The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 11 to 17.
IRC19 - Proposed Session - #ListInterface
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listinterface
<b>Details of a session proposed by Bharath Sivakumar, Rakshita Siva, and Deepak Prince for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>We would, as a starting point like to consider the conditions of possibility for the ‘list’ to emerge as the core thematic for this year’s Internet Researchers’ Conference. The proposal call provides several motivating questions and anchoring reasons foregrounding the list as an object for analysis and discussion. Broadly these may be divided along two lines - one pertaining to the qualities of the list (who makes it, why are they ephemeral, what makes lists this or that) and the other pointing to certain critical questions that emerge on our political landscape, with the list or practices of listing central to this politics.</p>
<p><strong>Segment 1</strong> [15 minutes]</p>
<p>In our session, the first item on the agenda (this also is a list!) is an outline of the way lists are thought of in 2 contexts:</p>
<ol>
<li>Bureaucratic processing/management (lists and their relationship to documents, files in offices, and also, everyday lists such as shopping lists).<br /><br /></li>
<li>List as a technological object in networked technological systems ie the list-interface.</li></ol>
<p>The late media theorist Cornelia Vismann is our guide among others, including Umberto Eco and Foucault’s notion of the ‘statement’.</p>
<p><strong>Segment 2</strong> [15 minutes x 3 => 45 minutes]</p>
<p>In the second part of our proceedings, we would like to consider 3 problems pertaining to the list:</p>
<ol>
<li>‘List’ as a mode of presentation in various user-interfaces, such as the whatsapp screen and its relationship to the subjective experience of time : It's winter and you've opened the Amazon app to buy one winter jacket. You open the app on your phone and begin to search for one, only to realize you've been endlessly scrolling for the last half an hour looking for jackets without buying a single one and if your friend hadn't called you to break you out of that flow, you would have most probably continued to scroll for another half an hour. I could make a similar point about how you keep scrolling through Instagram endlessly without stopping or how you similarly keep scrolling endlessly through Netflix or YouTube videos without touching to watch a single one. A common theme that connects these interfaces is their "no dead end" feature. They are arranged in the form of “lists” keep going on without a stop, structuring the user’s experience of subjective time.<br /><br /></li>
<li>The #MeToo movement is, as the proposal call says, a few years old, but it is only with the publishing of this list that it erupts into the terrain of the political, at least within the context of academic institutions. We would like to examine the conditions that make this political emergence possible. As first pass, we will note here that the #LoSHA is a list that refuses to process (Other facebook posts for example, are read, ‘liked’ or commented on and then passed over, ie processed).<br /><br /></li>
<li>Social media platforms - sites of media exchange are organized structurally as lists. There’s a list of posts, responses to ‘posts’ are also lists and even interactive features are available as lists -“Like, Share and Subscribe” at the end of a youtube video for example. On Facebook, audiences would be asked to “Like, Comment and Share” in that order of increasing activity. In the recent past, “Likes” have been expanded further to “reacts” which gives a list of “reacts” (including emotions, example-sad), a list or sequence of sentiments which people use to register their response. Similarly, there are such structures present in the forms of lists across platforms, built into the keyboard to be able to structure our immediate response or sentiment (emoticons, stickers gifs etc). These are attempts to codify emotion or more broadly, affect. The 3rd problematique in our panel will consider the process of structuring affect in online environments through the listing of signs such as the ‘like’, the ‘react’ etc.</li></ol>
<p><strong>Segment 3</strong> [30 minutes]</p>
<p>Following our presentation of these problems and modes of analytically situating ‘lists’ in everyday practices in online spaces, we will open the floor for discussion.</p>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Bharath Sivakumar</strong> graduated with a B.Sc (Research) degree in mathematics from Shiv Nadar University and currently works for Loonycorn where he's part of the team that creates technical courses. He has eclectic tastes ranging from mathematics to philosophy to Anthropology and feels at home in the hills. He enjoys trekking, loves performing on stage and aspires to be a stand up comedian one day.</p>
<p><strong>Rakshita Siva</strong> is a researcher at IIIT Bangalore in the faculty of Digital Society. She graduated with a Mechanical engineering major and a minor in Sociology from Shiv Nadar University. Her interests relate to the digital, questions of self, interiority and the psyche. Rakshita is a singer and enjoys a good jam.</p>
<p><strong>Deepak Prince</strong> is a course instructor and Phd candidate in the Department of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social sciences at SNU. His thesis research seeks to grapple with the 'explosion' of smartphones and touchscreens in practices of everyday sociality through the conceptual categories of the screen and the interface. Deepak's key research interest revolves around technics, the history and philosophy of technical objects. He also takes an interest in questions of anthropological disciplinarity, the history of ideas and political anthropology.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listinterface'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-listinterface</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-26T13:19:12ZBlog EntryIRC19 - Proposed Session - #LegitLists - Form follows function: List by design
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-legitlists
<b>Details of a session proposed by Akriti Rastogi, Ishani Dey, and Sagorika Singha for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>The session will comprise of three segments, where we shall analyse and highlight the form that is “List” in its multifarious inhabitations. From the much talked about spaces of the Hindi Film Industry to unfolding the dynamics of WhatsApp Groups, and finally to the listicles of violence and terror, the session will pose questions and argue for the malleability and limitations of the form. The obsession to finish a to do list and scheduling tasks around lists, makes list making one of the highest priority task in the big data age. The session will engage in unravelling these dynamics as well as texture its implications in varied spaces.</p>
<p><strong>Paper 1: The Grapevine List - Hindi Film Industry Professionals Post #MeToo </strong> [Akriti Rastogi, PhD Candidate (Cinema Studies), School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University]</p>
<p>In the age of data big data enlightenment (Byung Chul Han, 2017), the statistical tool of list making makes a comeback with a vengeance. List as a form of data-design enumerates and informs at a glance. When there are unending social media posts of harassment narratives shaking the readers (who might just be acknowledging the mobilization of social media into a movement), a list becomes an escape from the detailed unnerving and ugly truths. A red list of perpetrators scours many small to large scale films, but the voices against the powerful allegedly remain mum. In the ‘filmy’ world of filmmaking professionals, Izzat (Honour) finds poetic justice in a small way in this moment, but does it culminate into a change? An assistant director in a field interview spoke of the horror stories from a shoot, when a powerful actor targeted a crew professional. The said actor however may never find a mention on the list. Despite the social media emancipation – and what have you, the powerful remain in the white-washed limelight spiced with scandalous details that never filter out from the PR barricade.</p>
<p>On an entertainment channel, a veteran actress spills the beans on the working conditions in the maligned and besotted Hindi Film Industry. This sparks off a chain reaction, and in the following days, Twitter becomes a testimonial sharing courtroom. The press quotes it as the arrival of #MeToo and #TimesUp in the ‘Bollywood’ from the ‘Hollywood’. While a formal list is not abbreviated to gasp at the morbid working conditions that men and women face at the glamorous film industry, the survivor stories become a staple for transmedia channels. But where is the list? The absence of the list making aside from the <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/bollywood/me-too-accused-men-list-harassment-5396034/">Indian Express Article dated October 11, 2018</a> points to an important power driven working culture and network of the Hindi Film Industry. In the case of Hindi Film industry, the list has been talked about more in terms of the survivors than the perpetrators. The absence then of a #MeToo list indicates a power dynamic here. While in case of other media industries, the perpetrators have been terminated from their working projects, here the powers that be have tried to salvage the money by transferring the projects to bigger and more powerful media companies in the market. The message is clear, more the power , more the PR, less the risk of being named and shamed. This paper will map out the nuances of the absence of this “list” in the wake of #MeToo moment. While the lists form an intrinsic part of the hearsay and grapevine among professionals working in the Hindi film industry, there is an absence of a formal crowdsourced list like in case of #LoSHA. What then can be said about the industry’s working dynamics, and how does this hearsay list become a marker for the professionals to manoeuvre their daily work becomes the key analysis of this segment.</p>
<p><strong>Paper 2: Most Disturbing</strong> [Ishani Dey, PhD Candidate (Cinema Studies), School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University]</p>
<p>During the era of analogue tape, video circuits were replete with rumors of an underground network of snuff/gore video productions, which featured actual murder and torture caught on tape. It was speculated that there was a lucrative market for these videos, which was being cashed in by shadowy figures. However, whenever a snuff film surfaced in the mainstream, it turned out to be a simulation of crime, as opposed to real acts of violence. This changed with the emergence of the internet, which hosted a subculture dedicated to snuff/gore videos. These included websites and forums where video producers would often be in dialogue with their viewers. These communities consisted of snuff/gore aficionados who prided themselves on their ability to be able to distinguishing ‘real crime’ from mere simulations of violence. Speculations over authenticity dominated conversations on these forums, which even witnessed creators of snuff/gore taking extra measures to prove the authenticity of their product. For instance, in 2012 the headquarters of the ruling party in Canada received six packages which contained severed body parts of a victim whose death had been featured in a video which was circulating on the snuff forum, GoreGrish. Such stories were not uncommon in snuff/gore sites, which circulated videos that were often linked to crimes under investigation, at times leading to apprehending perpetrators. Many videos from such snuff/gore sites (even those that are now defunct) are often curated on mainstream video sharing platforms like YouTube, where their ‘shock value’ is highlighted through listicles like the ‘top 5 most disturbing videos on the internet (Snuff edition)’ or ‘5 Real MURDER VIDEOS You Can't Find on the INTERNET’. While the desire to capitalize on clickbait can be one motivator, snuff/gore videos have traditionally (and continued) to thrive only in niche circuits. I am therefore interested in interrogating the function of the listicle in showcasing snuff/gore content. In specific, who hosts these listicles? What kind of videos are chosen? How are the chosen clusters received? And, finally, what function do these listicles serve in the larger network of snuff/gore subcultures?</p>
<p><strong>Paper 3: The Anatomy of a WhatsApp List</strong> [Sagorika Singha, PhD Candidate (Cinema Studies), School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University]</p>
<p>The WhatsApp list or group is one rapidly growing communication platforms at present. As the usage of this application rises, so does one’s chances of being in a WhatsApp group. There is a group for everything - for booking portals to share online tickets, for news publications to send their latest news, for workgroups to communicate outside formal communication channels, for students, for teachers, for people selling handmade products among many others with both crafty and well-meaning intentions. In the early days of WhatsApp, being a part of such groups was not only useful but perhaps even had some associated novelty. However, with the continued mushrooming of various groups and their corresponding increase in reach, WhatsApp groups have mutated into something more formidable. I am interested in unfolding the avenues generated by this cross-platform messaging application which owing to its encryption makes conversations hard to trace. The puerile group formations in WhatsApp has grown into a mechanism of self-forming lists wherein, at times, participants are involuntarily included. The participants have different patterns of presence in such WhatsApp groups. This paper compares the growing mundanity of such list-making with the casual readiness observed in sharing information via such platforms. I consider such WhatsApp groups as lists of users. What are the dynamics that lead to the creation of such lists? How can we read into such forms of network formation? What fuels the propagation of such lists and what does it say about our current communication practices? Just the way users have become immune to the content and their presence in such groups, it has also become routine for them to share the content. The habit of sharing becomes as mundane as the habit of being participants in multiple groups, with their own purposes and directions. As participants, we are unsure both about the groups we will be added to in the future as well as the multiple lists that the contents shared in a group will end up in. This organic network formation is what gives power to such groups and explains their existence and ramifications which we have been witnessing in the contemporary time.</p>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Akriti Rastogi</strong> is a PhD candidate at the Cinema Studies department of the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her current work proposes to trace the design of monetization channels of cinema effects in a new media environ. She has previously worked as a radio broadcast producer at All India Radio, New Delhi.</p>
<p><strong>Ishani Dey</strong> is working on her PhD in Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her current project seeks to analyse some of the ways in which the body-technology ensemble has changed with the rise of the digital. While every new image making technology since the mid-nineteenth century has reconfigured the human body, this project is dedicated to understanding the implications of twenty-first century digital technologies and the internet on bodies that inhabit the screens of the ‘post-cinematic’.</p>
<p><strong>Sagorika Singha</strong> is a doctoral candidate in the department of Cinema Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her areas of interest include cinema, subculture, queer studies, technoculture, post-cinema, new mediascape, and digital societies. Her ongoing doctoral work virtually reimagines the contested region of North-east India following the arrival and popularity of mobile media and media-sharing technologies.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-legitlists'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-legitlists</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-26T13:18:07ZBlog EntryIRC19 - Proposed Session - #FOMO
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-fomo
<b>Details of a session proposed by Pritha Chakrabarti and Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>The broad basis of the discussion would be the lists that address and invoke aspirations to know, particularly what has come to be known as 'listicle'. The focus would also be on social media and other digital platforms, including blogs and fan clubs, which list out cultural objects like books, films, music, etc. that one must not miss. On one hand, many of such listicle-s are essentially advertising devices and, in that way, descendants of the bestseller list and such that one used to encounter on the pages of The Hindu and so on. On the other, we have similar lists made by fans and culture enthusiasts, and the consumers. Both of these play on a specific type of aspiration and the attendant anxiety, expressed in common parlance as FoMo, i.e. Fear of Missing Out, in this specific case the fear of missing out on knowing/knowing about something. But FoMo, as a dominant structure of feeling in contemporary society, in the context of listicle-s, begs many more questions: what is one afraid to miss out and how intense can that fear be? Who is afraid to miss out and what does missing out represent to them? Who decides what can be missed and what not? What is deemed to be the proper content of listicle-s and what is not; and what are the repercussions of the list form on the overall repository of knowledge from which the listicle-s are culled? What is the difference and continuity between lists meant as content that leads to commercial advertisement and lists made by the consumers? What happens when one begins to increasingly learn everything from the list form? Is there a 'list knowledge', the way there is a 'bookish knowledge'? What are the political repercussions of such 'list knowledge'?</p>
<p>The sessions will begin with two presentations/short papers (15 minutes each), mainly to provide an initial guide map for the discussion. The next 45 minutes will be devoted to discussion with the audience, so as to list out the complex factors and facets the conjugation of listicle and FoMo has produced, which will be moderated by both the presenters. The final 15 minutes will be assigned to the summarization of the points discussed by the speakers.</p>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti</strong> is an Assistant Professor at the Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication, Pune. Besides receiving his doctoral degree in Cultural Studies from EFL University, Hyderabad, he has also worked in the publishing industry as well as a content editor in the corporate sector. His doctoral dissertation maps the ideological terrain of contemporary Bollywood against the rise of neoliberalism in India. His areas of interests include contemporary film cultures, digital modernity, particularly digital cinephilia, comparative cultural studies, etc.</p>
<p><strong>Pritha Chakrabarti</strong> is an independent researcher based out of Hyderabad. She has recently submitted her doctoral dissertation titled <em>Politics of Screen Dance in Indian Cinema</em> in the department of Cultural Studies at EFL University, Hyderabad. A recipient of the ICSSR-CSDS doctoral fellowship, she has worked on the ideology of on-screen choreographic construction and dissemination and reception of film dance as popular culture. Professionally a Content Manager, she has nearly a decade-long experience in marketing content generation, both offline and online.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-fomo'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-fomo</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-26T13:17:11ZBlog EntryIRC19 - Proposed Session - #DigitalPlatformAttributes
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-digitalplatformattributes
<b>Details of a session proposed by Nandakishore K N and Dr. V. Sridhar for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>Digital platforms have been in the news for quite a few years now in India. Some of the most prominent sectors which has seen platforms flourish are transportation, e-commerce, education and social media. But platforms are taking root in other sectors as well, with the potential to disrupt existing businesses.</p>
<p>The session proposes to examine the attributes of digital platforms, particularly with reference to the quality and regulatory aspects of platforms. Quality influences regulation and vice versa. Depending on the context and type of platform, both of these aspects need to be comprehensively listed and defined to enable platform stakeholders like platform and service providers, users, and regulatory authorities ensure proper and successful conduct of businesses so as to benefit all the stakeholders.</p>
<p>The session hence deals with the "list" as a taxonomy of attributes. The session is envisaged to consist of two parts. The first part will draw from previous research work by the team on quality attributes of digital platforms and will illustrate the methodological reasoning and some of the challenges faced in the endeavour. This part leans towards an academic contribution to the conference. The second part will focus on the platform attributes important from regulatory perspectives, and will seek to crystallise the emergent attributes in juxtaposition to the quality attributes identified already, with the ultimate goal of identifying a checklist of regulatory attributes for digital platforms which will be of interest to policy planners. The entire exercise is also a step towards establishing a comprehensive taxonomy of platform attributes as a superset of attributes from different perspectives.</p>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Nandakishore K N</strong> is a Master of Science by Research student in the IT and Society domain at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B). His recently completed thesis was on design of a Quality of Service framework for digital platforms. Nandakishore joined IIIT-B with an experience of 20+ years in the IT industry, the last decade of which was in project and quality management roles, and includes an 18-year stint with TCS.</p>
<p><strong>Dr. V. Sridhar</strong> is Professor at the Centre for IT and Public Policy at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B). He is a prolific writer on matters related to telecom regulation and policy in India, with two books and contributions to peer-reviewed leading telecom and information systems journals and prominent business newspapers and magazines. He is a member of GoI committees on Telecom and IT. Dr. Sridhar has taught at many Institutions in the USA, Finland, New Zealand and India, and was the recipient of Nokia Visiting Fellowship. Prior to joining IIIT-B Dr. Sridhar was a Research Fellow at Sasken Communication Technologies. Dr. Sridhar has a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, U.S.A., Masters in Industrial Engineering from NITIE, Mumbai, and B.E. from the University of Madras, India. His work can be accessed at: <a href="http://www.vsridhar.info">http://www.vsridhar.info</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-digitalplatformattributes'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-digitalplatformattributes</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-26T13:15:04ZBlog EntryIRC19 - Proposed Session - #CallingOutAndIn
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-callingoutandin
<b>Details of a session proposed by Usha Raman, Radhika Gajjala, Riddhima Sharma, Tarishi Varma, Pallavi Guha, Sai Amulya Komarraju, and Sugandha Sehgal for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>Lists are empowering; they offer a method of curating—things, experiences, people, events. As elements of an archive, they are a powerful tool for including and marking something as important. A list is not a neutral collection of objects; it comes into being within a specific logic, an articulated or unseen/unspecified rules, or criteria by which these objects are either included or excluded. In the context of the #MeTooIndia movement, lists have been weaponized by survivors of sexual abuse or harassment, serving to call out behaviours that for many years had been normalized, accepted, or simply ignored, but a patriarchal system. The list, in this instance, becomes a means around which survivors can rally and find support, while also being a tool for punitive action of various kinds, from legal to administrative to social. While “naming and shaming” (or naming to shame) was the purpose that gained currency in the popular discourse, we would like to explore the multiple meanings and experiences that underlie and are implicated by the act of listing. With specific but not exclusive attention to the list that is commonly referred to as LoSHA, the papers on this panel approach the logic and culture of lists and listing as modalities of feminist action.</p>
<p>To begin with, <strong>Usha Raman</strong> looks at calling out through listing as a meaning making, legitimating, even therapeutic act for those who participate in the creation of the list as well as those who engage with it in different ways. <strong>Radhika Gajjala</strong>, along with <strong>Riddhima Sharma</strong> and <strong>Tarishi Varma</strong> then go on to discuss the role of feminist digital narratives as evidence and the ways in which they could transgress and rupture institutional/legal/academic institutions and infrastructures. Following this, <strong>Pallavi Guha</strong> discusses the #MetooIndia movement as the second wave to #LoSha movement, which started in 2017, and points to who and what is still left out of the online narrative of sexual harrassment. <strong>Sai Amulya Komarraju</strong> applies Sara Ahmed’s ideas about affective economies to look at the responses of feminists and feminist organizations to the two waves of #metoo in India and at the responses of the state and the judiciary following incidents of sexual harassment at work. Finally, <strong>Sugandha Sehgal</strong> asks, in the context of #LoSHA and #MeTooIndia, how the digital list as spreadable and replicable social media content proliferates online, while also exploring the opportunities digital listing as a form of activism offers to contemporary feminist praxis in the Global South.</p>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Usha Raman</strong>, professor, Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad.</p>
<p><strong>Radhika Gajjala</strong>, professor of Media and Communication Studies and American Culture Studies, Bowling Green State University.</p>
<p><strong>Riddhima Sharma</strong>, is a doctoral scholar at Bowling Green State University.</p>
<p><strong>Tarishi Varma</strong>, is a doctoral scholar at Bowling Green State University.</p>
<p><strong>Pallavi Guha</strong>, assistant professor of communication and new media, Towson University, USA.</p>
<p><strong>Sai Amulya Komarraju</strong> is a doctoral scholar in the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad.</p>
<p><strong>Sugandha Sehgal</strong> is a doctoral scholar in the Department of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-callingoutandin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-callingoutandin</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-26T13:13:43ZBlog EntryIRC19 - Proposed Session - #ButItIsNotFunny
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-butitisnotfunny
<b>Details of a session proposed by Madhavi Shivaprasad and Sonali Sahoo for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>Exactly a year after #LoSHA (List of sexual Harassers in the Academia) was compiled by Raya Sarkar in 2017, the second wave of #MeToo began when writer Mahima Kukreja accused comedian Utsav Chakravarty of sending her unsolicited pictures of his private parts. This sparked a barrage of tweets by her with screenshots from other women who had been in similar situations with him, and in one case, also a minor.This was the beginning of the second wave of #MeTooIndia.</p>
<p>In this session, we propose to look at the implications of “List” being circulated in relation to the comedy industry in particular and study the discourse surrounding it. While Raya Sarkar’s was structured as a list and circulated on social media as one too (albeit a dynamic one), the second wave of the movement was nothing of the sort. Sarkar has still refused to divulge details of the assault as shared with her in the interest of those that came forward with their stories. The second wave, involving primarily the media and entertainment industry, was about naming and shaming the perpetrators, mainly by specifying details of every case of harassment while keeping the survivors anonymous. In this case, there was no physical, tangible list, but host of people on social media sharing screenshots of the accounts and retweeting the same. Each of the panellists will be presenting papers and engaging with the interpretative idea of “list” as they understand it in relation to the comedy industry in India.</p>
<p>Apart from such “controversial” issues being brought forth in the media, comedy, or comedians have not necessarily featured as a genre of academic study in India. Although the content performed by the stand-up comedians today has been about challenging the status quo with regard to questioning hegemonic narratives, the idea that at the end of the day “it is just a joke”, unfortunately leads to dismissal of comedy as serious business. It is with this objective as well that we want to foreground the stand-up industry and the ways in which it contributes to dominant progressive as well as regressive discourses especially with respect to gender.</p>
<p>The session is intended to be a panel discussion that would foreground the multivalent possibilities of what “The List” entails with respect to comedy. Both the panelists would be presenting individual papers followed by a discussion of their findings with each other as well as to be thrown open to the audiences.</p>
<p><strong>Paper 1: Sexual harassment in comedy: When Twitter threads are treated as “legitimate” testimonials</strong> [Madhavi Shivaprasad]</p>
<p>In my paper, I will be focussing on the characteristics of “The List” circulated by Mahima Kukreja and the reasons people began to consider that the #MeToo movement had “arrived” in India.</p>
<p>There are two main aspects to the way in which it played out in India. At first, it was mainly about showing solidarity with other women, make people aware of the “magnitude” of the problem, the pervasiveness of it. The second was the naming and shaming in the hope of taking away the power harassers hold over the women, banking on their silence.</p>
<p>However, there is also a third aspect to it that needs to be considered with much seriousness: that of the details of the sexual assault itself. These accounts were circulated widely and in reading these details is where the “virality” of the posts lay. It was almost as if digital media houses were having a field day reporting one harassment case after another. Thanks to unimaginable speeds of the internet, reports would be filed within hours of posting the tweet online. New names were being added every day, new lists being made.</p>
<p>It is also interesting that it was the “lack” of a conventional list that ended up making the list of comedians accused of sexual harassment go viral. The list here manifests in the form of multiple Twitter threads by different people associated with the comedy industry. So much so that it became difficult to keep track of who was saying what.</p>
<p>In this paper, I ask questions such as what specific characteristics of the stand-up industry made it possible for it to become the first to come to the limelight. At the same time, I speculate about effect of the #MeToo movement for the men and women who are a part of the comedy industry today. What does it mean for their careers now that some have been outed as harassers? How are the women dealing with the threat, and at the same time comfort of having #MeToo as a resort to made their concerns public?</p>
<p>The questions I ask therefore are these: How does the “List” initiated through Twitter threads become pervasive in its absence as a conventional sequence of items? Is it just the solace afforded by what the list represents that encouraged women to make their stories public? What other structures were in place which made it effective at such a magnitude? What implications does it hold for the larger feminist movement in the wake of so many comedians being dropped off the rosters of large media conglomerates such as Amazon Prime?</p>
<p><strong>Paper 1: The <em>list</em> on YouTube: An analysis of the comments manifested by the Indian stand-up routines on street assaults</strong> [Sonali Sahoo]</p>
<p>There has been a shift from the mainstream idea of the essentials of a comic woman (Tuntun, Upasana Singh, Archana Puran Singh on the celluloid and Supriya Pilgaonkar and others on television) who are portrayed from the point of view of the male (for the script has always been written by males). The essentials of the comic woman shall be elaborated upon by tracing the evolution of the idea of the female comic on various settings such a films and television, live performances posted online during the discussion. Today, the noticeable shift has been the female comedians have not remained just the face in a comedic plot but also the voice along with the face (the stand-up comedian writing and performing her own script) in a comedic setting. However, the female stand-up comedians have faced a rebuttal at this juncture. They have been called out for not aligning to the dominant ideals of the topics to be included in a stand-up routine. Their issue-based humour associated with the body, and hegemony politics has been openly reprimanded on Twitter, other social media. One tweet invited a lot of criticism in December 2017 which said “<em>female content bra, boobs, period</em>.” People were agreeing with it but also disagreeing and defending it by saying “so what?” In this paper, though, the scholar in not interested not in the Twitter conversational list rather, she is looking at the comments section on YouTube to understand the reactions people have to content posted by these comedians on their YouTube channel. Following is the explanation of the objective of the discussion.</p>
<p>The list has existed in various forms, here I intend to look at the comments section on YouTube as a list, and look at the implications of it through over a period of 2 to 3 years. (on the YouTube channels of Radhika Vaz, Vasu Primlani, Daniel Fernandes, Karunesh Talwar amongst a few others) To be particular, how are the commentators influencing the comedians or are they really?</p>
<ol type="A">
<li>How is the list formulated by the commentators different in concern to male and female stand-up comedians when they incorporate street assault or harassment against women in their stand-up routines? (a common ground)</li>
<li>How does it bring out the ideology of the commentators?</li>
<li>Discussion of the impact factor determined through its reach by referring to various newspaper articles that apparently are the voice of a collective group of people in the Indian society.</li></ol>
<p>Hence, the whole point of the scholar is to look at the “list” of YouTube comments as deeply rooted misogyny in the society which have come to the limelight only due to the female stand-up routines on street assaults.</p>
<p>In the end of this session the scholar would discuss the potential of stand-up industry as an important medium to start the discourse on the sexual assault. These comedic routines can also be looked at as to be the first of the incidences discussing their personal accounts of harassment on the comedic stage.</p>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Madhavi Shivaprasad</strong> is currently a Ph.D scholar in the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies at TISS, Mumbai. She also teaches full-time in the English department at Mount Carmel College Bangalore. Her areas of interest include gender and studies, humour studies, as well as disability studies.</p>
<p><strong>Sonali Sahoo</strong> has an M.A. in English language and literature from St. Joseph’s College for women, Vizag. She is currently pursuing an M. Phil in English studies from Christ (Deemed to be University). Her area of interest include cultural, gender and humour studies in particular.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-butitisnotfunny'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-butitisnotfunny</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-26T13:12:36ZBlog EntryIRC19 - Proposed Session - #AyushmanBhavah
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-ayushmanbhavah
<b>Details of a session proposed by Arya Lakshmi and Adrij Chakraborty for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 - #List - <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<hr />
<h4>Session Plan</h4>
<p>One of the earliest known forms of organised administrative list making in the modern history began with the census. Undeniably, from collection of taxes to understanding power dynamics of a diverse population, lists determine the administrative chain of command, from an era of data documentation to the brand new world of big data. Recently, we have been witnessing the increase in the volume of data and constant formulation of new techniques of list making. However, considering lists as a new infrastructure of knowledge, it is highly important to understand, study and scrutinize their legitimacy, politics, political and cultural economy, authority they fall under, and most importantly their targets.</p>
<p>Indian healthcare is a convoluted administration. There is a need for the healthcare system to effectively permeate into the lowest rungs of society, thereby replacing the existent maladroit structure. This session takes Ayushman Bharat – a Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), as an admirable example which is based on a foundation of a series of lists, prepared for an administrative apparatus, in this case, the public health sector. However, not all reviews of this policy have been favourable to the cause, and the effectiveness to address health at all the primary, secondary and tertiary levels have oftentimes been met with crude skepticism and sardonic critiques. According to Young, a list is not just an organised and processed data, but it is also recorder of a data format that has multiple meaningful relations within its content while also being a window to the economy of selection and exclusion criteria adopted by societies in favour of “the social action it facilitates”. Currently being a crucial policy that involves serious list-making procedures on a large population of India, the need to scrutinize the cultural techniques behind list-making for Ayushman Bharat cannot be unseen.</p>
<p>Lists and network primarily serve in ways twain: the concept might be looked at as a network of information that is systemized to answer the epistemological questions asked by organizations. Additionally, networks clarify the mechanics of progression of an organization by proclivity of head-points. The holistic performance of any organization run by data depends on how well data is predisposed, which is why careful architecture of lists is absolutely essential. For Ayushman Bharat, the creation of lists does not find a pragmatic foundation on which its mettle is rested. The question therefore remains, is the concept of list still a crucial component of the operational infrastructure of the computation and network proliferation of the much talked about universal healthcare system?</p>
<p>We aim to establish two sub-sessions (45 minutes each). In the first half, we aim to:</p>
<ol>
<li>Begin presenting the paper on Ayushman Bharat- how various lists heavily feature in India’s largest healthcare policy, the mechanisms by which it works and what output it yields, the financial interests of the corporates in Ayushman Bharat (insurance companies, private banks and hospitals, for-profit enterprises providing medical services in collaboration with private hospitals, etc), user expectations and consumer behaviour, the problems behind the policy execution, misutilisation and exploitation of political interest groups whether it be businesses, parties or influential individuals.<br /><br /></li>
<li>Discuss issues pertaining to the operations of Ayushman Bharat - how political groups take to social media platforms to disseminate their message, how there exists a wide communication gap intentionally placed to avoid retortion, how logical fallacies in and reasoning mismatches between the displayed progress and actual progress came into the picture, and how they can be removed, or even how the programme affects one’s political participation?<br /><br /></li>
<li>Present findings - research is mainly reliant on secondary material, with the exceptions of verbal interviews that we aim to conduct for our research purposes. These pre-recorded interviews are merely personal opinions of the interviewee that serve to gauge the impact of our narrative and emphasize (or mask) the thesis on which our research takes shape.</li></ol>
<p>We will accommodate a slideshow to describe our thesis with examples from social media accounts of the National Health Protection Scheme and National Health Agency. The second sub-session instead will be more open to interactions and critical appreciations.</p>
<p>The piece of work is an evidence of collaborative effort in an interdisciplinary space of social science – Economics and Media. Both the co-authors hail from different disciplines that need to intertwine in order to address the topic of choice: The whatabouts of Ayushman Bharat. As a result of our diversity, we plan to address our areas of specialization respectively. For the next half of the session, we plan to interact with our peers, thereby preparing a report on the key-takeaways and suggestions of ideas identified in the session.</p>
<h4>Session Team</h4>
<p><strong>Arya Lakshmi</strong> is a journalist and a media researcher. She has worked across India with various news media publications mostly covering politics. She completed her post graduation in Political Communication from Cardiff University, UK with her interests in Big Data, Internet and Electoral Behaviour. She is primarily involved in media research that revolves around internet and politics.</p>
<p><strong>Adrij Chakraborty</strong> is an economics researcher. He is currently an economic analyst with Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy, University of Mumbai and is researching with the Government of Maharashtra on the agricultural practices and labour market behaviour in Maharashtra. He attended Edinburgh University as a graduate scholar with the Scottish Graduate Programme in Economics. His interests lie in economic policymaking in Labour Markets, Migration and Political Economics.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-ayushmanbhavah'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-proposed-session-ayushmanbhavah</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroProposed SessionsInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC19Researchers at Work2018-11-26T13:09:41ZBlog Entry