Role of Participatory Digital Media in rural women's Agricultural Development in Southern Africa: A case study of Zambia.
Women in Zambia play a critical role in agriculture, contributing to food production and household
incomes. However, they face challenges in obtaining resources, information, and agricultural extension
services, as well as decision-making processes, limiting their potential for agricultural development.
Traditional communication strategies sometimes fail to adequately engage women. With the
advancement of digital technologies, participatory digital media offers a possibility to close these gaps.
This study aims to investigate how digital tools like smartphones and the internet may be used to offer
learning resources, increase engagement, and enable women to participate actively in decision-making
while attaining the digital inclusion in agricultural development. This will be a qualitative research study
based on in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation,
conducted through a participatory digital media project involving rural women. The theory underpinning
this study is Amartya Sen's capability Approach, which has emerged as a comprehensive lens for
conceptualizing development in ICT4D. The research will add to the growing body of knowledge on
gender and development, with a particular emphasis on the convergence between digital media and
women's empowerment in agriculture. Additionally, the study explores how participatory
communication concepts might be integrated into the use of digital media in women's empowerment
projects and therefore, it will contribute to a critical theory and practice of ICT4D that allows
disadvantaged people to use ICTs to better their lives. Ultimately the study will propose a digital mediacommunication framework for improving the engagement of Southern African women involved in
agriculture, in utilising digital information.