Analysing a national information strategy: a critical approach

The development of ICT policies within developing countries in the past ten years has opened up a new area for study. These documents chart the ambitions of the countries for the use of ICT to promote rapid development. As such they are intercultural documents, developing at the interface between the culture of the country and western economic culture. This paper develops a critical approach to understanding these documents and studying their message. The approach involves the preparation of a critical dictionary which identifies relevant terms within the ICT policy document and reflects on their multiple meanings. The approach was applied to an Egyptian ICT policy document, Building digital bridges. A dictionary of 37 entries was developed. The dictionary, presented in full in an appendix, was used to identify critical themes in the document.