What does it mean to think about culture and community before one thinks about technology? And how could that paradigm shift allow scholars and professionals to re-imagine solutions that think past net delusions around grassroots political movements, and empower community decision-making in the developing world, indigenous knowledge around climate change or cultural heritage, and communication between states and citizens? This talk takes us to several places where I have focused my fieldwork on technology and culture, and community-driven design, including Egypt's Tahrir Square, the Zuni Nation of New Mexico, the Kyrgyz Steppe, and Rural India. Across these projects, I argue for the power of thinking of both culture and technology as dynamic, and mutually co-constructed, introducing design, fieldwork, and research approaches toward the study of global media and information.