Poglia, Edo Rega, Isabella 2010-02-19 The subject of the study are telecentres, public places where people can access information through ICT, and which should fulfill the communication needs of the communities in which they are located. The central question of this thesis sprang from the study of the available literature and from nine exploratory field studies carried out in West Africa (in Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea and Mali). This thesis aimed at developing a cognitive tool to capture the extra-technological dimensions, which have an impact onto sustainability, studying the awareness and the understanding that different social groups have of telecentres. The social groups taken into consideration are the representatives of the founding organization, local staff, users and non- users of a telecentre. The research was undertaken in South Africa, namely in 4 eGovernment telecentres, called Cape Access Centres, set up by the Western Cape Government in communities throughout the region. This thesis explored the adoption of the theory of social representation and concept mapping techniques in telecentre-related researches and developed a cognitive tool to study and analyze telecentre conceptualizations. This approach brought interesting results in deepening the knowledge the research community has of telecentres. Furthermore, the developed tool is a useful instrument to detect interesting case studies and to assess telecentres effectiveness. application/pdf https://susi.usi.ch/global/documents/318228 https://localhost:5000/ark:/12658/srd1318228 https://susi.usi.ch/documents/318228/files/2010COM001.pdf eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/urn/urn:nbn:ch:rero-006-108933 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/ark/12658/srd1318228 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess License undefined Telecentre ICT4D social representations social meaning South Africa eGovernment information and communication technologies international development info:eu-repo/classification/udc/65 What do local people think about telecentres? A key issue for sustainability http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06