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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 EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2019 (IRC19): List - Call for Sessions
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call
<b>Who makes lists? How are lists made? Who can be on a list, and who is missing? What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender? What makes lists legitimate information artifacts, and what makes their knowledge contentious? Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the list as an information artifact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses. For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), we invite sessions that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list*.</b>
<p> </p>
<h3 id="offline"><strong>IRC19: List</strong></h3>
<p>For the last several years, #MeToo and #LoSHA have set the course for rousing debates within feminist praxis and contemporary global politics. It also foregrounded the ubiquitous presence of the <em>list</em> in its various forms, not only on the internet but across diverse aspects of media culture. Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the <em>list</em> as an information artifact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses. Directed by the Supreme Court, the Government of India has initiated the National Register of Citizens process of creating an updated <em>list</em> of all Indian citizens in the state of Assam since 2015. This is a <em>list</em> that sets apart legal citizens from illegal immigrants, based on an extended and multi-phase process of announcement of draft <em>lists</em> and their revisions. NRC is producing a <em>list</em> with a specific question: who is a citizen and who is not? UIDAI has produced a <em>list</em> of unique identification number assigned to individuals: a <em>list</em> to connect/aggregate other <em>lists</em>, a <em>meta-list</em>.</p>
<p>From Mailing Lists to WhatsApp Broadcast Lists, <em>lists</em> have been the very basis of multi-casting capabilities of the early and the recent internets. The <em>list</em> - in terms of <em>list</em> of people receiving a message, <em>list</em> of machines connecting to a router or a tower, <em>list</em> of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ ‘added’ to your social media persona - structures the open-ended multi-directional information flow possibilities of the internet. It simultaneously engenders networks of connected machines and bodies, topographies of media circulation, and social graphs of affective connections and consumptions. The epistemological, constitutive, and inscriptive functions of the <em>list</em>, as <a href="http://amodern.net/article/on-lists-and-networks/" target="_blank">Liam Young documents</a>, have been crucial to the creation of new infrastructures of knowledge, and to understand where the internet emerges as a challenge to these.</p>
<p>As a media format that is easy to create, circulate, and access (as seen in the number of rescue and relief lists that flood the web during national disasters) or one that is essential in classification and cross-referencing (such as public records and memory institutions), the <em>list</em> becomes an essential trope to understand new media forms today, as the skeletal frame on which much digital content and design is structured and consumed through.</p>
<ul>
<li>Who makes lists?</li>
<li>How are lists made?</li>
<li>Who can be on a list, and who is missing?</li>
<li>Who gets counted on lists, and who is counting?</li>
<li>What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender?</li>
<li>What modalities of creation and circulation of lists affords its authority, its simultaneous revelations and obfuscations?</li>
<li>What makes lists legitimate information artifacts, and what makes their knowledge contentious?</li>
<li>What makes lists ephemeral, and what makes their content robust?</li>
<li>What makes lists hegemonic, and what makes them intersectional?</li>
<li>What makes lists ordered, and what makes them unordered?</li>
<li>What do listicles do to habits of reading and creation of knowledge?</li>
<li>What new modes of questioning and meaning-making have manifested today in various practices of list-making?</li>
<li>How and when do lists became digital, and whatever happened to lists on paper?</li>
<li>Are there cultural economies of lists, list-making, and getting listed?</li>
<li>Are lists content or carriage, are they medium or message?</li></ul>
<h4>For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), we invite sessions that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list* - to present or propose academic, applied, or creative works that explore its social, economic, cultural, material, political, affective, or aesthetic dimensions.</h4>
<p> </p>
<h3 id="call"><strong>Call for Sessions</strong></h3>
<p>We invite teams of two or more members to propose sessions for IRC19. All sessions will be one and half hours long, and will be fully designed and facilitated by the team concerned, including moderation (if any). Please remember this when planning the session. Everything happening during the session, except for logistical support, will be led and managed by the session team.</p>
<p>The sessions are expected to drive conversations on the topic concerned. They may include presentation of research papers but this is not mandatory.</p>
<p>We look forward to sessions that involve collaborative work (either in groups or otherwise) - discussions, interactions, documentation, learning, and (list-)making are most welcome.</p>
<p>We also look forward to sessions conducted in Indian languages apart from English. The proposing team, in such a case, should consider how participants who do not understand the language concerned may engage with the session. IRC organisers and other participants shall help facilitate these sessions, say by offering translation support.</p>
<p>The only eligibility criteria for proposing sessions are that they must be proposed by a team of at least two members, and that they must engage with the *list*.</p>
<p>The deadline for submission of sessions proposals for IRC19 is <strong>Sunday, November 18 (extended)</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>To propose a session, please send the following documents (as attached text files) to raw@cis-india.org:</strong></p>
<ul><li><strong>Session Title:</strong> The session should be named in the form of a hashtag (check the <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/proposed-sessions.html" target="_blank">sessions proposed for IRC18</a> for example).</li>
<li><strong>Session Plan:</strong> This should describe the objectives of the session (the motivations and expectations driving it), what will be done and discussed during the session, and who among the people organising the session will be responsible for what. This note need not be more than 500 words long. If your session involves inviting others to present their work (say papers), then please provide a description and timeline of the process through which these people will be identified.</li>
<li><strong>Session Team Details:</strong> Please share brief biographical notes of each member of the session team, and their email addresses.</li></ul>
<p><strong>IRC19 will be organised in Hyderabad during January 31 - February 2, 2019.</strong> We will announce the venue of the conference in December 2018.</p>
<p>There is no registration fee for the conference, but participants are expected to pay for their own travel and accommodation (to be organised by CIS) expenses. Limited funding will be available to support travel and accommodation expenses of few participants who are unemployed or underemployed.</p>
<p><strong>Session selection process:</strong></p>
<ul><li><strong>November 18, 2018 (extended):</strong> Deadline of submission of session proposals. All submitted sessions will be posted on the CIS website, along with the names of the session team members.</li>
<li><strong>November 23 - December 07:</strong> Session selection process. All session teams will select 10 sessions to be included in the IRC19 programme. The votes will be anonymous, that is no session team will know which other session teams have voted for their session. The sessions with most votes will be selected for the final programme of IRC19.</li>
<li><strong>December 14:</strong> Announcement of selected sessions, and of travel grants available for members of selected session teams.</li>
<li><strong>January 31 - February 2, 2019:</strong> IRC19 in Hyderabad!</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc19-list-call</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppResearchers at WorkInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's Conference2018-11-05T09:15:35ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2018 (IRC18): Offline, February 22-24, Sambhaavnaa Institute
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18
<b>We are proud to announce that the third edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series will be held at the Sambhaavnaa Institute, Kandbari (Himachal Pradesh) during February 22-24, 2018. This annual conference series was initiated by the Researchers@Work (RAW) programme at CIS in 2016 to gather researchers, academic or otherwise, studying internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. The *offline* is the theme of the 2018 edition of the conference (IRC18), and the conference agenda will be shaped by nine sessions selected by all the teams that submitted session proposals, and an independent paper track consisting of six presentations.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Venue: <a href="http://www.sambhaavnaa.org/" target="_blank">Sambhaavnaa Institute</a>, Kandbari, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, 176061</h4>
<h4>Travel Information: <a href="http://www.sambhaavnaa.org/contact/how-to-reach-us/" target="_blank">Getting to Sambhaavnaa</a> (Sambhaavnaa Institute)</h4>
<h4>Weather in Kandbari: <a href="https://www.accuweather.com/en/in/palampur/198333/daily-weather-forecast/198333?day=8" target="_blank">10°-20°c with possibility of light shower</a> (AccuWeather)</h4>
<h4>Registration: <a href="https://goo.gl/forms/H4kYubotpBgN5hFE3" target="_blank">RSVP</a> (Google Drive)</h4>
<h4>Agenda: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KvfsYRCafNcjoGkocVRxbsH_N9dI51k7me7nC8R1LY4/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Conference Programme</a> (Google Drive)</h4>
<h4>Poster: <a href="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/irc/master/irc18/IRC18_Poster.png" target="_blank">Download</a> (JPG)</h4>
<hr />
<img src="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc18-offline-call/image" alt="IRC18: Offline - Call for Sessions" width="45%" />
<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cis-india/irc/master/irc18/IRC18_Poster.png" alt="IRC18: Offline - Poster" width="45%" />
<h3><strong>IRC18: Offline</strong></h3>
<p>Does being offline necessarily mean being disconnected? Beyond anxieties such as FOMO, being offline is also seen as disengagement from a certain milieu of the digital (read: capital), an impediment to the way life is organised by and around technologies in general. However, being offline is not the exception, as examples of internet shutdown and acts on online censorship illustrate the persistence and often alarming regularity of the offline even for the ‘connected’ sections of the population.</p>
<p>State and commercial providers of internet and telecommunication services work in tandem to produce both the “online” and the “offline” - through content censorship, internet regulation, generalised service provision failures, and so on. Further, efforts to prioritise the use of digital technologies for financial transactions, especially since demonetisation, has led to a not-so-subtle equalisation of the ‘online economy’ with the ‘formal economy’; thus recognising the offline as the zones of informality, corruption, and piracy. This contributes to the offline becoming invisible, and in many cases, illegal, rather than being recognised as a condition that necessarily informs what it means to be digital.</p>
<p>Who is offline, and is it a choice? The global project of bringing people online has spurred several commendable initiatives in expanding access to digital devices, networks, and content, and often contentious ones such as Free Basics / internet.org, which illustrate the intersectionalities of scale, privilege, and rights that we need to be mindful of when we imagine the offline. Further, the experience of the internet, for a large section of people is often mediated through prior and ongoing experiences of traditional media, and through cultural metaphors and cognitive frames that transcend more practical registers such as consumption and facilitation. How do we approach, study, and represent this disembodied internet – devoid of its hypertext, platforms, devices, it's nuts and bolts, but still tangible through engagement in myriad, personal and often indiscernible ways.</p>
For the third edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC18), we invite participants to critically discuss the *offline*. We invite sessions that present or propose academic, applied, creative, or technical works that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the *offline*.
<h3><strong>Sessions</strong></h3>
<p><strong>#OnlineGovernanceOfflineGovernment</strong> - Mohammad Javed Alam and Suman Mandal - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/onlinegovernanceofflinegovernment.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#WomenInTech</strong> - Priyanka Chaudhuri and Tripti Jain - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/womenintech.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#Cyberflesh</strong> - Akriti Rastogi, Ishani Dey, and Sagorika Singha - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/cyberflesh.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#RethinkingTheVirtualPublic</strong> - Daisy Barman and Aamir Qayoom - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/rethinkingthevirtualpublic.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#FeminismIRL</strong> - Mamatha Karollil, the SIVE Collective, and Tara Atluri - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/feminismirl.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#ILoveYou</strong> - Dhiren Borisa and Dhrubo Jyoti - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/iloveyou.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#CollectionAndIdentity</strong> - Ravi Shukla, Rajiv Mishra, and Mrutyunjay Mishra - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/collectionandidentity.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#FollowUsOffline</strong> - Dinesh, Farah Yameen, Afrah Shafiq, and Bhanu Prakash GS - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/followusoffline.html">Session Details</a></p>
<p><strong>#OfSiegesAndShutdowns</strong> - Chinmayi S. K. and Rohini Lakshané - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/sessions/ofsiegesandshutdowns.html">Session Details</a></p>
<h3><strong>Papers</strong></h3>
<p><strong>Slow journalism and the temporalities of the offline</strong> - Akshata Pai - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#slow-journalism">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>Campus campaigns: User perceptions in pre-digital and digital eras</strong> - Arjun Ghosh - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#campus-campaigns">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>The many lives of food: Blogs to books and back</strong> - Dhrupadi Chattopadhyay - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#lives-of-food">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>Feminism in digital age</strong> - Putul Sathe - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#feminism-digital">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>Marathi literary criticism in the era of social media</strong> - Rajashree Patil - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#marathi-literary-social">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<p><strong>Taking open science offline</strong> - Shreyashi Ray - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/selected-papers.html#open-science">Paper Abstract</a></p>
<h3><strong>About the IRC Series</strong></h3>
<p>The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiated the <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/index.html">Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC)</a> series to address these concerns, and to create an annual temporary space in India, for internet researchers to gather and share experiences.</p>
<p>The IRC series is driven by the following interests:</p>
<ul><li>creating discussion spaces for researchers and practitioners studying internet in India and in other comparable regions,</li>
<li>foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and</li>
<li>exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) objects of power/knowledge.</li></ul>
<p>The <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16">first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference</a> series was held in February 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund. The <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17">second Internet Researchers' Conference</a> was organised in partnership with the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) campus on March 03-05, 2017.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroResearchers at WorkInternet StudiesEventInternet Researcher's Conference2018-07-02T18:30:52ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2018 (IRC18): Offline - Call for Sessions
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18-offline-call
<b>Does being offline necessarily mean being disconnected? Beyond anxieties such as FOMO, being offline is also seen as disengagement from a certain milieu of the digital (read: capital), an impediment to the way life is organised by and around technologies in general. However, being offline is not the exception, as examples of internet shutdown and acts on online censorship illustrate the persistence and often alarming regularity of the offline even for the ‘connected’ sections of the population. The *offline* is the theme of the third Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC18). We invite teams of two or more members to submit sessions proposals by Sunday, November 19 (final deadline). The session selection process is described below. The Conference will be hosted by the Sambhaavnaa Institute of Public Policy and Politics (Kandbari, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh) on February 22-24, 2018.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4><a href="#offline">IRC18: Offline</a></h4>
<h4><a href="#call">Call for Sessions</a></h4>
<h4><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/proposed-sessions.html" target="_blank">Proposed Sessions</a> (Conference Website)</h4>
<h4><a href="http://www.sambhaavnaa.org/" target="_blank">Sambhaavnaa Institute of Public Policy and Politics</a> (External Link)</h4>
<hr />
<h3 id="offline"><strong>IRC18: Offline</strong></h3>
<p>Does being offline necessarily mean being disconnected? Beyond anxieties such as FOMO, being offline is also seen as disengagement from a certain milieu of the digital (read: capital), an impediment to the way life is organised by and around technologies in general. However, being offline is not the exception, as examples of internet shutdown and acts on online censorship illustrate the persistence and often alarming regularity of the offline even for the ‘connected’ sections of the population.</p>
<p>State and commercial providers of internet and telecommunication services work in tandem to produce both the “online” and the “offline” - through content censorship, internet regulation, generalised service provision failures, and so on. Further, efforts to prioritise the use of digital technologies for financial transactions, especially since demonetisation, has led to a not-so-subtle equalisation of the ‘online economy’ with the ‘formal economy’; thus recognising the offline as the zones of informality, corruption, and piracy. This contributes to the offline becoming invisible, and in many cases, illegal, rather than being recognised as a condition that necessarily informs what it means to be digital.</p>
<p>Who is offline, and is it a choice? The global project of bringing people online has spurred several commendable initiatives in expanding access to digital devices, networks, and content, and often contentious ones such as Free Basics / internet.org, which illustrate the intersectionalities of scale, privilege, and rights that we need to be mindful of when we imagine the offline. Further, the experience of the internet, for a large section of people is often mediated through prior and ongoing experiences of traditional media, and through cultural metaphors and cognitive frames that transcend more practical registers such as consumption and facilitation. How do we approach, study, and represent this disembodied internet – devoid of its hypertext, platforms, devices, it's nuts and bolts, but still tangible through engagement in myriad, personal and often indiscernible ways.</p>
<h4>For the third edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC18), we invite participants to critically discuss the *offline*. We invite sessions that present or propose academic, applied, creative, or technical works that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the *offline*.</h4>
<p>For example, the sessions may explore one or more of the following themes:</p>
<ul><li>Geographies of internet access: Infrastructural, socio-political, and discursive forces and contradictions</li>
<li>Terms, objects, metaphors, and events of the internet and their offline remediation and circulation</li>
<li>Minimal computing, maker cultures, and digital collaboration and creativity in the offline</li>
<li>Offline economic cultures and transition towards less-cash economy</li>
<li>Offline as democratic choice: the right to offline lives in the context of global debates on privacy, surveillance, and data justice</li>
<li>Methodologies of studying the *offline* at the intersections of offline and online lives</li></ul>
<p><strong>Please note that the above are not sub-themes or tracks under which a session should be proposed, but are illustrations of possible session themes and concerns.</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<h3 id="call"><strong>Call for Sessions</strong></h3>
<p>We invite teams of two or more members to propose sessions for IRC18. All sessions will be one and half hours long, and will be fully designed and facilitated by the team concerned, including moderation (if any). Please remember this when planning the session. Everything happening during the session, except for logistical support, will be led and managed by the session team.</p>
<p>The sessions are expected to drive conversations on the topic concerned. They may include presentation of research papers but this is not mandatory.</p>
<p>We look forward to sessions that involve collaborative work (either in groups or otherwise), including discussions, interactions, documentation, learning, and making, are most welcome.</p>
<p>We also look forward to sessions conducted in Indic languages. The proposing team, in such a case, should consider how participants who do not understand the language concerned may engage with the session. IRC organisers and other participants shall help facilitate these sessions, say by offering translation support.</p>
<p>The only eligibility criteria for proposing sessions are that they must be proposed by a team of at least two members, and that they must engage with the *offline*.</p>
<p>The deadline for submission of sessions proposals for IRC18 is <strong>Sunday, November 19 (final deadline)</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>To propose a session, please send the following documents (as attached text files) to raw@cis-india.org:</strong></p>
<ul><li><strong>Title of the Session:</strong> The session should be named in the form of a hashtag (check the <a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions">IRC17 selected sessions</a> for example).</li>
<li><strong>Context of the Session:</strong> This should be a 300 words note discussing the context, the motivations, and the expectations behind the proposed session.</li>
<li><strong>Session Plan:</strong> This should describe the objectives of the session, what will be done and discussed during the session, and who among the people organising the session will be responsible for what. This note need not be more than 300 words long. If your session involves inviting others to present their work (say papers), then please provide a description and timeline of the process through which these people will be identified.</li>
<li><strong>Session Team Details:</strong> Please share brief biographic notes of each member of the session team, and contact details.</li></ul>
<p>There is no registration fee for the Conference, but participants are expected to pay for their own travel and accommodation (to be organised by CIS) expenses. Limited funding will be available to support travel and accommodation expenses of few participants who are unemployed or under-employed.</p>
<p><strong>Session selection process:</strong></p>
<ul><li><strong>November 19:</strong> Deadline of submission of session proposals.All submitted sessions will be posted on the CIS website, along with the names and details of the session team members.</li>
<li><strong>November 20 - December 17:</strong> Open review period. All session teams, as well as other interested contributors, are invited to review and comment upon each other's submitted proposals and revise their own. Read the proposed sessions here: <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc18/proposed-sessions.html">Conference Website</a>.</li>
<li><strong>December 18-31:</strong> The selection process takes place. All session teams will select 10 sessions to be included in the IRC18 programme. The votes will be anonymous, that is no session team will know which other sessions have voted for their session.</li>
<li><strong>January 08:</strong> Announcement of selected sessions.</li>
<li><strong>February 22-24:</strong> IRC18 at Sambhaavnaa Institute!</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18-offline-call'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc18-offline-call</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppResearchers at WorkInternet Researcher's ConferenceIRC18RAW Events2017-11-29T12:30:13ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17
<b>With great pleasure we announce the second edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC), an annual conference series initiated by the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at CIS to gather researchers, academic or otherwise, studying internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. The Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) will be held at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) campus on March 03-05, 2017. It is being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT-B and the CIS.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Registration is closed now.</h4>
<h4>Propose open sessions <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-OpenSessionProposals">here</a>.</h4>
<h4>Agenda (final): <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/irc/raw/master/irc17/IRC17_Agenda.pdf">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Programme: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/irc/raw/master/irc17/IRC17_Programme.pdf">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>Poster (high resolution): <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/irc/raw/master/irc17/IRC17_Poster-HighRes.jpg">Download</a> (JPG)</h4>
<hr />
<img src="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17/leadImage" alt="IRC17 Poster" height="400" />
<h3><strong>IRC17: Key Provocations</strong></h3>
<p>Two critical questions that emerged from the conversations at the previous edition of the Conference (IRC16) were about the digital objects of research, and the digital/internet experiences in Indic languages. As we discussed various aspects and challenges of 'studying internet in India', it was noted that we have not sufficiently explored how ongoing research methods, assumptions, and analytical frames are being challenged (if at all) by the becoming-digital of the objects of research across disciplines: from various artifacts and traces of human and machinic interactions, to archival entries and sites of ethnography, to practices and necessities of collaboration.</p>
<p>We found that the analyses of such digital objects of research often tend to assume either an aesthetic and functional uniqueness or sameness vis-à-vis the pre-/proto-digital objects of research, while neither of these positions are discussed in detail. Further, we tend to universalise the English-speaking user's/researcher's experience of working with such digital objects, without sufficiently considering their lives and functions in other (especially, Indic) languages.</p>
<p>These we take as the key provocations of the 2017 edition of IRC:</p>
<ul><li>
<p>How does the becoming-digital of the research objects challenge our current research practices, concerns, and assumptions?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>How do we appreciate, study, and theorise the functioning of and meaning-making by digital objects in Indic languages?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>What research tools and infrastructures are needed to study, document, annotate, analyse, archive, cite, and work with (in general) digital objects, especially those in Indic languages?</p>
</li></ul>
<p>This conference series is specifically driven by the following interests: 1) creating discussion spaces for researchers studying internet in India and in other comparable regions, 2) foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, 3) accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and 4) exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) forms of objects of power/knowledge.</p>
<h3><strong>Dates and Venue</strong></h3>
<p>The conference is being hosted by the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) during March 03-05, 2017.</p>
<p><strong>Address:</strong> 26/C, Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bangalore, 560100, <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/chHchxAMkrK2">location on Google Map</a>.</p>
<h3><strong>Session Details and Notes</strong></h3>
<p>Day 01, Friday, March 03</p>
<p><strong>#DigitalIdentities:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalidentities.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-DigitalIdentities">Etherpad</a></p>
<p><strong>#IndicLanguagesAndInternetCohabitation:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/indiclanguagesandinternetcohabitation.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-IndicLanguagesAndInternetCohabitation">Etherpad</a></p>
<p><strong>#SelfiesFromTheField:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/selfiesfromthefield-revised.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-SelfiesFromTheField">Etherpad</a></p>
<p><strong>#HookingUp:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/hookingup-revised.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-HookingUp">Etherpad</a></p>
<p>Day 02, Saturday, March 04</p>
<p><strong>#DotBharatAdoption:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/dotbharatadoption.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-DotBharatAdoption">Etherpad</a></p>
<p><strong>#DigitalPedagogies:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalpedagogies.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-DigitalPedagogies">Etherpad</a></p>
<p><strong>#MaterializingWriting:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/materializingwriting.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-MaterializingWriting">Etherpad</a></p>
<p><strong>#RenarrationWeb:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/renarrationweb.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-RenarrationWeb">Etherpad</a></p>
<p>Day 03, Sunday, March 05</p>
<p><strong>#ArchivesForStorytelling:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/archivesforstorytelling.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-ArchivesForStorytelling">Etherpad</a></p>
<p><strong>#ObjectsOfDigitalGovernance:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/objectsofdigitalgovernance.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-ObjectsOfDigitalGovernance">Etherpad</a></p>
<p><strong>#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing:</strong> <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/openaccessscholarlypublishing.html">Details</a> and <a href="https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC17-OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing">Etherpad</a></p>
<h3><strong>Session Selection Process</strong></h3>
<p>Call for sessions: <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-call">http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-call</a>.</p>
<p>Selected sessions: <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions">http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions</a>.</p>
<p>Please join the <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">researchers@cis-india</a> mailing list to take part in pre- and post-conference conversations.</p>
<h3><strong>About the IRC Series</strong></h3>
<p>The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiated the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series to address these concerns, and to create an annual temporary space in India, for internet researchers to gather and share experiences.</p>
<p>The IRC series is driven by the following interests:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>creating discussion spaces for researchers and practitioners studying internet in India and in other comparable regions,</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India,
accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) objects of power/knowledge.</p>
</li></ul>
<p>The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series was held in <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/cis-india.org/raw/irc16">February 2016</a>. It was hosted by the <a href="http://www.jnu.ac.in/SSS/CPS/">Centre for Political Studies</a> at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/cscs-digital-innovation-fund">CSCS Digital Innovation Fund</a>. The Conference was constituted by eleven discussion sessions (majority of which were organised around presentation of several papers), four workshop sessions (which involved group discussions, activities, and learnings), a book sprint over three sessions to develop an outline of a (re)sourcebook for internet researchers in India, and a concluding round table. The audio recordings and notes from IRC16 are now being compiled into an online Reader. A detailed <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/iirc-reflections-on-irc16">reflection note on IRC16</a> has been published.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroInternet Researcher's ConferenceFeaturedIRC17Researchers at WorkEvent2018-07-02T18:29:55ZEventInternet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Selected Sessions
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions
<b>With great pleasure we announce the eleven sessions selected for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) to be held at the IIIT Bangalore campus during March 03-05. The Conference is being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT Bangalore and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).</b>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>Session Selection Process</strong></h3>
<p>A total of 23 session proposals were submitted for IRC17, which were <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/proposed-sessions.html">published online</a>. All the session teams, as well as any interested persons, were invited on November 16 to submit comments on the initial session proposals. We closed accepting comments on December 23, and the sessions teams had up to December 30 to re-submit their proposals. On January 01, we invited each team to nominate 10 sessions to be included in the final agenda of the Conference, and this nomination process ended on January 19.</p>
<p>We received 200 nominations from 20 teams. Two teams retracted their session proposals during the selection process - <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/copyleftrightleft.html">#CopyLeftRightLeft</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalisingknowledge.html">#DigitalisingKnowledge</a>. And one team proposed two sessions, and so it only submitted one set of nominations.</p>
<h3><strong>Selected Sessions</strong></h3>
<p>The following 11 sessions have received 10 or more nominations:</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/archivesforstorytelling.html">05. #ArchivesForStorytelling</a></strong> - 11 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/selfiesfromthefield-revised.html">06. #SelfiesFromTheField</a></strong> - 10 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/openaccessscholarlypublishing.html">07. #OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing</a></strong> - 11 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalpedagogies.html">08. #DigitalPedagogies</a></strong> - 10 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/renarrationweb.html">10. #RenarrationWeb</a></strong> - 14 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/indiclanguagesandinternetcohabitation.html">11. #IndicLanguagesAndInternetCoHabitation</a></strong> - 12 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/objectsofdigitalgovernance.html">14. #ObjectsofDigitalGovernance</a></strong> - 10 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/materializingwriting.html">15. #MaterializingWriting</a></strong> - 10 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/dotbharatadoption.html">16. #DotBharatAdoption</a></strong> - 14 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/hookingup-revised.html">17. #HookingUp</a></strong> - 11 nominations<br />
<strong><a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalidentities.html">19. #DigitalIdentities</a></strong> - 13 nominations</p>
<h3><strong>Dates and Venue</strong></h3>
<p>The IRC17 will take place during March 03-05, 2017 at the <a href="http://iiitb.ac.in/">International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B)</a> campus. It is being organised by the <a href="http://citapp.iiitb.ac.in/">Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP)</a> at IIIT-B and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).</p>
<h3><strong>Conference Programme</strong></h3>
<p>The IRC17 programme will be published in early February. Please join the <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">researchers@cis-india</a> mailing list to get updates about IRC17 and to take part in the pre-conference conversations.</p>
<h3><strong>Accommodation and Travel</strong></h3>
<p>Accommodation of all non-Bangalore-based team members of the selected sessions, during the days of the Conference, will be organised by CIS. We will write to the teams concerned directly regarding this.</p>
<p>Separately, CIS will offer 10 travel grants, up to Rs. 10,000 each, for within-India travel. Participants who are unemployed or semi-employed, including students, would be given priority.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selected-sessions</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC17Internet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceResearchers at Work2017-01-20T13:28:24ZBlog Entry Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Selection of Sessions
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selection
<b>We have a wonderful range of session proposals for the second Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC17) to take place in Bengaluru on March 03-05, 2017. From the 23 submitted session proposals, we will now select 10 to be part of the final Conference agenda. The selection will be done through votes casted by the teams that have proposed the sessions. This will take place in December 2016. Before that, we invite the session teams and other contributors to share their comments and suggestions on the submitted sessions. Please share your comments by December 14, either on session pages directly, or via email (sent to raw at cis-india dot org).</b>
<p> </p>
<p>The Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) will be organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in partnership with the <a href="http://citapp.iiitb.ac.in/">Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy</a> at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B).</p>
<hr />
<h3><strong>Proposed Sessions</strong></h3>
<h4>01. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/notfewnotweird.html" target="_blank">#NotFewNotWeird</a> (Surfatial: Malavika Rajnarayan, Prayas Abhinav, and Satya Gummuluri)</h4>
<h4>02. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/virtualfringe.html" target="_blank">#VirtualFringe</a> (Ritika Pant, Sagorika Singha, and Vibhushan Subba)</h4>
<h4>03. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/studentindicusageonline.html" target="_blank">#StudentIndicUsageOnline</a> (Shruti Nagpal and Sneha Verghese)</h4>
<h4>04. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/speakmylanguageinternet.html" target="_blank">#SpeakMyLanguageInternet</a> (Anubhuti Yadav, Sunetra Sen Narayan, Shalini Narayanan, Anand Pradhan, and Shashwati Goswami)</h4>
<h4>05. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/archivesforstorytelling.html" target="_blank">#ArchivesForStorytelling</a> (V Jayant, Venkat Srinivasan, Chaluvaraju, Bhanu Prakash, and Dinesh)</h4>
<h4>06. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/selfiesfromthefield.html" target="_blank">#SelfiesFromTheField</a> (Kavitha Narayanan, Oindrila Matilal and Onkar Hoysala)</h4>
<h4>07. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/openaccessscholarlypublishing.html" target="_blank">#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing</a> (Nirmala Menon, Abhishek Shrivastava and Dibyaduti Roy)</h4>
<h4>08. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalpedagogies.html" target="_blank">#DigitalPedagogies</a> (Nidhi Kalra, Ashutosh Potdar, and Ravikant Kisana)</h4>
<h4>09. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalmusicanddigitalreactions.html" target="_blank">#DigitalMusicAndDigitalReactions</a> (Shivangi Narayan and Sarvpriya Raj)</h4>
<h4>10. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/renarrationweb.html" target="_blank">#RenarrationWeb</a> (Dinesh, Venkatesh Choppella, Srinath Srinivasa, and Deepak Prince)</h4>
<h4>11. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/indiclanguagesandinternetcohabitation.html" target="_blank">IndicLanguagesAndInternetCoHabitation</a> (Sreedhar Kallahalla, Ranjeet Kumar, Mohan Rao, and Anjali K. Mohan)</h4>
<h4>12. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalpedagogy.html" target="_blank">#DigitalPedagogy</a> (Padmini Ray Murray and Dibyaduti Roy)</h4>
<h4>13. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/copyleftrightleft.html" target="_blank">#CopyLeftRightLeft</a> (Ravishankar Ayyakkannu and Srikanth Lakshmanan)</h4>
<h4>14. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/objectsofdigitalgovernance.html" target="_blank">#ObjectsofDigitalGovernance</a> (Marine Al Dahdah, Rajiv K. Mishra, Khetrimayum Monish Singh, and Sohan Prasad Sha)</h4>
<h4>15. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/materializingwriting.html" target="_blank">#MaterializingWriting</a> (Sneha Puthiya Purayil, Padmini Ray Murray, Dibyadyuti Roy, and Indrani Roy)</h4>
<h4>16. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/dotbharatadoption.html" target="_blank">#DotBharatAdoption</a> (V. Sridhar and Amit Prakash)</h4>
<h4>17. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitaldesires.html" target="_blank">#DigitalDesires</a> (Dhiren Borisa, Akhil Kang, and Dhrubo Jyoti)</h4>
<h4>18. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/thedigitalcommonplace.html" target="_blank">#TheDigitalCommonplace</a> (Ammel Sharon and Sujeet George)</h4>
<h4>19. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalidentities.html" target="_blank">#DigitalIdentities</a> (Janaki Srinivasan, Savita Bailur, Emrys Schoemaker, Jonathan Donner, and Sarita Seshagiri)</h4>
<h4>20. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/toolstoamultitextuniverse.html" target="_blank">#ToolsToAMultitextUniverse</a> (Spandana Bhowmik and Sunanda Bose)</h4>
<h4>21. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/digitalisingknowledge.html" target="_blank">#DigitalisingKnowledge</a> (Sneha Ragavan)</h4>
<h4>22. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/ICTDethics.html" target="_blank">#ICTDEthics</a> (Bidisha Chaudhuri, Andy Dearden, Linus Kendall, Dorothea Kleine, and Janaki Srinivasan)</h4>
<h4>23. <a href="https://cis-india.github.io/irc/irc17/sessions/representationandpower.html" target="_blank">#RepresentationAndPower</a> (Bidisha Chaudhuri, Andy Dearden, Linus Kendall, Dorothea Kleine, and Janaki Srinivasan)</h4>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selection'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selection</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroInternet StudiesInternet Researcher's ConferenceResearchers at WorkFeaturedLearningIRC17Homepage2016-12-12T13:37:23ZBlog EntryInternet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Call for Sessions
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-call
<b>It gives us great pleasure to announce that the second Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC17) will take place in Bengaluru on March 03-05, 2017. It will be organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in partnership with the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B). It is a free and open conference. Sessions must be proposed by teams of two or more members on or before Friday, October 28. All submitted session proposals will go though an open review process, followed by each team that has proposed a session being invited to select ten sessions of their choice to be included in the Conference agenda. Final sessions will be chosen through these votes, and be announced on January 09, 2017.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>IRC17 Call for Sessions: <a href="https://github.com/cis-india/irc/raw/master/IRC17_Call-for-Sessions.pdf">Download</a> (PDF)</h4>
<h4>IRC17 Selection of Sessions: <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selection">http://cis-india.org/raw/irc17-selection</a></h4>
<h4><em>Deadline for submission was Friday, October 28.</em></h4>
<hr />
<h3><strong>IRC17: Key Provocations</strong></h3>
<p>Two critical questions that emerged from the conversations at the previous edition of the Conference (IRC16) were about the <strong>digital objects of research</strong>, and the <strong>digital/internet experiences in Indic languages</strong>. As we discussed various aspects and challenges of 'studying internet in India', it was noted that we have not sufficiently explored how ongoing research methods, assumptions, and analytical frames are being challenged (if at all) by the <strong>becoming-digital</strong> of the objects of research across disciplines: from various artifacts and traces of human and machinic interactions, to archival entries and sites of ethnography, to practices and necessities of collaboration.</p>
<p>We found that the analyses of such <strong>digital objects of research</strong> often tend to assume either an aesthetic and functional <strong>uniqueness</strong> or <strong>sameness</strong> vis-à-vis the pre-/proto-digital objects of research, while neither of these positions are discussed in detail. Further, we tend to universalise the English-speaking user's/researcher's experience of working with such digital objects, without sufficiently considering their lives and functions in other (especially, Indic) languages.</p>
<p>These we take as the key provocations of the 2017 edition of IRC:</p>
<ul>
<li>How does the <strong>becoming-digital</strong> of the research objects challenge our current research practices, concerns, and assumptions?</li>
<li>How do we appreciate, study, and theorise the functioning of and meaning-making by digital objects in <strong>Indic languages</strong>?</li>
<li>What <strong>research tools and infrastructures</strong> are needed to study, document, annotate, analyse, archive, cite, and work with (in general) digital objects, especially those in Indic languages?</li></ul>
<h3><strong>Call for Sessions</strong></h3>
<p>We invite teams of two or more researchers and practitioners to propose sessions for IRC17. We do understand that finding team members for a session you have in mind might be difficult in certain cases. Please feel free to share initial sessions ideas on the <strong>researchers@cis-india</strong> mailing list <strong>[1]</strong>. Also, please keep an eye on the list to see what potential topics are being discussed.</p>
<p>All sessions will be one and half hours long, and will be fully designed and facilitated by the team concerned, including moderation (if any). The sessions are expected to drive conversations on the topic concerned. They may include presentation of research papers but this is <strong>not at all</strong> mandatory.</p>
<p>If you plan to organise a session structured around presentation of research papers, please note that we are exploring potential publication outlets for a collection of full-length research papers. If your session is selected for IRC17, we will notify you of guidelines to be followed for the submission and review of full-length papers prior to the conference. If you are interested in this publication possibility, <strong>please indicate</strong> that in your session proposal submission.</p>
<p>Sessions that involve collaborative work (either in group or otherwise), including discussions, interactions, documentation, learning, and making, are <strong>most welcome</strong>.</p>
<p>Further, we look forward to sessions conducted in <strong>Indic languages</strong>. The proposing team, in such a case, should consider how participants who do not understand the language can participate in it. IRC organisers and other participants will play an active role in making such engagements possible.</p>
<p>The only <strong>eligibility criteria</strong> for proposing sessions are that they must be proposed by a <strong>team of at least two members</strong>, and that they must engage with <strong>one (or more) of the three key provocations</strong> mentioned above. Further, the teams whose sessions are selected for IRC17 must commit to producing at least <strong>one post-conference essay/documentation</strong> on the topic of their session.</p>
<p>The <strong>deadline</strong> for submission of sessions proposals for IRC17 is <strong>Friday, October 28</strong>.</p>
<p>To propose a session, please send the following documents (as attached text files) to <strong>raw[at]cis-india[dot]org</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Title and Description of the Session:</strong> The session should be named in the form of a hashtag (check the IRC16 sessions for reference <strong>[2]</strong>). The description of the session should clearly state what the key focus of the session is, and which of the three central concerns it will address. The description should be approximately <strong>300 words</strong> long.</li>
<li><strong>Session plan:</strong> This should describe how the session will be conducted and moderated. Any specific requirements (technical, language support, etc.) of the session should also be noted here. This should not be more than <strong>200 words</strong> long. If your session plan involves presentation of research papers, please indicate whether you would be interested in having these papers considered for academic publication.</li>
<li><strong>Documentation plan:</strong> This should indicate how documentation will be done during the session, and more importantly what form the post-conference essay/documentation will take and what issue(s) it will address. This should not be more than <strong>100 words</strong> long.</li>
<li><strong>Short Abstracts (Only for Sessions with Paper Presentations):</strong> If your session involves presentation of research papers, please share a <strong>250 words</strong> abstract for each paper.</li>
<li><strong>Details of the Team:</strong> Please share brief biographic notes of each member of the session team, and contact details.</li></ul>
<h3><strong>Session Selection Process</strong></h3>
<p><strong>October 28:</strong> Deadline of submission of session proposals.</p>
<p><strong>October 31:</strong> All submitted sessions will be posted on the CIS website, along with the names, biographic brief, and contact details of the members of the session teams.</p>
<p><strong>November 01 - December 24:</strong> Open review period. All session teams, as well as other interested contributors, may review the submitted proposals and share comments directly with the session teams, or discuss the session on the researchers@cis-india list. The session teams may fully and continuously edit the proposal during this period, including adding/changing session teams.</p>
<p><strong>December 25:</strong> Open review ends and voting begins. All session teams will select 10 sessions to be included in the IRC17 programme. The votes will be anonymous, that is which session team has voted for which set of sessions will not be made public.</p>
<p><strong>January 05:</strong> Voting ends.</p>
<p><strong>January 09:</strong> Announcement of selected sessions.</p>
<p><strong>February 12:</strong> Deadline for selected session teams to submit a detailed session plan, information about which will be shared later. If a selected session involves presentation of papers, then the draft papers are to be submitted by this date (no need to submit a detailed session plan in that case).</p>
<h3><strong>Venue, Accommodation, and Travel</strong></h3>
<p>The conference will take place at the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) during March 03-05, 2017 <strong>[3]</strong>.</p>
<p>The conference does <strong>not</strong> have any participation fees. The organisers will cover <strong>all</strong> costs related to accommodation and hospitality during the conference. We look forward to offer a limited number of (domestic) travel fellowships for students and other deserving applicants. We will also confirm this on <strong>January 02, 2017</strong>.</p>
<h3><strong>About the IRC Series</strong></h3>
<p>The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme <strong>[4]</strong> at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) initiated the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series to address these concerns, and to create an annual temporary space in India, for internet researchers to gather and share experiences.</p>
<p>The IRC series is driven by the following interests:</p>
<ul>
<li>creating discussion spaces for researchers and practitioners studying internet in India and in other comparable regions,</li>
<li>foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India,
accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and</li>
<li>exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) objects of power/knowledge.</li></ul>
<p>The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series was held in February 2016 <strong>[5]</strong>. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University <strong>[6]</strong>, and was supported by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund <strong>[7]</strong>. The Conference was constituted by eleven discussion sessions (majority of which were organised around presentation of several papers), four workshop sessions (which involved group discussions, activities, and learnings), a book sprint over three sessions to develop an outline of a (re)sourcebook for internet researchers in India, and a concluding round table. The audio recordings and notes from IRC16 are now being compiled into an online Reader. A detailed reflection note on the IRC16 has already been published <strong>[8]</strong>.</p>
<h3><strong>Endnotes</strong></h3>
<p><strong>[1]</strong> See: <a href="https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers">https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[2]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16">http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[3]</strong> See: <a href="http://iiitb.ac.in/">http://iiitb.ac.in/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[4]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/">http://cis-india.org/raw/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[5]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16">http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[6]</strong> See: <a href="http://www.jnu.ac.in/SSS/CPS/">http://www.jnu.ac.in/SSS/CPS/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[7]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/cscs-digital-innovation-fund">http://cis-india.org/raw/cscs-digital-innovation-fund</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[8]</strong> See: <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/iirc-reflections-on-irc16">http://cis-india.org/raw/iirc-reflections-on-irc16</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-call'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc17-call</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroResearchers at WorkInternet Researcher's ConferenceFeaturedLearningIRC17Homepage2016-12-12T13:40:08ZBlog EntryIIRC: Reflections on IRC16
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/iirc-reflections-on-irc16
<b>The first edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) series was held on February 26-28, 2016. It was hosted by the Centre for Political Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and was supported by the CSCS Digitial Innovation Fund. Here we share our reflections on the Conference, albeit rather delayed, and lessons towards the next edition to be held in March 2017.</b>
<p> </p>
<em><strong>Note:</strong> IIRC stands for 'if I remember correctly' in ancient internet acronym culture. Thanks to Sebastian for the inspiration.</em>
<hr />
<p>For several months, we have been trying to organise our thoughts, as well as post-conference documentation efforts, emerging from the Internet Researchers' Conference 2016. We have not been very successful in either till now. And like most unsuccessful ventures, it has been a robust learning experience. We are working on giving the IRC16 Reader a final shape, before it becomes more of an academic legend. We hope to launch the beta version of the Reader in mid-September. Here, let me quickly share my reflections on IRC16, at least what I remember of it.</p>
<h3><strong>A Game of Selections</strong></h3>
<p>The Conference departed from most other academic conferences in two obvious ways: 1) the sessions were not selected by a programme committee but through votes cast by all the teams that proposed a session, and 2) the Conference programme consisted of both panel discussions and workshop sessions, and there was no requirement for the panel discussions to be structured around papers (though some sessions did involve presentation of papers). At the feedback session of the Conference, and also in conversations afterwards, it was pointed out that this manner of session selection (not based on paper abstracts, and through voting by peers) is perhaps “too democratic / too wiki-like,” which undermines the ability to curate the Conference effectively. Several participants also presented the opposite viewpoint – that a more peer-driven selection of sessions better reflects the immediate interests and priorities of the community of internet researchers who are gathering at the Conference. As one participant articulated: “we must have faith in our ignorance.”</p>
<p>We at CIS are still confident about this mode of selection but at the same time we do recognise three key concerns in conducting the selection process:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Anonymity:</strong> The anonymous selection process breaks down since we expect the potential participants of the Conference to share early ideas about their potential sessions, and scout for potential session team members, through the mailing list (and elsewhere) before actually submitting the panel proposal. We still prefer that participants discuss the session before proposing it, so perhaps we will have to live with the incomplete anonymity when it comes to the session selection process. Perhaps we can make the votes non-anonymous too to keep parity – that is, all the proposed sessions would be published with the names of their proposers, and all the teams will publicly indicate which other sessions they are voting for.<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Disciplinary capture:</strong> While peer-based voting works very well when it comes to reflecting the interests of the community, it might quite easily break down if there is a concentration of teams coming from a specific disciplinary background. How we approach research objects and questions, and hence how we appreciate how exciting a research object or question is, can be quite intimately shaped by our disciplinary locations. A dominance of a specific discipline among the peer-group (that is among all the teams that have proposed sessions) can potentially lead to a 'capture' of the Conference by research objects and questions of interest to specific disciplines. This is something we have to be more aware of when casting our votes.<br /><br /></li>
<li><strong>Peer-review before peer-votes:</strong> The process followed last year only allowed a session team to vote on the sessions proposed by other teams, but not to review and comment on those proposals. This review process is not only useful to infuse the session proposals with ideas and concerns coming from other disciplinary and methodological locations, but also to support the teams to revisit their articulation and structuring of the session before their peers start to cast votes. This is something we must aspire to do during the selection process for IRC17.</li></ul>
<h3><strong>A Clash of Disciplines</strong></h3>
<p>Continuing from the “disciplinary capture” point above, the presence of researchers and practitioners from various fields and disciplines was, according to me, the most exciting part of the IRC16, and also the part that led to significant frustration. I felt that we were able to gather people from various disciplinary backgrounds – academic and otherwise – but could not provide sufficient space or time for the inter-disciplinary conversations to a take more fuller form. We saw clear disagreements emerging between researchers coming from different disciplinary locations, though most of them did not have the opportunity to be developed into a detailed discussion.</p>
<p>This is quite a high ambition for a conference of this kind; that is given the conference was not focused narrowly on a set of topics. Nonetheless, this remains one of the key objectives of the IRC series, and we need to understand how better to create opportunities for participants to communicate their disciplinary concerns and create inter-disciplinary discussions.</p>
<p>One possible way to create context for more inter-disciplinary conversations is by requesting all the sessions’ teams to include members from different disciplines. Also, we can try to keep more open discussion space (but that means less selected sessions) to provide time for the discussions spilling over from the sessions. Thirdly, we can think of including “inter-disciplinary conversations” as one of the key themes for potential sessions of IRC17.</p>
<p>Further, though we experienced several clashes of disciplines, methods, and approaches, these were all limited to a completely anglophone intellectual environment. We failed substantially, as was pointed out by a participant at the feedback session, to create space at the Conference for Indic language practices and concerns – both for researchers and practitioners working in these languages, and the criticisms of anglophone academic framings and practices coming from such researchers and practitioners. This is something we must address proactively during the future editions of the Conference.</p>
<h3><strong>A Storm of Sessions</strong></h3>
<p>One of the often heard criticisms of the conference was regarding the decision to have parallel sessions. While the decision was taken purely to accommodate as many sessions as possible, this of course imposed an undesirable burden upon the participants to choose between two rather desirable sessions. We as organisers of IRC16 faced the same tough decision of choosing between sessions that should both be part of the Conference agenda, and conveniently decided to let the participants choose (instead of us choosing for them). It is quite likely that we would do this again, or at least would like to do this again – that is, we expect that for IRC17 too we would receive a lot of wonderful sessions and decide against a fully single-track conference.</p>
<p>The question of sessions, however, is not only one of tracks. It is also about formats. In the feedback session, there was a clear recognition of the value of “workshop” sessions – that is sessions that involved <em>all</em> the participants <em>doing</em> something – in a conference like this, which is explicitly interested in the conceptual and technical challenges of digital media research. There was also a demand that we have more workshop sessions in IRC17, as opposed to “discussion” sessions that involved paper presentations. While the original plan was that all the participants will primarily be <em>learning</em> or <em>doing</em> something at a workshop session, and will not be talking, as the discussion sessions were primarily meant for talking, the actual sessions in the Conference differed from each other essentially in terms of whether papers were presented or not.</p>
<p>Thus, it perhaps makes sense, for the IRC17 call for sessions, to not to separate out these session types in terms of workshop/discussion but in terms of paper-driven/non-paper-driven. Maybe this separation itself is avoidable and all that we need to say is that the Conference is fundamentally interested in sessions that drive conversations, both intra- and inter-disciplinary. While presentation of papers can surely drive conversations, they are not necessary at all.</p>
<h3><strong>A Feast for Researchers and Practitioners</strong></h3>
<p>A key objective, if not <em>the</em> key objective, of IRC16 was to build a temporary space for researchers and practitioners studying internet and society in India (though not necessarily from or located in India) to gather and share thoughts. While we felt that the conference has been quite effective in doing that, we have been rather clueless when it comes to sustaining the momentum of interactions that was achieved at the Conference, or documenting the various kinds and threads of conversations taking place there.</p>
<p>The first problem, we may say, is not something that CIS (as the organiser of the conference series) should be concerned with too much, since our aim and responsibility is to make possible this <em>temporary</em> space and not to host <em>all</em> conversations and collaborations coming out of it. In fact, we should <em>not</em> be interested in hosting and/or facilitating all such initiatives. The second problem, however, is a serious one for us. Since the Conference is not organised around pre-written papers, we will have to depend on the efforts by the participants either during, or after (or both) the Conference to produce an <em>output</em> that documents, narrates, and/or reflects on the conversations that took place. Such an approach, thus, is fundamentally based upon the trust that the participants will prepare and share these materials <em>after</em> the Conference. On a lighter note, we also hope that social embarrassment and pressure will also play a role here (but that only works when the majority of the participants are actually sharing).</p>
<p>There are two connected points here:</p>
<ul>
<li>While the majority of the documentation happens either at the Conference or after that, what kind of pre-Conference efforts (by the participants) would be useful in ensuring productive sessions?<br /><br /></li>
<li>Who all contribute to this post-Conference Reader? Should it be restricted to teams/people whose sessions were selected, or all who proposed a session, and/or took part in the Conference?</li></ul>
<p>A recommendation at the feedback session of IRC16 touched upon the first question, while the second question is derived from a critical question posed at the same session. The recommendation was that the teams whose sessions get selected for the Conference should share a more detailed session agenda note before the Conference to better inform the participants about the content and approach of the same. The critical question mentioned earlier was regarding the imagination of the <em>community</em> of researchers and practitioners being gathered at the Conference, and if it is only limited to the people whose sessions got selected. In our minds it is clear that everyone gathering at these conferences, and those who proposed sessions but could not attend, are all part of this imagined community, and thus should also contribute to the post-Conference Reader.</p>
<h3><strong>A Dance with Sustainability</strong></h3>
<p>IRC16 was supported very generously by the Centre for Political Studies at JNU (as part of an ongoing project titled <em>UPE2 Project: Politics on Social Media</em>), the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund, and CIS. The first provided us with the conference venue and accommodation, the second provided financial support towards food and travel expenses (and bit of accommodation too), and the third picked up all the remaining expenses and efforts. While we will keep doing what it takes to organise the next editions of IRC, we are dependent on academic and other institutes that are willing to host the event and accommodate the participants, and on various sources of funding that may be available to cover the miscellaneous expenses.</p>
<p>When we started planning for IRC16, we decided not to conceptualise this as part of an ongoing or future project – that is, the conference series should not itself become a <em>deliverable</em> under a project at CIS. While this gives us intellectual and functional independence, it entails serious financial limitations. We are of course open to the conference series becoming a site for developing or communicating a <em>deliverable</em> under an ongoing project at CIS or any other involved actor (especially the host and funding agencies) but such matters, we feel, are best discussed in a case-to-case basis. The bottom line remains that we need financial and human support to take this conference series forward. This is definitely something to be discussed further at IRC17.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/iirc-reflections-on-irc16'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/iirc-reflections-on-irc16</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Researchers at WorkInternet Researcher's Conference2016-09-06T09:28:51ZBlog Entry