Futures of Learning

Payphone

New Media Practices in Ghana, Part II: Mobile Phones

Mobile phones owned by 1. Fisherman, 2. Student, 3. Carpenter. Photos by Araba Sey, 2006.

“Taxing mobile phone usage will kill romance stone dead!” (Cameron Duodu, New Times Online, November 27, 2007).

In a November 2007 newspaper column, Cameron Duodu lambasts the government of Ghana for proposing an excise duty on every minute of airtime use, thereby increasing the cost of mobile phone communication.
“Forget about warm greetings. Forget about endearments. If it’s a lady you’re calling, just demand to know whether she’s coming tonight or not. Forget about the difficulty she said she was experiencing about getting an appointment fixed with her hair-dresser and the emotional support you can offer her by sympathising with her plight. That’s none of your business. Don’t ask her whether the seamstress finished her dress or whether she was again told to go and come. Don’t ask her whether the fitters charged her car battery very well this time. Go straight to the point and forget the telephone-lovie business. No more telephonic foreplay for you, you hear?!” In other words, Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, what you have done is that you’ve killed romance stone dead in Ghana with your airtime tax! You will go down in history as the Finance Minister who reintroduced lack of communication between Ghanaian men and their female paramours” he continues.

Although the controversial law was eventually passed in March 2008, Duodu warns, “make no mistake about it, mobile phones have made a great deal of difference to the lives of our ordinary folks and anyone who attempts to discourage their blossoming will be severely punished by them, come an election.” Whether these predictions materialize remains to be seen – the next national elections will be in 2012, and mobile phone subscriptions show no sign of declining – but Duodu’s lament points to the growing centrality of mobile phone communication in Ghana. 

There has been an astounding increase in mobile phone subscriber numbers since 2005 (see chart below), even taking into account the distortion in statistics resulting from multiple SIM card ownership (James & Versteeg, 2007; Sutherland, 2009). No longer the purview of the wealthy, high and low-end mobile phones are being accessed and used by people from all walks of life, and are increasingly being considered indispensable. An interview respondent describing to me how it felt to lose her mobile phone stated that until she got a replacement, she felt like a part of herself was missing.[ii]

Sources: Ghana National Communications Authority, International Telecommunications Union.

Journalistic commentary, news reports and anecdotes make up the bulk of the litereature on the social side of mobile phone use in Ghana. The academic literature has focused mainly on issues surrounding telecommunications policy and regulation, which have been instrumental in opening up the mobile phone market, an important precursor to social appropriation of the technology. We can also find a few studies examining types and levels of usage in a general way (Bertolini, 2002; Fremppong, 2004; McKemey et al, 2003) and mobile phone uses in commercial activities (Boadi & Shaik, 2006; Boadi et al, 2007; Overå, 2006). A few have attempted to delve into the social dynamics of usage trends (Sey, 2008; Slater & Kwami, 2005).

The push for ICT-facilitated national development has manifested in a number of deliberate and emergent systems designed to capitalize on the mobile communication platform. Entrepreneurial mobile phone subscribers have turned their phones into payphone access points (Boadi & Shaik, 2006; Sey 2008), not just for non-subscribers, but also for opportunistic users, a development that became an eye-opener for network service providers and arguably drove a period of industry innovations to reduce the cost of mobile phone airtime (particularly the introduction of electronic micro airtime transfers). More deliberate attempts can be seen in ventures such as Tradenet, an SMS-based price information service introduced by Busy Internet cafe to facilitate linkages between sellers and potential trading partners.

Mobile payphone, Tema, by Araba Sey, 2006.

In general, the results from studies of commercial uses of mobile phones show that cost reduction and the benefits derived from convenient communication channels are the primary drivers of mobile phone adoption amongst groups such as farmers and fishermen (Abbisath, 2005; Boadi et al, 2007) and traders (Overå, 2006). This is strongly tied to the informal business economy in which the demands of an uncertain economic environment, high transaction costs and building relationships of trust are paramount. The commercial benefits are somewhat constrained, especially by inadequate transportation infrastructure and poor wireless network coverage in some areas. And as others such as Donner (2006) have found elsewhere on the continent, the primary utility of this type of communication seems to be more for the strengthening/maintenance of existing networks than for the creation of new associations.

Slater and Kwami (2005) have noted that mobile phones appear to play a very particular social role in Ghanaian society – they provide the means for users to manage local embedded relationships.[iii] Whether examining social, economic or political uses of mobile phones (in as much as they are seperable), this finding by Slater and Kwami shows some validity – the evidence, though limited, suggests that managing relationships, near and afar, is a high priority (McKemey et al, 2003; Overå, 2006). Contrary to global (and national) expectations that mobile phones would be used explicitly for business activities, social networking tends to be the dominant use, in particular for making rather than receiving calls, and for maintaining links with family and friends (Bertolini, 2002; McKemey et al, 2003). On the other hand, through these same processes, mobile phones play a role in facilitating the remittance economy (e.g., McKemey et al, 2003; Slater & Kwami, 2005), a significant element of poverty reduction in developing countries. Both Slater and Kwami (2005) and McKemey et al (2003) have also found a prevalence of mobile phone use for coordinating funeral activity. My own research in Ghana during 2006 and 2007 supports this view of largely social uses. Coupled with the relatively high cost of communicating for people living close to or below the poverty line, this leads to particular configurations of mobile phone use to manage, control and share the cost of maintaining social relationships (often with economic underpinnings). This consists of strategic use of personal mobile phones to only receive calls, and supplementing a combination of other practices – e.g., flashing (generating missed calls), text messaging, using payphones - to meet ongoing communication needs. These are not unusual findings, though; even the wealthy adopt measures to control cost when necessary. Nevertheless, users have demonstrated innovativeness in adapting mobile telephony to their needs through “smart consumption” (Alhassan, 2004).

One practice that has generated significant attention is generating missed calls or “flashing.” As in other developing countries where this practice is common, Ghanaians flash for a variety of reasons – to get a return call, send a pre-coded message, or just for fun. This is such a popular practice that the term “flashing units” (the minimum amount of airtime required to generate a voice call) has made its way into the lexicon of mobile telephony in Ghana. Flashing definitely has a light side, but it also reflects and reproduces power relationships where flashing is based on perceptions of the recipient’s economic superiority and therefore greater capacity to bear the cost of a phone call (Donner, 2007; Pelckmans, 2009). Another less obvious dimension of power here is the struggle between network providers and users, as flashing is employed to essentially use network capacity free of charge (Sey, 2008), an example of hostile user behavior as framed by Bar, Pisani and Weber (2007) - users try to make maximum use of this opportunity, while networks seek ways to make users place actual calls.

Since cost plays so high in usage levels, I have also found limited use of advanced mobile phone features, partly due to cost, partly due to lack of bandwidth. Younger users do favor downloading and sharing ringtones, wallpaper, and music – there is a growing local production industry for this material. Due to low literacy levels, text messaging is less prevalent than voice calls, however, those who do use this feature tend to be high intensity users. The recent introduction of 3.5 services by Zain and MTN Ghana in late 2008/early 2009 (Struthers-Watson, 2008; Wireless Federation, 2009) points to an expectation of increasing demand for platforms that can support higher levels of multimedia activity. As happened with the initial introduction of mobile phones, active use of 3.G services is likely to first become evident in the business and high-income populations; with local appropriations following if/when lower-income populations find ways around the high usage costs. Indeed one Ghanaian scholar, Amos Anyimadu has suggested that in a low literacy environment such as Ghana’s, multimedia mobile communication may be the most efficacious way to facilitate communication with and by the general populace.[iv]

There is some evidence that mobile phone acquisition and use fuels certain gender stereotypes. Women are considered notorious for requiring the newest mobile phone models from their romantic partners, and rightly or wrongly, this belief usually tags young unemployed women who own mobile phones as disreputable (Sey, 2008; Slater & Kwami, 2005). On the other hand, anecdotes circulate about young men who pretend to be speaking on a fake (toy) mobile phone, or who carry mobile phones that are inoperable (Alhassan (2004) or that they cannot afford to load with airtime, all in efforts to impress both female and male counterparts. Or, as Alhassan (2004) concludes, this type of behavior represents attempts to participate by simulation in digital consumption. These dynamics are also played out in expectations of flashing behavior involving opposite sexes. Alhassan (2004) notes a gender dimension to flashing with males being more likely to be the recipients of flashes. Flashing may indeed be “women’s work,” especially in romantic situations where males who flash females may be considered “cheap” and unworthy suitors, but there are other factors such as friendship that moderate gendered flashing (Sey, 2008).

Similar to the situation described by Heather in her posts on Brazil, the high value attached to mobile phones in Ghana has resulted in related crimes - mobile phone theft (labeled “mobile phone snatching” because they are usually stolen by simply snatching them from a user’s hand), some involving murder; and a thriving black market in handsets stolen locally or abroad. According to the deputy director of police public affairs in Accra, the number of mobile phone snatching cases reported increased from 209 in 2004 to 417 in 2005 (BBC, 2006). Fear of personal loss and physical injury has constrained most people from making public displays of their mobile phones.

Endnotes

i. This strategy was designed to overcome the problems associated with collecting duties on mobile phone imports. Instead, the import duty and value-added-tax would be abolished in favor of a tax on users. The law was passed in March 2008 despite protests from users and network service providers.
ii. Fieldwork, Ghana, 2006.
iii.  They contrast this with the use of the Internet for “the realization of the ideal (foreign) relationship (p.12).
iv. Personal communication – comments made at a conference on mobile telephony in Accra, 2006.

References

Abissath, M. K. (2005). Mobile phone: A tool for modern fishermen in Ghana. Available at http://www.nextbillion.net/news/mobile-phone-a-tool-for-modern-fishermen-in-ghana.

Alhassan, A. (2004). Development communication policy and economic fundamentalism in Ghana. Unpublished dissertation, Univeristy of Tampere.

Bar, F., Pisani, F. & Weber, M. (2007). Mobile technology appropriation in a distant mirror: baroque infiltration, creolization and cannibalism. Prepared for discussion at Seminario sobre Desarrollo Económico, Desarrollo Social y Comunicaciones Móviles en América Latina. Convened by Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, April 20-21, 2007. http://arnic.info/Papers/Bar_Pisani_Weber_appropriation-April07.pdf.

BBC. (May 7, 2006). Following Ghana’s mobile thieves. Accessed May 30, 2006 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4977898.stm.

Bertolini, R. (2002). Telecommunication services in sub-Saharan Africa. An analysis of access and use in the Southern Volta Region in Ghana. Development Economics and Policy, 26. Stuttgart: Peter Lang Verlag.

Boadi, R. A., Boateng, R., Hinson, R., & Opoku, R. A. (2007). Preliminary insights into m-commerce adoption in Ghana. Information Development, 23(4), 253-265

Boadi R. A., & Shaik, A. G. (2006). Mcommerce breakthrough in developing countries. The role of m-commerce in wealth creation and economic growth in developing countries. Unpublished Masters thesis, Luleå University of Technology.

Donner, J. (2006). The use of mobile phones by microentrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda: Changes to social and business networks. Information Technologies and International Development, 3(2), 3-19.

Donner, J. (2007). The rules of beeping: Exchanging messages via intentional “missed calls” on mobile phones. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 1. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/donner.html.

Duodu, C. (November 27, 2007). Taxing mobile phone usage will kill romance stone dead! New Times Online. Accessed at http://www.newtimesonline.com/content/view/12637/267/.

Frempong, G. (2004). Restructuring of the telecommunication sector in Ghana: Experiences and policy implications. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, University of Ghana.

James, J., & Versteeg, M.  (2007). Mobile phones in Africa. How much do we really know? Social Indicators Research, 84, 117-126.

Overå, R. (2005). Networks, distance, and trust: Telecommunications development and changing trading practices in Ghana. World Development, 34(7), 1301-1315.

Pelckmans, L. (2009). Phoning anthropologists: the mobile phone’s (re)shaping of anthropological research. In M. de Bruijn, F. Nyamnjoh, & I. Brinkman (Eds.), Mobile phones: The new talking drums of everyday Africa, (pp. 23-49). Langaa RPCIG.

Sey, A. (2008). Mobile communication and development: A study of mobile phone appropriation in Ghana. Unpublished dissertation. University of Southern California.

Slater, D. & Kwami, J. (2005). Embeddedness and escape: Internet and mobile use as poverty reduction strategies in Ghana. ISRG Working Paper, 4. http://civilsociety.developmentgateway.org/uploads/media/civilsociety/internet.pdf.

Struthers-Watson, K. (December 30, 2008). Zain launches 3.5G network in Ghana. Available at http://www.telecommagazine.com/article.asp?HH_ID=AR_4680.

Sutherland, E. (2009). Counting customers, subscribers and mobile phone numbers. info, 11(2), 6-23.

Wireless Federation. (January 29, 2009). MTN Ghana instigates 3.5G technology. Available at http://wirelessfederation.com/news/14217-mtn-ghana-instigates-35g-technology/.

The Economist. (January 25, 2007). Buy, cell, hold. Available at http://www.markdavies.net/press/economist/jan25_07.htm.