Norbert Wildermuth

Imagined Futures, Present Lives: Youth, Media and Modernity in the Changing Economy of Northeast Brazil

The article is focused thematically on the uses and meanings of media for (some) young people in Recife, a million-inhabitant city in the northeast of Brazil. The article brings together the perspective of Anne Line Dalsgaard, a long-term anthropological field researcher who is familiar with the everyday lives and social conditions for growing up in Recife, and the findings of a short-term, interview- and observation-based media ethnographic study, conducted by Norbert Wildermuth. The concept of imagination as potentially both an enabling and a limiting practice in the consumption of media is discussed centrally in this attempt to contribute to an empirically grounded understanding of the role that media play for youth in their striving to ‘find a place in life’. In the empirical context presented in the article, imaginations, expanded and circulated by a globalized media circuit, are appropriated and interpreted locally and under particular socio-economic conditions.

Between Hopeful Intentions and Disenchanting Constraints: Lessons Learned in Bhutan’s Nationwide E-Governance Initiative

The chapter provides a critical theory- and evidence-based perspective on the ongoing conceptualisation and implementation of the Bhutanese government-to-citizen (G2C) e-governance platform, which has been a flagship initiative of recent years. Centrality has been assigned to e-governance policies in the envisioned socio-political transition and ongoing strive for democracy, good governance and devolution since 2008. The contribution offers a critical assessment of prospects for a future qualitative expansion of the G2C initiative into a full-fledged, web-based communicative infrastructure for state-citizen interaction, premised on the overriding development philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH). Theoretically, the study conceptualises and examines e-governance as a more complex and dynamic process, providing a space for and enhancing interactions between various agents in democratic governance, i.e. citizens/consumers, civil society, the private sector, state authorities and the polity, both on a national and international level. Developing and applying various methodological approaches (spanning quantitative and qualitative traditions) and informed by complementary theoretical perspectives (user, design and institution centred), the authors sought to build on the interdisciplinary character of its scholar participants, to encourage a transgression of disciplinary tunnel visions and the development of broadly accepted and conceivable concepts.