Heavyset » Mobile Phones and FM Transmitters

Mobile Phones and FM Transmitters

I posted last week about Jeffrey Sachs comments regarding the potential good that will eminate from extended mobile reach in Africa.

Today, something quite similar, and altogether different, via a post from Chris Muscarella¹, in which he quotes Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society from Mobile Tech for Social Change:

“If you pair mobile phones with FM radio, you’ve got most of the interesting functionality of the Internet.”

Chris goes on to write:

I think what he meant is that FM radio serves as a mass broadcast mechanism and most social interaction takes place between people via SMS and by forwarding messages.

…Something he didn’t talk about at all, but is an interesting corollary is that SMS is geographic (different telecom networks present hurdles) and so is FM radio. It also seems like the most interesting functionality of the internet is very much geared towards making it seem like a more local environment.

Indeed.

Patrick Philippe Meier has a more elaborate take on the same presentation, which also bears reading, suggesting that radio transmissions, in combination with SMS replicate the functionality of the Internet by allowing the rapid spread of knowledge.

I’m scarcely prepared to address the intent behind Zuckerman’s remarks, as he is among the acknowledged leaders in this particular area of practice, and I suspect that Chris and Patrick are right on in their assesments.

I’d add to Chris’ note, though, another corollary: Both are astoundingly easy and inexpensive to implement and adopt. An small FM transmitter, essentially a portable radio station, can be constructed for under $200 (and probably even less if you can acquire used parts). Couple this with an online broadcasting service, and a local FM (or AM) microstation is now both local and global in reach.

This portability is critical, particularly in light of what Zuckerman points to as the tendency of non-democratic regimes to attempt to thwart mobile connectivity by frequently changing carriers. In such circumstances, radio becomes a portable server of sorts – inherently populist and inherently democratic.

whose blog, ChristmasGorilla, is not only a great play on words, but also great reading [↩]

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chris muscarella

Ian, thanks for the plug and for pulling together a couple of interesting ideas.

I think you're right on in terms of radio and sms: "inherently populist and inherently democractic." I'm going to try and loop Ethan back into the conversation, but wanted to add a few more thoughts:

1. When he was talking about Radio, Ethan viewed it as powerful because of it's ubiquity, but also cited that people knew how to interact with it. For example, an activist can protect their identity by sending in a message to a radio DJ and then having the message publicly broadcast.

2. He talked about Twitter as being mainly valuable to throw authorities off the trail. When you're broadcasting sensitive information, it's often important for the identities of the activists to remain concealed, therefore public services are often not appropriate. He spoke of the Radio as powerful partially because, I think, the radio DJ is a public figure who has enough power to obscure the identities of information providers without repercussion.