Walu, et. al. What would your son say of traditional music of Kenya here: <http://www.bluegecko.org/kenya/soundclips.htm> New media, especially the internet, also offers great potential to preserve and promote our cultures, heritage and music. Q1. Did last year's January's events create a cultural paralysis where *anything* on the subject is anti-grand coalition spirit thus hence must be subdued? Q2. Is healing better achieved by being proud of and talking about their cultures or being ashamed and keeping quiet? Q3. If by silence, will the resultant void leave it to foreigners to interpret our cultures for us and all future generations? Q4. How can the internet, and new media, better preserve and promote Kenyan cultures - a stated ICT Policy commitment? Q5. What is the likelihood of, for example, http://translate.google.com/translate_t in future being the only way to know what another Kenyan is trying to tell me? Through these provoking questions I hope to have your on-or-off-list views and very interested the "tribaless" views. peace! Mwanafunzi wenu Alex On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 3:56 PM, John Walubengo <jwalu@yahoo.com> wrote:
Mwende,
My contribution on content is borrowed from the 'real-world' situation with TV/Radio content as practiced in the developed economies. Basically, all debatable content such as that of pornographic nature should be rated and access controlled.
I truly live in fear for my son, who will be a teenager in another six years when pornography will be streaming in - as is already happening- through FM Radio, TV, Internet, 3G Mobile Phone, iPods, Matatus, etc. Only that time, it is likely to be cheaper, faster and virtually realistic. A nation grown on a diet of pornography produces future pedophiles that come to feast on the next generation - as is common in West and emerging in our (urban?) society.
My other contribution is on eLearning. eLearning has matured significantly over the last few years and is now a proven pedagogical methodology that is being exploited to the maximum by the Northern countries. It is really upto us in Kenya, to measure up and became the eLearning Center for this region. Imagine, UoN, Strathmore or KCCT floating their courses online and thereby reaching that Rwandese who always dreamt of getting a Kenyan Education but could not afford it due to overhead costs for meals, accomodation, transport, etc...
walu.
--- On Fri, 8/22/08, mwende njiraini <mwende.njiraini@gmail.com> wrote:
From: mwende njiraini <mwende.njiraini@gmail.com> Subject: [kictanet] Day 10 of 10:-IGF Discussion, Socio-Cultural Issues To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Friday, August 22, 2008, 9:36 AM Morning!
Today we enter our last day of discussion on Socio-cultural issues.
To begin with, we discuss issues relating to content control and freedom of expression. The internet governance discussions on content focus on the need to control three groups of content. Firstly, content where a global consensus is in place including child pornography and terrorism. Secondly, content that might be sensitive to particular countries, regions or ethnic groups due to their religious and cultural values. Thirdly, politically and ideologically sensitive content. There already exist several initiatives that limit the potential misuse of the internet. Are there such initiatives in Africa? How can we enhance national legislation to include a content policy that would guarantee the protection of human rights, specifically freedom of expression and also remove the ambiguous role of ISPs, law enforcement agencies and other players?
Secondly, we discuss issues relating to the delivery of education services over the internet (e-learning). Many students from developing countries are today opting for online education to overcome the challenge of prohibitive costs associated with foreign education. Increased cross-border education has brought about international governance issues in relation to accreditation of institutions, recognition of qualification and quality assurance. Is there an existing national policy on online education? What measures need to be put in place to assist our local universities develop e-learning programmes in order to protect our culture/traditions implicitly transmitted through our local institutions as well as prevent capital flight?
References:
1. Kurbalija, J. and Gelbstein, E. (2005) Internet governance: Issues, Actors and Divides
Again, you are encouraged to contribute to previous discussion threads.
Kind regards
Mwende
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