Digital media and development in the Pacific

This special issue introduces six articles that focus on use, potential use, and non-use of several forms of digital media, contextualized within the broader history of the region’s media and communication practices. The digital media infrastructure across the Paciªc Islands has expanded over the past decade through the laying of ªber and undersea cables (Starosielski, 2015), the establishment of mobile phone masts that provide greater network coverage (Horst, 2013), and greater access to DVDs, memory sticks, Bluetooth, and other platforms that enable the circulation of content among people (Starosielski, 2010). This special issue’s attention to digital media and development acknowledges the entanglement of these domains in the region. As becomes evident in all the articles, investing in digital media infrastructures in small islands with small and dispersed populations is often framed as part of a trajectory toward socioeconomic development, whether development encompasses formal development initiatives, policies, regulations, or practices of individuals and communities and their relationships to tradition and change.