<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>Dear all,<br><br></div>Here is the second set of monthly updates from the short-term research fellows working on topics related to social and digital media:<br><br></div><div><b>Anand Kumar Jha - 'The Camera Membrane'</b><br>
<br>"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."<br><br></div><div>URL: <<a href="http://sarai.net/the-camera-membrane/">http://sarai.net/the-camera-membrane/</a>><br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Darshana Farooq - 'Santosh Pandit: Negative Publicity and Durablity of the “Superstar of the Poor”'</b><br>
<br>"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…"<br><br></div><div>URL: <<a href="http://sarai.net/santosh-pandit-negative-publicity-and-durablity-of-superstar-of-the-poor/">http://sarai.net/santosh-pandit-negative-publicity-and-durablity-of-superstar-of-the-poor/</a>><br>
</div><div><br></div><div><b>Gowhar Farooq - 'Alternative Media: An Agent and of Change in Kashmir'</b><br><br>"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.
<p>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."<br></p>URL: <<a href="http://sarai.net/alternative-media-an-agent-and-of-change-in-kashmir/">http://sarai.net/alternative-media-an-agent-and-of-change-in-kashmir/</a>><br></div><div><br></div>
<div><b>Kalathmika Natarajan - 'Postmemories and the Digital Afterlives of Partition'</b><br><br>"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."<br>
<br></div><div>URL: <<a href="http://sarai.net/postmemories-and-digital-afterlives-of-partition/">http://sarai.net/postmemories-and-digital-afterlives-of-partition/</a>><br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Rashmi M - 'On that small mobile phone shop in your street corner'</b><br>
<br>"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."<br>
<br></div><div>URL: <<a href="http://sarai.net/on-that-small-mobile-phone-shop-in-your-street-corner/">http://sarai.net/on-that-small-mobile-phone-shop-in-your-street-corner/</a>><br><br></div><div><b>Sandeep Mertia - 'Rural Social Media and ‘Timepass’: Theorising Non-Instrumentality'</b><br>
<br>"[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."<br>
<br></div><div>URL: <<a href="http://sarai.net/rural-social-media-and-timepass-theorising-non-instrumentality/">http://sarai.net/rural-social-media-and-timepass-theorising-non-instrumentality/</a>><br></div><div><br>
</div><div><b>Shaunak Sen - 'Decoding the Big Indian Sting'</b><br></div><div><br>"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."<br><br></div>URL: <<a href="http://sarai.net/decoding-the-big-indian-sting/">http://sarai.net/decoding-the-big-indian-sting/</a>><br><br></div><div>We keenly look forward to your comments.<br></div>
<div><br></div>Very bests,<br><br><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(68,68,68)"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153)"><b>The Sarai Programme</b><br>Centre for the Study of Developing Societies<br>
<a href="http://sarai.net" target="_blank">sarai.net</a> | <a href="http://facebook.com/sarai.net" target="_blank">facebook.com/sarai.net</a></span></span></span><br><br><br></div>
</div>