The Centre for Internet and Society
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IRC16 - Proposed Session - #PoliticsOnSocialMedia
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-politicsonsocialmedia
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Dr. Rinku Lamba and Dr. Rajarshi Dasgupta, with Dr. Mohinder Singh, Professor Valerian Rodrigues and Professor Shefali Jha as co-members.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>Indian politics had witnessed the entry of new social movements in the 1970s, adding a whole set of new issues, actors, and ways of activism to the older nationalist tradition. We suggest a similar change is now taking place, as different ways of governance and interventions aided by latest technologies are emerging in the social media. Websites, blogs, tweets, emails and online petitions are creating a new virtual space for politics, through information, propaganda, debates, appeals and mobilizations.</p>
<p>The proposed session will discuss this emerging field of power, critically considering its democratic potential and interrogating the political issues and ideas at stake in it. The aim is to tackle the new forms of civic and
public-political engagements witnessed in the domain of social media, and analyze their implications for the theory and practice of democracy. In the process our papers would explore conceptual notions such as agency, political act and participation as well as notions of selfhood and subjectivity.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>We will present four papers, with a question-answer and discussion session at the end. The papers will be addressing broadly three kinds of concerns.</p>
<ul><li>The first concern is to identify novel understandings of the political and political acts in the social media. We ask the following questions in this regard: What are the political issues and ideas at stake and how do they affect conventional understandings of democracy? Who are the new actors outside the fray of party-centered politics and how do they see what is political in the acts of internet-users? How are political institutions including parties reacting to the phenomena?<br /><br /></li>
<li>The second concern relates to probing the new forms of political subjectivity that are emerging in this process. The questions here include: What kind of political actor is getting shaped by the forms of political participation engendered by the social media? How does the virtual nature of practice impact on questions of location and identity as determinants of political membership and political action? Is this nature of virtual participation too fluid for the state to control?<br /><br /></li>
<li>The third concern relates to the forms of exclusion and inclusion that virtual participation entails. This involves questions like: What kind of social capital is necessary for talking part in the process and does it cut across cultural and economic divisions? What kinds of interest drive the social media? How does it shape the meaning of political concepts like representation and rights, accountability and political agency?</li></ul>
<p>It is likely that we will raise more questions than we can answer at this point. However, we think it is important to raise them all the more in keeping with the questions that make up the focus of the conference,
especially, the first question of how do we conceptualize, 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> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>None.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-politicsonsocialmedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-politicsonsocialmedia</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T06:51:03ZBlog 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 - #WikiShadows (Techno-Political Contours of Knowledge Production on Wikipedia)
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-wikishadows
<b> This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Tanveer Hasan and Rahmanuddin Shaik.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>Wikipedia is a group project, and people in the group need to have separate pages to discuss changes and improvements to Wikipedia's content, be that an article, a policy, a help page, or something anything else. Reading these discussion pages is a vastly rewarding, slightly addictive, experience. Sometimes reading Wikipedia can ruffle feathers.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>E.g. 1:</p>
<p>The song, Jana-gana-mana, composed originally in Bengali by Rabindranath Tagore, was adopted in its Hindi version by the Constituent Assembly as the National Anthem of India on January 24, 1950. It was first sung on December 27, 1911 at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress. [1]</p>
<p>Whereas Wikipedia entry of National anthem mentions thus:</p>
<p>"<em>Jana Gana Mana</em> is the national anthem of India. Written in highly Sanskritised (Tatsama) Bengali." [2]</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>E.g. 2:</p>
<p>Are these beautiful waterfalls on the Kaveri River located in Tamil Nadu – or on the border between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka – or in Tamil Nadu on its border with Karnataka? Or is it really the Cauvery river, and Hogenakal Falls? [3]</p>
<p><em>Whatever you believe, be sure to bring a (Google) map to the debate, and point out that your opponent's sources are not RS or NPOV!</em></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>E.g. 3:</p>
<p>Born of Serbian parents in a part of the Austrian Empire, which a short time later became a part of the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary and is now in Croatia. He eventually became a naturalized citizen of the US. [4]</p>
<p><em>So was he Serbian? Croatian? Austrian? Austro-Hungarian? Istro-Romanian? Jewish? American? Martian? You decide! But don't forget to leave an edit summary saying how pathetic it is to choose any other version. (Guess who are we talking about?) Clue: He is inventor par excellence.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this day and age where information is often a touch and go process, a forgotten mode, a solitary quest towards creating knowledge sounds romantic (almost). Networked collaborations (such as Wikipedia) which have created Knowledge sites have led to democratic interpretation and assimilation of such knowledge. They also as a basic necessity have sprung up various modes of annotation, verifiability of the Knowledge thus produced and utility quotient of the same. After all, why create and hold on to information that no body really cares about.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>In this discussion session, the co-leaders of the session shall attempt to peel out the benign face of the visible Wikipedia page(there is a hidden world out there) and discuss the political, technological and social contours of information available on Wikipedia. We shall take the participants through the various stages of discussion about a Wikipedia page and how discussions tend to alter the course of an article. How false consensus is proposed, consent is manufactured and how these efforts are usually defeated by 'Answer People' and 'Vandal Fighters'. It is no less of a war than the one between information and mis-information. The discussion on, calculus, for instance, was host to some sparring over whether the concept of "limit," central to calculus, should be better explained as an "average."</p>
<p>This discussion session brings to the table questions of legitimisation of knowledge and the inherent hierarchies that operate even within open networks of collaboration and offers a critique on consumption oriented knowledge production. The session also aims to ask questions around knowledge as an agent that has levelled some of the earlier existing contours but has introduced some of its own and how that has changed our usages and shapes our experiences.</p>
<p>The session will involve an edit-a-thon on a topic that will be selected by the co-leaders of the session and live commentary on the discussion pages will be tracked for further analysis. The session intends to build a dialogue towards attempting to problematise the questions of the starkly hierarchical and segmented experiences that have played a significant role in production of knowledge in the era of new knowledge practices. The session also will question the 'best practices' in building consent in the present global techno-economic contours of the internet, and its effect on academic spaces, creative practice and intervention.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<ol><li> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Using_talk_pages">Using Talk Pages</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines">Talk page guidelines</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial/Talk_pages">Tutorial on Wikipedia talk pages</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Introduction_to_talk_pages/1">Introduction to talk pages</a></li><li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/%237reader_Wikipedia.pdf">A Wikipedia Reader (pdf, 6.6 MB)</a><br /></li></ol>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-wikishadows'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-wikishadows</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T06:57:02ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #MinimalComputing
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-minimalcomputing
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Padmini Ray Murray and Sebastian Lütgert.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>The triumphal mythic narrative of India’s relatively high and rapid rates of Internet penetration is underpinned by the country’s access to data via mobile devices. The black box proprietary technology of the iPhone, or the less explicitly restrictive nexus (pun unintended) between the Android OS with device manufacturers, has meant we have large swathes of technology users whose only encounter with online content has been via these closed ecosystems.
Minimal computing is both an intellectual intention and pragmatic response that seeks to disrupt these systems by subverting existing frameworks and creating new infrastructures, acknowledging the ground realities that exist in India, such as lack of resources and access. This position essentially privileges “ease of use, ease of creation, increased access and reductions in computing—and by extension, electricity” (Gil). The intention of this workshop is to explore, discover, discuss and build resources that observe these tenets, under different heads, such as physical computing, archives, interface, database.</p>
<p>One of the obvious outcomes of the growth of digital technology in the region is the increasing intersection with the scholarly record – be that a theorizing of these new contexts, as is the case at this conference, or in the building of dissemination tools for memory institutions or academic scholarship. As such scholarship (which would be considered under the rubric of the digital humanities) is still in its early stages, it is incumbent upon us to set an example for other scholars when we build these resources; fast to load, easy to build and administer, which can function in low-bandwidth areas – especially as we embark on larger scale projects that are now possible through advances in digitization of different forms of content, as well as of Indic language character sets.
Uses of technology in India are often anarchic, and the digital is constantly imbricated with the analogue and these grassroots, informal practices could usefully inform scholarship in this area, and possibly be transposed to other similar environments, such as those found in the global south.</p>
<p>The other crucial exploration that will be undertaken in this workshop will be how to use guerilla computing and other methods to safeguard our fundamental human rights both online and offline, strategies increasingly essential in a country where censorship against individuals and misuse of personal data is rapidly on the rise. The online citizen must be encouraged to think about the virtual space in which s/he works and plays, and learn how to navigate it responsibly, by being alert to the dangers of the networked world being overly regulated, and this workshop will also discuss surveillance and collection of personal data by governments, corporations, advertisers, and hackers, and how to circumvent it using relatively simple methods.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>At the outset of the workshop, participants will be introduced by the co-leaders to some examples and concepts in #minimalcomputing, and then to a range of tools and resources such as Markdown, Jekyll, Pan.do/ra, Pandoc etc., as well as simple encrypting methods. Participants will also be encouraged to share examples of good practice that they might have encountered in their own contexts.</p>
<p>Participants will then be asked to consider a digital project that they might be in the process of building, or envisioning, or to reflect on their personal digital footprint and be facilitated by the co-leaders on how to rebuild and reimagine these using a minimal computing perspective, and to document these ideas so they might be shared with the rest of the group, and promote more discussion.</p>
<p>The aim of the workshop is to draw upon collective expertise to create a handbook of sustainable, scalable resources that can be created without over reliance on third party infrastructures, in order to retain agency over projects initiatives and digital identities; and provide a roadmap for an alternative Internet that meets the needs of users in both personal and professional contexts.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Readings</h2>
<p>Budish, Ryan and West, Sarah Myers and Gasser, Urs. Designing Successful Governance Groups: Lessons for Leaders from Real-World Examples (August 2015). Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2015-11. Available at SSRN: <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2638006" target="_blank">http://ssrn.com/abstract=2638006</a>.</p>
<p><em>This reading sets out how an effective multistakeholder governance group might be structured, convened and operate and its stated values of inclusiveness, transparency, accountability, legitimacy, and effectiveness might serve as a useful guide to how we might envision a #minimalcomputing community.</em></p>
<p>Gil, Alex. The User, the Learner and the Machines We Make. Minimal Computing website. (May 2015). Available at: <a href="https://go-dh.github.io/mincomp/thoughts/2015/05/21/user-vs-learner/">https://go-dh.github.io/mincomp/thoughts/2015/05/21/user-vs-learner/</a>.</p>
<p><em>This reading sets out some of the underlying concepts of #minimalcomputing and raises important questions that might be flagged up for discussion during the workshop.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/xpmethod/dhnotes/">https://github.com/xpmethod/dhnotes/</a></p>
<p><em>A growing resource for relevant material and information on #minimalcomputing – start here.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-minimalcomputing'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-minimalcomputing</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T06:57:20ZBlog EntryIRC16 - Proposed Session - #SmartThings (Conceptualizing Internet/Digital Technologies in the Age of "Smartness")
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-smartthings
<b>This is a session proposed for the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 by Ravi Shukla and Bharath Palavalli.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Session</h2>
<p>With the increasing focus on making things - devices, services, cities, even planets - smart, there is a need to engage with the idea of smartness. What constitutes it? Who decides? Is there a need to re-conceptualize our understanding of these increasingly pervasive technologies and if so, how do we begin to do so?</p>
<p>The session engages with two inter-related questions - a) What constitutes a smart city? and b) How can we approach internet/digital technologies as enablers of basic, urban public services?</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Plan</h2>
<p>The session is broken up into three sections of half an hour each.</p>
<p><strong>Content Overview</strong></p>
<p>The first section involves the presentation of the findings of a survey across different social groups of what constitutes a "smart city". This is followed by a Q & A session with the audience.</p>
<p>The second section involves presenting the findings of a pilot project using SMS technology as an enabler for public services within a community. This is followed by a Q & A session with the audience.</p>
<p>The third section involves asking people in the audience to list 5 characteristics that constitute (or in some cases, *don't* constitute) public services in a "smart" city. Depending on the size of the audience, either these responses can be collected individually or it can be broken into groups of 3-5 people. The responses are then collected and shared with the audience - either during the session (if time allows) or over email/website.</p>
<p><strong>Expected Outcomes</strong></p>
<p>At the end of the session we expect a set of responses on what characterizes public services in a "smart" city. These are seen as helping in drawing out a research/practice agenda on how internet/digital technologies may act as enablers of public services.</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-smartthings'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-smartthings</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroIRC16Proposed SessionsInternet Researcher's Conference2016-01-03T06:59:58ZBlog EntryConsultation on 'Digital Futures of Indian Languages'
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-futures-of-indian-languages-2015
<b>A consultation on 'digital futures of Indian languages' will be held at the CIS office in Bangalore on December 12, 2015, to generate ideas and structure the Indian languages focus area of the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF). It is being led by Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana, Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), and Tanveer Hasan, A2K programme at CIS; and is supported by CDIF.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>A Consultation to Generate Ideas for the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF)</h2>
<p>We at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore; Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; and Access to Knowledge Programme, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, have between us more than a decade-long experience in the field of Indian languages for higher education and Indic language computing. Together we have, over the past ten years, produced new research and incubated innovative pilot projects to stimulate the use of Indian languages in higher education, especially in the context of a widening linguistic divide in that sphere.</p>
<p>As a new phase in this process, we would like to explore the possible digital futures of Indian languages. Already, there have been many interesting but sporadic attempts at digitization of Indian language text resources and development of software for translation between Indian languages and a host of Indian language support platforms for web-based services. While this momentum is impressive, a lot more remains to be done, when seen against the backdrop of the surging demand for Indian language computational tools, especially those with potential for knowledge-use, that is, tools which could be used by students, teachers, researchers, media analysts, self-learners, bibliographers, librarians, archivists, collectors and the public at large.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://cis-india.org/raw/cscs-digital-innovation-fund" target="_blank">CSCS Digital Innovation Fund</a> is looking to help set up new platforms that aid in generating, processing and making available a wide range of born-digital content. Under the CDIF, the Indian Languages initiative will support the development of new technological aids, apps, software programmes, websites, DYI digitisation devices, and any other project which will enrich the digital use of Indian languages.</p>
<p>We are organising this national consultation with the intention of bringing together people who have been or would like to be involved in such initiatives. We expect each participant to make a short 10-15 minute presentation on an idea they would like to develop, to take part in the general discussions, and to offer feedback to other speakers. We hope to learn from these conversations so that our own research and initiative development will benefit from the inputs as also to contribute to the conversation in such a way that isolated practices, innovations and opportunities are given a platform for greater generalisation and scalability.</p>
<p>- <em><strong>Tejaswini Niranjana, Ashwin Kumar AP, and Tanveer Hasan</strong></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-futures-of-indian-languages-2015'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/digital-futures-of-indian-languages-2015</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroLanguageCDIFLearningIndic ComputingResearchers at WorkEvent2016-01-15T06:10:57ZEventFOV Podcast - Data, People, and Smart Cities
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/fov-podcast-data-people-and-smart-cities
<b>For the second part of the Smart City podcast series, Sruthi Krishnan and Harsha K from Fields of View spoke with Sumandro Chattapadhyay on data, people, and smart cities. Here is the podcast. We are grateful to Fields of View for producing and sharing this recording.</b>
<p> </p>
<h2>Podcast</h2>
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<p>If the audio player is not visible above, please <a href="http://blog.fieldsofview.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/FoV-Podcast-Sumandro.mp3">download</a> the MP3 file.</p>
<p><strong>Source:</strong> <a href="http://blog.fieldsofview.in/2015/11/1126/" target="_blank">http://blog.fieldsofview.in/2015/11/1126/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Smart Cities podcast series:</strong> <a href="http://blog.fieldsofview.in/category/smartcitiespodcast/" target="_blank">http://blog.fieldsofview.in/category/smartcitiespodcast/</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Fields of View</h2>
<p>Issues in urban systems and public safety and security are often referred to as ‘wicked problems’. Such problems require a diverse set of actors to come together and collaborate. We need government, academia, industry, and civil society to question, debate, discuss, and ideate together. In short, we need a dialogue in diversity. Our goal at Fields of View is to design spaces to enable such dialogues using games and simulations – tools based on research at the intersection of social sciences, art, and technology.</p>
<p><strong>Website:</strong> <a href="http://fieldsofview.in/" target="_blank">http://fieldsofview.in/</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Twitter:</strong> <a href="https://twitter.com/fovlabs" target="_blank">@fovlabs</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/fov-podcast-data-people-and-smart-cities'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/fov-podcast-data-people-and-smart-cities</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroSmart CitiesResearchers at WorkData Systems2015-12-02T07:54:26ZBlog 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 - #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 EntrySilicon Plateau Vol-1
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-vol-1
<b>This book marks the beginning of an interdisciplinary artistic project, Silicon Plateau, the scope of which is to observe how
the arts, technology and society intersect in the city of Bangalore. Silicon Plateau is a collaboration between T.A.J. Residency & SKE Projects and the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India. Volume 1 has been developed in collaboration with or-bits.com.</b>
<p> </p>
<iframe src="//e.issuu.com/embed.html#21775460/31640028" frameborder="0" height="400" width="600"></iframe>
<p> </p>
<h4>For us this series has a two-fold core. One the one side, there is the city of Bangalore, the trigger for various reflections about the way in which technology (old or emerging, as a service or as infrastructure) informs
the socio-cultural and political environment; a city that is fascinating to us not just because we are located here but also for its characteristic fast-paced development shaped by the IT-boom and related industries. On the other side, there are the arts and creative thinking, for us the languages, lenses and methods to be used for interpreting
technological developments and discussing their role and impact in the present time.</h4>
<p> </p>
<h4>Our hope is that of building a series based on tangible accounts revolving around the unresolved complexities inherent to the intermingling of the arts, technology and society, and in the context of local histories and occurrences rather than of global narratives and mass media constructs. Stories that for our audience, we hope, will be those of the encounters—fortuitous, anticipated or even inconvenient—that a wide variety of contributors will have had with this fascinating city.</h4>
<p> </p>
<h4>— <em>Marialaura Ghidini</em> and <em>Tara Kelton</em></h4>
<p> </p>
<h4>High-resolution PDF: <a href="https://archive.org/download/SiliconPlateau-Vol1/SiliconPlateauVol1_highres.pdf" target="_blank">Download</a> (31.8 MB)</h4>
<h4>Low-resolution PDF: <a href="https://archive.org/download/SiliconPlateau-Vol1/SiliconPlateauVol1_lowres.pdf" target="_blank">Download</a> (4.7 MB)</h4>
<p> </p>
<h4>T.A.J. Residency & SKE Projects: <a href="http://t-a-j.in/" target="_blank">Website</a></h4>
<h4>or-bits.com: <a href="http://www.or-bits.com/" target="_blank">Website</a></h4>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-vol-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-vol-1</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroSilicon PlateauArtWeb CulturesResearchPublicationsResearchers at Work2019-03-13T00:56:36ZBlog EntrySilicon Plateau Vol. 1 - Cover
http://editors.cis-india.org/SiliconPlateauVolume1_Cover.png
<b>Silicon Plateau Vol. 1 - Cover</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/SiliconPlateauVolume1_Cover.png'>http://editors.cis-india.org/SiliconPlateauVolume1_Cover.png</a>
</p>
No publishersumandro2015-11-26T04:21:49ZImageLaunch of Silicon Plateau Vol-1
http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/launch-of-silicon-plateau-vol-1
<b>Please join us on Friday, November 27, 2015 at 6.30 pm for the book launch of Silicon Plateau Vol-1.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/SiliconPlateauVolume1_Cover.png/image_preview" alt="Silicon Plateau Vol-1 - Cover" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Silicon Plateau Vol. 1 - Cover" /></p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Born from a collaboration with or-bits.com and the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, Silicon Plateau is the first volume of a publishing series aimed at observing how the arts, technology and society intersect in the city of Bangalore. Guided by our belief in the importance of understanding technologies in their specificity rather than their universality, Silicon Plateau presents observations emerging from the personal experiences and perspectives of a variety of contemporary artists, writers and researchers, national and international, who either live in or have spent a period of time in the city, or have just crossed paths with its communities.</h3>
<p> </p>
<h3>Silicon Plateau Vol–1 features works by Abhishek Hazra, IOCOSE, Tara Kelton, Anil Menon, Achal Prabhala, Sunita Prasad, Sreshta Rit Premnath, Renuka Rajiv, Anja Gollor & Mirko Merkel, and Christoph Schäfer.</h3>
<p> </p>
<h3>VENUE: T.A.J. Residency, No. 21 (New No. 53), 2nd Cross, Wheeler Road Extension, Cooke Town, Bangalore, 560084.</h3>
<p> </p>
<h3>PLEASE NOTE: Coming from Pottery road up to Wheeler Road Extension there are three roads called 2nd Cross. Take the third one on the right-hand side, just after D'Costa Café. The road is also marked with a blue sign for CCBI. Also note that our building does not have parking.</h3>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/launch-of-silicon-plateau-vol-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/launch-of-silicon-plateau-vol-1</a>
</p>
No publishersumandroSilicon PlateauPracticeResearchers at WorkEvent2015-11-26T04:32:41ZEventIRC16 - 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 - #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>
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<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>
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<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>
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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>
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