Augmented communication technologies for distanced regions

Jude Mukundane

Key information

Authors:

Jude Mukundane (Jude Mukundane)

Supervisors:

João Paulo Salgado Arriscado Costeira (João Paulo Salgado Arriscado Costeira); Christopher Paul Csikszentmihályi

Published in

July 28, 2022

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to develop a sustainable engineering approach for onboarding distanced communities into the digital communication space. Most practitioners have assumed that access to Internet results into increased connectivity and thereby information access and dissemination in distanced regions, whereas not. I show that more important than mere access to Internet, is mastery over the communication technologies that already fit in the economical and lifestyle constraints of distanced regions. My research focuses on two technologies that have attained ubiquity in distanced regions – FM radio and basic telephony (voice, SMS, USSD) to concretize a platform for increased media plurality in distanced regions. The viability of this stack is largely supported by the Internet and modern digital computing without necessarily increased individual Internet access. I demonstrate an ideal situation of the Internet and modern computing to facilitate the proliferation of FM radio on minimum hardware in distanced communities. I begin by examining the viability of low power FM broadcast in Northern Uganda to harness the ubiquity that FM broadcast enjoys over other digital technologies in distanced communities. My learnings, that minimum FM broadcast is viable but is tedious with no management tools, inform my investigation into how cloud based digital technologies can contribute to the sustenance of low-power grassroots broadcast. The results inform the design of a minimal broadcast stack with transmission site hardware and software working in tandem with a cloud-based platform. My learnings from the deployment of this stack in two stations in rural Romania proved that minimal broadcast domains can facilitate uses and interaction models that are not possible with the current scale of FM radio. I show that both demystifying and minimalizing FM radio result in additive design of communication media as opposed to the prevailing model that proselytizes subtraction of functionality from technologies in order to deploy them in distanced regions I iteratively improve the technological stack that was used for the stations in Romania and observe performance in a laboratory until I arrive at a stable platform capable of sustaining broadcast over long periods. This thesis demonstrates that low-power FM broadcast on minimal hardware is a possibility; that a cloud-based platform makes this possibility viable; and that the deployment of this solution in distanced regions activates the latent information culture stifled by media singularity. I show that the most viable way for bridging the digital divide lies not in the introduction of the Internet and modern technologies in these regions but rather using it to situate technologies in these communities in a way that allows them to use them to additively craft solutions to their communication needs.