[Air-L] Suggestions for literature on adoption of technology as background for our study of mobiles in Myanmar

Rich Ling riseling at gmail.com
Wed Jul 2 00:09:45 PDT 2014


Dear all, 

Along with colleagues from Nanyang Technical University, I am starting an ethnographic study of the adoption and diffusion of mobile phones in Myanmar. The study is also being supported by Telenor. 

Myanmar is one of the last countries in the world without a well developed mobile communication network (the others are North Korea,  Cuba and Eritrea).  We are starting to put together the literature review and we are interested in gathering suggestions. 

We are using Jonathan Donner's lives and livelihoods idea to frame the work. Beyond that I would like to get the wisdom of the crowd regarding the articles and books that examine the question of introducing new technology to a society and tracing the social consequences of the technology.  I think,  for example, of Cottrell's Death by Dieselization or perhaps Sharp's Steel Axes for Stone-age Australians. I know that neither of these two articles are about ICTs and that both are as old as dust,  but they focus on socio-technical transitions and their social consequences.  What are the other articles and books in this genre that might help us focus on the transition from face to face interaction to mediated communication? 

Thanks in advance.  

Rich Ling


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