[after-media] Sarai - Social Media Project - Research Updates

[The Sarai Programme]

Dear all,

In the previous email, *Darshana Sreedhar*'s name has been mistakenly typed
as *Darshana Farooq*.

Much apologies,

*The Sarai Programme*
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
sarai.net | facebook.com/sarai.net






On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 2:32 PM, The Sarai Programme <dak at sarai.net> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Here is the second set of monthly updates from the short-term research
> fellows working on topics related to social and digital media:
>
> *Anand Kumar Jha - 'The Camera Membrane'*
>
> "The Image physically remained the product of a chemical reaction, being
> non-reversible in character. To reproduce it was also the act of eroding
> it, and it was to be distributed along with a story in the print, very
> often claimed to be a push medium. Digital photography made the process of
> image making reversible. The Image was now generated on a sensor instead of
> a film, was now an array of RGB values ready to be copied like any other
> data file, to be infinitely replicated, to be analyzed, post-processed, and
> to be reconstructed from data."
>
> URL: <http://sarai.net/the-camera-membrane/>
>
> *Darshana Farooq - 'Santosh Pandit: Negative Publicity and Durablity of
> the “Superstar of the Poor”'*
>
> "Till the release of the song sequence on YouTube, the name Pandit was
> unknown even to the most avid film enthusiasts in Kozhikode, the place from
> where he hails. Except a few who knew him as an enthusiastic man in his
> forties who was struck by the cinema-bug and attempted to make a few
> albums, no one had any clear memory of his talents exhibited otherwise.
> But, in no time he mobilized a huge fan following and a strong virtual
> presence through fan pages…"
>
> URL: <
> http://sarai.net/santosh-pandit-negative-publicity-and-durablity-of-superstar-of-the-poor/
> >
>
> *Gowhar Farooq - 'Alternative Media: An Agent and of Change in Kashmir'*
>
> "In conflicts like one in Kashmir, news and information gets buried due to
> the pressure from conflicting parties, collusion of the news sources with
> the various agencies or simply because of the lack of will to explore.
>
> With the social media, the chances of the burial of the information
> reduce. Here, the power of releasing the information does not lie with an
> organisation or an individual. And, once the news breaks, it spreads like a
> ray of light trapped in a diamond. The internal reflection ensures that
> information reaches to a larger audience and with longer retention rate."
> URL: <
> http://sarai.net/alternative-media-an-agent-and-of-change-in-kashmir/>
>
> *Kalathmika Natarajan - 'Postmemories and the Digital Afterlives of
> Partition'*
>
> "The digital space is a significant medium through which discourses on
> Partition, and thereby a larger South Asian identity, are enacted. This is
> in many ways an attempt to move from the amnesias and post-amnesias of the
> past by those who are both sufficiently distant from the actual event and
> yet strongly feel that they have a direct stake in understanding Partition
> and its repercussions… My focus is not as much on the memories of those who
> directly experienced Partition (about which there is a vast and fascinating
> literature), as it is on the postmemories of new generations who are
> spearheading digital archives, oral history projects and online peace
> initiatives. I am interested in the ways in which new media and
> communication technologies have shaped the postmemories of the
> post-Partition generations and the virtual ways in which they choose to
> remember, recover and engage with the past of their families and nations."
>
> URL: <http://sarai.net/postmemories-and-digital-afterlives-of-partition/>
>
> *Rashmi M - 'On that small mobile phone shop in your street corner'*
>
> "I began fieldwork in selected market areas … of Bangalore to observe the
> mobile phone usage of vegetable vendors, street peddlers etc. I regularly
> visit these streets … and build rapport with potential informants. I
> document my observations and follow the leads that I gather when speaking
> to these users about the types of phones they use, the peripherals and
> accessories they buy along with the phone, the costs they pay for accessing
> the Internet, their modes of consumption of media content etc."
>
> URL: <
> http://sarai.net/on-that-small-mobile-phone-shop-in-your-street-corner/>
>
> *Sandeep Mertia - 'Rural Social Media and ‘Timepass’: Theorising
> Non-Instrumentality'*
>
> "[W]e first need a language to entertain the thought of entertainment as a
> valid if not serious use of technology which is worth studying… [M]y
> preliminary findings have convinced me that the potential banality of terms
> like development, e-governance, digital literacy, technology adoption,
> innovation and even Jugaad, does not allow one to grasp the wider cosmology
> in which digital media is being appropriated in the village."
>
> URL: <
> http://sarai.net/rural-social-media-and-timepass-theorising-non-instrumentality/
> >
>
> *Shaunak Sen - 'Decoding the Big Indian Sting'*
>
> "I revisit the inaugural moment of Tehelka’s Operation Westend.
> Journalists Mathew Samuels and Anirudh Bahal, posing as arms dealers from a
> fictitious London-based company called West End International hawked a
> non-existent Defense product called ‘hand-held thermal cameras’ to the
> Indian government by bribing several ministers and top-level bureaucrats…
> This post also contains excerpts of interviews conducted with …
> [technicians] to outline common technical practices the ‘industry’ follows
> in carefully constructing and packaging sting operations."
>
> URL: <http://sarai.net/decoding-the-big-indian-sting/>
>
> We keenly look forward to your comments.
>
> Very bests,
>
> *The Sarai Programme*
> Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
> sarai.net | facebook.com/sarai.net
>
>
>
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