Horns Over Roofs: A Study of Locally Designed Rural Information Dissemination Technology Centres (RIDTCs) in Ghana

The study investigated the emergence and use of a locally designed technological phenomenon - Rural Information Dissemination Technology Centre (RIDTC) - in several communities in Ghana. The goal of the study was to examine the extent to which the technology has been appropriated to bridge community-oriented information dissemination disparity between urban and rural communities. The study was underpinned by Davis's (1989) Technology Acceptance Model and Social Shaping of Technology (SST) theory and was anchored on multiple case study approach using interviews, focus group discussions, and observations as the data collection methods over a 4-month period in 9 communities. The study found that: first the technology is community-engineered and owned, and this sense of communal ownership democratises its use; second, the RIDTC prioritises the immediate  but relevant community information needs and focuses on them as the drivers around which it sources content; third, the perceived usefulness of the RIDTC is dependent on community members' socio-cultural, economic, and political informational needs; fourth, the hubs are utilised by several governmental and non-governmental agencies to address challenges and sensitise rural communities on issues relating to the environment, agriculture and health; and fifth, the managers of RIDTC are very conscious of the rural culture and the communal political system within which the technology is deployed, and have entrusted into the hands of the local traditional leadership or political system - a gatekeeping mechanism for its operation. Finally, the study implicates the communities studied as active social engineers always striving to innovate ways of disseminating information to members in the social system in the face of growing and expanding nature of their societies.