ABSTRACT
Into the early 1990s, the Brazilian national research network for higher education was limited strictly to use by the research universities. While university research centers worked closely with the state agencies and state-sponsored corporations, they did not attempt to integrate technological developments into widespread access of computers or training in information and communication technologies (ICT) usage for the larger population. Emphasizing complexity and friction in Brazilian ICT diffusion has implications that go beyond the writing of history. It also offers a rejoinder to political economic metanarratives of media globalization that view the development and evolution of an international telecommunications infrastructure through the expanding contours of transnational media ownership. In fact, the center for the democratization of information tendency to stress the importance of teaching vocational skills along with computer skills has caused some controversy with social movement actors who have critiqued the project’s de-emphasis on civic participation and political engagement.
