a critical opportunity to understand the human effort that constitutes this sociotechnical system, and emerges as a provocative example of an information network that challenges our notions of what the Internet should look like across disparate geographies and sociopolitical terrains.

 

Endnotes

1. Dye, M., Nemer, D., Mangiameli, J., Bruckman, A. S., and Kumar, N. El Paquete Semanal: The Week’s Internet in Havana.

Proc. of CHI ‘ 18.

2. Lee, C. P., Dourish, P., and Mark, G. The human infrastructure of cyberinfrastructure. Proc. of CSCW ’06.

3. Sambasivan, N. and Smyth, T. The human infrastructure of ICTD. Proc. of IC TD ’ 10.

4. All names have been changed for anonymity.

 

Michaelanne Dye is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on social computing, HCI, and development to explore how underrepresented communities adapt social computing technologies to navigate economic and political constraints. → [e-mail]

David Nemer is an assistant professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky. He is an ethnographer who is specifically interested in studying ICTs in less industrialized parts of the world to understand the effects of IC Ts on the development and empowerment of marginalized communities. → [e-mail]

Josiah Mangiameli is an M. S. student studying human-computer interaction in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has experience working with low-resource communities in the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Kosovo. → [e-mail]

Amy Bruckman is professor and associate chair in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on social computing, with interests in online collaboration, social movements, and online moderation. Bruckman received her Ph.D. from the MIT Media Lab in 1997.

Neha Kumar is an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she conducts research at the intersection of human-centered computing and global development. She is committed to fostering a globally inclusive and intersectionally diverse discipline of computing. She is also editor of the Human-Centered Computing across Borders (HCCxB) blog on Medium. → [e-mail]

are continually feeding into a system that remains responsive and adaptive to a variety of use cases.

EP provides an Internet that is both entertaining and informative. Similar to other informal media-sharing networks, like those previously studied in India (among other locations), entertainment is a major driving factor of EP. However, EP also provides users with a variety of additional information needs, such as educational content, and connects individuals with critical resources by facilitating a means to buy, sell, and trade with other people around the city.

We find that EP serves as a relevant, participatory Internet. We see a thriving example of an established, pervasive information network that is locally relevant in terms of content and delivery.

For example, access to the W W W in
Cuba is prohibitively expensive, whereas
EP is affordable for many, especially
with price adjustments for certain
individuals. This network contains
locally sourced content, and consumers
of EP do not engage with content
passively—they also produce content
that finds its way back into the network,
Although there are many perceived
assets to this system, it is not without
its limitations. For example, the
lack of automation may facilitate
personalization, but individuals have to
undertake significant labor to support
the network. Additionally, as with most
sociotechnical systems, there are power
structures at play within EP, as well as
the power structures acting upon it.

A human process of selecting content means that certain individuals decide what others see. The content in EP is also shaped by government regulations (such as no pornography or anti-government commentary). Thus, while EP is relevant and participatory in ways that benefit many Cuban people, it remains subject to the politics of information. It also does not provide people with everything they want from the Internet, like the ability to communicate in real time with individuals outside of Cuba.

Although the Internet in Cuba may appear different from the one we engage with on a regular basis, it’s important to note that the W W W also relies on a human infrastructure. EP provides

 

DOI: 10.1145/3289487 © 2019 ACM 1072-5520/19/01 $15.00

A wall of themed DVDs in an EP store. These are compiled by los paqueteros for customers that do not want to purchase the entire EP.