Information technologies and sustainable rural development

Abstract

This article proposes a theoretical investigation of sustainable rural development fostering possibilities by strengthening the communication means, instruments and strategies, as well as the inclusion of the communication culture in the established processes between institutions that promote rural public policy and family farmers. The text also discusses the strategic possibility addition of information technologies, especially mobile telephony, to reinvigorate social coordination processes in rural areas, in order to revitalize community participation in rural sustainable development processes. This investigation chooses as objects an empirical reality and a specific theme to produce new knowledge on the phenomenon at hand and contribute to the theoretical and academic debate. We conclude that sustainable rural development must be linked to social management: synonym for participative management, whose actors, involved in a network, dialogically discuss their projects and define their common goals, leading to convictions and problem solutions. The materialization of this awareness happens through communication input, with information technologies as the tools to achieve it.