“Evolution of i to k will lead to the d”

What are the main activities of Southbound Publications apart from the publishing activities?
We work on development information and communication issues at Southbound. About half of all our work is publishing monographs on issues and themes related to this area of our work. Our authors include some of the top scholars and researchers in the field from both the South and the North.

The other half of our work is devoted to designing, implementing and studying development information and communi-cation activities in the developing countries, mainly from the Asian region. We have also worked on initiatives in the Arab, African and Latin American regions.

What role Southbound Publications is playing at country level and global level?
We are based in Malaysia but most of our work is located across the region. Most of our books are also distributed outside Malaysia. We have been collaborating with Non Governmental Organi-sations (NGOs) in the country and supporting their work through publi-cations and facilitating participatory development communication processes that help to drive their work.

What role the media should play in socio-economic development of a nation?
The role of the media helps to shape perceptions and positions about many things in a country.


The mass media sets the national ‘communication agenda’ deciding which issues are up for public debate and political attention. Advertisements carried in the mass media not only help to drive commerce but also subconsciously shape the values of the population. Most mass media organisations in developing countries are operated in a top-down, city-to-village manner. So what we find is that the ‘agenda’ and the ‘values’ are decided in the city and broadcasted to the villages. Folk and traditional media therefore has a crucial role to play in providing balance and maintaining channels for people’s expression of their cultures, aspirations, and problems. Folk media tend to have limited reach. They are embodied in communities and serve an important role in affirming the social cohesion of the communities themselves. Unfortunately, they are often unable to reach out to the cities to shape the national communications agenda, nor to counter the alternative sets of values embedded in advertisements.

Given the dominant city-to-village information and communication flows found in most developing countries, the first thing the mass media can do is to promote flows in the other direction. People in villages must be involved in shaping the national communications agenda.

In the developing countries, how can ICT play a remarkable role in improving the media activities?
ICT has already made a large impact in the backrooms of media organisations. Newspapers and magazines are now published using computer technologies. Content is obtained online using the Internet. I recently visited a small local television station based in a very remote part of the region and I found that they had pulled together a digital video-editing suite using cloned PCs. I think this backroom revolution will continue and help improve production quality.

However, most people in developing countries continue to have limited direct access to ICT. Internet access, hardware and software continue to be priced beyond the means of many people. Where subsidised access is available, such as at a telecentre, many people cannot avail themselves of it because they don’t have the literacy to go online. If by a stroke of magic everyone is given access to the Internet tomorrow, there will still be about 600 million people in the region who can’t make use of the Internet because they are illiterate or because they visually impaired.

ICT hardware and software must evolve away from the keyboard to include these technically isolated people in the World Wide Web. Voice and audio based technologies and applications can help build the ‘remarkable role’ of ICT.

How can media help to promote the public private partnership towards development goals?
Given the dominant city-to-village information and communication flows found in most developing countries, the first thing the mass media can do is to promote flows in the other direction. People in villages must be involved in shaping the national communications agenda. Their stories must make it to the cities. Once such a state of equilibrium exists we can better define development goals for the public and private sectors to act on. It is also important that the ‘private’ side of the partnership must involve members of the communities, not just businesses. The mass media should also adopt a pro-people angle in reporting on initiatives aimed at benefiting the people to ensure that the initiatives do meet their goals. The watchdog role of the mass media is a vital one.

What challenges you have yet faced while working in a small country?
Size doesn’t matter as much as the communications paradigm a country subscribes to. The main challenge is when the dominant paradigm is one of top-down communication. For communication to be meaningful it has to comprise of lively two-way flows.

With the new technologies, public policies can prove to be very discouraging. For example Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an exciting communication technology. It promises affordable inter-personal communication across the region. Migrant workers can keep in touch with their loved ones at home, isolated communities can share problems and solutions, small businesses can market and provide customer support. But all this is not now possible for many in the region because existing regulations defend the monopolies of incumbent telcos to provide such services. So often you find the interest of a single company in a country over riding the broader interests of all the people in the country.

What is the current scenario of ICT development in Malaysia?
It is encouraging. Services are reliable and largely affordable. The government has so far kept its promise not to censor the Internet and in this way promoted trust online. However, many facets remain to be improved. e-Government services, for example, remain sluggish.

What is your vision for the i4d magazine in the coming years, as we complete the 25th issue, and also are coming close to the second phase of WSIS?
I hope the ‘i’ will evolve to a ‘k’. Some of us in the ICT sector assume that moving information efficiently will lead to the “d”. Experience and failures in our work have shown that how we transform information into knowledge is a complex process. And the transformation of knowledge into development is an even more complex step.<

Brief   biography  of Chin Saik Yoon Chin Saik Yoon is chair of Orbicom’s research and publications committee. He is also the publisher and managing director of Southbound, a publishing house specialising in titles on development information and communication. He served on the advisory board of the World Communication and Information Report and has been involved in a number of regional and international ICT4D initiatives since the late 1980s. He is the Editor of ‘Digital Review of Asia Pacific’. The first edition was published in 2003/4. The completely updated edition was recently released in 2005/6 containing authoritative reports on how 29 economies are using ICT in business, government and civil society written by senior authors who live and work in the region. Included are three subregional chapters on the Pacific Island States, ASEAN and APEC. It is co-published with IDRC, APDIP, Orbicom and Agence Francophonie. http://www.southbound.com.my