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The article 'The Long-run Poverty and Gender Impacts of Mobile Money' in @sciencemagazine is an excellent example of how prestige academic publishing and the media can manufacture a 'development miracle'—in this case digital financial inclusion for poverty reduction. 1/
The article was officially published on 9 December 2016 (I'm not sure if it was online first earlier) and was quickly picked up by mainstream media around the world, including @nytimes, @washingtonpost, @NPR, and @WSJ, just to name a few. 2/
Most outlets reported on the findings within a month or two, but some—like @voxdotcom and @VOANews—managed to report on the study on 8 December 2016, a day before it was officially published. 3/
The reporting has been generally glowing, accepting the study at face value, and sometimes even quoting the authors at length. Most of the articles uncritically repeat the main claim of the paper—that M-Pesa has lifted 2% of Kenyan households out of poverty. 4/
As such, this claim has become firmly lodged in the popular imagination, and M-Pesa is now associated with poverty reduction above all else. This has even resulted in the @FAO and others asserting that M-Pesa's poverty alleviation is a 'scientific fact'. 5/
It's fascinating, and slightly terrifying, to observe how quickly a questionable piece of research making dramatic assertions can be uncritically disseminated through the media ecosystem—if it is making the right kind of claims that is. 6/
Once something becomes a 'scientific fact' in this way it is very difficult to advance a counter-narrative, as the associations have already been made in the popular imagination. 7/
This is compounded by the fact that mainstream media outlets generally do not seem interested in following up on critiques of the development 'miracles' they help manufacture. 8/
Nevertheless, there is a growing chorus of critical voices questioning the impact of M-Pesa and Fintech. This includes work by Milford Bateman, @Marenduvendack, and myself in in @ROAPEjournal: https://bit.ly/2yWv6AE 9/
As well as a summary of our critique in @CriticalDev: https://bit.ly/2ToX0yC 10/
And, more recently, an excellent piece on digital debt by @kevindonovan and Emma Park in the @BostonReview: https://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-global-justice/kevin-p-donovan-emma-park-perpetual-debt-silicon-savannah 11/
Below is an incomplete list of the mainstream media and popular science outlets that have reported on M-Pesa's poverty reduction 'miracle' in the hopes that some of them will also see fit to report on the counter-narrative. 12/
List 1: @washingtonpost: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/12/22/heres-why-mobile-money-is-dramatically-reducing-poverty-in-kenya/; @WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/mobile-banking-gives-a-big-boost-to-kenyas-poor-1484324293; @nytimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/opinion/in-kenya-phones-replace-bank-tellers.html; @NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/12/09/504540392/dial-m-for-money-can-mobile-banking-lift-people-out-of-poverty; @CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/21/africa/mpesa-10th-anniversary/index.html; @voxdotcom: https://www.vox.com/world/2016/12/8/13875908/kenya-mobile-money-mpesa-poverty 13/
List 2: @Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/m-pesa-mobile-phones-are-transforming-the-lives-of-east-africans-a7590341.html; @cnbcafrica: https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/east-africa/2017/01/04/mpesa-economic-impact-on-kenya/; @DeccanChronicle: https://www.deccanchronicle.com/technology/in-other-news/091216/mobile-money-may-help-lift-people-out-of-poverty-study.html; @VOANews: https://www.voanews.com/africa/thousands-kenyan-single-mothers-widows-use-mobile-money-escape-poverty; @ReutersWorld: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-women-tech-idUSKBN13X2CU; @businessinsider: https://www.businessinsider.com/mpesa-transforming-how-poor-people-use-money-walk-thru-2017-12 14/
List 3: @FortuneMagazine: https://fortune.com/2016/12/10/mobile-banking-poverty-research/; @ConversationUK: http://theconversation.com/study-provides-fresh-insights-into-the-benefits-of-mobile-money-in-kenya-70432; @PopSci: https://www.popsci.com/mobile-money-helped-2-percent-households-in-kenya-rise-out-poverty/; @singularityhub: https://singularityhub.com/2018/05/06/leapfrogging-tech-is-changing-millions-of-lives-heres-how/ 15/
Finally, I will end by saying that this is in no way unique to the global development field. As this piece in @Slate documents, @sciencemagazine is not interested in publishing replications that contradict the findings of previous studies. https://slate.com/technology/2019/06/science-replication-conservatives-liberals-reacting-to-threats.html?fbclid=IwAR0mqmW4PeiSng4xjflq1IK_kwkDTzb4Y7X9tQyFBg0nfownrXinBt1uyEk 16/
It's great to see so much engagement with this thread! Please feel free to comment with links to research critically evaluating the fintech/digital financial inclusion/ICT4D discourses. I'll start with a couple pieces on the Chinese context: https://madeinchinajournal.com/2018/05/17/the-global-age-of-algorithm-social-credit-and-the-financialisation-of-governance-in-china/
So, it seems that some mainstream media outlets are now picking up on the negative aspects of digital financial inclusion in Kenya. I will link to articles as they come out, starting with this one from @BBGAfrica: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/microlending-goes-digital-bringing-debt-stress-to-the-masses-1.1305058
And another piece highlighting some of the negatives by @ErikSherman in @Forbes https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2019/08/29/fintech-poor-low-income/amp/
And here is a piece on mobile credit and surveillance in the Kenyan context by @KerenWeitzberg https://codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/mobile-credit-kenya/
An interesting critical essay on local cryptocurrencies in Kenya. https://twitter.com/aprzhu/status/1281114529850687489
