>Mark P.A. Thompson, Mark P. A. "ICT, Power, and Developmental Discourse: A
>Critical Analysis." EJISD 20.4 (2004). 1-25.
><http://www.is.cityu.edu.hk/research/ejisdc/vol20/v20r4.pdf>
>
>ABSTRACT
>
>This paper uses critical discourse analysis to demonstrate how information
>and communications technology (ICT) has become deeply involved in the
>conception and practice of socio-economic development within so-called
>less-developed countries (LDCs). A recent speech on ICT by the president
>of the World Bank Group is examined, which shows the role of the discourse
>surrounding such technologies in replicating and extending a markedly
>North American worldview into the developmental sphere. The ability of
>critical discourse analysis to expose the involvement of ICT in
>normalising a dominant set of political and economic assumptions confirms
>its usefulness as a tool within which to approach the critical study of
>information systems.
>
>CONCLUSION
>
>This paper has identified some of the major components of the World Banks
>discourse surrounding ICT and development, and shown how the manner of
>their deployment in speech amounts to the creation and systematisation of
>a set of discursive relations which support and extend a markedly North
>American worldview. These relations are a fusion of traditional
>developmental discourse - technocratic expertise (DT1), combined with
>povertyas an undisputable need for such expertise (DT2) - with more
>ICT-specific components, such as the assumption of ICT as a neutral force
>in development (DT3), the display of expertise in the corporate terms with
>which ICT is often surrounded and discussed (DT4), technological optimism
>bordering on determinism (DT5), and a show of ICT pragmatic use on the
>ground, thus ensuring results(DT6).
>
>CDA is, of course, unable to make pronouncements about the degree to which
>social actors are aware of their actions in replicating macro-structures
>at the micro-level. To claim that the speech analysed here was a set of
>conscious, cumulative constructions on the part of the speaker would be to
>impute almost impossibly Machiavellian aims � and abilities � to a person
>who, it is likely, undertakes his job in good faith, unaware, for the most
>part, of the assumptions and positionality with which speeches such as
>this appear, upon closer analysis, to be drenched. As observers and
>interpreters of social life, matters regarding othersdiscursive
>intentionality are not empirically available to us, although the resulting
>discourse itself, recalling Escobar at the beginning of this paper, is
>more visible: the (re)establishment of a set of normative relations among
>a set of elements, institutions and practices, and their systematisation
>to form a whole.
>
>Indeed, it is this very task � uncovering, problematising, and raising our
>consciousness about contestible assumptions which have, through sheer use,
>become woven into the fabric of discursive interaction - at which CDA
>arguably excels. The submerged nature of many such assumptions merely
>makes such a task the more pressing. That it is an important task is
>evidenced by the analysis itself: the links posited between discursive
>forms at the micro-level and the replication, or alteration, of discursive
>power relations at the macro-level which appear in the tables of the
>analysis in this paper. It is these links which are able to show how
>local-level utterances are in fact saturated with prior assumptions about
>role, legitimacy, and the nature of the world � in short, about power �
>and how the inequalities attendant upon such assumptions can be
>reproduced, wittingly or unwittingly, in discursive practice.
>
>This paper has shown how the appropriation and discursive deployment of
>ICT, with its association with progress and rationality, offers a powerful
>opportunity to further the interests of technocratic, often mainstream
>stakeholders, acting as a magnifier for dominant discursive interests by
>creating new subjectsfor objectification. The ability of CDA to expose
>this effect, identify the various elements of such discourse in practice,
>and to show how their interaction is systematised into a technology of
>representation(Foucault 1975:104), thus renders it a useful tool for IS
>researchers; in particular, those wishing to understand the potent
>interaction of ICT with developmental and other discursive gazeswhich
>look out upon contested organisational landscapes. Thus CDA might prove an
>appropriate framework for the analysis of discourse within the more
>mainstreamIS study domains of, say, IS strategy, IS procurement,
>compilation of requirements catalogues, discussions about hardware
>relocation, budget allocation, process redesign, iterative prototyping,
>programme review boards � anywhere at all, in fact, where the prevailing
>discourse masks submerged assumptions and interests regarding the nature
>and role of ICT.
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