Fifteenth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society

Abstract

In his famous book, titled Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Canadian-born philosopher and public intellectual Marshall McLuhan wrote that our global culture is “accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a mean of control,” and “the personal and social consequences of any medium –of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.” McLuhan saw the medium as the message, in operational and practical terms. Drawing from that philosophical stance, this paper shows how the use of calling phone cards in the 1990s and WhatsApp since 2010 by immigrants in North America communities have created new networked communities for small businesses in emerging economies and states immersed in political turmoil. Sample interviews with immigrants and analyses of communication products (a variety of phone cards) from international grocery stores and data from WhatsApp groups show the correlation between financial resources, personal gratification and effective communication. The paper explains the association between fragile states and emerging markets and how phone cards and WhatsApp are not only channels used by immigrants to communicate abroad, but they are mechanisms for brokering hope among marginalized communities. The paper reveals that, although the cost of communicating internationally can have positive and negative effects on community cohesiveness (peaceful coexistence), networked communication processes—from the calling card to WhatsApp—do indeed increase subcultures and create stronger communities among fragile states and emerging markets.