i4donline.net ~ June 2004 Issue - Creating content: A lonely road out there

In one small room of this infrastructure strapped newspaper, sits a plush new computer. For a few thousand rupees each month, little more than the salary of a mid-level journalist in a small city, this direct link via satellite brings in hundreds of snazzy photographs from across the world, and thousands of new stories every few weeks. It’s easier and cheaper, to learn about Tahiti, Paris, Timbucktoo, Hawaii and The Hague, rather than the small state where most of the newspaper’s readers live and work.
For someone who comes from the world of content itself and has spent half one’s life as a print journalist, it’s painfully clear how the gap is growing.

Thanks to ICTs we now have the tools that give us the chance of having a New International Information Order. (Does anyone remember these debates from the seventies?) At the same time, the new technology has also made us slaves of a new type of ‘information colonialism’. One, which encourages us to think that the centre of the world is somewhere in Europe or the US. One that makes us feel that it’s not work generating content about our own societies, but just pick up what flows so easily from the so-called ‘developed world’. One, which threatens to convert large parts of the planet into ‘downloading’ societies and consumers of information, instead of ‘uploading’ ones and producers of information.

Our gap between connectivity and (tech) capacity on the one hand, and content on the other, keeps growing even more vast. More so, in countries like India, where the mastery of technology seems to be an end in itself, almost wholly divorced from the need to solve the many problems of our deprived millions.

India boasts that it is surging ahead on the tech front — never mind if we are largely working for the export-dollars and hardly utilising our skills to meet the needs of our own countrymen. Connectivity too is becoming less of an issue, at least in the cities. But what about the content? For a country of over one billion, many of whose states are of comparable size to the larger European nations, content is in amazingly short supply here.of over one billion, many of whose states are of comparable size to the larger European nations, content is in amazingly short supply here. Lack of affordable local language solutions is still a major bottleneck. Those in a position to create content have been slow in taking to the Net. The what’s-in-it-for-me syndrome blocks us from making progress where it’s needed most.of over one billion, many of whose states are of comparable size to the larger European nations, content is in amazingly short supply here.

Lack of affordable local language solutions is still a major bottleneck. Those in a position to create content have been slow in taking to the Net. The what’s-in-it-for-me syndrome blocks us from making progress where it’s needed most.

For a country of India’s size, new technologies on the ICT front offer an unusually good and affordable opportunity to communicate, whatever their current limitations; but we first need to wake up to their possibilities. In the recently-published book ‘e-Content: Voices from the Ground’ (Osama Manzar and Peter A Bruck, eds, 2004, Digital Empowerment Foundation), Manzar himself makes an important point. He says “It is a paradox that India, being a non-English speaking country, has more than 1.5 million websites in English, and a paltry 20,000 or so in various Indian languages. Incidentally, only 5 per cent indians of speak English.”of over one billion, many of whose states are of comparable size to the larger European nations, content is in amazingly short supply here.

There are other aspects too. Large sections within India speak languages which are not considered to be among the “major” or dozen-and-half “national” languages in the country. India needs to communicate and create content (in howsoever small a dialect this may be), to be able to communicate with each other (without feeling a sense of domination of the larger languages, whether an alien one like English or a dominant ‘desi’ one like Hindi) and to be able to communicate with the outside world. In the latter case, a large section of which still speaks languages other than English.of over one billion, many of whose states are of comparable size to the larger European nations, content is in amazingly short supply here.

When asked about the major bottlenecks in the development of content in India, Manzar (ibid) pointed to eight factors — the large section still below the poverty line, non-availability of software tools in the local language, illiteracy, corruption in the government and bureaucracy, lack of leadership “at all levels”, poor planning and in frastructure, a lack of vision on “exploiting Indian knowledge power to create an information society” and the lack of self-confidence.

To this list one could add (i) the fact that India has long been a largely oral society, (ii) the fact that older ICT tools like radio have not been opened up and sufficiently democratised for use by the common man, (iii) the profits-before-people approach that has grown more acute in post-liberalisation India, (iv) the fact that India’s tech elites are, for the most part, quite comfortable in English and hence don’t seem much of a pressing need to create digital content in the local languages, (v) the large size of the internal domestic Indian market, which is largely untapped and even possibly unaware of its own full potential, given the lack of communication. This is like a vicious cycle: there’s little content, because the ‘market’ (not just in the commercial sense) for it is yet to be explored. The lack of content means that there’s inadequate awareness about its potential.

On the other side of the balance sheet are certain initiatives. These need to be taken note of, lest we miss the potential which is unfolding just now.

Manzar sees certain pillars on which e-Content could be built. These include the talent of the people, innovation in media, market access, use of emerging ICTs and growing connectivity (cross-sectoral, cross-industry and multi-national).

In the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) community, volunteers are working hard and fast to make computers work in regional languages. This is particularly promising, since the ease-in-sharing FLOSS skills makes it more useful than would be a proprietorial software solution (For more details see the Localisation Newsletter). The aim of this newsletter is to highlight localisation activities based on Free/Open Source Software, present a complete picture, and to serve as a mouthpiece for all localisation teams and their volunteers. G. Karunakar, one of the young men spearheading this initiative, recently announced that a complete issue is available at http://www.indlinux.org/nl/nl150404.html

To conclude, could we look at some of the lessons emerging from our experiences in countries like India? A few pointers that strike one’s mind:
Government should open-up on regulation: India, where we proudly and repeatedly claim to be the “world’s largest democracy”, is today still bottlenecked by an unfair policy of restricting information and content from travelling where it is needed most.

Community radio is one major issue, and a campaign for the last decade notwithstanding, it is yet to be opened up to the citizen. This is the issue for debate in a forthcoming issue of this magazine. The growth of radio has been stunted by laws and regulations and government control for decades. Given factors like illiteracy, the strong oral tradition in India and great diversity among different parts of the country, the opening up of radio could work wonders for the generation of relevant local content.

Yet, today, we’re moving from a government-dominated to a commercial-dominated radio broadcasting scenario, and till date the latter too is restricted to music-only non-news broadcasts. To find out more about the community radio debate, see the archives of the mailing-list CRIndia at https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/cr-india Bandwidth is perishable, we don’t have much time left. Either

we use it, or lose it. If we don’t open up low-powered FM broadcasting to the communities fast enough, it’s simply going to be wasted. Spectrum on the airwaves can’t be hoarded. What’s more, technological changes and the shift towards digital broadcasting could kill the immense possibilities thrown open by low-powered, localised broadcasting that FM offers.

Films are another area of concern. In a country where an estimated 15 million watch a movie daily and there are an estimated 16,000 cinema houses, the creation of content by this media is still stymied by regulations.

Entertainment is fine, but reality is a thing apart-or so the official policy seems to suggest. Recently, documentary film-makers from across India launched a campaign against censorship of their medium. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vikalp The Central Board of Film Censors till June 1983 has subsequently been renamed as the Central Board of Film Certification. Whatever the label, questions need to be raised about the functioning of such institutions, specially when it comes to spheres outside entertainment.

Likewise, the domination of the industry by entertainment block-busters has probably meant the side-lining of films that could be classified as useful ‘content’ making a difference to the lives of the millions. The difficulty of India’s documentary-makers-many of whom are world-class-in finding an audience and suitable distribution channels only underlines this point. Perhaps they too need to look at alternative means of distribution, not necessarily following the ‘all rights reserved’ copyrights-encumbered model.

Create the platforms, and leave it: My own learning came from a 17-year-old college kid, who set up a simple mailing-list (no rocket science, this) in August 1994. Today Herman Carneiro’s Goanet (http://www.goanet.org)-with which I am still involved-has 5000 readers each day. It sparked off in this writer the realisation that community networks can indeed be very useful and helpful in generating and sharing both information and knowledge. In turn, it led me to start others-including the BytesForAll network (co-founded by Partha Sarkar of Dhaka), which is today read by a divers audience in varied parts of the globe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers.

Herman was encouraged to set up the mailing list, when he was a student at the North Eastern University (neu) in Boston. That the subject of the list-India’s smallest state, Goa, and its

Local content, global prespective

Defining local content
In a study commissioned by DFID on local content- the main findings stated that the major challenge was to “define ‘local content.’ Depending on the perspective adopted, one person’s ‘local’ content is another’s ‘global’ content. Some people define it as content for people in a certain locality, or content for people speaking a language or from a certain culture. Others say it is content that is relevant to a given community. However local content is just not these. Instead of seeing local content as content for local communities, it can be seen as content from local communities. Thus local content can be “….the expression of the locally owned and adapted knowledge of a community - where the community is defined by its location, culture, language, or area of interest” Thus local content is the content of a community. However this may include global content that has been transformed, adapted and assimilated into the community’s knowledge base and this local content can be exchanged and shared, locally or globally, in various formats, packages and media. However before going into the details of what constitutes local content, we must understand what is the need for local content in the first place, i.e. “Why local content?”

Need for local content

New media technologies are only meaningful if their content reflects local needs and conditions. The panel discussion on World Summit on Information Society (Geneva 2003) recognised that ICT can be used to promote, distribute and create local content, moving from one-way media in which poor and marginalised people are information recipients to interactive media, in which they participate actively in its creation and dissemination. It envisaged a future where traditional knowledge would contribute fully to global development while recognising the need to promote the value of local content and minority languages in a global ICT environment.
Studies have demonstrated that the assumption that the supply of information created by the global network of ICTs will be sufficient to enhance livelihoods of the poor - as long as the poor have access – is fanciful and even unlikely. Encouraging collection, production, exchange and dissemination of relevant content in local languages can not only provide learning opportunities for the target population but can also provide an opportunity to the target local population to help shape the decisions being made in their community. In fact Internet access would be useful to the local people only if they are able to find/view local content of relevance.
Thus the concept of local content highlights the importance of moving beyond a quantitative and purely technology-driven approach towards people-centered and demand-driven solutions. In fact the benefits of producing unique local content can go beyond satisfying the mission of providing ICT for developmen. It can enhance ties within the community itself... it can define the image of the town/area/region, provide a sense of place, pride in common history and build a reputation for the community. By providing contents that connects directly with community, the local content website can forge critical ties with the people who may become dedicated viewers of such information. It will also widen the scope and viewers for Internet/websites use. However for local content to be relevant the content should be sufficiently focused or specific to be relevant to the local people.

What forms the local area material or local content?
Material must have a local emphasis or significance to qualify as ‘material of local significance’. Some examples of local material may include material that:

Has been collected and prepared in the local area
Deals with people, organisations, events or issues (economic, political, social and environmental) of that particular area
Issues that are of particular interest to people in the area, in a way that focuses on the interests of people in the area (local knowledge)
Issues of development (rural, urban, health etc) It also is:
About an individual about whom people in the area are particularly interested because of an association with the area, such as the individuals’ having grown up, or lived, in the area
About a sporting event that involves a team from the area or that involves a team from a nearby area, whose principal support base includes the area, or a significant part of the area
About market conditions that closely affect a major business activity in the area, such as prices of a commodity in an area where that commodity is produced on a significant scale
About the effects in the area of an event that occurs elsewhere

Relevance of local content
Creating products more targeted for the local market and hitting the cultural expectations of a region can make a big difference to the overall scenario for ICT for development. However since the simple act of having a website exposes the local area to a global audience, both global and local needs should be addressed when delivering content to a worldwide audience. Those uploading the content also have to keep in mind that the content should be worth producing and worth viewing. It should showcase a local culture or tap the resources found in a particular community in the hopes of benefiting a larger audience. When users load content, they should select what levels of readership that content is for.

Scope of local content creation in Almora
Almora district, covering an area of 5400 sq kms is situated in the Kumaon region in the state of Uttaranchal. Located at an altitude of 1600 m (approx), Almora town falls within the Hawalbag development block in the Almora district. With a population of over 20000 (2001 census), the town accounts for over 30% of the total population of the district. The nearest railway station is Kathgodam, which is almost 100 kms away. Hindi and Kumaoni are the main languages spoken in Almora. The literacy level of Almora district is 82.7 % (2001 census) and that of Almora town is almost 90%. The district has reasonably well administrative and education infrastructure. Kumayun University is located in Almora town. Most of the information available for Almora are the ones that has been uploaded/floated by the travel and tourism agencies and departments. General information about Almora is available in Almora.nic.in. But this information is inadequate and it neither satisfies the local user nor the global.

Local content that can be generated for Almora

Information on demography (with males-females ratio) (at the village level is available with the chief election office (voter’s list)-this information can be utilised and made available to the common people.
There is very little information available on health and the available information is neither organised nor documented. The anganbari workers also keep records of health and otherwise of all children below 6 years. Information from the Anganbari workers can be combined with the information from primary health centers and the district hospital to form a health service network- something that is missing.
communities in many hill regions have their own storehouse of indigenous or traditional knowledge that has been handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. In Kumaon too valuable information exists on indigenous biodiversity, traditional remedies and medicine, lost history and customs, innovative and indigenous farming techniques/practices, of indigenous crop etc. Few people outside the Kumaon are aware of such knowledge. The local people can document these facts in collaboration with academicians and researchers.
There is very little information available on the education system and the schools. There is absolutely no information available on the number of students and teachers in each school. Information on enrollment rate, pass-out rate and dropout rate is also not available for the common public. These schools have been graced by eminent academicians. Recording such information will provide inspiration for the other students.
None of the available websites on Almora give adequate history about the town. Most travel sites and others start with the establishment of the town during the Chand dynasty rule, tell very little about the development during British period and even less of the development after independence. A huge part of history has been left out – although books on the British rule in Almora are available, very little is in digital format.
Information on unique local features is also not available. One of the main sources of water in Almora are the naulas i.e. springs. But very few people outside Almora are aware that there was once over 200 naulas within the town itself...which are now on the verge of extinction and the block had another few hundred probably? Although the local newspaper (Dainik Jagran, published from Meerut) does publish articles on the depletion of naula water due to misuse and increasing urbanisation, it has still not been able to generate mass movement or even a local movement to protect these naulas from fast disappearance.
There is also a considerable lack (almost non-existent), of information on the local culture, cuisine, local songs, customs etc.

Mapping the Neighbourhood-an effort
The above sounds very ambitious, however, a small endeavor in this respect has been attempted through the Mapping the Neighbourhood project being implemented in Almora by CSDMS. As a part of this project, sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, students from several schools in Hawalbag block in Almora district of Uttaranchal state, has been initiated to prepare maps of their neighbourhood and in the process prepare a repository of information about their locality. Students are involved in collecting local information. Later on they would not only be archiving their experiences of the project and their outputs (maps, information repository of villages collected through primary surveys) but they would also document facts about their town, history of development, local culture and other interesting facts. Thus considerable local content can be generated by the initiative of the students, which can be regularly updated by the students themselves and new content added. Mapping the Neighbourhood is a fresh initiative to sensitize the school students (and the immediate community) about their locality/area and in the process generate local content of relevance. An example of “uploading community” rather than the typical “downloading” users of the web.

Rumi Mallick, rumi@csdms.org

Building up local content is a huge task. This means, we need to rope in the skills of volunteers, who are willing to generate local content for the love of it, not the lure of money alone.

diaspora-was of little relevance to the NEU’s priorities was hardly seen as a reason for not having the list. Today, initiatives such as these have thrown up content that the mainstream media simply couldn’t have dreamt of.

Man does not live by profits alone: In countries which have a latent market, but not quite an existing one, this is a lesson we need to look at closely. Unless the people in the content field are willing to keep aside the pecuniary initiative, the hundreds of millions of Indians (and other Third World citizens) who need it the most, are never going to get access to relevant content. In addition, a whole lot of initiatives need to look at content in a way that goes beyond just the traditional model of trying to make it into yet another commodity that can churn out profits.

Further, the power of communities and voluntary networks in generating suitable content need to be suitably recognised and tapped better. We’ve hardly touched the tip of the cliched iceberg in countries like India.

Use whatever technology, even if it’s just an old-fashioned e-mailing list or the Usenet newsgroups that were popular in the seventies and eighties: In India, we seem to be making a fetish about keeping up with the latest technology. In many cases, specially when were talking about reaching to the unreached, we don’t need it. It’s probably not the most suitable and simply too costly.

In the case of content, one continues to be amazed how few mailing lists countries of the South really have. Mailing-lists have a wide range of desirable features — low-cost, push-technology, ease-in-setting-up, accessibility, low-bandwidth requirement. Lists also encourage collaborative and volunteer-based working. Only in recent months, countries like India are experimenting with setting up more mailing lists on issues of their choice. Whether it deals with the Internet, telephony, journalist-based lists, other professional lists, environmental lists, and even a mailing list specially devoted to the Indian Railway fans. This is a welcome sign, but a lot more needs to be done.

Networks like http://www.freelists.org offer free mailing lists for any technical subjects. dgroups.org, set up by OneWorld.net, Bellanet and other international organisations, offer free mailing-lists to discuss developmental issues. Strangely, there seem to be few takers. Clearly, a gap in perception by possible beneficiaries of what this technology can offer and an inability to bring together the ingredients needed to make it work. Keeping a list active and alert i

another issue; this can be a problem sometimes in a society better known for its oral, rather than written, culture.

Have a holistic view of digital content: When we talk of digital content, should we be looking only at Internet-based content? NIIT’s hole-in-the-wall experiment found that accessing the Net was a distant dream in the villages of coastal Maharashtra. They put up local mirrors of locally-relevant website related to the Konkan region - as coastal Maharashtra, where this project was situated.

CDs can be another powerful tool of sharing information, what with prices hovering to an affordable USD 0.25 or so for 600MB of data. But copyrights can act as a stumbling block. Likewise, the challenge of creating local content is also very much present in the field of music, audio and video. Looking at these opens up new possibilities, just as technology suddenly seems to be becoming less unaffordable and within reach in other ways too.

Seeking alternatives to copyrights: It is heartening to see a number of international organisations, NGOs and alternative media-persons put out their work in a copyrights-unencumbered format. This makes for easier sharing of digital (and other) content. Given that we already have such a large amount of information and knowledge, the challenge is to share the same, to deploy it to solve very real problems, and to classify it in a way that it doesn’t get wasted. The creativecommons.org is an excellent license that makes content (whether text, books, films, music or more) sharable. http://gutenberg.net is another interesting example of converting copyright-expired books and making these sharable. We need similar initiatives for the Third World. Lawyer Lawrence Liang, based in Bangalore, was recently making a strong case why alternative documentary makers in India need to consider some kind of a creativecommons.org license for their work.

Harnessing the power of volunteers: Building up local content is a huge task. This means, we need to rope in the skills of volunteers, who are willing to generate local content for the love of it, not the lure of money alone. In Thailand, a schools project created a platform which makes it easy for teachers to create webpages and put up their content, in a free-to-share format on the Net. (http://www.school.net.th/library/create-web - content is in Thai.) While the copyright remains vested in the creator of the content, other teachers across that country are free to use this for educational purposes. Such ideas indeed make sense. These are the points to be considered as we embark on the lonely road of content creation.