Communication, Self-Help, and Sourcing the Crowd: Information as Aid and the Haitian Public Sphere

The integration of populations into communication networks has been a priority of the international development community at least since the first UN-mandated World Summit on Information Society held in Geneva in 2003. According to the various WSIS agendas, which rehearse the utopian rhetoric of the digital technology “revolution” termed “Web 2.0,” information society is the key to true democracy, liberation, poverty reduction and the well-being of populations of the global South. This paper argues, taking Haiti as an example, that in the “post-WSIS” environment, the broader development agenda likewise fetishizes information flows, connectedness, and communication, with good communication now touted as the basis for the success of any development aim. In this paper, I assess the implications of the notion that “information is aid” by looking at programs—variously termed “behavior change communications” and “two-way communications”—that seek to craft Haitians as bearers of particular kinds of messages and as subjects fit for participation in a global information society. In “information as aid” discourses, the social body is redefined as a “network,” information is redefined as an exchangeable “good,” and the “beneficiary” is positioned as a node or vector who reproduces the goods created and valorized by international aid organizations. Information as aid projects disseminate messages that range from public health to disaster preparedness, gender based violence to child trafficking. But intrinsic to all these campaigns (and what distinguishes them from public information projects of an earlier era of international development) is the attempt to craft a new kind of Haitian subject, a subject of network or information society, the knowledgeable and rational individual who follows instructions, takes personal responsibility, and discriminates “good” information (truth) from “bad” information (rumor). Looking closely at the rhetoric and visual culture that humanitarian organizations use to advertise call-in helplines, SMS communications platforms, suggestion boxes, and other communications initiatives, ultimately this paper explores how the architects of information as aid in Haiti reimagine local practices and public spaces as networks whose crowds can be “sourced” to disseminate and promote messages and knowledges. Implicit in such projects, I argue, is the effort to contain rather than promote democracy by channeling energies away from collective forms of organizing and towards individualized acts of communication, and by defining communication as civilization, self-help, and an end in itself.