The Centre for Internet and Society
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IRC16 - Proposed Session - #ManyPublicsOfInternet
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-manypublicsofinternet
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Sailen Routray and Khetrimayum Monish.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>The discussion in this session will focus on the cultures of practices around digital / information networks. The objective would be to open up the understanding around notions of identity and rights in the context of governance on one hand, and the proliferation of various subcultures on the other. The objective is to try and understand the political and cultural imaginations 'of and as the public' enabled by internet and digital technologies. In this, we are trying to connect the whole discussion to the first two questions the conference focuses on:</p>
<ul>
<li>How do we conceptualise, as an intellectual and political task, the mediation and transformation of social, cultural, political, and economic processes, forces, and sites through internet and digital media technologies in contemporary India?<br /><br /></li>
<li>How do we frame and explore the experiences and usages of internet and digital media technologies in India within its specific historical-material contexts shaped by traditional hierarchies of knowledge, colonial systems of communication, post-independence initiatives in nation-wide technologies of governance, a rapidly growing telecommunication market, and informal circuits of media production and consumption, among others?</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>Each discussant will present for 20 minutes after which the session will be thrown open for discussion amongst all the participants of the session.</p>
<p><strong>Abstract I</strong></p>
<p>Internet in India has led to the proliferation of practices and notions of governance and citizenship simulated by information networks and data. On one hand, the internet has captured the imagination of citizens and the reassertion of user agency; on the other, the experiences with the internet reflects the new ways of how the state imagines itself and the citizens. Hence, not only a critical mass replete with the possibilities of user agency, but also one aggregated by the state as part of a political project. Initiatives such as Digital India, the Aadhar project, rural internet and increased emphasis on mobile internet services are some of ways through which the logic of access and participation now operates. The paper will draw perspectives from four case studies in Assam - the
Mahanagar Project (internet and mobile services), the National Register of Citizens (NRC) update, the Aadhaar Project and rural internet kiosks (Common Service Centers). With these, it focuses on the larger context of the cultures of digital practices; and techno-politics through the various sites and projects through which the internet operates in India.</p>
<p><strong>Abstract II</strong></p>
<p>Those of us who have jumped or meandered across to the wrong (or perhaps the right) side of thirty by now, first came to consume internet in what were called, and are still called, cyber cafes or internet cafes. Their numbers in big Indian cities is dwindling because of the increasing ubiquity of smartphone, and netbooks and data cards. The cyber café seems to be inexorably headed the way of the STD booth in the geography of large Indian cities. The present paper is a preliminary step towards capturing some of the experience of running and using internet cafes. With ethnographic fieldwork with cyber café owners and internet users in these cafes in the Chandrasekharpur area of
Bhubaneswar (where the largest section of the computer industry in the state of Odisha is located), this paper tries to capture experiences that lie at the interstices of ‘objects’ and spaces - experiences that are at the same time a history of the internet as well as a personal history of the city. By doing so it tries to ask and answer the question - what kinds of publics does the consumption of the internet in spaces such as cybercafes create?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>Escobar, Arturo, et al. 1994. Welcome to Cyberia: Notes on the Anthropology of Cyberculture [and Comments and Reply]. <em>Current Anthropology</em>. 35(3): 211-231.</p>
<p>Nayar, Pramod K. 2008. New Media, Digitextuality and Public Space: Reading "Cybermohalla". <em>Postcolonial Text</em>. 4(1):1-12.</p>
<p>Kurian, Renee and Isha Ray. 2009. Outsourcing the State? Public–Private Partnerships and Information Technologies in India. <em>World Development</em>. 37(10): 1163-1173.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-manypublicsofinternet'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-manypublicsofinternet</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:06:54ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #LiterarySpaces (Online Literary Spaces in India)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-literaryspaces
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by P.P. Sneha and Arup Chatterjee.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>The last decade has seen a slow but steady emergence of online literary spaces in India, marked by the ubiquitous nature of the internet and digital technologies, growing mobile phone penetration and increased access to devices such as tablets and e-readers. By literary spaces we refer to online journals, magazines and blogs, as well as reading groups and discussion spaces focused on writing in English and Indian languages. These range from those exclusively focusing on contemporary literature to others that feature writing on news, culture and arts. These spaces raise some intriguing questions about the growth a new online or digital literary culture, which may be mapped through the evolution of reading and writing practices as very explicitly technologized practices, and the changes in the notion of text and textuality, scholarship and pedagogy, among other things.</p>
<p>Some examples of such spaces that have come up in the recent years are <em>The Little Magazine</em> <strong>[1]</strong>, <em>Muse India</em> <strong>[2]</strong>, <em>Kritya</em> <strong>[3]</strong>, <em>Coldnoon: Travel Poetics</em> <strong>[4]</strong>, <em>Kindle</em> <strong>[5]</strong>, <em>Almost Island</em> <strong>[6]</strong>, <em>The Indian Quarterly</em> <strong>[7]</strong> and among several others. Many of these journals have both an online and print presence, while some are purely online and seek to reach a diverse audience featuring different genres of writing. While many carry an eclectic mix of creative and critical writing, perceptions about readership on the internet often dictate the form and manner of writing that is featured. The much anticipated and debated ‘disappearance’ of long form writing is one of the questions that may be asked of the emergence of these literary journals, which have in some way re-imagined this form in the digital sphere and have been instrumental in its growth. So even as there are books on twitterature <strong>[8]</strong>, there are interesting ways in which online literary journals have tried to define the space of contemporary writing on the internet in India.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>This panel discussion proposes to examine this phenomenon of the growth of online literary journals to understand the imagination of the ‘digital’ in their practices of writing and publication, whether as medium, content or context, as a way to explore how writing and reading practices today have been shaped by these changes. This also includes questions on methods of literary analysis that may have changed with the advent of the digital, and from a broader perspective, the production of literary scholarship and pedagogy in India. Some questions that could be points of discussion are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>What is the pedagogical role, if any of digital/online journals? Are they simply cost-effective modes of production of knowledge or are they indicative of some other form discrimination? Perhaps a discrimination between what gets read and what does not? Is a voluminous archive of nineteenth century writings of the same pedagogical merit as a list of 100 Hollywood romantic comedies? If the former is arguably much more educational, why then is the latter the source of the greatest traffic? Is pedagogy then a misnomer, and a non-entity in the world of online magazines?<br /><br /></li>
<li>Can the rise of online magazines be related with the rise of print culture and the subsequent rise of the novel? The novel was educational and, while English was still a very evolving language in the 17th and 18th centuries, the form helped both shape the language and educate the masses, bourgeoisie, and the aristocracy about the nuances of the still-nascent English language. Can a similar function be said to have been fulfilled by online journals? Or have they failed in playing this radical role of disseminating new language and new vocabulary, which is required to articulate new modes and conflicts within modernity--sexualities, queerness, televised elections, middle-eastern (Syrian, Palestinian, Israeli, Iraqi) mayhem in times of democracy, globalization, urbanization, travel, genocide, partition, terrorism, and so on? Are there any exceptions among the journals in being able to somehow fulfil the criteria of engendering a new language? What are the examples, if any? How popular are they?<br /><br /></li>
<li>Is online literature less literary than print? Is it more amenable to news, while print continues to be literary? Or is this only a misconception? Is online literature prone to non-serious, or populist sources of pedagogy, which serve more to titillate through trolling, humour, half-baked information, gossip, or is it playing a serious role too in portions? Apart from those newspapers and journals/magazines which also have print components, which are possibly the portals that create viable, meritorious, and universal categories of knowledge? Or, invocation of 'merit' and 'universal' essentially a flawed mechanism to judge online literatures?</li></ol>
<p>Addressing some of above questions through a study of two or more online journals, this session will attempt to open them up to a broader discussion on the nature and growth of an online literary culture in India, and the need for and significance of research in this area.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Notes</h2>
<p><strong>[1]</strong> See: <a href="http://www.littlemag.com/" target="_blank">http://www.littlemag.com/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[2]</strong> See: <a href="http://www.museindia.com/" target="_blank">http://www.museindia.com/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[3]</strong> See: <a href="http://www.kritya.in/" target="_blank">http://www.kritya.in/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[4]</strong> See: <a href="http://coldnoon.com/" target="_blank">http://coldnoon.com/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[5]</strong> See: <a href="http://kindlemag.in/" target="_blank">http://kindlemag.in/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[6]</strong> See: <a href="http://almostisland.com/" target="_blank">http://almostisland.com/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[7]</strong> See: <a href="http://indianquarterly.com/" target="_blank">http://indianquarterly.com/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>[8]</strong> See: <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307055/twitterature-by-alexander-aciman/9780143117322/" target="_blank">http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307055/twitterature-by-alexander-aciman/9780143117322/</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-literaryspaces'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-literaryspaces</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T06:59:25ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #KnowledgeCommunity (Computing, Community and Knowledge Production: Problems and Prospects)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-knowledgecommunity
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Ravikant.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>Our session will approach the history of digital knowledge production and dissemination in India from the standpoint of community-oriented experiments and practices in tool making and resource-sharing in the vernacular domain, mainly Hindi. It will attempt to demonstrate that Hindi public domain represents a depth and diversity that is normally not visible to the monolingually-trained, English-only mode of cognition. We wish to argue that the diversity of content is symptomatic of a culture of deeply-ingrained culture of sharing in South Asia. Free software movement, especially its localisation units, Wikipedia and Web 2.0 platforms in general have played a stellar role in handing us the tools of creation, consumption and sharing beyond scripts. But the full potential of how much we can produce and share has not been realised.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>We will try and present successful and unsuccessful cases in order to understand why certian efforts worked and not others, and try and suggest a few possible strategies of creative engagement with bhasha communities in general.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-knowledgecommunity'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-knowledgecommunity</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T06:54:54ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #InternetMovements
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-internetmovements
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Becca Savory, Sarah McKeever, and Shaunak Sen.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>Since its early days the Internet has been conceived in terms of both movement and landscape - from “cyberspace” to the “Information Superhighway” - and in popular perception is often viewed as a boundless space imagined in terms of limitless possibilities. Indeed, across our research fields, from digital media to performance and social activism, we find that the Internet is frequently perceived as a space of mobilisation: where moving bodies are
remediated within online content; where the movement of images, ideas and bodies can occur freely, with the rapid transmission of the “viral”; and where movement(s) frequently spill over into physical geographies.</p>
<p>Yet increasingly the Internet is also a space of fractured and fragmented movement(s): of blockages and blockades, discontinuities and disappearances. Landscapes become territorialized and movement(s) confined or obstructed. On this basis, we propose an interdisciplinary discussion session around the theme of
"#InternetMovement(s)". We ask how we can conceive of movement(s) in relation to the Internet in India, in terms of both mobility and immobility, fissure and flow.</p>
<p>To encourage fluidity, we propose to structure the session around three "nodes" rather than three separate research papers. Our nodes are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>How can we conceive of movement(s) in relation to Internet research in India?</li>
<li>What are the forms that movement(s) take in our respective fields?</li>
<li>What "stop" or blocks" movement in these cases?</li></ol>
<p>The three co-conveners will each prepare a 5-minute response to each of these nodes, based on our specific areas of research. At each nodal point we will then allow time for wider discussion, enabling inter-disciplinary discussion and flow to underpin the session.</p>
<p>We perceive the session to speak to the first of the conference’s core questions: “How do we conceptualise, as an intellectual and political task, the mediation and transformation of social, cultural, political, and economic processes, forces, and sites through internet and digital media technologies in contemporary India?”</p>
<p>Each of the three co-convenors is approaching this question in their own research, asking how online media and communications mediate, remediate and transform the fields of film-media, social activism, and performance. We also ask the corollary: what are the limits and impediments to those transformations or mediations? The following section outlines the co-convenors’ approaches in more detail.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p><strong>Statement of Intent I</strong></p>
<p>The internet increasingly impresses traces on nearly all media technologies everyday. The once stable film body, gets disaggregated into various new forms of loop videos, GIFS, photo-memes, as clips and stills from disparate films get extracted, re-edited, patched and re-moulded into new user-generated media material. Solitary moments and gestures from films (a menacing wink by Jack Nicholson from The Shining, a clap from Charles Kane, a tear from the Tin-Man in The Wizard of Oz) get completely unchained from the original narrative context and used as discrete independent communicative units (Kane’s a popular Birthday wish gesture, while Nicholson’s Is a common linguistic unit signifying playful flirtation.) One of the primary ontological pegs of cinema - movement, today becomes the center of urgent debate around the status of photographs, movement-image forms like GIFs, and traditional moving images as the basic configuring elements of contemporary cinema. Using the film-GIF form as its primary vector this paper opens up the category of ‘movement’ philosophically as well as a constituent form to understand cinema today within the context of India.</p>
<p>As the cinematic object disperses into thousands of fragments hurtling through innumerable new online contexts, questions related to stardom also get radically transformed. I will be investigating a particular site of cinematic re-instansiation - the recent Alok Nath meme phenomenon. Long relegated to the margins of films as the venerable Hindu middle class father, the ‘’Alok Nath is so sanskaari..’’ set off a viral maelstrom that suddenly recast his cinematic body and the memory of a whole host of films (the Suraj Barjatya Hindu joint-family films). The paper focus on questions around movement as a philosophical arena as well as radical new form re-inscribing the cinematic in hitherto unprecedented shapes today.</p>
<p><strong>Statement of Intent II</strong></p>
<p>An examination of social movements with digital components in India begs several questions: What forms do social movements take in the digital world? How do we conceptualise social movements using digital and physical evidence? How does the context of India – as a functioning democracy - allow or restrict digital and physical social movements and define what is an “acceptable” protest movement? Engaging with these questions demands an interdisciplinary perspective, and exploring the interplays between the physical and the digital in regard to social issue protest movements.</p>
<p>Movement in my particular research area is understood in two aspects: the physical mobilisation of individuals to protest against perceived grievances and the movement of information around specific issue areas. The physical movement of bodies in public places is intimately connected to flow of information throughout digital networks, generating entangled and complex interfaces between the digital and the physical and creating new imagined
possibilities of the efficacy of social protest (Castells 2012; Gerbaudo 2012). Examining recent social movements in New Delhi allows us to explore the linkages and disjuncture between the physical and digital, using theoretical developments in social movement theory to anchor the study (Earl, Hunt, and Garrett 2014; Krinsky and Crossley 2014).</p>
<p>Examining the repercussions and strategies of physical/digital mobilisation can lead to a confrontation between the “imagined” possibilities of digital mobilisation and the realities of technological and physical blockages. These blockages can exist at the level of the network – both in digital and physical limitations – but also at the level of digital informational flow and who is allowed to view data? Confronting the “imagined” capabilities with the reality of entrenched power networks contests the notion of the digital as a free superhighway of information into a series of blocks and stoppages, restricting what is possible and feasible. By exploring question of movement(s) in New Delhi, I will explore the disjuncture between the imagined possibilities and the restriction of information – by nature of the algorithms that govern our capabilities and our own social networks – and complicate the triumphal narrative of the affordances of digital mediums on protest movements.</p>
<p><em>References</em></p>
<p>Castells, M. (2012) Networks of Outrage and Networks of Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age, Cambridge, MA: Polity Press</p>
<p>Earl, J., Hunt, J., and Kelly Garrett, R. (2014) ‘Social Movements and the ICT Revolution’ in van der Heijden (Ed.) <em>Handbook of Political Citizenship and Social Movements</em>, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Pgs. 359-383</p>
<p>Gerbaudo, P. (2012) <em>Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism</em>, London: Pluto Press</p>
<p>Krinsky, J. and Crossley, N. (2014) ‘Social Movements and Social Networks: An Introduction’, <em>Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest</em>, Vol. 13, No. 1. Pgs. 1-21</p>
<p><strong>Statement of Intent III</strong></p>
<p>My research centres on the recent history of flash mob performance in India and analyses the transformations that have taken place within the genre: firstly, as an initially American, then “global,” performance form becomes re-situated and adapted within an Indian context; and secondly, as the form has evolved over time in relation to the transitioning of the Internet from a predominantly text-based medium to a predominantly image- and video-based one (see Strangelove 2010).</p>
<p>In the field of flash mob performance, we see moving bodies becoming re-mediated as moving images, and mobilised into the flow of global circuits of online reception. My underlying concern when approaching this research is: who is mobile in these contexts? Who becomes visible through movement, and by extension, who may disappear in these
same moments?</p>
<p>I intend to approach this session by examining what is enacted through the movements of flash mob performance, focusing on the more recent phase of the genre in which flash mobs become mobilised through online video-sharing practices. I argue that they perform mediated representations of “New India” for an online national and international audience, valorising the new “non-places” (Augé 1992) of Indian supermodernity, through the acts of a
mobilised “digerati” (Keniston 2004). If we consider that performance can play a role in the construction of cultural memory (Roach 1996; Taylor 2003), and that the Internet as an archive can become a repository of performances and thus memories(Gehl 2009), I ask if online performance in these contexts may be seen as an aspect of the processes that structure a “politics of forgetting” (Fernandes 2006) in globalising India. Which narratives are rendered visible and which invisible through these performances? Who appears and who disappears? Movement on the Internet thus becomes a political question concerned with comparative mobilities, visibilities, and participation in the narratives of “India” that are constructed for global circulation.</p>
<p><em>References</em></p>
<p>Augé, M., 1992. <em>Non-places : introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity</em>. Translated by J. Howe. 1995. London & New York: Verso.</p>
<p>Fernandes, L., 2006. The politics of forgetting: class politics, state power and the restructuring of urban space in India. In Y. Lee and B.S.A. Yeoh eds., <em>Globalisation and the Politics of Forgetting</em>, London; New York: Routledge.</p>
<p>Gehl, R., 2009. YouTube as archive: Who will curate this digital Wunderkammer? <em>International Journal of Cultural Studies</em>, 12(1), pp.43-60.</p>
<p>Keniston, K., 2004. Introduction: The four digital divides. In K. Keniston & D. Kumar eds., <em>IT experience in India: bridging the digital divide</em>, New Delhi; Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.</p>
<p>Roach, J.R., 1996. <em>Cities of the Dead: Circum-atlantic performance</em>. Chichester and New York: Columbia University Press.</p>
<p>Strangelove, M., 2010. <em>Watching YouTube: Extraordinary videos by ordinary people</em>. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.</p>
<p>Taylor, D., 2003. <em>The archive and the repertoire: Performing cultural memory in the Americas</em>. USA: Duke University Press.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>Noys, B. (2004) Gestural Cinema?: Giorgio Agamben on Film. In <em>Film Philosophy</em> Vol. 8 no. 22. Available at: <a href="http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol8-2004/n22noys" target="_blank">http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol8-2004/n22noys</a>.</p>
<p>Couldry, N. (2015) ‘The Myth of ‘Us’: Digital Networks, Political Change and the Production of Collectivity’, <em>Information Communication and Society</em>, Vol. 18, No. 6. Pgs. 608-626 .</p>
<p>Appadurai, A., (2010) How histories make geographies: circulation and context in a global perspective. <em>Transcultural Studies</em>, 1. Availabile at: <a href="http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/article/view/6129" target="_blank">http://heiup.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/index.php/transcultural/article/view/6129</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-internetmovements'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-internetmovements</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:04:11ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #FutureBazaars
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-futurebazaars
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Maitrayee Deka, Adam Arvidsson, Rohini Lakshané, and Ravi Sundaram.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>Up till now digital technologies have mostly served to create new markets opportunities for the large capitalist monopolies like Facebook, Apple and Google that dominate the global information economy. But what happens when the potential for disintermediation and market making that comes with digital technologies hit the bazaars for of the worlds 'other economy,' what Ravi Sundaram has called 'pirate modernity.' Indeed this is already happening in two inter-related ways.</p>
<p>First, the availability of cheap, copied or pirated digital goods like Shanzhai cell phones or pirated video games support a reinvigorated bazaar economy made up of small traders who eek out a living while providing informational goods to the broad popular market segments that large brands do not cater to. This is already an emerging phenomenon in India, Africa and large parts of South America, but similar forms of what Gordon Mathews and his colleagues call 'globalisation from below' are gaining an influence in Europe as well.</p>
<p>Second, the potential for disintermediation on the part of digital technologies like WhatsApp today and blockchain technologies in the near future provide a technical infrastructure for strengthening the organizational basis of such bottom-up markets and enable them to strengthen their standing vis-a-vis capitalist monopolies. Can the 'pirate economy' launch its own institution, its own capital markets and its own brands?</p>
<p>In this session we want to explore the future of bottom-up markets. What happens when traders on Delhi’s electronic bazaars can bypass middlemen connecting directly to their Chinese suppliers via WhatsApp; what happens when informal financial circuits like Hawala networks start operating blockchain technologies? Extrapolating from research on what is going on know we want to collectively imagine what the future might bring. What sort of economic social and, importantly political consequences might these changes bring about? How can we theorise this emergence and how does it challenge and force us to rethink basic categories like capitalism, markets and agency?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>The sessions will start with presentations on traders in Delhi's pirate bazaars, blockchain and the democratization of financial markets, impact of mobile connectivity on business and family interaction, and relationship between peer-to-peer, pirate economies, and large media corporations within cultures of circulation. The presentation will be brief (about 20 mins.) and will serve to open up discussions and constitutions form workshop participants.</p>
<p>Discussions will be centred on:</p>
<ul>
<li>What are interesting areas of study in understanding how digital technologies are changing the balance of power in the digital economy in India?</li>
<li>What is the potential of digital technologies in relation to the mediation and transformation of bottom up economic processes in contemporary India?</li>
<li>What are the new forms of injustices and/or imbalances are arising form these transformations?</li>
<li>What is the political potential in digital disintermediation in relation to markets, beyond the ‘official paradigm of ecommerce and Uber-like platforms?</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-futurebazaars'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-futurebazaars</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:08:30ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #FollowTheMedium
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-followthemedium
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Zeenab Aneez and Neha Mujumdar. </b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>It was media theorist Marshall McLuhan who popularised the phrase ‘the medium is the message’; to him, different kinds of media engage the senses in different ways, affecting how we process it and engage with its contents. Before situating research in the digital space, it is important to ask ourselves: what is the nature of the medium are we dealing with here? How do people interact with it? What are the opportunities it provides and the risks it
poses? How can we study new digital objects, such as online-first news outlets, podcasts, etc in a way that recognises the medium’s newness?</p>
<p>The proposed session is an exploration of a methodology that is informed and defined by specific characteristics of the medium, with a special focus on digital news and journalism in India. Through this, it seeks to tackle the first of the four key focus areas of the conference: How do we conceptualise, as an intellectual and political task, the mediation and transformation of social, cultural, political, and economic processes, forces, and sites
through internet and digital media technologies in contemporary India?</p>
<p>Keeping this key question in mind, we ask: how can digital methods research contribute to the study of news and journalism in the digital space? How can we use digital objects such as tags, Likes, and Comments to understand how user feedback works in the new information economy? What can the interface of a news creation platform tell us about the changing roles of Indian journalists in today’s media environment? How can we formulate a methodology for studying the metamorphosis of a news story by using Twitter and what skills are required to gather and process information for research of this nature?</p>
<p>In order to inform our responses to such questions, we borrow from Richard Rogers’ adage ‘Follow the medium’ (Rogers 2013), which argues that “natively digital”(Ibid. 19) objects like tags, links, Likes or Comments, which originate in digital networks, cannot be fully understood with methods, such as, say content analysis; an example of a non-digital method that does not recognise its digital nature. The proposed session will make use of the general philosophy embodied by Rogers’ approach and urge participants to acknowledge the specific properties of the Internet as a medium and look at news and journalism as part of the larger media ecology of the web. This calls for the use of new methods that are digital in nature; the discussion on contemporary news should expand from how the news industry is coping with the digital transition, to how we can better understand the specific elements of this
transition and use this understanding to reflect upon the changing nature of journalism and news itself.</p>
<p>In order to channel the discussion, the session proposes using the framework from one particular field of digital research: platform studies. With the advent of Web 2.0 and the emergence of the ‘web as platform’ (O’Reilly 2007) and the strengthening relationship between the news industry and social media platforms(‘Reuters Institute Digital News Report’ 2015), traditional as well as digital-born news sites are increasingly adopting a platform model. Therefore, platform studies makes for a fitting framework within which to understand the workings of these platforms, their technological and formal structures, and the specific ways in which they allow users to interact with news content.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>The session will begin with a brief introduction to digital methods (Rogers 2013) and the field of ‘platform studies’ (Bogost and Montfort 2009; Gillespie 2010; Dijck 2013), which will serve as a loose framework through which to study existing news platforms as well as perform analyses on social media platforms as sites for news and journalism. This will be supplemented by the works of Anne Helmond (2015) and Tarleton Gillespie (2010).</p>
<p>Following this, participants will be divided into groups of four-six, with each group anchored by a volunteer, with added support from the two co-leaders. They will then be given the task of formulating a research question that makes use of one or more of the digital methods presented and are also required to frame a methodology that makes allowances for the particularities of the Indian news environment. The session will conclude with a brief
discussion based on their findings.</p>
<p>The goal of the workshop will be to explore how digital methods can be aligned with current concerns about news and journalism in India, and open up avenues for research that acknowledges that online news occupies a space that includes natively digital objects and information architectures and hence demands research methods specific to this
environment. The workshop also aims at reflecting on potential collaborations between researchers in media studies, data scientists and technologists in developing a comprehensive methodology using which to study digital media in India.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>Gillespie, Tarleton. "The Politics of 'Platforms'." <em>New Media & Society</em> 12, no. 3 (2010): 347-364.</p>
<p>Rogers, Richard. "The End of the Virtual: Digital Methods," <em>Digital Methods</em>. MIT press, 2013: 19-38.</p>
<p>Van Dijck, José. "Disassembling Platforms, Reassembling Sociality," <em>The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media</em>. Oxford University Press, 2013: 24-44</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>References</h2>
<p>Anderson, Christopher W. "Towards a Sociology of Computational and Algorithmic Journalism." <em>New Media & Society</em>, 15, no. 7 (2013): 1005-1021.</p>
<p>Bogost, Ian, and Nick Montfort. 2009. "Platform Studies: Frequently Questioned Answers." <em>Digital Arts and Culture</em> 2009 <a href="https://escholarship.org/uc/item/01r0k9br.pdf">https://escholarship.org/uc/item/01r0k9br.pdf</a>.</p>
<p>Helmond, Anne. 2015. Presentation by Anne Helmond - Becoming Data Point. Panel. Transmediale. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smXLCAGafqs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smXLCAGafqs</a></p>
<p>Lovink, Geert. 2008. <em>Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture</em>. New York: Routledge.</p>
<p>O’Reilly, Tim. 2007. ‘What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software’. SSRN Scholarly Paper ID 1008839. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1008839">http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1008839</a>.</p>
<p>Procter, Rob, Farida Vis, and Alex Voss. "Reading the Riots on Twitter: Methodological Innovation for the Analysis of Big Data." <em>International Journal of Social Research Methodology</em>, 16, no. 3 (2013): 197-214.</p>
<p><em>Reuters Institute Digital News Report</em>. 2015. Oxford, England: Reuters Institute for the study of Journalism, Oxford University. <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Reuters%20Institute%20
Digital%20News%20Report%202015_Full%20Report.pdf">https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Reuters%20Institute%20Digital%20News%20Report%202015_Full%20Report.pdf</a></p>
<p>Rogers, Richard. <em>Digital Methods</em>. MIT press, 2013.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-followthemedium'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-followthemedium</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:12:19ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #ExperienceMapIntentMap
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-experiencemapintentmap
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Anand Jha and Ashima Mittal. </b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>The session is intended to present a toolkit to deconstruct websites through navigation, experience them analogous to lived space through an information architecture. Every deconstructed component is read through content, imagery and affordance to unpack it's Intent/ subtext. A reclustering of the website is done around major intent/ subtext buckets thus revealing a completely different structure than the one experienced.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>Explanation of toolkit is done through examples. Two exercise sessions follow where participants use the toolkit to carry out the activities discussed above.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-experiencemapintentmap'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-experiencemapintentmap</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:14:39ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #EducationAndInternet (Culture and Politics of Digital Online Space as Teaching Pedagogy)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-educationandinternet
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Shruti Nagpal and Ravi Chaturvedi. </b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>The proposed Discussion Session involves two sections, the first concerning the media education in India and the use of online digital space as the teaching learning pedagogy and the second exploring the pros and cons of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) in India. Looking at the objectives defining the pedagogy by the media professors using them, the session will explore the ways the online space has provided voice to everyone irrespective of their designation and position. Studying the ever changing patterns of content production and consumption because of the digital literacy and technologies of governance, the session will explore the internet as a space for academic intervention. The session seeks to encourage discussion on the patterns of consumption and creation that facilitate interactivity, looking at the pedagogy on methods and materials needed to document cultures of interaction created by a digitally networked world, technologies and best practices for creating and sustaining interactivity, locating interactivity as a means for including populations marginalized by the digital divide and implications of invoking this construct for teaching as well as practice.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p><strong>Section I</strong></p>
<p>With 'Schools in a Cloud' (where students can explore online resources to answer questions) and SOLES (Self Organised Learning Environments) coming up, the researcher will try to integrate digital media into the classroom teaching/learning, and focus on the need to carefully review existing teaching strategies and understandings of digital media and its usage in addressing the curriculum/syllabus. Discussing the research results of a study conducted in Delhi, the paper will also analyse the current and potential use of virtual learning environment, understand if these e-modules are necessary by identifying the challenges faced in the development of e-learning modules in the university set ups and the role of Social networks, increased connectivity and its effect on the teaching learning practice and virtual regions and spaces. Being a media scholar and teacher, pursuing Phd on pedagogies of media education from MCRC, Jamia; the researcher expands 'micro' experience to 'macro' and talks of the ways the digital online space can be included in the media teaching pedagogy discussing the issues related to curriculum, learner and teacher profiles, evaluation and economics of running a digital media pedagogy/ course.</p>
<p><strong>Section II</strong></p>
<p>This sub section will explore the advantages and challenges of Massive open online courses (MOOCs) in emerging economies and developing societies like India. MOOCs are a relatively new phenomenon sweeping higher education. Less than five years ago, MOOC was just an idea , but currently there seems to be a robust market for these courses and India is turning into one of the biggest market for many massive open online course (MOOC) providers like Coursera. Given India’s need for reaching out to the largest possible numbers of learners, MOOCs are seen by some as the hi-tech engine of a transformative revolution that will remake education as a highly engaging, open and low cost activity, whereas the sceptics decries the hype surrounding MOOCs and claims that their benefits are illusory. The paper tries to understand the MOOC trend in India and its difference with the other online and open education programs. By conducting surveys and analysing data of institutions and universities running MOOC program in Delhi, the research study will ponder on how transformative the MOOC phenomenon can or will be, and what are the learners perspective about different tools and approaches adopted in the courses? Being a media scholar and practitioner, the researcher will also explore whether MOOC can become the interface and bridge the gap between the needs and aspirations of media education and media organizations?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-educationandinternet'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-educationandinternet</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:06:27ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #DisruptiveTransport (Aggregators, Ownership, Tracking, Space, Internet Models)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-disruptivetransport
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Srinivas Kodali and William F. Stafford Jr.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>Transportation has been seeing disruptions through Internet aggregators using complex models which nobody understands in detail. This is primarily being seen in the space of urban transport, but is not limited to them alone. 1960`s saw disruptions in airline industry when each airline was fighting for it's own space in flight reservations and aggregations. This disruptive trend is now being observed globally in other transport modes. Aggregators are playing an important role in transporting people and disrupting markets globally. Internet Models are varying within aggregators who are not limiting themselves to ticket reservation, but are also providing information about the availability of transportation options. With increasing demand and surge pricing taking up the market, what is the role of the state. What are the ownership rights of an aggregator? What are licensing/lease models of a provider? What about un-fair practices and consumer rights? What forms of labour and regulation are imagined? What is the role of state run aggregators like IRCTC in this changing landscape?</p>
<p>Many of the platforms that have been created, primarily in the beginning concerning tracking or making complaints, were accessed through websites and have since been migrated either to a combined website/ app structure, or wholly to smartphone apps. This raises interesting and important questions concerning the imagination of an increased reliability and accesibility of services, as well as a power to hold public institutions accountable, as they relate to the question of access to these technologies and the habits of their use, especially demographically and linked to class.</p>
<p>Furthermore, both the near and far future promise an reworking of the internet as a system with which commuters and others interface to consume or deliver a service, to transport as one part of a mobility ecosystem, which is currently being tooled (both in regulatory frameworks and industrial planning) as a microcosm of the internet of things. With internet being connected to personal transport at every intersection of the road, what is the scope of
privacy and accountability, the role of encryption layer and also the importance of governance in the fragile/disrupting space. How will the internet impact personal transport of citizens and the economy? Cashless payments, driver-less cars, surge-congestion pricing with disruptive internet models need regulation before they
over-run and create chaos with the system.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>The session will focus on Delhi as a case study.</p>
<p>Discussants will present their current work around these questions, and then open a discussion among those present on the issues raised therein.</p>
<p>The first discussant will present on the changing architecture of the auto-rickshaw meter as a regulatory platform, from the recent introduction of GPS to the creation of various surveillance and business models which either exploit its native GPS or duplicate and substitute it through the use of smartphones, and the folding
of autos into the emerging e-hailing environment and the possible implications of changes being sought in the regulatory framework for connected vehicles. These include technological treatments of questions of class, trust and accountability, as well as significant policy and material changes in the classification of what is owned, by whom, and its conditions of transfer.</p>
<p>Srinivas will continue the presentation on transport data by showing use cases and potential harms about the data. How big data is changing the landscape of transportation systems and privacy concerns with the future of autonomous vehicles and intelligent traffic management systems. Data driven decisions are a big concern when data can also be used to lie at a scale. Data ownership and rights are a challenge the state and the citizen need to think about before forcibly submitting data.</p>
<p>The discussion will be primarily around:</p>
<ol>
<li>Digital Ownership and Physical Ownership</li>
<li>Scope of Internet Governance on Aggregators</li>
<li>Pricing Models and Service Availability</li>
<li>Future of On-Demand Transportation Services vs Public Transportation</li></ol>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-disruptivetransport'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-disruptivetransport</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:00:57ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #DisruptingRhetorics
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-disruptingrhetorics
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Marialaura Ghidini.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>In "The Braindead Megaphone" (2007) writer George Saunders discusses the power of 21st century voices of high-tech mass media; the voices with whom one converse mentally all the time and often unaware. Saunders uses the metaphor of "The Megaphone Guy at a party" to describe the effects that such voices have on other people's thoughts, even when they are just passive listeners of what is said. The Megaphone Guy "crowds other voices out" because of "the volume and omnipresence of his narrating voice", and his power does not reside in his intelligence or acuity, but in his "dominance". This guy's rhetoric — read also, the mass media’s rhetoric — becomes central because of its unavoidability", and the web, with its now easy-to-use tools and shiny platforms, along with the seeming global interconnectedness of the Internet have made his dominance more portable and accessible, less unavoidable.</p>
<p>Simultaneously, such easiness and interconnectedness have allowed the reversal to happen, that is the development of strategies aimed at obstructing or diverting the dominant rhetoric. Artistic practices from all over the world have shown us different modes of intervention that disrupt the hegemonic discourses facilitated by the adoption of 'global' platforms of communication, entertainment and commerce. From the duo ubermonger to artists Paolo Cirio and IOCOSE and the labs like F.A.T. Lab, artists have developed strategies to weaken the power and dominance of The Megaphone Guys; they have developed methods of research, analysis and action which effects go beyond the art circuit and being on the internet.</p>
<p>All that said, however, the question of accessibility remains pressing and open to discussion: the bandwidth of common internet access and the way in which the web is entangled with everyday life still differs according to geographical areas. And this factor has often been overlooked in the researches into artistic practices online and their potentials to generate discourses that offer an alternative to the dominant ones. This difference in infrastructure and cultural uses has determined a diversity in artistic interventions aimed at disrupting dominating narratives: India shows a different history and approaches that this session would like to bring to light with the help of the participants.</p>
<p>Both through looking within the art field and outside it, such as in the work of social and community enterprises like the collective BlankNoise, this session aims to look artistic practices as methods of research and intervention that can be used to understand the effects of the Internet and web tools on society and, in turn, to put forward new ways in which web technology can be critically used by many, and non-artists, in their everyday life.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>Led by a curator/researcher, in collaboration with an artist and another curator/researcher, this discussion session will start with a general overview of artistic interventions, i.e. methods, aimed at disrupting the world's views created by mass media. This general overview will include examples of both national and international artists and community-based projects, from artists ubermonger, IOCOSE, Paolo Cirio and labs like F.A.T. Lab outside India, to the work of collectives such as Cybermohalla and BlankNoise, and artist like Archana Hande in India. It will be then followed by a discursive moment during which the participants will be divided in groups, according to specific key words collectively agreed upon, to discuss artists works and non-artistic activities pertaining the subject of the session. What will emerge from the group discussions will be presented to all participants in a short session, and will be followed by an attempt to create a mapping of current methods of intervening and acting
online. Prior to the workshop participants will be given suggested readings and a series of questions that will help them for the breakout groups.</p>
<p>With this structure the session will not be based on one-way communication but it will allow to generate collective research into online behaviours—of platforms, corporations, people and communities of interest—through expanding on the views proposed by the proponents of #DisruptingRhetorics.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>Tatiana Bazzichelli, <em>Networked Disruption. Rethinking Oppositions in Art, Hacktivism and the Business of Social Networking</em>. DARC PRESS (Aarhus University), Denmark, 2013 (Excerpts)</p>
<p>George Saunders, <em>The Braindead Megaphone.</em> Riverhead Books, US, 2007</p>
<p>F.A.T. Lab, We Lost, <a href="http://fffff.at/rip/" target="_blank">http://fffff.at/rip/</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-disruptingrhetorics'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-disruptingrhetorics</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:09:30ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #DigitalLiteraciesAtTheMargins
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitalliteraciesatthemargins
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Aakash Solanki, Sandeep Mertia, and Rashmi M.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>The session intends to initiate a discussion on digital literacies in the wake of ‘Digital India’ programme drawing on the empirical insights from three different field situations. The discussion will be anchored in the social and material context of Digital India but will not be limited to it. The questions we raise in this specific context may be extended to understand the current conceptual as well as practical deployment of many ICT4D programmes as envisioned by both government and non-government actors. The idea of digital literacy is central to both the conceptualization and the execution of such programmes, and the actors in charge work with their own understanding of the context and needs of the people they aim to empower. There have been very few attempts to systematically understand the concept of digital literacy which leave much scope for either lenient contextual interpretations or context insensitive one-size-fits-all approach towards technological interventions. This session is an effort to begin one such discussion which we hope will refine the prevalent understanding of digital literacy/literacies in India.</p>
<p>From a glance at the structure of Digital India programme, it is apparent that the programme is designed to achieve digital inclusion and is primarily directed towards the digitally marginalized in spite of having a more comprehensive agenda. The schemes such as National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM) and the way they are conceived are indexical of the kind of target groups which the programme plans to address. A key concern for us is to think through the mismatches between the frameworks of the digital literacy initiatives and the local socio-technical contexts which we observed in our field sites. The objective of the session is not as much to arrive at the definitional fixity of the concept of digital literacy as it is to complicate and problematize the prevalent definitions of digital literacy implicit in both visualization and execution of such initiatives. We plan to meet this objective through empirical insights we have on three different field sites.</p>
<p>The session will also focus on certain methodological questions that might help us better understand digital literacy. This part of the session addresses questions such as: how can we conceptually define digital literacy/literacies? What parameters should go into the measuring of digital literacy? How should we theoretically understand it – as technical skills or knowledge or some higher cognitive ability? How can we best pedagogically achieve it given the complexity of ground reality? The questions will be directed towards encouraging thought in this area rather than providing answers. The session will also try and discuss various kinds of policy and pedagogical documentation available on digital literacy and critically debate their conceptualization and execution by juxtaposing them against various uses of ICTs on the ground by specific groups of users. This part of the discussion will draw upon scholarly and other kinds of documentation available on the topic and use them to evaluate various government and corporate initiatives to achieve digital literacy in India.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>In keeping with the spirit of the conference, the three discussants’ will try to put forth empirical insights from their respective field situations and frame nuanced research and discussion questions on digital literacies at the margins of techno-cultural capital and/or access. Further the discussion will be aided by specific readings and the insights drawn from them. The idea is to have a symmetrical, reciprocatory and anthropologically comparative conversation on questions of technology, materiality, access, meaning making, development and literacy, by moving back and forth between different fieldsites and interpretive frameworks.</p>
<p><strong>Field Note I</strong></p>
<p>The first discussant's work on social media use in rural Rajasthan discusses socio-technical changes instituted by the introduction of ICTs despite their developmental failures. He claims that these changes have been often viewed from technologically or socially deterministic positions and that there are significant empirical gaps between such technocratic discourses and the grassroots experiences of technology. There is a growing usage of social and digital media in rural areas where ICT4D and e-Governance pilot projects have failed to meet their goals. Based on an ethnographic study of ICTs in two villages of Rajasthan, his work aims to situate social and digital media in a complex rural society and media ecology using co-constructivist approach. Focusing on context sensitive meaning making of ICTs, it will seek to contribute to an empirically sound discourse on media, technology and rural society in India.</p>
<p><strong>Field Note II</strong></p>
<p>The second discussant's work on mobile phones and multimedia consumption among the digitally marginalized users in Bangalore brings into focus the popular usage of ICTs, specifically mobile phones, among the subaltern users. While such popular usage indicates a certain level of literacy already achieved by the digitally marginal groups by mere exposure and peer learning, it is not sufficient to do away with all kinds of guided training required to make such users participate in informationalized environments. Her observations on the mobile phone usage among the subaltern users in Bangalore problematize the notion of digital literacy and invite us to think about it as a more layered and stratified concept. They raise questions such as ‘what constitutes digital literacy?’ – some complex use of gadgets learnt by mere exposure and peer knowledge or an awareness about the social relevance of the technologies and knowledge about their appropriate deployment in different social contexts? While mere access and some nominal training might be helpful in equipping people with some knowledge about gadget-use, her study points out that such initiatives are far from achieving the right degree of digital literacy needed to make these people participate in new media ecologies. Thus it contends the claims of 1. Organic literacy attained by mere exposure and peer sharing of technological knowledge and 2. Literacy attained by current training programmes which might equip the digitally marginalized with knowledge of technological use but not necessarily inform them about the context relevant knowledge needed for their appropriate deployment.</p>
<p><strong>Field Note III</strong></p>
<p>The third discussant's work on e-governance initiatives in an Indian state plans to return the gaze on to the bureaucracy itself and takes the conversation from the margins back to the centre. His work moves away from the target groups generally alluded to in programs such as the NDLM. It takes into accounts the struggles, anxieties, hopes and promises of/for a bureaucracy in coming to terms with a gradual but seemingly eventual shift from paper work to digital paper work. The users in this case are staff members tasked by the higher-level bureaucracy-who have little or no clue about it themselves- to learn a new tool and migrate all paper work to the digital domain. Many of e-governance projects are spearheaded by corporate organizations, which in turn dictate the terms of the conversation on Digital Literacy even within the government. What impact does this have on how Digital Literacy is understood, articulated and executed in ICT4D programs within and without the government.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>Terranova, Tiziana. 2004. Chapter 5: Communication Biopower, 131-157. <em>Network Culture: Politics for the Information Age</em>. London: Pluto Press.</p>
<p>Mazzarella, William. 2010. Beautiful Balloon: the Digital Divide and the Charisma of New Media in India. <em>American Ethnologist</em>, 37(4), 783-804.</p>
<p>Smith, Richard Saumarez. 1985. Rule-by-Records and Rule-by-Reports: Complementary Aspects of the British Imperial Rule of Law. <em>Contributions to Indian Sociology</em> 19(1): 153–176.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitalliteraciesatthemargins'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitalliteraciesatthemargins</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:20:26ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #DigitalDesires
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitaldesires
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Silpa Mukherjee, Ankita Deb, and Rahul Kumar.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>We propose to design the panel as a workshop with three paper presentations followed by an open discussion with the house exploring the key question of media objects‟ (in the form of film/film music/memes/gifs/trolls) changing relations with law; copyright and piracy having attained newer connotations in the age of media convergence. While we deal with the materiality of cinema in the new media moment, the session will open out debates on the mutability of media objects in a networked digital terrain ushered in by fast growing and cost-effective internet culture in urban India.</p>
<p>In terms of methodology the panel deploys media archaeology to trace the mutations that film culture has undergone in the digital age. The coexistence of the obsolete media copyright with its meme and its digitally re-mastered copy on torrent informs the research that the three papers involve. A certain engagement with the logic of informed/fan-cinephilic digital labour that unwittingly maintains and updates the algorithmic database of Web 2.0 services will run through the presentations. Along with archival research and interviews with professionals
involved with online media companies and “users” who are now the "pirate/prosumer-cinephiles" of media objects, we will carry out extensive digital ethnography to map the chimera of digital territory that user traffic based internet culture in India helped produce.</p>
<p>The digital is a space of intervention: a space for the users to intervene and play with the material online. It is a constant form of participation underscoring a potential for democratic authorship. The definitive notion of authorship voices the overarching body of the state through its legal status. Thus copyright as a legal entity produces a discourse of power through this form of authorship. The contemporary medium or rather the multi-media
constellation driven by internet culture in India produces an alternative discourse on authorship, complicating the notion of copyright and piracy at the same time. This charged terrain of (il)legality is also due to the nature of piracy in the digital domain, which does not exist in isolation but have now created bodies or spheres where it has been appropriated as a sub-cultural practice. The figure of the “pirate”/ the “troll”/ the “fan” and the “cinephile” now merges with the technologically enabled body of the user of new media who negotiates with the medium in multiple ways (and morphs it) and thereby touches all kinds of spaces within and outside the webspace. It has changed the physical scope of cinephilia as addressed in the paper "A Laptop and a Pen-drive: Cinephiles of Mukherjee Nagar," where the culture of networked sharing evolves from and further complicates physical stations. It has permeated into the body of film music in the paper "Licensed, Remixed and Pirated: Item numbers and the web", which interrogates the layers of user-based morphs that the text of a dance number in Bollywood undergoes in the culture of web based remixing and hacking. It changes the way protected materials like films circulate in the space designated as YouTube, marked by its ability to reproduce copyright materials without violating the law as the third paper titled "Online Streaming in the Era of Digital Cinephilia" points out; the logic of the obsolete
license of old Hindi films which gains a new viral life on YouTube with its official upload vying with the multiple hacker-user uploads.</p>
<p>Thus the panel intends to explore the dizzying overlaps that produce this internet induced distinct zone of ambiguity that neither the law nor the state or the author can claim ownership over. The very embodiment of the material in the digital is in transition i.e. in a state of being morphedby the blurring of the identities of the multiple bodies at work at each moment. Through the three papers we intend to chart this transitional aesthetic sometimes contained and sometimes flowing out of the body of the media text onto the physical, technological and
extra textual objects as well. The panel seeks to position this new world of media objects that overlap and form an uncontainable entity, seeking newer forms of negotiations with the older existing order. We seek to explore then what happens to the very essence of author(ity)ship when digital enters its domain.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p><strong>A Laptop and a Pen-drive: Cinephiles of Mukherjee Nagar</strong></p>
<p>With the changes technology has brought to contemporary life, cinephiles – for whom movies are a way of life, films and how they are experienced have undergone major changes. The classic cinephile, as the term was adopted in the 1960s has undergone a major change in the era of internet piracy. I will look at the way pirated films via torrent downloads are consumed by students in certain pockets in New Delhi especially around Mukherjee Nagar area. These students who come from the upwardly mobile Indian middle class families are engaged inpreparations of competitive exams to land a lucrative government job. Circumstances dictate that these students own a laptop to watch films but not a high speed internet connection. To fuel their cinephilic urge, they are dependent upon soft copy vendors of pirated films. These vendors are like a video library, the repository here being a laptop and a storage drive. These professional film pirates depend upon the p2p file sharing commonly referred as "torrent."
DVD and Blu Rays released by official sources are ripped at a bigger size by certain uploaderswhich are downloaded by another one who rips it to an even smaller size, fit enough to be downloaded by pirates with a slower broadband till it reaches places like Mukherjee Nagar. Using this particular case study, where the world of online film piracy merges with a third world piracy domain, I plan to interrogate the logistics of a new kind of cinephilia and
try and frame this particular form of informal circuit of media production and consumption into a coherent perspective.</p>
<p>Relevant websites: <a href="https://kat.cr">https://kat.cr</a>, <a href="https://yts.la/">https://yts.la/</a>, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com">https://torrentfreak.com</a>.</p>
<p>Relevant software: Handbrake, uTorrent / Deluge / Vuze.</p>
<p>Relevant reading: Treske, Andreas. <em>The Inner Life of Video Spheres: Theory for the YouTube Generation</em>. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, 2013</p>
<p><strong>Licensed, Remixed and Pirated: Item Numbers and the Web</strong></p>
<p>The coming of new digital technologies has rendered the relationship of media objects’ with law extremely malleable and volatile. It urges us to rethink certain categories we have been working with, viz. piracy and copyright. The specific focus of the paper will be on item numbers’ relationship with changing technology and the law. The proprioceptive body being the central node of enquiry here: the law that affects the body that moves on screen and the body that is moved by the screen is made flexible in the digital age with Web 2.0’s unique design that spawns hackability and remixability. Through the registers of music licensing to YouTube, circulation of content offline as MP3 downloads in cheap mass storage devices, user generated morphed content related to item numbers (in the form of memes, GIFs, trolls, posters, tumblr blogs and listicles) spawned by amateur digital culture and remixing videos of film content the paper traces the gray zone between web based music piracy and its copyright rules. It will interrogate the moment when the entertainment industry has recognized the clear
shift of its spectatorship from the older media to the more digital platforms and appropriates the contingency brought in by the algorithmic anxiety of Web 2.0 and its unique relationship with law and hence censorship regulations to innovate newer means of mass circulation and bypassing censorship.</p>
<p>Relevant content: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2O2dBonBok">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2O2dBonBok</a>.</p>
<p>Relevant user-traffic-oriented platforms: <a href="http://www.memegenerator.com">http://www.memegenerator.com</a>, <a href="http://www.trolldekho.com">http://www.trolldekho.com</a>, <a href="http://www.imgur.com">http://www.imgur.com</a>, <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/">https://www.tumblr.com/</a>.</p>
<p>Relevant curated online media platforms: <a href="http://scoopwhoop.com/">ScoopWhoop</a>, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/tag/india">Buzzfeed India</a>, <a href="http://blog.erosnow.com/">blog.erosnow.com</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Online Streaming in the era of Digital Cinephilia</strong></p>
<p>Digital piracy has allowed for certain democratization of film distribution and consumption through a parallel economy of piracy. The lack of control over these channels of distribution produces a blatant threat to the copyright and intellectual property rights that are quintessential to the mainstream culture of commercial film distribution. This paper will focus on the intersection of these two dichotomous cultures through the experience of
watching old films via online streaming. The resurfacing of old films hosted by big corporations like Shemaroo, Venus and Ultra who began as film rights and video rights owners at one point host their old video content in a user generated space called youtube. The video content is a very specific form here. It is an obsolete entity, defined by its ambiguity with copyright that is able to make a legal transgression in order to circulate.</p>
<p>The circulation of the feature films in a web space that is primarily known for its clip culture also provides an interesting paradigm for the copyright material. The big corporate copyright floats in a culture of pirated experiences where the legal domain becomes a dizzying site of contradictions. Through this paper I will draw parallels between the history of these companies and their work in the field of film circulation and to the creation of a new form of cinephilia and its complicated relationship to the law. I will use a variety of archival sources, legal documents and discourses on online streaming to contextualize my argument.</p>
<p>Relevant websites: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/ShemarooEnt">https://www.youtube.com/user/ShemarooEnt</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/VenusMovies">https://www.youtube.com/user/VenusMovies</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/UltraMovieParlour">https://www.youtube.com/user/UltraMovieParlour</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitaldesires'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitaldesires</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:03:52ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #DigitaIndiaUnpacked
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitaindiaunpacked
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Deniz Duru Aydin and Amrita Sengupta.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>According to International Telecommunication Union (ITU), four billion people from developing countries remain offline, which represents 2/3 of the total population of developing countries. As policymakers around the
world are increasingly becoming aware of the impacts of connectivity for socio-economic development, bridging the digital divide and bringing access to the unconnected are seen as one of the most critical policy issues of our time. Most recently, the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set an ambitious goal of "significantly
increasing access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020.”</p>
<p>As a country with the third largest Internet user population - despite a low penetration rate of 24% - India has recently put its connectivity agenda to the forefront of national policy making with its Digital India campaign. At the same time, new business models put forward by global tech giants (with the partnership of local telecom providers) are also changing the ICT landscape (Facebook – Free basics, Google – internet Saathi). At the intersection of these two trends lies an increased focus on mobile broadband, which is today the most widely used substitute for computer-based internet access, not only in India but also elsewhere.</p>
<p>In this Workshop Session, we want to critically analyze the objectives of these policy proposals. We suggest the following themes, as starting points for discussion:</p>
<ul>
<li>While mobile phones bridge certain kinds of social divide, it also a perpetrates a second level of digital divide where the user experience through a cheap mobile phone and a limited data package is different and more restricted than a PC / an advanced smart phone / tablet with high speed internet access.</li>
<li>The need for an effective database/measurement system which not only tracks the access but also the kind of access provided, its penetration into marginalized backward communities and how it is really impacting development as one sees it.</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>We will divide the participants into smaller groups and each group will be asked to engage in a series of topics and come back with 3 key recommendations in their proposed topic.</p>
<p>Series of questions / challenges / (subject to review as we work on the workshop materials):</p>
<ul>
<li>How does the current digital India campaign perpetrate divides by not looking into the question of user experience?</li>
<li>Is it enough to look at the rural/Urban divide? Is there a need to look specifically at the Government defined backward classes / communities while one speaks of internet connectivity?</li>
<li>What is an effective measure of success for these programmes? How can we critically set up measures for this programme such that it looks not only at the user penetration but also look at things like user experience / digital literacy / specific penetration into backward communities, as well as opportunities for self-expression?</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
None.
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitaindiaunpacked'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-digitaindiaunpacked</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:17:41ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #ArchiveAnarchy (Archives, Accessibility, and Social Media)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-archiveanarchy
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Ranjani M Prasad and Farah Yameen.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>In the last decade, the internet has aided a proliferation of information networks - Google Books, archive.org, Hathi Trust, pad.ma and similar archive based knowledge platforms – and cloud based data storage has become a useful and accessible alternative to file based systems.</p>
<p>The session opens up with questions of accessibility, ownership and hegemonies in an active archive. It takes up three archives that are being built at Ambedkar Univeristy and other similar archives to explore the emerging issues of knowledge sharing on the internet.</p>
<ul>
<li>The Lotika Vardarajan archive is an ethnographic archive putting together an academic’s research on indigenous Maritime and Textile traditions and their indepth documentation.</li>
<li>The Delhi Oralities Archive is an oral history archive of city memories and resident narratives that seeks to be accessible to the city as an open resource.</li>
<li>The Institutional Memory Archive is a living archive continuously reinventing itself according the needs of the university campus that it documents.</li></ul>
<p>The archiving impulses in each case are different as are the dissemination needs of the archive. How do Internet tools like social media, audio and video distribution platforms like Soundcloud and YouTube intervene in the archiving space to enable and catalyze access? Do dissemination strategies provided by Twitter and Facebook affect the use and usability of archives? Does such access threaten questions of ownership and privacy? Who owns a public archive like Delhi Oralities? What hierarchies operate in living archives to decide what is archived and who archives it? What are the limits of such knowledge repositories and the open access movement itself, especially in the light of traditional knowledge structures?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>The discussion session explores questions of archives outside the academic research space. It discusses the possibility of using non-traditional platforms for data sharing to maximize access, sustainability and co-authorship for living archives.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>Basic knowledge about existing social media platforms, open source repository softwares such as DSpace and familiarity with Creative Commons licensing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-archiveanarchy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-archiveanarchy</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:11:45ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #AFCinema2.0
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-afcinema2.0
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Akriti Rastogi and Ishani Dey. </b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<blockquote>Amour fou is saturated with its own aesthetic, it fills itself to the borders of itself with the trajectories of its own gestures, it runs on angels' clocks, it is not a fit fate for commissars & shopkeepers. Its ego evaporates in the mutability of desire, its communal spirit withers in the selfishness of obsession. (Bey, 1985)</blockquote>
<p>Confronted with consolidating rhizomatic concerns that inevitably crop their heads in any forum on internet discussions, let alone cinema, AF, or Amour fou encapsulates the very essence of free access cinema – AF is “not the result of freedom but rather its precondition” (Bey, 1985), AF is Cinema in web 2.0.</p>
<p>The proposed session will be an interactive conversation exploring the Indian scenario of internet based independent filmmaking. The key concerns mediating this dialogue are the mobilization of the internet as a space of exhibition and distribution and its implications in moving through extra-legal spaces, garnering cultural capital and articulating desires of its audience. The purpose here is to engage with cinema within “the broader industrial, institutional, and market contexts in which film exists” moving away from film scholarship focusing solely on the “meaning of the text” while disregarding the very circumstances in which those texts or discourses are “produced and circulated” (McDonald, 2013: 147).</p>
<p>Drawing from traditional methods in cinema scholarship, we turn to our own research methods in trying to articulate contextual engagements with amorphous forms of medium, media and archive. We explore the research potentials that the internet provides as an immediate archive of the contemporary while providing provocations to engage with the internet as an alternative space for film exhibition, distribution and funding. While Ishani Dey explores the mobilization of internet’s potential as an alternative space for film exhibition tracing connections that link pirate circuits, film festivals and subversive mainstream aesthetic shifts; Akriti Rastogi provides an overview of entrepreneurial space of internet based independent filmmaking and the surge in DIY filmmaking in web 2.0.</p>
<p>The session concludes with mediations over the poetics of technological access. The internet’s prolific open access archive’s potential to foster cinephilia and the mutations in viewing habits that ensue lead to novel cinematic experiences and their implication for the profilmic aesthetic. In continuum our encounters with the mainstream and anonymous figures etches out the narrative of experiencing cinema and filmmaking in web 2.0.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>This session proposes to conceptualize the implications of open access digital media spaces for cinema in India. Reading cinema as a product of market driven industry factors it interrogates the shifting industrial, institutional, and market contexts which contemporary India cinema negotiates and the implications of contingent media, mode and exhibition on the cinematic experience. The primary concern is to form methods to navigate the expansive archive of the internet and mark the potentials for alternate production and distribution practices that lie within. The session proposes to walk through a number of case studies illustrating the dissolution of dichotomies that is brought about by the interventions of digital and new media technologies. Drawing parallels between earlier shifts in cinema studies discourses with the coming in of videotape and satellite television in India in the 80s and the contemporary debates surrounding digital film practices and direct to home transmissions, the session attempts to historicize cinephilia within the milieu of technophilia in India.</p>
<p><strong>Provocations</strong></p>
<p>Informal distribution networks like peer-to-peer distribution and pirate circles come to the foreground in the discussion on the construct of the cinephile. While the space of the auteur-entrepreneur claims the spotlight in discussions surrounding linkages in film exhibition – navigating through pirate circles to film festivals, bootlegging to the big league.</p>
<p>The figure of the anonymous filmmaker stands precariously on the divide of the legal and extra-legal boundary that the internet thrives in traversing, thus emerging as a vast platform for exhibition that is then mobilized by the DIY filmmaker. The growing popularity of the short film format and the shifts in viewing screens are seen as symptomatic of internet’s effect on cinema’s aesthetic.</p>
<p>The essential provocation here is that while cinema affects the modes of archiving on the internet, the internet in turn affects the cinematic form.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>McDonald, P. (2013). "Introduction: In Focus Media Industries Studies." <em>Cinema Journal</em>, 52(3).</p>
<p>Lobato, R. (2012) <em>Shadow Economies of Cinema: Mapping Informal Film Distribution</em>.</p>
<p>Zimmerman, R. D.H. (2009). "Cinephillia, Technophilia and Collaborative Remix Zones." <em>Screen</em>, 135-147.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-afcinema2.0'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-afcinema2.0</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T07:12:03ZBlog Entry