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Labouring (on) the app: agency and organisation of work in the platform economy
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/taylor-and-francis-gender-and-development-volume-30-2022-ambika-tandon-and-abhishek-sekharan-labouring-on-the-app-agency-and-organisation-of-work-in-the-platform-economy
<b>Ambika Tandon and Abhishek Sekharan published an academic paper highlighting the importance of women’s networks of information sharing and care in navigating opaque platform design. The paper is part of an issue of Gender and Development on ‘Women, Work and the Digital Economy’. Gender and Development is one of the few academic journals that priorities practitioners' experiences over theoretical contributions.
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<h2>Abstract</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Women have a long history of organising in the informal economy, despite facing several challenges around geographical dispersion, time poverty, and lack of recognition. These challenges persist in the platform economy which pose similar concerns around precarious irregular work. Recent literature has documented the adoption of traditional and novel strategies to resist platform exploitation, through algorithmic manipulation, public demonstrations and logout strikes, and legal action. This paper explores the gendered realities that shape workers’ organising strategies and demands.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Using protests organised by women beauty workers in India as a case study, we discuss the factors underlying and leading to collectivisation. We find that women’s networks of information sharing and care are instrumental in navigating opaque and inefficient algorithms that fail to determine fully the organisation of work. We further examine the role of informal networks of information sharing in building workers’ identities which are instrumental in collective organising. Finally, we discuss the strategies and forms of organising adopted by women workers in this sector, which resonate with the rich history of organising in the informal economy.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to access <span class="authors" style="text-align: left; ">Ambika Tandon & Abhishek Sekharan</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span>2022 <span class="art_title" style="text-align: left; ">Labouring (on) the app: agency and organisation of work in the platform economy,</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span><span class="serial_title" style="text-align: left; ">Gender & Development,</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span><span class="volume_issue" style="text-align: left; ">30:3,</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span><span class="page_range" style="text-align: left; ">687-706,</span><span style="text-align: left; float: none; "><span> </span></span><span class="doi_link" style="text-align: left; ">DOI:<span> </span><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515">10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515</a>.</span> Full <a class="external-link" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13552074.2022.2130515?journalCode=cgde20">article here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/taylor-and-francis-gender-and-development-volume-30-2022-ambika-tandon-and-abhishek-sekharan-labouring-on-the-app-agency-and-organisation-of-work-in-the-platform-economy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/taylor-and-francis-gender-and-development-volume-30-2022-ambika-tandon-and-abhishek-sekharan-labouring-on-the-app-agency-and-organisation-of-work-in-the-platform-economy</a>
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No publisherAmbika Tandon and Abhishek SekharanRAW ResearchLabour FuturesRAW PublicationsResearchers at Work2023-07-04T06:28:57ZBlog EntryMetaphors of Work, from ‘Below’
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below
<b>Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon authored a chapter that describes platforms as more than technological interfaces. The chapter invokes some of the metaphors that gig workers use to make sense of platforms. This chapter was part of an edited volume published by Springer. This chapter forms part of the ‘Labour Futures’ research project, hosted at the Centre for Internet and Society, India, and supported by the Internet Society Foundation. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Various disciplines have produced literature on digital platforms—broadly categorised as technological interfaces enabling the exchange of goods and services — with little consensus on what platforms are and how they impact economic and labour systems. Features that are commonly associated with platforms include their role in increasing efficiency in supply chains, their deployment of cutting-edge technology, and their ability to ‘disrupt’ existing modes of provision of services and goods (Jarrahi & Sutherland, 2019). The use of metaphors and carefully curated taxonomy has been crucial in cementing this idea of the digital platform as a technological layer objectively matching supply and demand (Gillespie, 2017). This chapter seeks to document and understand how workers experience different types of digital platforms, and how workers’ imaginaries of platforms differ from popular and academic conceptions.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-11462-5_8">Click to read more</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/springer-platformization-and-informality-chapter-metaphors-of-work-from-below</a>
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No publisherAayush Rathi and Ambika TandonLabour FuturesRAW BlogResearchRAW PublicationsRAW ResearchResearchers at Work2023-07-03T12:29:29ZBlog EntryTo be Counted When They Count You: Words of Caution for the Gender Data Revolution
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/to-be-counted-when-they-count-you-words-of-caution-for-the-gender-data-revolution
<b>In 2015, after the announcement of the SDGs or Sustainable Development Goals, a new global developmental framework through the year 2030, the United Nations described data as the “lifeblood of decision-making and the raw material for accountability” for the purpose of realizing these developmental goals. This curious yet key link between these new developmental goals and the use of quantitative data for agenda setting invited a flurry of big data-led initiatives such as but not limited to Data2X, that sought to further strengthen and solidify the relationship between ‘Big Development’ and ‘Big Data.’</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One of those SDG goals (Goal 5) prioritizes gender equality and empowerment of women and girls not only as a standalone goal but also as a crucial factor to realizing the other goals. In response, several academic and non-profit initiatives have begun to interpret and conduct data-led gendered development or the “gender data revolution”. As with other data discourses, the gender-data discourse is also one of ‘speed’, charging ahead using a variety of quantitative and visualization approaches to reveal and eventually solve gendered problems of development.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These interventions also invite some classical critical questions: who is setting the agenda for the gender data revolution and who are its imagined subjects? How are questions of participation and asymmetries of power in developmental research being addressed? How does the gender data revolution address the situatedness as well as incompleteness of data records in the Global South (where most sites of intervention are)? Speaking specifically to the theme of this special issue (‘cross-cultural feminist technologies’), this paper demonstrates how the welfarist discourse of data-led gender development is, in fact, assembled through the overwhelming enumeration of female-identifying bodies in the Global South.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The paper offers critical historical insights from the fields of international development, anthropology, and postcolonial history to caution against both, the possible harms of gender disaggregated datafication as well as the consequences of non-participatory datafication of women, the subjects of the gender data revolution.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Read the full paper <strong><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/to-be-counted-when-they-count-you.pdf" class="internal-link">here</a></strong>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This study was undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development network supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada, and is shared under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="discreet">The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of their individual authors. Unless the opposite is explicitly stated, or unless the opposite may be reasonably inferred, CIS does not subscribe to these views and opinions which belong to their individual authors. CIS does not accept any responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the views and opinions of these individual authors. For an official statement from CIS on a particular issue, please contact us directly.</span></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/to-be-counted-when-they-count-you-words-of-caution-for-the-gender-data-revolution'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/to-be-counted-when-they-count-you-words-of-caution-for-the-gender-data-revolution</a>
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No publishernoopurRAW PublicationsBig DataResearchers at WorkBD4DRAW ResearchBig Data for Development2022-02-01T01:06:08ZBlog EntryAtmanirbhar Bharat Meets Digital India: An Evaluation of COVID-19 Relief for Migrants
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants
<b>With the onset of the national lockdown on 24th March 2020 in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the fate of millions of migrant workers was left uncertain. In addition, lack of enumeration and registration of migrant workers became a major obstacle for all State Governments and the Central Government to channelize relief and welfare measures.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A majority of workers were dependent on relief provided by NGOs, Civil Society Organizations and individuals or credit via kinship networks. With mounting domestic and international pressures, various relief and welfare schemes were rolled out but they were too little, too late and more often than not characterised by poor implementation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The aim of this report is to qualitatively assess health conditions of migrant workers and access to welfare during the first COVID-19 lockdown. The primary focus is on the host states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Haryana. 20 in-depth interviews were conducted remotely with migrant workers working in various sectors. Their access to welfare schemes of the Central Government as well as of their host states was ascertained. Emphasis was also laid on their access to healthcare facilities in relation to COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 ailments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The findings of the report showcase a dismal state of affairs. No one in our sample group received any kind of dry ration or cooked food in a sustained manner and, in the rare occasions when they did, it was woefully inadequate. Of the three states considered, we found that relief distribution was the best in Tamil Nadu followed by Maharashtra and then Haryana. Even the Direct Cash Transfer Scheme of the Central Government under ‘<i>Atmanirbhar Bharat</i>’ did not reach the migrant workers. Moreover, the migrant workers were apprehensive to report any COVID-19 related symptom due to the draconian treatment that followed therein and the crumbling healthcare sector made it impossible to avail facilities in non-COVID-19 related issues. Lastly, a case has been made for the creation of bottom-level infrastructures to further dialogue between various stakeholders, including associations of migrant workers, for the implementation of schemes and policies which can consolidate migrant workers as a relevant political subject. As migrant workers reel from the impact of the second wave, pushing for on-ground infrastructure and supporting community-based organisations becomes even more urgent.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf">Click here to read the report</a> authored by Ankan Barman and edited by Ayush Rathi. [PDF, 882 kb]</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/migrant-workers-solidarity-network-and-cis-ankan-barman-atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india-an-evaluation-of-covid-19-relief-for-migrants</a>
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No publisherankanRAW PublicationsResearchers at WorkCovid19FeaturedLabour FuturesAadhaarHomepage2021-06-03T12:53:57ZBlog EntryAtmanirbhar Bharat Meets Digital India
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/files/atmanirbhar-bharat-meets-digital-india.pdf</a>
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No publisherankanRAW ResearchRAW PublicationsResearchers at Work2021-06-03T12:32:47ZFileSilicon Plateau: Volume Two
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two
<b>Silicon Plateau is an art project and publishing series that explores the intersection of technology, culture and society in the Indian city of Bangalore. Each volume of the series is a themed repository for research, artworks, essays and interviews that observe the ways technology permeates the urban environment and the lives of its inhabitants. This project is an attempt at creating collaborative research into art and technology, beginning by inviting an interdisciplinary group of contributors (from artists, designers and writers, to researchers, anthropologists and entrepreneurs) to participate in the making of each volume.</b>
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<h4>Download the book: <a href="https://files.cargocollective.com/c221119/SiliconPlateau_VolumeTwo.epub">Epub</a> and <a href="https://files.cargocollective.com/c221119/SiliconPlateau_VolumeTwo.pdf">PDF</a></h4>
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<p><em>Silicon Plateau Volume 2</em> explores the ecosystem of mobile apps and their on-demand services. The book investigates how apps and their infrastructure are impacting our relationship with the urban environment; the way we relate and communicate with each other; and the way labour is changing. It also explores our trust in these technologies, and their supposed capacity to organise things for us and make them straightforward—while, in exchange, we relentlessly feed global corporations with our GPS data and online behaviours.</p>
<p>The sixteen book contributors responded to a main question: what does it mean to be an app user today—as a worker, a client, or simply an observer?</p>
<p>The result is a collection of stories about contemporary life in Bangalore; of conversations and deliberations on how we behave, what we sense, and what we might think about when we use the services that are offered to us on demand, through just a tap on our mobile screens.</p>
<p>Website: <a href="https://siliconplateau.info/" target="_blank">siliconplateau.info</a></p>
<h4>Contributors</h4>
<p>Sunil Abraham and Aasavri Rai, Yogesh Barve, Deepa Bhasthi, Carla Duffett, Furqan Jawed, Vir Kashyap, Saudha Kasim, Qusai Kathawala, Clay Kelton, Tara Kelton, Mathangi Krishnamurthy, Sruthi Krishnan, Vandana Menon, Lucy Pawlak, Nicole Rigillo, Yashas Shetty, Mariam Suhail</p>
<h4>Editors</h4>
<p>Marialaura Ghidini and Tara Kelton</p>
<h4>Publisher</h4>
<p>Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, India, 2018. ISBN: 978-94-92302-29-8</p>
<h4>Book and Cover Design</h4>
<p>Furqan Jawed and Tara Kelton</p>
<h4>Copyediting</h4>
<p>Aditya Pandya</p>
<h4>Supported by</h4>
<p>Jitu Pasricha, Bangalore; Aarti Sonawala, Singapore; and the Centre for Internet and Society, India.</p>
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<p>Cross-posted from <a href="https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/silicon-plateau-volume-two/" target="_blank">Institute of Network Cultures</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-volume-two</a>
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No publishersneha-ppSilicon PlateauRAW PublicationsWeb CulturesFeaturedPublicationsResearchers at Work2019-03-13T01:01:27ZBlog EntryDigital transitions in the newsroom: How are Indian language papers adapting differently?
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/london-school-of-economics-and-political-science-january-16-2017-digital-transitions-in-the-newsroom-how-are-indian-language-papers-adapting-differently
<b>In a new report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Centre for Internet and Society, Zeenab Aneez explores how Indian newsrooms are adapting their workflow and processes to cater to an increasing digital audience and the implications these changes have on how journalists produce news. </b>
<p>This was published on the website of the <a class="external-link" href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2017/01/16/digital-transitions-in-the-newsroom-how-are-indian-language-papers-adapting-differently/">London School of Economics and Political Science</a> on January 16, 2017.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Global discussions about how the rise of the Internet has impacted journalism and news publishers has involved accounts of newspapers stopping publication altogether, or bringing their presses to a halt in order to direct resources to publishing solely digital content as in the case of Newsweek or the Independent. Large newspapers like The New York Times and The Guardian have successfully managed to transition from print only publications to multimedia news providers, bringing out both print and digital news but this is an ongoing and costly process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the Indian context however, things are a bit different, especially with regard to Indian language newspapers whose print business remains profitable, which positively impacts the dynamics of this transition. For our report, we interviewed over 30 senior editors, managers and rank-and-file journalists of three newsrooms – <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/">Hindustan Times</a>, <a href="http://www.jagran.com/">Dainik Jagran</a> and <a href="http://www.manoramaonline.com/">Malayala Manorama</a> – to understand how large Indian newspapers are reorganising themselves to cater to the demands of the digital space.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It has always been known than the print industry in India is still growing and we found that this leaves big Indian newspapers in a more comfortable position when it comes to investing in digital operations. Contrary to our assumptions, we discovered that these newspapers are taking aggressive steps to capture India’s growing digital audience and while Hindustan Times’ transition is very similar to English-language newspapers abroad, both Malayala Manorama and Dainik Jagran have adopted approaches that are specific to their niche audience and their position as market leaders.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Expansion rather than transition</b></h4>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In contrast to the Hindustan Times, which has reorganised and equipped its existing print newsroom to do print as well as digital and mobile journalism, both the Indian language newspapers have focused on launching digital operations that run parallel to the print newspaper organisation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This involved creating new brands (<a href="http://www.jagran.com/">Jagran Online</a>, <a href="http://www.jagranjosh.com/">Jagran Josh</a>, <a href="http://www.manoramaonline.com/">Manorama Online</a>), opening up new offices and hiring new personnel geared towards putting purely digital media products, that are not limited to news.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sukirti Gupta, <a href="http://www.mmionline.in/">CEO of MMI Online</a> explains, “When we started thinking of our digital strategy, we were not looking so much at news but asking if there are new areas of growth as a media company and content was the first thing that seemed exciting for us. We looked at two genres that we thought would be great – health and education.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jagran Online includes ten websites covering news, health, entertainments, blogging and classifieds. Manorama Online lists fifteen websites as part of their operations, of which about ten are news, feature or content websites while the rest include a matrimonial site, classifieds and portals for real estate listings and doctor’s appointments.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Changing rhythms in the newsroom</b></h4>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The production and distribution of digital news content for Malayala Manorama and Dainik Jagran is handled primarily by their respective digital counterparts from a separate newsroom. In adopting this approach, both newspapers have partially shielded their traditional newsrooms from the difficulties that arise when moving from a print to a digital newsrooms. At the same time Manorama Online and MMI Online, which operate as start-ups within these incumbent organisations, partially avoid the inertia that comes from their established organisational and professional cultures. Although print reporters are not directly involved with the digital publication, they continue to be the primary source of news for the website and mobile applications and have to adapt their workflow according to the demands of the online space.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This means that breaking news, a prominent feature of online news, has been made a priority for all reporters. “The journalism remains the same,” says Santosh Jacob George, Editor, Manorama Online, “the only difference is that we have to break the news ourselves while print has the whole day to produce the story. We’ve requested our print reporters to file first for online, either directly into the CMS or via WhatsApp.” At Dainik Jagran, Digital Editor Shekhar Tripathi, has the right to ask a reporter to file the story immediately for the website. “First our policy was print but now online is our first priority, but not at the cost of print. If a story breaks at 8 am, it first comes to me on WhatsApp. If I’m interested, I ask the reporter for more details and then to file the story. Our print reporters have gotten into the habit of filing stories online, they give us the facts first and add perspective later,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This change in rhythm has not come easily to the print newsrooms which are accustomed to filing stories towards an evening deadline but efforts by management are towards promoting a systematic collaboration between the print and online desks. Dainik Jagran’s Chief Editor has made digital a part of every journalist’s Key Result Area (KRA). “So it’s not just the digital team’s responsibility but now everyone has it in his list of duties and responsibilities to support digital,” explains Gupta. At Malayala Manorama, a clear set of guidelines to streamline workflow were introduced; ‘They called in senior people from print to have detailed discussions on this and our senior editors also visited individual bureaus and spoke to reporters there,’ informs an associate content producer, recalling efforts to sensitise print journalists to the demands of digital news.</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify; "><b>Emergence of new forms of newswork</b></h4>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Apart from the changes in workflow, the medium demands the use of various new tools and methods to gather, publish and distribute news. This has resulted in the emergence of new kinds of newswork performed by a new category of news workers. At the Hindustan Times newsroom, this work is performed by journalists who work on the online and audience engagement desks while at Dainik Jagran and Malayala Manorama, it is carried out by ‘content producers’ of the digital newsrooms. Although writers and editors for Manorama Online are journalism graduates who have also undergone journalism training specific to MM’s writing styles and journalistic values, they are designated as ‘content producers’ to differentiate their role from that of print journalists. At MMI Online, content producers do not necessarily possess prior journalistic experience, but have experience in web content production.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These content producers are social media savvy, have an eye for trending topics, are acutely aware of their competition and feel directly responsible for performance of their stories and subsequently, revenue. “We have to be very quick and prepare keyword-stuffed, trending news in a matter of minutes. It’s a race not just to get clicks but to retain the audience,” informs a junior content producer at Jagran Josh. “In print, your job [is], you write your story and you are done. With online we are more responsible for the outcomes. A well-researched story may not garner too many views so we have the option and the responsibility to package and redistribute the story until it finds the audience,” explains a senior content producer at Manorama Online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Aside from these key observations, our interviews revealed the increased use of audience analytics combined with the introduction of new applications like <a href="https://chartbeat.com/">Chartbeat</a> and <a href="http://www.parsely.com/">Parse.ly</a> that analyse performance of stories and aid in editorial decision making, the increased use of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter as a source of news and distribution, experiments with new forms of storytelling, especially with the use of mobile phones and a renewed focus on hyperlocal news especially in the case of Indian-language publications.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our findings, which are limited to observations of what changes are taking place within newsrooms and how this is impacting journalists, open up several questions about the current state of journalism in India, the increasing interdependence on social media platforms, especially Facebook, the use of external software to make editorial decisions, the evolving role of journalists in digital newsrooms and finally, the question of developing a sustainable business model for news on the web.</p>
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<p><i>This article is based on a report co-authored by Zeenab Aneez, Sumandro Chattapadhyay from the Centre for Internet and Society, Vibodh Parthasarathi of the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, Jamia Milia Islamia and Rasmus Kleis Nielson of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. The open access report can be read and downloaded on the Reuters Institute website </i><a href="http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/publication/indian-newspapers-digital-transition">here</a><i>. <br /></i></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/london-school-of-economics-and-political-science-january-16-2017-digital-transitions-in-the-newsroom-how-are-indian-language-papers-adapting-differently'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/london-school-of-economics-and-political-science-january-16-2017-digital-transitions-in-the-newsroom-how-are-indian-language-papers-adapting-differently</a>
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No publisherzeenabRAW ResearchRAW PublicationsResearchers at WorkResearch2017-02-03T01:50:20ZBlog EntryIndian Newspapers' Digital Transition
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-newspapers-digital-transition
<b>This report examines the digital transition underway at three leading newspapers in India, the Dainik Jagran in Hindi, English-language Hindustan Times, and Malayala Manorama in Malayalam. Our focus is on how they are changing their newsroom organisation and journalistic work to expand their digital presence and adapt to a changing media environment. The report comes out of a collaboration between the CIS and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, and was supported by the latter. The research was undertaken by Zeenab Aneez, with contributions from Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Vibodh Parthasarathi, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</b>
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<h4>Download: <a href="http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Indian%20Newspapers%27%20Digital%20Transition.pdf">PDF</a>.</h4>
<p>Cross-posted from the <a href="http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/publication/indian-newspapers-digital-transition">Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism</a> (December 08, 2016).</p>
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<h2>Executive Summary</h2>
<p>This report examines the digital transition underway at three leading newspapers in India, the <em>Dainik Jagran</em> in Hindi, English-language <em>Hindustan Times</em>, and <em>Malayala Manorama</em> in Malayalam. Our focus is on how they are changing their newsroom organisation and journalistic work to expand their digital presence and adapt to a changing media environment.</p>
<p>The background for the report is the rapid and continued growth in digital media use in India. Especially since 2010, internet use has grown at an explosive pace, driven by the spread of mobile web access, also outside large urban areas and the more affluent and highly educated English-language minority that have historically represented a large part of India’s internet users. Some analysts estimate more than 30% of Indians had some form of internet access by the end of 2015 (IAMAI-IMRB, 2015). With this growth has come a perceptible shift of audience attention and advertising investment away from legacy media like print and television and towards digital media. This shift has been accompanied by the launch of a number of new digital media start-ups in India and, especially, the growing role of large international technology companies investing in the Indian market.</p>
<p>These developments present Indian newspapers with new challenges and opportunities. Print circulation and advertising is still growing in India, but more slowly than in the past, and especially the English-language market
seems saturated and ripe for the shift towards digital media that has happened elsewhere. From 2014 to 2015, the Indian advertising market grew by 13%. Print grew 8%, but English-language newspaper advertising only half of that. Digital advertising, in contrast, grew by 38%, and is projected to continue to grow for years to come as digital media become more central to India’s overall media environment (KPMG-FICCI, 2016).</p>
<p>If they want to secure their long-term future and continued editorial and commercial success, Indian newspapers have to adapt to these changes. The three case studies in this report represent three different examples of how major newspapers are navigating this transition.</p>
<p>Based on over 30 interviews conducted with senior management, editors, and rank-and-file reporters from three major newspapers, as well as other senior journalists and researchers who have wider experience in the Indian
news industry, plus secondary sources including industry reports and academic research, we show the following.</p>
<ul><li>All three newspapers are proactively investing in digital media technology and expertise, and adapting their editorial priorities, parts of their daily workflow, distribution strategies, and business model to the
rise of digital media. Tools like Chartbeat are now commonplace; search engine optimisation, social media optimisation, and audience analytics are part of everyday work; and some are experimenting with new
formats (<em>Hindustan Times</em> was a launch partner for Facebook Instant Articles; <em>Manorama Online</em> has produced both Virtual Reality and 360 videos, an Apple watch app, and is on Amazon Echo).<br /><br /></li>
<li>Given that the print newspaper industry is still growing in India, especially in Indian-language markets, these newspapers are innovating from a position of relative strength in comparison to their North American and European counterparts. However, this is done with the awareness that that print is becoming a relatively less important part of the Indian media environment, and digital media more important. Short-term, reach and profits come from print, but longer term, all have to build a strong digital presence to succeed editorially and commercially.<br /><br /></li>
<li>All three newspapers aim to do this by building on the assets they have as legacy media organisations, and trying to leverage their brand reputation, audience reach, and editorial resources to maintain an edge over digital news start-ups and international news providers. Their legacy, however, offers not only assets, but also liabilities. As successful incumbents, all of them struggle with the inertia that comes from established organisational structures and professional cultures. To change their organisation and culture, and thus more effectively combine new technologies and skills with existing core competences, each newspaper is not only investing in digital media and personnel, but also trying to change at least parts of the existing newspaper to adapt to an increasingly digital media environment.<br /><br /></li>
<li>They do this in different ways. At <em>Dainik Jagran</em> and <em>Malayala Manorama</em>, the focus has been on building up separate digital operations at Jagran.com and Manorama Online, apart from the printed newspaper itself. At the <em>Hindustan Times</em>, in contrast, the aim has been to integrate print and digital in a joint operation working across platforms and channels. <em>Dainik Jagran</em> and <em>Malayala Manoroma</em> have thus focused mostly on building up new digital assets, whereas the <em>Hindustan Times</em> has been transforming existing assets to work across platforms. At <em>Dainik Jagran</em> and <em>Malayala Manorama</em>, much of the push for change has come from management, whereas there has been a stronger editorial involvement at the <em>Hindustan Times</em>, and a greater attempt to engage rank-and-file reporters through training sessions and other initiative designed to demonstrate not only the commercial importance, but also the editorial potential, of digital media.<br /><br /></li>
<li>All three newspapers have found that expanding their digital operations requires investment of money in new technologies and in staff with new skills. But it is also clear that this is not enough. Investment in technology has to be accompanied by a change in organisation and culture to effectively leverage existing assets in a digital media environment. In their attempts to do this, the most significant barriers have been a perceived cultural hierarchy, deeply ingrained especially in the newsroom, that print journalism is somehow inherently superior to
digital journalism, and a lack of effective synergy between editorial leaders and managers, often combined with a lack of technical know-how. Money can buy new tools and bring in new expertise, but it cannot on its own change culture, ensure synergy, or align the organisation with new priorities. This requires leadership and broad-based change. Long-term, senior editors, management, and rank-and-file reporters will have to work and change together to secure Indian newspapers’ role in an increasingly digital media environment.</li></ul>
<p>Digital media thus present Indian newspapers with challenges and opportunities similar to those newspapers have faced elsewhere. Only they face these from a position of greater strength, because of the continued growth in their print business, and with the benefit of having seen how things have developed in more technologically developed markets. We hope this report will help them navigate the digital transition ahead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-newspapers-digital-transition'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/indian-newspapers-digital-transition</a>
</p>
No publisherzeenabDigital NewsRAW PublicationsResearchers at WorkResearchDigital MediaFeaturedPublicationsHomepage2016-12-09T07:12:53ZBlog EntryWhose Change is it Anyway?
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway
<b>This thought piece is an attempt to reflect critically on existing practices of “making change” and its implications for the future of citizen action in information and network societies. It observes that change is constantly and explicitly invoked at different stages in research, practice, and policy in relation to digital technologies, citizen action, and network societies. </b>
<p>The White Paper by Nishant Shah was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Civic-Explorations/Publications/Whose-Change-is-it-anyway">published by Hivos recently</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">However, we do not have adequate frameworks to address the idea of change. What constitutes change? What are the intentions that make change possible? Who are the actors involved? Whose change is it, anyway?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Drawing on the Hivos Knowledge Programme and on knowledge frameworks around youth, technology, and change from the last four years, this thought piece introduces new ways of defining, locating, and figuring change. In the process, it also helps understand the role that digital technologies play in shaping and amplifying our processes and practices of change, and to understand actors of change who are not necessarily confined to the category of “citizen”, which seems to be understood as the de facto agent of change in contemporary social upheavals, political uprisings, and cultural innovations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Methodologically, this thought piece attempts to make three discursive interventions: It locates digital activism in historical trajectories, positing that digital activism has deep ties to traditional activism, when it comes to the core political cause. Simultaneously, it recognises that new modes of political engagement are demanding and producing novel practices and introducing new actors and stakeholders. It looks at contemporary digital and network theories, but also draws on older philosophical lineages to discuss the crises that we seek to address. It tries to interject these abstractions and theoretical frameworks back into the field by producing two case studies that show how engagement with these questions might help us reflect critically on our past practices and knowledge as well as on visions for and speculations about the future, and how these shape contemporary network societies. It builds a theoretical framework based on knowledge gleaned from conversations, interviews, and on-the-ground action with different groups and communities in emerging information societies, and integrates with new critical theory to build an interdisciplinary and accessible framework that seeks to inform research, development-based interventions, and policy structures at the intersection of digital technologies, citizen action, and change by introducing questions around change into existing discourse.</p>
<hr />
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/whose-change-is-it-anyway.pdf" class="internal-link">Click to download the full White Paper here</a> (PDF, 321 Kb)</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital ActivismRAW PublicationsDigital NativesYouthFeaturedPublicationsHomepage2015-04-17T10:56:47ZBlog EntryPorn: Law, Video, Technology
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/porn-law-video-technology
<b>Namita Malhotra’s monograph on Pornography and Pleasure is possibly the first Indian reflection and review of its kind. It draws aside the purdah that pornography has become – the forbidden object as well as the thing that prevents you from looking at it – and fingers its constituent threads and textures. </b>
<p>This monograph is not so much about a cultural product called porn as it is a meditation on visuality and seeing, the construction and experience of gazing, technology and bodies in the law, modern myths, the interactions between human and filmic bodies. And technology not necessarily as objects and devices that make pornography possible (but that too), but as history and evolution, process and method, and what this brings to understanding what pornography is.</p>
<p>Namita’s approach brings film studies, technology studies, critical theory, philosophy, literature and legal studies into a document that reads as part literature review, part analysis, going deep, as a monograph should. Reading through this I was struck by the ways of seeing and writing, that a subject like pornography demands – and allows for. I found the structure of the entire piece well conceived, akin to 3D models of spirals rather than linear, much like the experience of watching itself, perhaps. Personally, I know I’m going to keep going back to this monograph for its rich references as much as for how Malhotra examines visual (con)texts across multiple disciplines. And, far from being a distant academic paper, I see how Namita has worked in and been informed by her own fond appreciation of diverse texts with useful and unusual departures into literature and philosophy.</p>
<p>The emphasis on amateur pornography is critical considering the pandemic of hysterical blindness that afflicts public conversations in India around this phenomenon in particular, and the Obscene more generally. A line from the monograph ‘pornography does ideological work’ stands out for me, as Namita shows how it (the monograph, amateur porn, pornography) effectively slices through the careful fabrications called Nation, Culture and Justice in particular; and also in terms of how porn constitutes particular kinds of knowing, speech and experience that reflect on the status quo of politics and of seeing/visuality. The deep engagement with the Mysore Mallige movie/case is an interesting and tender one, perhaps one of the first such in-depth analyses, and a great example of how amateur porn works and what it means.</p>
<p>Considering the appalling lack of insight in responding to the Obscene and the Pornographic, the messy rhetoric and outrage that result when the Pornographic is made public, when the law acts on the visual, on technology, Namita’s analysis is a sharp lens that provides much-needed rejoinders. The sections dealing with these kinds of past events – the moment of public outrage around the revelation of a piece of porn, it’s journey of creation and circulation, the public and institutional esponses to it, are really excellent analyses of a particular kind of moment in contemporary Indian society that have become (to my mind) increasingly difficult to talk about.</p>
<p>There can only be more sharing of this document, perhaps re-purposed, in parts, to become more accessible to communities engaged with commenting, acting and responding to the Obscene, the Visual and the Law (I say this from a perspective of utility and instrumentality that “activism” necessarily deploys, but within what is possible for cannibalisation. Also, because people don’t read) because there just isn’t enough thoughtful work on pornography in the current climate.</p>
<p>The monograph moves to examining the ‘being’ of the pornographic artifact as a digital image and how and why it, especially “video pornography provides a new model for relating to the mass-produced, one in which the body’s susceptibility constitutes both a yielding and a resistance to the hypnotic seduction of the image.”</p>
<p>I find this quote tantalising for it offers a critical perspective on pornography as a challenging politics rather than as ‘merely’ text, which is what this monograph attempts to do. To take this further and to explore the response between the visual and the human, the “something that takes place between the text and the person watching”, could be to move towards reception studies and studies of the experiencing of porn either as star/creator, fan or audience. There are fascinating possibilities here for inventive methodologies and formats in which this could be done, montage-ing academic text with visual ethnographies, online aggregation and collation of visual data and experiences, and so on. This next stage could be exciting in how it could really engage with the body of porn and its people.</p>
<p><strong>Introduction by Maya Ganesh</strong></p>
<div>Download the monograph <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/porn-law.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Porn: Law, Video, Technology">here</a> [PDF, 3.73 MB]</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/porn-law-video-technology'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/porn-law-video-technology</a>
</p>
No publisherNamita A MalhotraResearchers at WorkHistories of InternetRAW PublicationsPublications2015-04-14T12:43:14ZBlog EntryRe:Wiring Bodies
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring-bodies
<b>Asha Achuthan initiates a historical research inquiry to understand the ways in which gendered bodies are shaped by the Internet imaginaries in contemporary India. Tracing the history from nationalist debates between Gandhi and Tagore to the neo-liberal perspective based knowledge produced by feminists like Martha Nussbaum; Asha’s research offers a unique entry point into cyberculture studies through a feminist epistemology of science and technology. The monograph establishes that there is a certain pre-history to the Internet that needs to be unpacked in order to understand the digital interventions on the body in a range of fields from social sciences theory to medical health practices to technology and science policy in the country.</b>
<p><br />Section I (<strong>Attitudes to Technology</strong>) attempts to trace the trajectories of the critiques of technology standing in for science in the Indian context. This section traces the methodology of critique itself that animates the political in India and shows the ways in which these critiques access anterior difference, the ways in which they posit resistance as providing the crisis to closure of hegemonic western science and the ways in which this resistance fails to meet the promise of crisis.</p>
<p>Section II (<strong>Mapping Transitions</strong>) explores in detail the responses to science and technology in feminist and gender work in India. Here, Asha presents an ‘attitude’ to technology as discrete from ‘man’. Feminist and gender work in India have articulated four responses to technology across state and civil society positions. These being the presence of women as agents of technological change, the demand for improved access for women to the fruits of technology, the demand for inclusion of women as a constituency that must be specifically provided for by technological amendments a need for recognition of technology’s ills particularly for women and the consequent need for resistance to technology on the same count.</p>
<p>Keeping in mind that woman’s lived experiences have served as the vantage point for all four of the responses to technology in the Indian context, Asha suggests the need to revisit the idea of such experience itself, and the ways in which it might be made critical, rather than valorising it as an official counterpoint to scientific knowledge, and by extension to technology. Section III (<strong>Working towards an Alternative</strong>) does not address the ‘technology question’ in a direct sense but makes an effort to make that exploration.</p>
<p>Asha concludes by saying that she treats technology as a part of the philosophy of modern western science and the relationship between technology and bodies is the more obvious relationship upon which the formulations of human-technology relationships are built.</p>
<p>Download the monograph <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring-bodies.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Re:Wiring Bodies">here</a> [PDF, 2.58 MB]</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring-bodies'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/rewiring-bodies</a>
</p>
No publisherAsha AchuthanRAW PublicationsInternet HistoriesHistories of InternetResearchers at WorkPublications2015-04-14T12:49:46ZBlog EntryArchives and Access
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access
<b>The monograph by Aparna Balachandran and Rochelle Pinto, is a material history of the Internet archives. It examines the role of the archivist and the changing relationship between the state and private archives for looking at the politics of subversion, preservation and value of archiving. By examining the Tamil Nadu and Goa state archives, along with the larger public and state archives in the country, the monograph looks at the materiality of archiving, the ambitions and aspirations of an archive, and why it is necessary to preserve archives, not as historical artefacts but as living interactive spaces of memory and remembrance. The findings have direct implications on various government and market impulses to digitise archives and show a clear link between opening up archives and other knowledge sources for breathing life into local and alternative histories.
</b>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Archives and Access">Download the Monograph</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/archives-and-access/archives-and-access</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaRAW PublicationsPublicationsHistories of InternetResearchers at WorkInternet HistoriesArchives2015-04-17T11:06:20ZBlog EntryDigital AlterNatives with a Cause?
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook
<b>Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society have consolidated their three year knowledge inquiry into the field of youth, technology and change in a four book collective “Digital AlterNatives with a cause?”. This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen, asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and practice around 'digital revolutions' in a post MENA (Middle East - North Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging contexts from the Global South. </b>
<p></p>
<p><strong>I</strong><strong>ntroduction</strong></p>
<p>In the 21<sup>st</sup>
Century, we have witnessed the simultaneous growth of internet and digital
technologies on the one hand, and political protests and mobilisation on the
other. Processes of interpersonal relationships, social communication, economic
expansion, political protocols and governmental mediation are undergoing a
significant transition, across in the world, in developed and emerging
Information and Knowledge societies.</p>
<p>The young
are often seen as forerunners of these changes because of the pervasive and
persistent presence of digital and online technologies in their lives. The “
Digital Natives with a Cause?” is a research inquiry that uncovers the ways in
which young people in emerging ICT contexts make strategic use of technologies
to bring about change in their immediate environments. Ranging from personal
stories of transformation to efforts at collective change, it aims to identify
knowledge gaps that existing scholarship, practice and popular discourse around
an increasing usage, adoption and integration of digital technologies in
processes of social and political change.</p>
<p><strong>Methodology</strong></p>
<p>In 2010-11,
three workshops in Taiwan, South Africa and Chile, brought together around 80
people who identified themselves as Digital Natives from Asia, Africa and Latin
America, to explore certain key questions that could provide new insight into
Digital Natives research, policy and practice. The workshops were accompanied
by a ‘Thinkathon’ – a multi-stakeholder summit that initiated conversations
between Digital Natives, academic researchers, scholars, practitioners,
educators, policy makers and corporate representatives to share learnings on
new questions: Is one born digital or does one become a Digital Native? How do
we understand our relationship with the idea of a Digital Native? How do
Digital Natives redefine ‘change’ and how do they see themselves implementing
it? What is the role that technologies play in defining civic action and social
movements? What are the relationships
that these technology based identities and practices have with existing social
movements and political legacies? How do we build new frameworks of sustainable
citizen action outside of institutionalisation?</p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Rationale</strong></p>
<p>One of the
knowledge gaps that this book tries to address is the lack of digital natives’
voices in the discourse around them. In the occasions that they are a part of
the discourse, they are generally represented by other actors who define the
frameworks and decide the issues which are important. Hence, more often than
not, most books around digital natives concentrate on similar sounding areas
and topics, which might not always resonate with the concerns that digital
natives and other stake-holders might be engaged with in their material and
discursive practice. The methodology of the workshops was designed keeping this
in mind. Instead of asking the digital natives to give their opinion or recount
a story about what we felt was important, we began by listening to their
articulations about what was at stake for them as e-agents of change. As a
result, the usual topics like piracy, privacy, cyber-bullying, sexting etc.
which automatically map digital natives discourse, are conspicuously absent
from this book. Their absence is not deliberate, but more symptomatic of how
these themes that we presumed as important were not of immediate concerns to
most of the participants in the workshop who are contributing to the book<strong>.</strong></p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Structure</strong></p>
<p>The
conversations, research inquiries, reflections, discussions, interviews, and
art practices are consolidated in this four part book which deviates from the
mainstream imagination of the young people involved in processes of change. The
alternative positions, defined by geo-politics, gender, sexuality, class,
education, language, etc. find articulations from people who have been engaged
in the practice and discourse of technology mediated change. Each part
concentrates on one particular theme that helps bring coherence to a wide
spectrum of style and content.</p>
<p><strong>Book 1: To Be: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook1/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p>The first
part, <em>To Be</em>, looks at the questions
of digital native identities. Are digital natives the same everywhere? What
does it mean to call a certain population ‘Digital Natives”? Can we also look
at people who are on the fringes – Digital Outcasts, for example? Is it
possible to imagine technology-change relationships not only through questions
of access and usage but also through personal investments and transformations?
The contributions help chart the history, explain the contemporary and give ideas
about what the future of technology mediated identities is going to be.</p>
<strong>Book 2: To Think: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook2/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong><strong>
</strong>
<p>In the
second section, <em>To Think,</em> the
contributors engage with new frameworks of understanding the processes,
logistics, politics and mechanics of digital natives and causes. Giving fresh
perspectives which draw from digital aesthetics, digital natives’ everyday
practices, and their own research into the design and mechanics of technology
mediated change, the contributors help us re-think the concepts, processes and
structures that we have taken for granted. They also nuance the ways in which
new frameworks to think about youth, technology and change can be evolved and
how they provide new ways of sustaining digital natives and their causes.</p>
<p><strong>Book 3: To Act: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook3/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<p><em>To Act</em> is the third part that concentrates on stories
from the ground. While it is important to conceptually engage with digital
natives, it is also, necessary to connect it with the real life practices that
are reshaping the world. Case-studies, reflections and experiences of people
engaged in processes of change, provide a rich empirical data set which is
further analysed to look at what it means to be a digital native in emerging
information and technology contexts.</p>
<strong>
</strong>
<p><strong>Book 4: To Connect : Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook4/at_download/file" class="external-link">here</a></strong></p>
<p>The last
section, <em>To Connect</em>, recognises the
fact that digital natives do not operate in vacuum. It might be valuable to
maintain the distinction between digital natives and immigrants, but this
distinction does not mean that there are no relationships between them as
actors of change. The section focuses on the digital native ecosystem to look
at the complex assemblage of relationships that support and are amplified by
these new processes of technologised change.</p>
<p>We see this
book as entering into a dialogue with the growing discourse and practice in the
field of youth, technology and change. The ambition is to look at the digital
(alter)natives as located in the Global South and the potentials for social
change and political participation that is embedded in their interactions
through and with digital and internet technologies. We hope that the book
furthers the idea of a context-based digital native identity and practice,
which challenges the otherwise universalist understanding that seems to be the
popular operative right now. We see this as the beginning of a knowledge
inquiry, rather than an end, and hope that the contributions in the book will
incite new discussions, invoke cross-sectorial and disciplinary debates, and
consolidate knowledges about digital (alter)natives and how they work in the
present to change our futures<strong>.</strong></p>
<p><strong><a class="external-link" href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/MyAccount_Login.aspx">Click here</a> to order your copy. We invite readers to contribute reviews of an essay they found particularly interesting. Contact us: nishant@cis-india.org and fjansen@hivos.nl if you want more information, resources, or dialogues</strong></p>
<p>Nishant
Shah</p>
<p>Fieke
Jansen</p>
<p><strong>For media coverage and book reviews,</strong> <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/media-coverage" class="external-link">read here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial mediaDigital ActivismRAW PublicationsCampaignDigital NativesAgencyBlank Noise ProjectFeaturedCyberculturesFacebookPublicationsBeyond the DigitalDigital subjectivitiesBooksResearchers at Work2015-04-10T09:22:29ZBlog EntryDigital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon: Position Papers
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/position-papers
<b>The Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon conference co-organised by Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society is being held from 6 to 8 December at the Hague Museum for Communication. The position papers are now available online.</b>
<p>The emergence of digital and Internet technologies have changed the world as we know it. Processes of interpersonal relationships, social communication, economic expansion, political protocols and governmental mediation are all undergoing a significant translation, across the world, in developed and emerging Information and Knowledge societies. These processes also affect the ways in which social transformation, political participation and interventions for development take place.</p>
<p>The Digital Natives with a Cause? research inquiry seeks to look at the potentials of social change and political participation through technology practices of people in emerging ICT contexts. It particularly aims to address knowledge gaps that exist in the scholarship, practice and popular discourse around an increasing usage, adoption and integration of digital and Internet technologies in social transformation processes.</p>
<p>The programme has three main components. The first is to incorporate the users (often young, but not always so) as stakeholders in the construction of policies and discourse which affect their lives in very material ways. The second is to capture, with a special emphasis on change, different relationships with and deployment of technologies in different parts of the world. The third is to further extend the network of knowledge stakeholders where scholars,practitioners, policy makers and the Digital Natives themselves, come together in dialogue to identify the needs and interventions in this field.</p>
<p>In the late summer of 2010 two workshops, in Taiwan and South Africa, brought together 50 Digital Natives from Asia and Africa to place their practice in larger social and political legacies and frameworks. The ‘<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talkingback/?searchterm=talking%20back" class="external-link">Talking Back</a>’ workshop in Taiwan looked at the politics, implications and processes of talking back and being political and the ‘<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/my-bubble-my-space-my-voice-workshop-perspective-and-future" class="external-link">My Bubble, My Voice and My Space</a>’ workshop in Johannesburg looked at change, change processes and the role of Digital Natives in it.</p>
<p>For the Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon that will be held in The Hague, The Netherlands from 6 to 8 December 2010, Digital Natives from the workshops in Taipei and Johannesburg have provided us with their take on social change and political participation in the following position papers. They look at issues of: what does it mean to be a Digital Native? What is the relationship of people growing up with new technologies and change? What are the processes by which change is produced? Can you institutionalize Digital Natives with a Cause Activities? How do you make it sustainable in each context?</p>
<p>We hope you will find the Digital Natives with a Cause? position papers inspiring, thought-provoking and challenging.</p>
<p><img alt="" /> Download the position papers <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/position-papers.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Thinkathon Position Papers">here </a>[PDF, 1173 KB] <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/position-papers.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Thinkathon Position Papers"><br /></a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/position-papers'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/position-papers</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital ActivismRAW PublicationsDigital NativesFeaturedPublicationsResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:34:35ZBlog EntryDigital Natives with a Cause?
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep
<b>Digital Natives With A Cause? - a product of the Hivos-CIS collaboration charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology with a specific attention for developing countries to create a framework that consolidates existing paradigms and informs further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.</b>
<p></p>
<p><img class="image-left" src="../dnr/image_preview" alt="Digital Natives Report" /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/" class="external-link">The Centre for Internet and Society</a>, Bangalore and <a class="external-link" href="http://http://www.hivos.net/">Hivos</a> have assessed
the state of knowledge on the potential impact of youth for social
transformation and political engagement in the South. This report ‘<em>Digital Natives with a Cause?’</em>
charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology and informs
further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.</p>
<p>
The report displays that digital natives have a potential impact as
agents of change. It concludes that multidisciplinary theoretical
approaches venturing beyond the cause-and-effect model and providing
the necessary vocabulary and sensitivity are crucial to understanding
Digital Natives. The lament that youths are apolitical is a result of
insufficient attention to activities that do not conform to existing
notions of political and civil society formation. Digital Natives are
sensitive and thoughtful. It is time to listen to them and their ideas,
and to focus on their development as responsible and active citizens
rather than on their digital exploits or technologised interests.</p>
<p>The report specifically focuses on youth as e-agents of change within emerging information societies to explore questions of technology mediated identities, embedded conditions of social transformation and political participation, as well as potentials for sustained livelihood and education. It identifies the knowledge gaps and networks and further areas of intervention in the field of Digital Natives.</p>
<p>As a first step in working towards enabling Digital Natives for
social transformation and political engagement, Hivos and CIS will
organize a Multistakeholder Conference Fall 2010.</p>
<p>A summary of the report, as well as the detailed narrative are now available for discussion, debate, suggestions and ideas.</p>
<p class="Inleiding"> </p>
<p class="Inleiding">Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report Download Pdf document <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnrep1" class="internal-link" title="Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report">Here</a></p>
<p class="Inleiding">Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report Summary Download Pdf document<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnsum" class="internal-link" title="Digital Natives with a Cause? - Summary of Report"> Here</a></p>
<p class="Inleiding"> </p>
<p class="Inleiding">The report is also available at <a class="external-link" href="http://http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-on-Digital-Natives">http://http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-on-Digital-Natives</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep</a>
</p>
No publishernishantRAW PublicationsDigital NativesWeb PoliticsFeaturedBooksDigital subjectivitiesResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:31:14ZBlog Entry