Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Telecenters are public places where people can gain access to information technologies and other communication resources (→ Access to the Media ; Participatory Communication ; Public Access Television ). They originated in the mid-1980s in Scandinavian countries as an effort to help people in rural areas become part of the information economy, particularly by making modern office equipment available to them on a shared basis. Although the idea spread through many of the industrialized countries during the next decade, it was the emergence of the computer and digital networks in the 1990s that launched a variety of these public access centers – with a variety of names, such as community technology centers, village information centers, and community learning centers. UNESCO, the World Bank, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and overseas development agencies such as those of Canada, Switzerland, the UK, and the US gave the telecenter movement significant propulsion as they perceived a link between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and development (→ Development Communication ; Information and Communication Technology, Development of ; Technology and Communication ; UNESCO ). While → radio , film, and → video make up an earlier generation of ICTs, it is the unique benefits of computers and networks that drive the interest of national and international ... log in or subscribe to read full text