Power Balance

The proliferation of cellphones also allows the public greater leverage against abusive authority by providing damning evidence that sways public opinion.

Freedom of information

Cellphones allow pictures, audio, text, and video to be sent nearly instantly from the scene of an event to friends, family, an Internet site, national or international news media. The ease of information flow via cellphone is problematic for totalitarian regimes, where control of information is important to maintaining power. Similarly, cellphone reporting from war zones - bypassing official reports and embedded reporters - can reshape public opinion and influence policy.

 

Cell phones in the developing world

•  Cellphone subscriptions jumped 67% south of the Sahara in 2004, and only 10% in cellphone-saturated Western Europe, indicating large demand for the technology.
• Cellphones, unlike land lines, don't require a fixed address or costly installation of phone lines, or maintenance of those phone lines.
  
• Mobile banking is helping economies develop in countries with little or no infrastructure
• Cellphones also help bring stories to news media in developing nations www.saharareporters.com

Ubiquitous

Small, affordable and easy to use.

Cell phones have revolutionized how information is disseminated, especially in developing nations.

African nations, for example, have fast-growing and highly competitive cell phone markets even though only 60% of people living in (most) African nations are within reach of a signal. 

Computers are still too large, complicated and expensive to proliferate in the same way that cell phones have - the  information revolution is hand-held for the global south.

Repressive regimes have found the cell phone to be problematic, their control of information is far less complete when access to the outside world is so readily available. Thus, some nations - like North Korea - instituted cell phone bans in an effort to rescrict information flow, proving that the technology is threatenting to 

Military operations conducted by first world nations have also come under the scrutiny of the cell phone, with video and audio being leaked from war zones telling a different tale than the embedded reporters.

For the developed world, the proliferation of the cell phone has changed the balance of power in domestic reporting as well. When everyone has immediate access to a recording device the way news stories are told changes dramatically.