Call for Researchers: Research project on the lived cost of communications
Research project on the lived cost of communications – Terms of Reference
The Right2Know Campaign and the Media Policy and Democracy Project (MPDP, a joint initiative of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University and the Department of Communication Science) have partnered to undertake research on the lived cost of communications in South Africa.
R2K believes that the right to know will remain incomplete if our struggle is limited to securing access to information alone. We are committed to ensuring that information flows across society and that information forms the basis of a social dialogue that deepens our democracy and advances social, economic, and environmental justice. Our right to communicate – to receive and impart information and opinions – is central to our right to know.
It was in this context that in 2013, with the support of the Heinrich Boll Stiftung, we launched our Vula ‘ma Connexion (open the connections) campaign for safe, quality and affordable access to communications. The high cost of communication is an issue burning in people’s hearts and pockets, and in a short space of time we have established R2K as a critical voice on the right to communicate.
The campaign wishes to commission a research project on the ‘lived cost of communications’: that is, a qualitative study on the how people experience the cost of communications, the trade-offs they make in their lives to afford communications and the impact on their ability to afford the cost of living generally. We’d also like the study to include quality issues as well, whether people feel they are getting ‘value for money’ in terms of the quality of the service.
Since the reduction of mobile termination rates in 2010, the major cellphone networks MTN and Vodacom have argued that they have reduced their voice and data prices to make services more affordable. Cell C and Telkom Mobile have also brought down prices in an attempt to offer more competitive rates. Yet many, if not most, R2K members argue that these reductions have made little impact on their ability to afford the services, and they are probably not alone in feeling this. The disparity between what the cellphone networks claim they have done and what their users, especially poor users, experience, is something that needs more careful attention.
R2K faces a challenge of being drawn into very technical debates (that we lack the expertise to argue) or debates on pricing and cost (that we lack the access to information to win). While we aim to quantify the industry’s profiteering, there are signs that the public is still paying too much money for services.
Without prescribing the outcome of the research (which would make research redundant anyway), the purpose of this research is to give the problem a human face by putting the focus on the real cost to real people. It should do this by capturing the experiences of users with regards to the affordability of cellphone usage, to establish just how affordable these services actually are, and how cost impacts on the ability of users to maximize the potential of cellphones and information and communicative tools.
Often when pricing studies are undertaken, they are quantitative in nature, and focus on the price of particular services relative to household income or the income per capita of a particular country. As they generalize findings across a large sample, quantitative studies often tell us little about the everyday trade-offs people make to afford the service: using grocery money or school fees, for instance, to buy airtime in the hope that a call may land them a job or bursary. As a result, surveys that record cellphone spend may give a false sense of affordability by over-estimating the extent of disposable income.
In an attempt to correct these biases in understanding, R2K would like to see qualitative research, especially research using an ethnographic approach, being undertaken. The research will be presented at a Right2Communicate conference, to be convened by R2K, in October 2014. It will also be used to inform the organization’s submissions to the communications regulator, Icasa, and the Department of Communications’s ICT Policy Review.
The budget for the research project is R60,000.00, including all research and travel expenses. R2K has a presence in four provinces: Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu/ Natal, and while it is not expected that the researcher will confine the project to R2K members, as this could be problematic methodologically, it is hoped that the research will focus on at least two poor communities where R2K has a presence.
Research design proposals are invited for this project, and should be submitted to Jane Duncan from R2K/ MPDP at jane.duncan3@gmail.com and John Haffner, convener, telecommunications working group, R2K, at jharveyhaff@gmail.com. The deadline for research proposals is 9th June 2014, the deadline for the first draft is the 11th September and the deadline for the final draft is 30th September.
