy grail of the hardware and software
investor. Why pay for pipes in the ground unless people will buy the
music they play? It has been estimated that 90% of the world’s fibre
is dark: one reason, perhaps, for the telecommunications industry
downturn.

For these reasons and more, helping poor people to create,
understand, use, buy, sell and exchange content meaningful to their
lives is not the obscure fad of a few enthusiasts on the fringe of
the global information society. It is core purpose.

That said, the digital opportunity content agenda is vast and
diverse, ranging from censorship
through convergence regulation to Tamil keyboards. It is being
addressed by sole traders,
village councils, governments and a suite of UN agencies. Everyone
involved in development has
a stake in getting it right – especially poor people.


source:
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