RAW Blog

Between Platform and Pandemic: Migrants in India's Gig Economy
— by Kaarika Das and Srravya C — last modified Dec 06, 2021 04:04 PMIn response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in India, the central government announced a nationwide lockdown in March 2020.
Essays on #List — Selected Abstracts
— by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Sep 03, 2019 01:38 PMIn response to a recent call for essays that social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the #List, we received 11 abstracts. Out of these, we have selected 4 pieces to be published as part of a series titled #List on the r@w blog. Please find below the details of the selected abstracts. The call for essays on #List remains open, and we are accepting and assessing the incoming abstracts on a rolling basis.
Call for Essays — #List
— by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Oct 11, 2019 05:07 PMThe researchers@work programme at CIS invites abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’. We have selected 4 abstracts among those received before August 31, 2019, and are now accepting and evaluating further submissions on a rolling basis.
Welcome to r@w blog!
— by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Jan 02, 2019 11:48 AMWe from the researchers@work programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) are delighted to announce the launch of our new blog, hosted on Medium. It will feature works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media, and society; and highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme.
Essays on 'Offline' - Selected Abstracts
— by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Sep 06, 2018 02:14 PMIn response to a recent call for essays that explore various dimensions of offline lives, we received 22 abstracts. Out of these, we have selected 10 pieces to be published as part of a series titled 'Offline' on the upcoming r@w blog. Please find below the details of the selected abstracts.
Call for Essays: Offline
— by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Aug 20, 2018 06:58 AMWho is offline, and is it a choice? The global project of bringing people online has spurred several commendable initiatives in expanding access to digital devices, networks, and content, and often contentious ones such as Free Basics / internet.org, which illustrate the intersectionalities of scale, privilege, and rights that we need to be mindful of when we imagine the offline. Further, the experience of the internet, for a large section of people is often mediated through prior and ongoing experiences of traditional media, and through cultural metaphors and cognitive frames that transcend more practical registers such as consumption and facilitation. How do we approach, study, and represent this disembodied internet – devoid of its hypertext, platforms, devices, it's nuts and bolts, but still tangible through engagement in myriad, personal and often indiscernible ways. The researchers@work programme invites abstracts for essays that explore dimensions of offline lives.
The Digital Humanities from Father Busa to Edward Snowden
— by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Oct 04, 2017 11:02 AMWhat do Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower behind the NSA surveillance revelations, and Father Roberto Busa, an Italian Jesuit, who worked for almost his entire life on Saint Thomas Aquinas, have in common? The simple answer would be: the computer. Things however are a bit more complex than that, and the reason for choosing these two people to explain what the Digital Humanities are, is that in some sense they represent the origins and the present consequences of a certain way of thinking about computers. This essay by Dr. Domenico Fiormonte, lecturer in the Sociology of Communication and Culture in the Department of Political Sciences at University Roma Tre, was originally published in the Media Development journal.
Tech Anthropology Today: Collaborate, Rather than Fetishize from Afar
— by Geert Lovink and Ramesh Srinivasan — last modified May 16, 2017 02:51 PM"That is why the 'offline' if you will is so critical to understanding the 'online'—because they do not exist in isolation and what we have constructed is an illusory binary between the two." In this interview, Geert Lovink discusses with Ramesh Srinivasan: “how can we embrace the realities of communities too-often relegated to the margins?”
Digital native: Lie Me a River
— by Nishant Shah — last modified Mar 19, 2017 02:47 PMThe sea of social media around us often drowns the truth, exchanging misinformation for facts.
Digital Native: People Like Us
— by Nishant Shah — last modified Dec 18, 2016 02:19 PMHow the algorithm decides what you see on your timeline. If you have been hanging out on social media, there is one thing you can’t have escaped — a filter bubble. Be it demonetisation and its discontents, the fake news stories that seem to have ruined the US election, or the eternal conflict about the nature of Indian politics, your timeline must have been filled largely by people who think like you.
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