Elisa Oreglia
Senior Lecturer in Global Digital Cultures, King’s College London
I'm a Senior Lecturer in Global Digital Cultures at King’s College London. I research the diffusion and use of digital technologies in the Global South, especially in China and Southeast Asia.
EXPs by Elisa Oreglia
Around twenty years ago, the historian of technology Ron Eglash pointed out that, as Westerners, we often don’t realise just how our access to digital technology is facilitated because we are the users foremost in the minds of technology designers and developers.
Digital technologies are not the silver bullet to these very complex problems of economic development and financial inclusion. They do play an important role, but a lot of work still needs to be done on seeing the world from the perspective of the users of digital technology rather than the providers of services that run on digital technologies.
Does digital imagination make the world smaller or bigger? The answer may be that it does both. It shows the potential for a different world and it shows a world that is shrinking. If you are in a small village in rural China, now you can see life in the big city just as if you were there