Pathways to Higher Education

Digital Humanities and the Problem of Definition

sneha — 2015-03-30T12:47:49Z

The Digital Humanities as a field that still eludes definition has been the subject of much discourse and writing. This blog post looks at this issue as one of trying to approach the field from a disciplinary lens, and the challenges that this may pose to the attempts at a definition.

Much has been said and written about the Digital Humanities as an emergent field or domain of enquiry; the plethora of departments being set up all across the world, well mostly the developed world is testimony to the claimed innovative and generative potential of the field. However, as outlined in the earlier blog-post, the problem of definition still persists. As Mathew Kirschenbaum points out, the growing literature around the ‘what is Digital Humanities’ question may well be a genre in itself.[1] While the predominant narrative seems to be in terms of defining what Digital Humanities, or to take it a step back, what the ‘digital’ allows you to do, with respect to enabling or facilitating certain kinds of research and pedagogy, a pertinent question still is that of what it allows you to ‘be’. Digital Humanities has been alternatively called a method, practice and field of enquiry, but scholars and practitioners in many instances have stopped short of fully embracing it as a discipline. This is an interesting development given the rapid pace of its institutionalisation - from being located in existing Humanities or Computational Sciences or Media Studies departments it has now claimed functional institutional spaces of its own, with not just interdisciplinary research and teaching but also other creative and innovative knowledge-making practices. The field is slowly gaining credence in India as well, with several institutions pursuing questions around core questions within the fold of Digital Humanities.

So is the disciplinary lens inadequate to understand this phenomenon, or is it too early for a field still considered in some ways rather incipient. The growth of the academic discipline itself is something of a fraught endeavour; as debates around the scientific revolution and Enlightenment thought have established. To put it in a very simple manner, the story of academic disciplines is that of training in reason.[2]

Andrew Cutrofello says “In academia, a discipline is defined by its methodological rigor and the clear boundaries of its field of inquiry. Methods or fields are criticized as being "fuzzy" when they are suspected of lacking a discipline. In a more straightforwardly Foucauldian sense, the disciplinary power of academic disciplines can be located in their methods for producing docile bodies of different sorts.”[3] The problem with defining Digital humanities may lie in it not conforming to precisely this notion of the academic discipline, and changing notions of the function of critique when mediated through the digital.

However a prevalent mode of understanding Digital Humanities has been in terms of the disciplinary concerns it raises for the humanities themselves; this works with the assumption that it is in fact a newer, improved version or extension of the humanities. The present mapping exercise too began with the disciplinary lens, but instead of enquiring about what the Digital Humanities is, it looked at what the ‘digital’ has brought to, changed or appropriated in terms of existing disciplinary concerns within the humanities. If one has to look at the digital itself as a state of being or existence, then one needs to understand this new techno-social paradigm much better. Prof. Amlan Dasgupta, at the School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University in Kolkata sees this as a useful way of going about the problem of trying to arrive at a definition of the field — one is to understand the history of the term, from its inherited definition in the Anglo-American context, and the second is to distinguish it from what he calls the current state of ‘digitality’ — where all cultural objects are being now being conceived of as ‘digital’ objects. In the Indian context, the question of digitality also becomes important from the perspective of technological obsolescence - where there is resistance to discontinuing or phasing out the use of certain kinds of technology; either for lack of access to better ones or simply because one finds other uses for it. Prof. Dasgupta interestingly terms this a ‘culture of reuse’, one example of this being the typewriter which for all practical purposes has been displaced by the computer, but still finds favour with several people in their everyday lives. The question of livelihood is still connected to some of these technologies, so much so that they are very much a part of channels of cultural production and circulation, and even when they cease to become useful they have value as cultural artefacts. We therefore inhabit at the same time, different worlds, or as he calls it ‘a multi-layered technological sphere’. The variedness of this space, and the complexities or ‘degrees of use’ of certain technologies or technological objects is what further determines the nature of this space. This complicates the questions of access to technology or the ‘digital divide’ which have been and still are some of the primary approaches to understanding technology, particularly in the Global South. The need of the hour is to be able to distinguish between this current state of digitality that we are in, and what is meant by the Digital Humanities. It may after all be a set of methodologies rather than a subject or discipline in itself — the question is how it would help us understand the ‘digital’ itself much better and the new kinds of enquiries it may then facilitate about this space we now inhabit.

One of the important points of departure, from the traditional humanities and later humanities computing itself as mentioned in the earlier blog, has been the blurring of boundaries between content, method and object/s of enquiry. The ‘process’ has become important, as illustrated by the iterative nature of most Digital Humanities projects and the discourse itself which emphasises the ‘making’ and ‘doing’ aspects of research as much as the content itself. Tool-building as a critical activity rather than as mere facilitation is an important part of the knowledge-making process in the field. In conjunction with this, Dr. Moinak Biswas, at the Department of Film Studies at Jadavpur University, thinks that the biggest changes have been in terms of the collaborative nature of knowledge production, based on voluntarily sharing or creating new content through digital platforms and archives, and crucially the possibility of now imagining creative and analytical work as not separate practices, but within in a single space and time. He cites an example from film, where ‘image’ making and critical practice can both be combined on one platform, like the online archive Indiancine.ma or the Vectors journal for example to produce new layers of meaning around existing texts. The aspect of critique is important here, given that the consistent criticism about the field has been the ambiguity of its social undertaking; its critical or political standpoint or challenge to existing theoretical paradigms. Most of the interest around the term has been in very instrumental terms, as a facilitator or enabler of certain kinds of digital practice. Alan Liu further explains this in what he sees as the role of the Digital Humanities in cultural criticism when he says, “Beyond acting in an instrumental role, the digital humanities can most profoundly advocate for the humanities by helping to broaden the very idea of instrumentalism, technological, and otherwise. This could be its unique contribution to cultural criticism’’.[4] While the move away from computational analysis as a technique to facilitate humanities research is quite apparent, the disciplinary concerns here still seem to be latched onto those of the traditional humanities.

While reiterating some of these core questions within Digital Humanities; Dr. Souvik Mukherjee and Dr. Padmini Ray Murray, at the Department of English, Presidency University, Kolkata speak of the problem of locating the field in India, where work is presently only being done in a few small pockets. The lack of a precise definition, or location within an established disciplinary context are some reasons why a lot of work that could come within the ambit of Digital Humanities is not being acknowledged as such; conversely it also leads to the problem of projects on digitisation or studies of digital cultures/cyber cultures being easily conflated with Digital Humanities. Related to this also is the absence of self-identifying ‘digital humanists’ (a problem outlined in the earlier blog, which will be explored in detail further in this series). More importantly, the lack of an indigenous framework to theorise around questions of the digital is also an obstacle to understanding what the field entails and the many possibilities it may offer in the Indian context. This is a problem not just of the Digital Humanities, but in general for modes of knowledge production in the social sciences and humanities that have adopted Western theoretical constructs. One could also locate in some sense the present crisis in disciplines within this problem. Gopal Guru and Sundar Sarukkai explicate this very issue when they talk about the absence of ‘experience as an important category of the act of theorising’ because of the privileging of ideas in Western constructs of experience. This is also reflective of the bifurcation between theory and praxis in traditional social sciences or humanities epistemological frameworks which borrow heavily from the West. Digital Humanities while still to arrive at a core disciplinary concern, seems to point towards the problem of this very demarcation by addressing the aspect of practice as a very focal point of its discourse.

Even from diverse disciplinary perspectives, at present the understanding of Digital Humanities is that it facilitates new modes of humanistic enquiry, or enables one to ask questions that could not be asked earlier. As Prof. Dasgupta reiterates, it is no longer possible to imagine humanities scholarship outside of the ‘digital’ as such, as that is the world we inhabit. However, while some of the key conceptual questions for the humanities may remain the same, it is the mode of questioning that has undergone a change — we need to re-learn questioning or question-making within this new digital sphere, which is in some sense also a critical and disciplinary challenge. While this does not resolve the problem of definition, it does provide a useful route into thinking of what would be questions of Digital Humanities, particularly in the Indian context.

References:

Cutrofello, Andrew, “Practicing Philosophy as a Discipline of Resistance’’ Discipline and Critique: Kant, Poststructuralism and the Problem of Resistance State University of New York Press: 1994 pp 116 - 136.
Kirshchenbaum, Mark “What is Digital Humanities and What is it Doing in English Departments”, Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Mathew K. Gold, University of Minnesota Press: 2012 pp 4-11, http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/24
Liu, Alan in “Where is Cultural Criticism in the Digital Humanities”, Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Mathew K. Gold, University of Minnesota Press: 2012 pp 492 – 502 http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/24
Guru, Gopal and Sundar Sarukkai, The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and Theory, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp 1-8.

[1]. See Mark Kirshchenbaum “What is Digital Humanities and What is it Doing in English Departments”, Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Mathew K. Gold, (University of Minnesota Press, 2012 ) http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/24

[2]. This is a rather simple abstraction of ideas about discipline and reason as they have stemmed from Enlightenment thought. For a more elaborate understanding see ‘Conflict of the Faculties' (1798) by Immanuel Kant and ‘Discipline and Punish' (1975) by Michel Foucault. For more on Kant’s essay see The Conflict of Konigsberg by Anirudh Sridhar.

[3]. See Andrew Cutrofello in ‘Discipline and Critique: Kant, Poststructuralism and the Problem of Resistance (State University of New York Press, 1994).

[4]. See Alan Liu in “Where is Cultural Criticism in the Digital Humanities”, Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Mathew K. Gold, (University of Minnesota Press, 2012).

Note: This blog post draws primarily from conversations with faculty at Jadavpur University and Presidency University, Kolkata, both of whom offer courses on Digital Humanities.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/digital-humanities-problem-of-definition

Multimedia Storytellers: Panel Discussion

denisse — 2015-10-24T14:26:51Z

This post brings three storytellers together to find points of intersection between their methods. The format will be that of a panel discussion and it features: Arjun Srivathsa from Pocket Science India, Ameen Haque from the Storywallahs, and Ajay Dasgupta from The Kahani Project. They discuss technology, interpretation and action in storytelling.

CHANGE-MAKERS: Arjun Srivathsa, Ameen Haque and Ajay Dasgupta

ORGANIZATIONS:Pocket Science India, The Storywallahs and The Kahani Project

METHOD OF CHANGE: Storytelling

Over the last couple of weeks, I had the privilege of interviewing three storytellers. What struck me the most, besides from their fascinating ideas about storytelling, was how many of their ideas overlapped. As much as I would love to sit all of them in the same room and enjoy the fireworks, there are a number of logistical constraints that shut my storyteller reunion daydreams down; so for this post, I decided to be a self-appointed liaison between you and them. I will mimic this discussion by putting my conversations with them side by side, in the format of a panel discussion. Their interaction will have to happen in the realm of your imagination.

The questionnaire I used for my interviews was open-ended. I was curious to hear what they wanted to share about their work, as opposed to filtering and steering the conversation in a certain direction; so I let them take their own turn. While I clearly inquired about the relationship between storytelling and making change, it was fascinating to see each storyteller reach the question of ‘social impact' through different channels; testimony of the influence of their education and professional backgrounds in their work.

If I were to bring them together, the topic of the discussion would be: 'Technology, Interpretation and Action in Storytelling'. We briefly discussed mediation and semiotics[1] in the Pre-Production section of the Storytelling as Performance post. We mentioned then:

"mediums are combined to enhance the visibility of the message and the power of the experience of stories. [...] Each medium: video, audio, text, music, etc.- becomes “a new literate space” or “symbolic tool” storytellers use to portray narratives about the self, community and society (Hull, 2006)”

These thoughts were triggered by the work of the French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, who considers our self-identity a result of sign mediation and interpretation. Other themes in his work include: discourse and action, temporality, narrative and identity; also useful and relevant when exploring how storytelling and reality intersect. For example, how does building a narrative develop into a discourse that mirrors our context and existence? How does the medium chosen to carry this narrative define the language system of our discourse? Finally, let’s not forget this discussion is happening amid the digital question: how does the mediation of digital technologies enable or constrain our narratives of change?

Against this background, I would like to propose a discussion around five points of intersection that came up organically* during my conversations with them.

a) The power of storytelling:
What makes it a powerful vehicle of communication? How does this practice break from more traditional strategies of information dissemination?

b) Storytelling as a vehicle to make change:
How does the practice of storytelling intervene in the social imagination of its audience? Is it the experience or the content of stories what drives the message of change forward? Where does change happen: at the value, behavioral, community or macro level?

c) The role of technology in storytelling:
What is the part technology plays in storytelling vis-a-vis traditional storytelling? Is it a static infrastructure or does it shape the force and direction of the story? How does technology influence and impact their work

d) Translating awareness to action through stories:
Can you guarantee the ideas and values imbued by the story will translate into action in the public space?

e) Influence of stories on citizenship and political participation:
Can the power of stories be leveraged to instill a sense of responsibility in the audience?

* With the exception of Arjun Srivathsa, who addressed these points in a conference I attended. He later responded to a questionnaire in which I inquired about the intersections specifically.

Introductions

We first have Arjun Srivathsa. He has a Masters in Wildlife Biology and Conservation and currently works as a Research Associate for the Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS India). In tandem, he started Pocket Science India, an initiative that combines wildlife science with art and cartoons to promote conservation in India and disseminate information from scientific journal articles. He aims to bridge the gap between the work of scientists and people using art and humour.

Arjun: I find the world of science and scientists very cool. Finding new things, discovering and inventing ways to understand the world better is an awesome way of life. I chose a career in science for this reason, second only to my love for nature and wildlife. But the essence of science, according to me, is not just to discover, but also to communicate. Even though wildlife research in India has progressed massively in the past few decades, the only notion people have is that of exaggerated scenes from television documentaries. When I discovered that most of the work by Indian scientists on wildlife and conservation of India is making no difference to people (mostly because they are unaware), I decided to use the easiest way to bridge the gap: through humour and art.

Second speaker is Ameen Haque from The Storywallahs. In what he calls his past life, he worked for 18 years in Advertising and Brand Strategy Consulting. Ameen also has a background in theatre and now works as as storyteller for The Storywallahs.

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Finally, we have Ajay Dasgupta, the founder of The Kahani Project, who also has a background in theatre and believes listening to stories is a fundamental right of children. His team works to capture stories in audio format and make them accessible.

I will now invite them to share their thoughts on the points described above. Each panelist will respond to the questions using a different medium: Arjun will comment with text and images, Ameen will comment with video and Ajay will comment using audiobytes. The idea is for each storyteller to use the medium and language they use for their own storytelling: cartoons, body language and audio respectively, as we explore how this choice mediates how they conceptualize change. I will act as a moderator and comment on common themes in the light of Paul Ricoeur’s characteristics of narratives.

1. The Power of Storytelling

What makes it a powerful vehicle of communication?

“narrative attains full significance when it becomes a condition of temporal existence” Time and Narrative

The first characteristic of narratives according to Ricoeur is: the ability to bring independent elements and episodes together into a plot within a specific context and time. The relationship between time and narrative is addressed by the philosopher in his work 'Oneself as Another,' in which he frames narratives as the most 'faithful articulations of human time'. This leads to an understanding of time as a framework where we can locate unique events and patterns, trajectories and sequences. Our three storytellers comment on how stories are an effective mean to communicate information, and how this information resonates because it can be located in the frame of our human existence.

Arjun: Storytelling really is the nascence of any communication technique. As kids we were all told stories with bees and birds, which spoke and thought. The moral life lessons and similar “information” were served to us on these fascinating platters.

Dugongs are closely related to whales and dolphins. They are peaceful mammals that swim around gracefully and feed on sea grass.
They are categorized as “VULNERABLE” because there are not too many of them left in the world.

Find full cartoon here

At some point in life, we all seem to stop appreciating the power of storytelling. Plain reporting of information has been done to death. Even an amazing discovery written as a formal report will fail to excite audience. It is time we all get back to appreciating stories. They sell. Movies generally do better than documentaries don’t they?

Ameen:

Ajay:

2. Storytelling as a vehicle to make change

How and where does change happen?

“All action is in principle interaction [...] change happens through interaction, as others are also encouraged to change” From Text to Action

The second characteristic of narratives is how the episodes in our narratives involve contingencies that will be shaped and reformulated through the development of the story. The narratives are constructed in such a way that induce us to imagine possible events in the future and how we would act in said circumstances. This characteristic is supported by Ricoeur's understanding of the 'self' as an 'agent', who can act and influence causation by taking initiative or interfering[2] in the story. Even if the listener cannot necessarily influence the outcome of the story (unless it is participatory storytelling), it triggers thoughts about its capability to act and its ability to change future realities, as he imagines himself n the situation of its characters. This out-of-body experience is what turns story into experience.

Our storytellers comment on how stories can influence and activate our agency and enable listeners to act towards creating change.

Arjun: Of course! Like I said, it is easier to influence people when you are not being preachy. Storytelling sidesteps the moral high ground that change makers are often blamed to occupy and takes a pleasantly shrewd path, as silly as it may sound.


#2: Increase in wildlife tourism has been brought about by the increasing population of the ‘Tourist’. This species is easy to recognize (see figure). The species has created an ecosystem of its own. It eats any kind of high or low profile food. Lives in resorts. Seeks charismatic animals like the tiger. Its daily activity involves excessive use of its camera. This species facilitates wildlife tourism	#9: Wildlife tourism is an excellent way to expose people of India and abroad to its rich natural heritage [...] We definitely need to regulate the number of tourists to avoid crowding in the forests, but we also need to educate tourists, especially the first-timers, about wildlife and its conservation. The tourist can be an important tool in conservation – let’s not let it go waste!"

#2: Increase in wildlife tourism has been brought about by the increasing population of the ‘Tourist’. This species is easy to recognize (see figure). The species has created an ecosystem of its own. It eats any kind of high or low profile food. Lives in resorts. Seeks charismatic animals like the tiger. Its daily activity involves excessive use of its camera. This species facilitates wildlife tourism

#9: Wildlife tourism is an excellent way to expose people of India and abroad to its rich natural heritage [...] We definitely need to regulate the number of tourists to avoid crowding in the forests, but we also need to educate tourists, especially the first-timers, about wildlife and its conservation. The tourist can be an important tool in conservation – let’s not let it go waste!"

Find full cartoon here.

To the question of where we locate change, it depends on what this change is. Through my work, I often target individuals and smaller communities (say students, villagers etc.). I don't necessarily grab my paintbrush and declare that I will change the world. My idea of change is a tailored, targeted and therefore an efficient influence on individuals.

Ameen:

Ajay:

3. The role of technology in storytelling

How does technology influence and impact your work?

Ricoeur’s thoughts on the relationship between text and action, makes us reconsider how we think about ‘text’ and how this reading can be applied to technology. According to him, the distinction between text and action is not at the linguistic, but at the discursive level. This is how he differentiates language from discourse:

	Language	Discourse
Structure	A system: timeless and static	Located at a given time and moment
Composition	A sequence of signs	A sequence of events that describe, claim and represent the world
Meaning	Refers to signs	Refers to the world
Communication	Provides codes for communication. Necessary but not sufficient	Communicates

Using these working definitions, we can understand the medium as a language: a system that provides us with signs and codes for communication. A creative use of language and mediums will hence, enable us to create narratives and produce meaning (which will be generated and negotiated by the audience). Technology is in this case our language, and how each storyteller uses it determines new ways to create meaning: experiences, connections and associations with and within their stories. We now ask them if/how the use of this 'language' mediates and impacts their work.

Arjun: Technology is the best facilitator in the realm of my science-art-communication. I depend on it extensively, to first educate myself. Then to create artwork (computer, tablet, smartphone). And then eventually I depend heavily on social media to broadcast my work. I will definitely credit the power of technology for fostering and enabling effective communication.

# 11: The story of Ajoba was carried far and wide in newspapers, television news and the internet. Find full cartoon here.

In my capacity, I feel most confident targeting students and urban youth. But thanks to the power of social media, putting my work out there has grabbed the attention of change-makers who are capable of things that is beyond my scope. This has led to collaborations through which the reach has become wider. Teachers use my art work in their classes, some organisations are using it in forest department buildings to educate visitors, some local groups have translated my work into regional languages.

Ameen:

Ajay:

4. Translating awareness into action through stories

Can you guarantee the ideas and values imbued by the story translate into action in the public space?

“what must be the nature of action...if it is to be read in terms of change in the world?” From Text to Action

So far they have told us about the power and content of stories. However, we have yet to find out what is it in stories that make listeners translate fiction into real life action. Ricoeur's final characteristic of narratives points us in the direction of empathy and interpretation.

Like discourse, action is open to interpretation. He posits that characters of our stories rise to the status of ‘persons’ when we evaluate their actions, including their doings and sufferings. This ethical verdict determines the identity of the character in the eyes of the audience (above any other physical or emotional characteristics) and this is what ultimately adds meaning to the events of the story, as it inspires the audience to emulate or reject this behavior through their actions.

We asked our storytellers their thoughts on how to translate stories' messages into meaningful action, or if it was even possible to guarantee this transition to begin with:

Arjun: I don’t [know]. One never does, I feel. But a lot of good awareness programs have made me change little things in my life. The people or groups who initiated those campaigns don't know of this, do they? This is somewhat similar. I believe that even if ONE person in the thousand who view my work gets influenced into making little changes, then it was worth my time and effort.

Ameen:

Ajay: (Ajay commented on the impact of stories while we were discussing how to gauge the impact of his work. In our first conversation he said: "Change is happening but there are no tests that can measure it and quantify it." and he elaborates on this idea below:)

5. Influence of stories on citizenship and political participation

Can the power of stories be leveraged to instill a sense of responsibility in the audience?

"You can only achieve power in common by including the opinions of as many people as possible in the discourse"

Finally, as stated in the brief of the project on methods for change, we are also interested in defining how political participation should be manifested in the public space. Ricoeur frames political action as a result of discourse and political deliberation.For a brief discussion of the relationship between storytelling and our political identity visit Part 2 of Storytelling as Performance.)

This last section captures the storytellers' point of view on how stories may affect our sense of citizenship and political responsibility.

Arjun: We are living in a society which is becoming increasingly insensitive and arrogant. There seems to be no time to stop and see the big picture: what are we doing? are our demands and lifestyles sustainable? Is the future generation secure? Impacts of our actions on the natural world.


#1: Most of us love seafood. And why shouldn't we? It tops the charts as some of the most delicious delicacies in the world! It so happens that we rarely think about what goes on “behind-the-scenes” and take many things for granted. The story behind how food reaches your plate is quite a scary one!	#12: So next time you feel like a getting a seafood dinner, do it with some perspective.

Find full cartoon here

Ameen:

Ajay:

Closing Remarks

I hope you enjoyed reading, watching and listening these three wonderful storytellers share their ideas on technology, interpretation and action. The question that remains unresolved is whether the effect of the story is shaped by the use of technology or not. At the end of the day it is the interpretation of stories -more than what it is said and how it is being said- what will determine the sustainability of these intents for change. The answers of our storytellers reinforce the notion that technology is a system, a language, a medium that transports our messages and intentions, but that inherently lacks the ability to provide guarantees for action and sway users into a lifestyle of responsible citizenship the second they pull out from their cartoon, screen or mp3.

The box below includes a quick run through the main ideas discussed throughout the post:

1. On the power of storytelling:

Arjun argues that storytelling is the origin of all communication techniques, and this makes it extremely attractive for the public.
Both Ajay and Ameen bring up the ability to influence behavior, shape the minds of people and transmit experiences, values and beliefs.
Both also brought up how dominant religions, ideologies, markets governments use storytelling to build movements and sustain their support
Finally Ajay comments on the issue of access: stories are powerful yet only a small share of stories are being told Hence, the need for this method to become more pervasive.

2. Storytelling as a vehicle for change:
Each storyteller locates change in different yet complementary spaces:

Arjun believes it must occur at the community level and hence the approach (stories) must be tailored and targeted in order to achieve an effective influence. His approach to change is very contextual.
Ameen locates it at the behavioral level; in our ability to make decisions and choices. His approach to change is based on how we use information from stories to interact with our surroundings.
Ajay locates it at the value level: He believes stories should influence us to adjust our values and only then, we will shape our behavior accordingly.

3. Role of technology:
We approached technology as a 'text' and as a 'language' that creates new possibilities for meaning and interpretation.

For Arjun and Ajay, technology enabled them to connect with other organizations and increased possibilities for partnerships and collaborations.

The three of them believe technology is an accelerator of the journey of stories and that it enables them to reach a larger audience.
Ameen argued that each medium requires different fluencies, and that the language of each medium should be adapted for the story. For example, a story will be told in different ways if using body language, video, audio, etc. He uses the example of the Twitter adaption of the Mahabharata.
Ajay closes by noting that although technology enables, it cannot replace the storyteller.

4. Translating awareness into action

Arjun and Ameen comment on the power of effectively and positively influencing one person. They believe the impact will exponentially spread and grow through that person's network or community.
Arjun believes you can guarantee it will turn into action.
Ameen believes you need to move them and inspire them through your characters to the point they feel they can be the hero of that story and act accordingly.
Ajay takes a more pragmatic approach towards action and shares some of the activities The Kahani Project uses to complement his storytelling sessions, such as: story-thons, story-booths and interactive storytelling, where they engage the audience in the production of their own stories.

5. Impact of storytelling on citizenship and political participation

Arun and Ajay believe this will come as a result of self-reflection and an evaluation of our impact in the world.
Ameen believes effective stories transmit the 'responsibility of action' through rhetoric. He uses the example of the popularity of India Against Corruption movement.
Ajay believes storytelling is a humanizing force that has the power of healing. He recommends institutions should utilize this method to spread confidence and inclusion among society and particularly with excluded groups.

Footnotes

[1] Semiotics is defined as the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. It is the study of making meaning and is essential to understand communication processes. While we will not look at any specific semiotics theory, we will focus on how stories create meaning through different signs and mediums, and how this meaning can be leveraged for making change.

[2] Refer to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s page on Paul Ricoeur and the section on ‘Selves and Agents’ to learn more about how action is mediated by causation, interference and intervention. Some interesting thoughts that inspired the above post

“What must be the nature of the world … if human beings are able to introduce changes into it?. Ricoeur adopts the analysis of interference or intervention that G. H. von Wright gives in Explanation and Understanding, and shows that for there to be interference, there must be both: an ongoing anterior established order or course of things and a human doing that somehow intervenes in and disturbs that order. Moreover, interference is always purposeful. Hence an interference is not merely ascribable to an agent. It is also imputable to the agent as the one whose purpose motivates the interference.”

“The second crucial question about action is “What must be the nature of action … if it is to be read in terms of a change in the world?” Ricoeur argues that every action involves initiative, i.e., “an intervention of the agent of action into the course of the world, an intervention that effectively causes changes in the world” (Oneself as Another, 109, translation modified). Initiative requires a bodily agent possessing specific capabilities and vulnerabilities who inhabits some concrete worldly situation.”

Sources:

Dauenhauer, Bernard and Pellauer, David, "Paul Ricoeur", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/ricoeur/>.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/multimedia-storytellers

Bridging the Information Divide - Political Quotient

denisse — 2015-10-24T14:28:06Z

On this post, we will unpack 'information poverty'- a problem lying at the very foundation of the crises that inspired this project and a barrier impacting political action. We interview Surabhi HR, the founder director of the political consulting firm Political Quotient, an initiative that seeks to change how youth interacts with politics in India

CHANGE-MAKER: Surabhi H R

ORGANIZATION: Political Quotient

METHOD OF CHANGE: Building an information service for citizen grievances, designed to keep elected representatives accountable for what happens in their constituency.

STRATEGY OF CHANGE: Building a new breed of politically conscious youth in India through technology and an interdisciplinary approach to change.

The deeper we delve into this project, the more the ‘information question’ rises to the surface as the decisive factor shaping political participation in democracies. Most of the initiatives we have learned about are focused on providing spaces, resources and opportunities to enable voices, participation and richer exchanges of information and knowledge. Yet, framing these as ‘empowering’ overlooks citizens who are trapped in an information gap or suffocated by an information overflow. People who find themselves in either side of the spectrum, are for the most part discouraged from engaging with this information, participating in public discussions (Jaeger, 2005), and do not have the same political opportunities as people with wider and freer access to information.

As we continue to explore how youth is redefining civic action in digital and information societies, we must thoroughly understand the different ways in which information barriers are affecting political action. On this post, we will go over a short glossary of terms that will help us understand information poverty better- a problem lying at the very foundation of the crises that inspired this project. These terms will be somewhat similar to each other, but will be unpacked from three different points of view, describing the implications of information poverty for social justice, technology disparity and democracy. The glossary will be coupled by our conversation with Surabhi HR, the founder director of the political consulting firm Political Quotient, an initiative that seeks to change how youth interacts with politics in India. Her background in Economics added new nuances to our analysis, as we explore the workings of political action through the lenses of economic theory.

Political Quotient

Political Quotient wants to “build a new breed of politically conscious youth that engages with the political system and equips them with the necessary skills to do so”. They have been running two programs: the ‘Political Internship Programme’ where young people have the opportunity to join party lines and support with legislative research, performance auditing, media management and event organization. And the second program is ‘Politicking’, in which they organize Google hangouts and panels between student leaders, political commentators, and party heads to debate and discuss policy-making and politics.

Now PQ is moving on to a new phase, in which they recognize it is not only youth who must be empowered. Similarly to Janaagraha, they also believe there must be an information structure in place to support elected representatives, who have been chosen to govern without the resources to effectively do so. “Things are changing, elected representatives are being held accountable, asked to be more transparent and to be more active, but the honest truth is they don’t have the necessary support to do this” comments Surabhi on the situation that led her and her team to develop a set of services and products to engage people in direct conversation with their elected representatives. These including the following:

a) A grievance addressing service: designed to keep elected representatives accountable for what happens in their constituency. Citizen grievances can be sent by e-mail, smartphone, sms, etc. to the elected representative’s office, where it will reach a multi-platform software that redresses the grievance to the right department; (for example, if the grievance is related to a tree fall, it will be redressed to the forestry department as opposed to staying in the MLA office). The whole process will be transparent, as both the citizen and the MLA will be able to track the status of the complaint, from the day it was issued to the day it was implemented, using technology.

b) A government schemes and subsidies information service: Citizens will have access to information about schemes through digital technologies, and find out if it is reaching the right beneficiaries.

Glossary:

(or crash course on concepts we should be familiar with when discussing making change in information societies)

To understand what information poverty is and how Political Quotient’s intervention in the information landscape will impact political action, will refer to the work of Johannes Britz, Doctor in Information Science and that of Anthony Downs, Economist specialist in public policy and public administration. This choice is inspired by a natural tension in our research as we continue to negotiate: what change ‘should’ look like from the lens of social justice and sustainable development, and what the ecosystem of change actually looks like when we deconstruct the political and economic structures enabling and constraining intents of change.

1.Information poverty:
According to Johannes Britz, : “the situation in which individuals and communities do not have the skills, abilities or material means to obtain efficient access to information, interpret it and apply it.”

Britz believes that information poverty must be addressed from a social justice perspective that considers the social, political and economic consequences of lack of information for our ability to fulfill our capabilities and freedoms. He posits a 'fair information society' as an ideal, in which social institutions work towards eradicating the four main characteristics of information- poor societies (See box below)

Characteristics of information-poor societies

1. Lack of essential information
2. Lack of financial capital to access information
3. Lack of technical infrastructure to access information
4. Lack of intellectual capacity to filter and evaluate
the benefits of information

The third characteristic: 'inefficient information infrastructures' is the main gap, both Janaagraha and Political Quotient, are addressing in urban India. They are both providing services to connect the citizen with their elected representatives; establishing a reliable exchange of information between parties, and as a consequence, more autonomy, transparency and accountability in the governance process.

How does Political Quotient brings us closer to a fairer information landscape in governance? Surabhi responds: “The [grievance addressing] system is using the benefits of filling the information gap to create tangible assets: greater accountability, interaction, participation in the citizen-elected representative relationship and thereby fundamentally changing the way they interact.”

Following Britz's reading of John Rawls' categories of justice[1]. PQ’s work addresses social justice in the following ways:

Recognition and participation: Enhancing the citizen’s ability to file a complaint is in itself an act of recognition of the citizen’s power to affect its own environment and his possibility to participate in the governance process.
Reciprocity: The system enables interaction between the elected representative and the citizen, setting forth reciprocity, transparency and a horizontal platform for exchanges where both parties manage the same information.
Development of capabilities: Assuming a successful implementation, grievances addressed imply the realization of the power of the citizen and a more functional infrastructure that enables their development as individuals.
Distribution and enablement: Assuming all citizens in Karnataka have access to ICTs, this service distributes power and bridges the distance between them and the government.

"In a society where we depend on the creation, access and manipulation of information, [lack of information] questions the fundamental freedoms of people”. Britz, 2004

While all these are highly idealistic assumptions, the last one is the most problematic (in a country where the Internet and mobile penetration rate remain as low as 16% and 26% respectively). While information and communication technologies do play an important role in bridging the gap between those who have access and produce information and those who don’t, as Britz outlines, the growth of ICT’s takes information poverty to a “whole new dimension”; in most cases dividing the info-haves and the info-have nots even further. Britz ideal of an fair information society is what we aspire to, yet there are structural limitations in place which might prevent information-based initiatives, such as Political Quotient, from achieving its social justice objectives.

2.Information Poverty
Information poverty can also be thought of as ‘information inequity’, which for the last 20 years has been strongly correlated to the digital divide. From this perspective, we can define it as the “economic inequality between groups in terms of access to and use of knowledge and ICTs.”

Analyzing information precariousness from the technology perspective brings us to the elements contributing to the digital divide and how they are affecting our ability to be informed by and of digital technologies. According to Britz, the three main elements contributing to the divide are the following:

Factors Contributing to Digital Divide

a) Connectivity: Lack of infrastructure and material access to ICTs
b) Content: Inability to access content because it is unaffordable, unavailable or unsuitable.
c) Human approach: Lack of education and digital literacy to understand and use information and data as knowledge.

This is a paramount consideration for Political Quotient if they aspire to reach all the constituencies in Karnataka; both rural and urban. Surabhi recognizes the firm will have to overcome the socioeconomic barriers that impede a pervasive adoption of her product. “When one travels between rural and urban, the differences are many. Nothing has been done on the ground and there is a lot of potential. What is encouraging is that they want to learn.” This limitation is conflicting with the amount of information the stakeholders of this project need to handle in order to successfully bridge the information gap (between the elected representatives and the citizens) and have it be a “mutually beneficial relationship between the voter and the voted” as they envision:

Information stakeholders need in order to use this service
Infographic generated using info.gram

While the service PQ is developing seeks to leverage technology to bridge this gap, digital illiteracy might not only prevent citizens from using the system, but could potentially exclude them further from the democratic process. As Shah posits in the project’s thought piece (on increasing the access to ICTS): “the analogue citizen is expected to transition to the emerging new paradigms: earlier categories of discrimination or exclusion are now replaced by technology exclusion.” The team plans to work with their clients (representatives) in digital technologies and organizational skills capacity building, yet an information inequity strategy needs to be put in place in order to guarantee the fulfillment of all the stakeholders’ capabilities -particularly equitable participation from the citizen’s front.

3. Information Poverty:
Information poverty can also take the economic avatar of ‘imperfect knowledge’. According to Anthony Downs, “lack of complete information on which to base decisions is a condition so basic to human life that it influences the structure of almost every social institution”.

Downs' perspective is based on public choice theory, which is “the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems in political science”. This is a subset of positive political theory, that models voters, bureaucrats and politicians as self-interested. He posits in his work ‘Economic Theory for Political Action in a Democracy’ that political parties in democracies formulate policy and serve interest groups merely as a means to gaining votes.

Surabhi and her team align with this thinking: “Politics is not benevolent; ours is a for-profit model that seeks to engage with the elected representative in providing him a mechanism to ensure that he gets more votes. At the same time, we also engage with citizens in ensuring that their interests and issues are looked into. Our basis is that politicians work for votes and the same should be leveraged to solve problems”. Downs’ thesis is that given these assumptions, a democracy –a political system where the parties compete for the control of the government –can only function to its fullest potential when there is perfect information and information is costless. This is what makes democracy the gold standard of governance and the great model on paper that promises to secure our equality and freedoms.

Yet, democracy does not cease to bring disappointment and a sense of helplessness towards politics amongst youth. The advent of digital technologies has been a glimpse of hope for their political engagement, and this entire research is grounded on the question of how is it they can renew trust and mobilize youth towards civic engagement. A first step towards this direction is assuming the inherent faults in the system, as opposed to focusing on citizen apathy. Democracy has been implemented in a system where there is imperfect knowledge and where there is a high degree of both voluntary and involuntary ignorance [2],. This, according to Downs, means that:

Consequences of imperfect knowledge in governance

Parties do not know what citizens want
Citizens do not always know what the government is doing or should be doing
Information to overcome this gap is costly

“Ignorance of politics is not a result of unpatriotic apathy, rather it is a highly rational response to the fats of political life in a large democracy” Downs, 1957

If information is costly, so is democracy. The highest risk of deeming citizens apathetic is ignoring the information barriers that prevent them from participating fairly in decision-making processes. Political Quotient cannot intervene by encouraging citizens to be informed, but it can provide them with tools to bring them closer to constituency related information, bringing down the costs of both participation and information. As put by Surabhi: “We want to be an ally of the political system. They need to do good. They are there for 5 years and need to do something.”

Making Change

While my glossary of terms may seem repetitive (I did define the same term three times), I want to make an emphasis on how important it is to unpack our concepts through various lens of analysis. We started this project exploring multi-stakeholderism and partnerships on the ground, however we are naturally moving on to spaces of knowledge collaboration where change is conceived through the amalgamation of different disciplines. These convergences do not necessarily happen in the most visible ways though, and one of the project’s objectives is to identify undocumented yet significant interventions to make change in the landscape of information societies.

Political Quotient’s initiative breaks the following paradigms in the discourse of 'change in the digital era':

a) It removes the spotlight from the citizen: while the focus of the project is to level citizens-citizen and citizen-government power relations (in terms of access to information), the political firm is focusing on improving the efficiency of the government apparatus, which brings new light to how 'citizen action' unfolds in the context of urban governance.

b) Political Quotient’s methods are far from what we see in the ‘spectacle imperative’ where the intent for change is scaled up through visibility in the public sphere. The firm was conceived in the private sector and its work will take place from within the elected representative’s offices.

c) The firm, in the same way as Vita Beans, applies an interdisciplinary approach to the design of its technology. (Fun fact: Political Quotient is working alongside Amruth’s team to create mobile applications for the service; which means the infrastructure will include both behavioural science and economic thinking behind its design. Read one of our previous posts, to learn more about Amruth's approach to change and digital design)

d) Technology is indeed framing their understanding of change, but in this case, the question is how technology can be amplified by human behaviour and education, as opposed to how technology determines or amplifies our ability to make change as it is commonly conceived.

Not including an analysis of information poverty, and how it both inspires and limits intents of change, devoids the project from understanding the dynamic nature of information and how it interferes in social justice and political action. Furthermore, info-poverty is not a condition characteristic of digital and information societies. Our ability to access information has always determined our dexterity to navigate institutions and infrastructures; indistinctive of what technologies are available at the time. We hope that Political Quotient’s initiative locates not only the information gaps, but also the inherent obstacles the digital divide might represent for their work, and as stated by Surabhi in their theory of change, take them “as an opportunity for a solution. Going from mere ideas to action”. We wish them the best and will follow up on them after June, once the new elected representatives are in office, to see the extent to which information poverty has been addressed through their service.

Footnotes:

[1] Britz based his categorization in John Rawls work on principles of justice. Particularly on 'A Theory of Justice' a work of political philosophy and ethics where he discusses inequality, distributive justice and his theory of Justice as Fairness. We did not refer to his work for this post, but it is worth a read in the context of the digital divide and the question of fair redistribution of digital technologies.

[2] Read more on voluntary or involuntary lack of knowledge in Downs' work on economic theory and political action. Particularly his reading on persuasion, ideologies and rational ignorance -in a context of imperfect knowledge and democracy. Some interesting ideas on persuasion: "Persuasion can only occur in the midst of ignorance; reality is: there are votes who are less informed than others and they need more facts; and we are mostly approached by biased versions of facts" and on rational ignorance: "when information is costly, no decision-maker can afford to know everything [...] ignorance of politics is not a result of unpatriotic apathy; rather it is a highly rational response to the facts of political life in a large democracy".

Sources

1. Britz, Johannes J. "To know or not to know: a moral reflection on information poverty." Journal of Information Science 30, no. 3 (2004): 192-204.

2. Downs, Anthony. "An economic theory of political action in a democracy." The Journal of Political Economy (1957): 135-150.

3. Jaeger, Paul T., and Kim M. Thompson. "Social information behavior and the democratic process: Information poverty, normative behavior, and electronic government in the United States." Library & Information Science Research 26, no. 1 (2005): 94-107.

4. Norris, Pippa. Digital divide: Civic engagement, information poverty, and the Internet worldwide. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

5. Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/information-divide-political-quotient

‘Doing’ Digital Humanities: Reflections on a project on Online Feminism in India

sneha — 2015-03-30T12:48:16Z

A core concern of Digital Humanities research has been that of method. The existing discourse around the field of DH assumes a move away from traditional humanities and social sciences research methods to more open, collaborative and iterative forms of scholarship spanning some conventional and other not so conventional practices and spaces. In this guest blog post, Sujatha Subramanian reflects upon her experience of undertaking a research study on online feminist activism in India and its various challenges.

When the chance to do a research project on Digital Humanities presented itself, I deliberated over the possible topics I could explore. As a student of Media and Cultural Studies, I have on previous occasions studied digital technology and online spaces. Those studies, however, were simply “social sciences” research. I had little understanding of what Digital Humanities as a discipline entailed. While I admit that I am still unable to come up with a concrete definition of the same, the process of conducting the research and the DH workshop organised at CIS led to some clarity about the field and methods of Digital Humanities.

Before beginning the research I asked myself what could I, a feminist media scholar, learn from Digital Humanities and how could I contribute to the same. I wondered if the lack of familiarity with technological skills such as design, statistics and coding- knowledge that I saw as prerequisite to Digital Humanities- meant that I couldn’t really engage with the field of Digital Humanities. While grappling with this question, I chanced upon the #TransformDH project. At the heart of the project is the question- “How can digital humanities benefit from more diverse critical paradigms, including race/ethnic studies and gender/sexuality studies?” [1]

In a blogpost titled “Queer Studies and the Digital Humanities”,[2] the author states,

"...a lot of queer/critical ethnic studies/similar scholars also lack access to the resources that make it easier to combine digital and humanities work. That might not only mean physical access and training in technology, but also the time to add yet another interdisciplinary element to a project...my experience suggests that many, many politicized queers and people of color engaged in scholarly work in and out of the academy do use digital tools and think critically about them and even create them; they just don’t necessarily do so under the sign of the digital humanities."

As someone who used the space of Facebook to initiate conversations around feminist issues and was actively engaged in fighting the sexism entrenched in social media spaces, was I then already “doing” digital humanities? I reflected that since feminist activism finds such little space in mainstream media, a worthwhile Digital Humanities project could be to document and archive the contemporary feminist movement and the ways in which it is transforming our understanding of the digital space. As part of the project, I explored how feminist activists have revolutionised digital spaces for the creation of alternative public spheres, constituted of not just women but also other marginalised communities. The project gave me the opportunity to study the inclusions and exclusions facilitated by the digital space, with questions of gender, sexuality, class, caste and disability as central to the enquiry. The project also raised questions regarding popular assumptions of digital space as a disembodied, liberatory space free of power relations by exploring gendered and sexualised violence that these feminist activists face.

While the political vision of my project was clear, my methodological skills needed a little honing. The DH workshop organised at CIS was of great help in this regard. The feedback received at the workshop was instrumental in recognising the importance of “big data”. As a feminist researcher, life histories, personal narratives and stories remain important sources of knowledge for me. However, in studying social movements and their impact, the limitations of such methodological tools are revealed. Understanding how a feminist activist with 11,000 followers on Twitter offers important insight into public discourse is contingent on the ability to analyse such data. The workshop also helped me in realising that in my definition of activism, I had precluded many feminist engagements with digital technology, including the efforts of feminist Wikipedians, feminist gamers and feminist encounters with STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). While these remain the shortcomings of my project, the workshop helped in foregrounding the scope for collaboration that lies at the heart of all our projects. A discussion of my project alongside Ditilekha’s project on LGBT Youth and Digital Citizenship brought to fore the intersections as well as the different activist strategies employed by the two movements in their use of social media. Sohnee’s project on the gender gap on Wikipedia underlines that an important aspect of working towards a feminist epistemology, and changing the relations of power that characterise technology, are issues of access and participation. Rimi’s use of a text mining tool to analyse the different patterns of language on confessions pages highlighted the value of such technological tools in socio-cultural analysis. The workshop which brought together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, helped in highlighting shared concerns of methodology, content and political visions and prompted discussions on innovative approaches to conducting research. This attempt at collaborative knowledge production- whether it is the constant communication between the research scholars through email, the workshop with the scholars and the mentors or even the dissemination of our reports on an open access site- has been the essence of my engagement with Digital Humanities. The ethos of collaboration as central to Digital Humanities is reflected in Joan Shaffer’s definition of Digital Humanities as “...a community interested in collaborative projects and sharing knowledge across disciplines." [3] This ethos of learning from fellow researchers and working together to create accessible knowledge is something that I shall carry forward to my future research endeavours.

[1]. http://transformdh.org/2012/01/

[2]. http://www.queergeektheory.org/2011/10/conference-thoughts-queer-studies-and-the-digital-humanities/

[3]. http://dayofdh2012.artsrn.ualberta.ca/members/echoln/profile/

Sujatha Subramanian is an M.Phil. Scholar at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. This research study was part of a series of six projects commissioned by HEIRA-CSCS, Bangalore as part of a collaborative exercise on mapping the Digital Humanities in India. See here for more on this initiative.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/doing-digital-humanities

A Question of Digital Humanities

sneha — 2015-03-30T12:47:27Z

The emergence of digital humanities as a new field of interdisciplinary research enquiry has also seen growth in literature around the problem of its definition. This blog-post lays out some of the conceptual frameworks for the mapping exercise taken up by CIS to look at digital humanities in India.

The ‘digital turn’ has been one of the significant changes in interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the last couple of decades. The advent of new digital technologies and growth of networked environments have led to a rethinking of the traditional processes of knowledge gathering and production, across an array of fields and disciplinary areas. The digital humanities have emerged as yet another manifestation of what in essence is this changing relationship between technology and the human subject. The nature and processes of information, scholarship and learning, now produced or mediated by digital tools, methods or spaces have formed the crux of the digital humanities discourse as it has emerged in different parts of the world so far. However, digital humanities is also clearly being posited as a site of contestation – what is perceived as doing away with or reinventing certain norms of traditional humanities research and scholarship. As a result it has largely been framed within the existing narrative of a crisis in the humanities, highlighting the more prominent role of technology which is now expected to resolve in some way questions of relevance and authority that seem to have become central to the continued existence and practice of the humanities in its conventional forms.

The question of what is digital humanities has been asked many times, and in different ways. Most scholars have differentiated between two waves or types of digital humanities – the first is that of using computational tools to do traditional humanities research, while the second looks at the ‘digital’ itself as integral to humanistic enquiry. However as is apparent in the existing discourse, the problem of definition still persists. As a field, method or practice, is it a found term that has now been appropriated in various forms and by various disciplines, or is it helping us reconfigure questions of the humanities by making available, through advancements in technology, a new digital object or a domain of enquiry that previously was unavailable to us? These and others will continue to remain questions for the digital humanities, but it would be important to first examine what would be the question/s of digital humanities. David Parry summarises to some extent these different contentions to a definition of the field when he suggests that ‘what is at stake here is not the object of study or even epistemology, but rather ontology. The digital changes what it means to be human, and by extension what it means to study the humanities.’[1]

Some speculation on the larger premise of the field, with specific reference to its emergence in India is what I hope to chart out in a series of posts over the next couple of weeks. This is not in itself an attempt at a definition, but sketching out a domain of enquiry by mapping the field with respect to work being done in the Indian context. In doing so these propositions will assume one or the other (if not all three) of these following suggested frameworks, which we hope will inform also larger concerns of the digital humanities programme at CIS:

The first is the inherited separation of technology and the humanities and therefore the existing tenuous relationship between the two fields. As is apparent in the nomenclature itself, there seems to be a bringing together of what seem to have been essentially two separate domains of knowledge. However, the humanities and technology have a rather chequered history together, which one could locate with the beginning of print culture. As Adrian Johns points out in the ‘Nature of the book’, ‘any printed book is, as a matter of fact, both the product of one complex set of social and technological processes and the beginning of another”[2]The larger imagination of humanities as text-based disciplines can be located in a sense in the rise of printing, literacy and textual scholarship. While the book itself seems to have made a comfortable transition into the digital realm, the process of this transition, the channels of circulation and distribution of information as objects of study have been relegated to certain disciplinary concerns, thus obfuscating and making invisible this ‘technologised history’ of the humanities. Can the digital humanities therefore be an attempt to bridge these knowledge gaps would be a question here.
The distance between the practice and the subject. How does one identify with digital humanities practice? While many people engage with what seem to be core digital humanities concerns, they are not all ‘digital humanists’ or do not identify themselves by the term. While at one level the problem is still that of definition and taxonomy – what is or is not digital humanities – at another level it is also about the nature of subjectivity produced in such practice – whether it has one of its own or is still entrenched in other disciplinary formations, as is the case with most digital humanities research today. This is apparent in the emphasis on processes and tools in digital humanities – where the practice or method seems to have emerged before the theoretical or epistemological framework. One may also connect this to the larger discourse on the emergence of the techno -social subject[3] as an identity meditated by digital and new media technologies, wherein technology is central to the practices that engender this subjectivity.
Tying back to the first question is also the notion of a conflict between the humanities and digital humanities. This comes with the perception of digital humanities being a version 2.0 of the traditional humanities, a result of the existing narrative of crisis and the need for the humanities to reinvent themselves by becoming amenable to the use of computing tools. Digital humanities has emerged as one way to mediate between the humanities and the changes that are imminent with digital technologies, but it may not take up the task of trying to establish a teleological connection between the two. The theoretical pursuits of both may be different but deeply related, and this is one manner of approaching digital humanities as a field or domain of enquiry; the point of intersection or conflict would be where new questions emerge. This narrative is also located within a larger framing of digital humanities in terms of addressing the concerns of the labour market, and the fear of the humanities being displaced or replaced as a result. Parry’s objective of studying the digital humanities works with or tries to address this particular formulation of the digital humanities.

Locating these concerns in India, where the field of digital humanities is still at an incipient stage comes with a multitude of questions. For one the digital divide still persists to a large extent in India, and is at different levels due to the complexity of linguistic and social conditions of technological advancement. It is difficult locate a field that is so premised on technology in such a varied context. Secondly, the existing discourse on digital humanities still draws upon, to a large extent, the given history of the term which renders it inaccessible to certain groups or classes of people in the global South. Another issue which is not specifically Indian but can be seen more explicitly in this context is the somewhat uncritical way in which technology itself is imagined. In most spaces, technology is still understood as either ‘facilitating’ something, either a specific kind of research enquiry or as a tool - a means to an end, and as being value or culture neutral. However, if we are to imagine the digital as a condition of being as Parry says, then technology too cannot be relegated to being a means to an end. Bruno Latour indicates the same when he says “Technology is everywhere, since the term applies to a regime of enunciation, or, to put it another way, to a mode of existence, a particular form of exploring existence, a particular form of the exploration of being – in the midst of many others.”[4]

The digital humanities then in some sense takes us back to the notion of technology or more specifically the digital realm as being a discursive space, and a technosocial or cultural paradigm that generates new objects and methods of study. This has been the impetus of cyber culture and digital culture studies, but what separates digital humanities from these fields is another way to arrive at some understanding of its ontological status. At a cursory glance, the shift from content to process, from information to data seems to be the key transition here, and the blurring of the boundaries between such absolute categories. More importantly however, does this point towards an epistemic shift; a rupture in the given understanding of certain knowledge formations or systems is also a pertinent question of digital humanities.

This mapping exercise will attempt to explore some of these thoughts a little further and with a focus on the Indian context. Through discussions with scholars and practitioners across diverse fields, we will attempt to map and generate different meanings of the ‘digital’ and digital humanities. While one can expect this to definitely produce more questions, we also hope the process of thinking though these questions will lead to an understanding of the larger field as well.

[1]. Dave Parry “The Digital Humanities or a Digital Humanism”, Debates in the Digital Humanities, ed. Mathew K. Gold, (University of Minnesota Press, 2012 ) http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/24

[2]. Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998) pp.3

[3]. For more on the nature of the technosocial subject, see Nishant Shah, The Technosocial subject: cities, cyborgs and cyberspace Manipal University, 2013. Indian ETD Repository@Inflibnet, Web, March 7, 2014.

[4]. Latour, Bruno . "Morality and Technology: The End of the Means." Trans. Couze Venn Theory Culture Society . (2002): 247-260. Sage. Web, March 4, 2014 URL> http://www.brunolatour.fr/sites/default/files/downloads/80-MORAL-TECHNOLOGY-GB.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/a-question-of-digital-humanities

Information Structures for Citizen Participation - Janaagraha

denisse — 2015-10-24T14:28:47Z

In our efforts to understand how change is conceptualized in the digital era, we find a growing emphasis on the role of effective information structures to empower the citizen and the government. We interview Joylita Saldanha from Janaagraha to answer questions around information, participation and e-governance.

CHANGE-MAKER:Interview with Joylita Saldanha

ORGANIZATION: Janaagraha - I change my city

METHOD OF CHANGE: Online platforms to enable communication between the citizen and the government.

STRATEGY OF CHANGE:Empower the government -create resources to help them do what the citizens expect them to do.

10 posts into the project, we are identifying the most outstanding patterns between processes of change. One of the themes that comes up often is: information management. How do we translate data to information, and information to knowledge? What is the best way to produce, consume and disseminate information? How does visible information lead to better mechanisms of participation in democracy? As the topic recurs in my conversations with change-makers, I have even reflected about the way that I display the research outputs of this project, and have adapted the format of these articles to make them as interactive and accessible as possible. Why? Because we believe this research is an entry point for a wider conversation around different ways to understand ‘making change’, and in order to produce this knowledge we need different actors to take part in the conversation. Hence, the format of our information must be (visually) persuasive enough to sway the readers into at least reading the article, and encourage their engagement, interaction and participation.

This is also the rationale behind digital information platforms, including e-governance. Governments, authorities and organizations are devising new ways of presenting their information and making their services more accessible and interactive for the public. According to the UNESCO’s definition, e-governance is the public sector’s use of information and communication technology with the aim of:

Improving information and service delivery
Encouraging citizen participation in decision-making processes
Making governments accountable, transparent and effective

What is e-governance?
By the IDRC and IdeaCorp

India has its own National e-governance plan in place. It’s ambitious in scope:

“a massive country-wide infrastructure reaching down to the remotest of villages is evolving, and large-scale digitization of records is taking place to enable easy, reliable access over the internet. The ultimate objective is to bring public services closer home to citizens”.

Information and Urban Governance

(This section will be revised)

The question on information management is key in the analysis of citizen action in emerging information societies. This project acknowledged from its inception that the information flow of networks is changing and shaping the dynamics of state-citizen-market relationships (Shah, 2014). I will refer to Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks, to revisit the information economy, as it has been a recurrent reference in my analyses throughout the project, and it will be a useful benchmark to cross-reference findings in the future. On this opportunity, I would like to highlight his views on the role of information flow in democratic societies:

“The basic claim is that the diversity of ways of organizing information production and use, opens a range of possibilities for pursuing the core political values of liberal societies-individual freedom, a more genuinely participatory political system, a critical culture, and social justice” Benkler, 2006

Enabling a smoother and more transparent information flow, according to his work, has the following effects on citizen’s participation:

1. Autonomy: Access to information enables citizens to perceive a wider range of possibilities and options against which they can gauge their choices. This is particularly important when the citizen participates in decision-making processes.

2. Democracy: The emergence of an information economy, creates information structures that are not only an alternative to mass media, as Benkler states, but I would like to add are also alternative to government-run e-governance platforms that cannot fully cater to citizens' need for participation and debate. Creating an accessible and participatory information structure also creates a space that fosters public discussion, and hence, the expression of our political nature. (Visit Storytelling as Performance Part 2 for a larger exploration of the political in the public space)

3. Human justice: The freedom to access basic resources and services, allows us to fulfil our capabilities in society, including producing our own information, as well as improving our well-being by accessing information about health, education, public infrastructure, etc.

These three characteristics can be very well tied up with the three objectives of e-governance outlined above: wider information delivery, citizen participation and government accountability. Citizens aspire to access information that enables them to make good choices and participate in conversations that affect their livelihoods. For this reason, we find a common goal among the change actors (interviewed in the series), is devising new modes to engage with government-related information that complement or replace government-owned platforms.

Civil Society' and E-governance

One of the best known examples of these initiatives have been spearheaded by the Bangalore-based NGO: Janaagraha. the Centre for Citizenship and Democracy.

Image courtesy of Duke University website

The organization works to improve the quality of life in Indian cities and towns, by improving the information around infrastructure and services; and citizenship. We interviewed Joylita Saldanha, who works for the NGO’s leadership team to learn more about Janaagraha’s views on the role of information for urban governance, based on the experience of platforms such as I change my city. Her perspective c aught me off guard, as she framed the problem in urban governance from a somewhat unconventional angle:

Joylita Saldanha

Janaagraha's Leadership Team

Experience conceptualizing and
building Mobile and Web products in Los Angeles and Bangalore

Believes technology is a great lever and enabler.
Sees potential in technology to drive community action at the ground level

Whenever we talk about social change, participation and democracy, we root for the discourse that works to empower the citizen. Janaagraha finds this assumption incomplete. Saldanha suggests it is our role to find new ways to empower the government and help them do their job: "One citizen cannot be always an agent of change so we need communities coming together [...] We want to look at how to get citizens involved, because we can’t keep blaming the government if we don’t participate. We need to help them do what they do".

Read this short interview to get a glimpse of the information structures Janaagraha is building to empower the government.

Interview:

In order to gauge the extent to which Janaagraha is empowering and enabling the government to make information accessible for the public, we will look at how their online platforms are improving e-governance, based on the three characteristics outlined in the UNESCO definition and the three characteristics of effective information economies outlined by Benkler.

Stage 1: Improving information delivery

How does I change my city tackle this information crisis?

JS: Janaagraha wants to improve the quality of life in two ways:

Improving the quality of infrastructure.
Improving the quality of citizenship and citizen engagement.

We look at I change my city as something that enables citizens and governments to be more transparent for each other. Janaagraha can’t be everywhere, but technology crosscuts all the programs to allow us to roll it out to other cities.

How does Janaagraha know what information people need?

JS:We have a Net Plus Roots approach:

Stage	Roots: Information transactions at the grassroots level	Net: Information transactions through technology
Process	Reach out to communities and engage with them Community outreach and advocacy teams contacts the government Get the government and the citizen connected Send out citizen reports to government Follow up with the government to get responses Share responses with the citizens	We take all learnings from the grassroots and apply them to technology. The design/product team in place does customer research. Look at google keywords and try to understand what people are searching for Disseminate that content with citizens
Example	Crisis: Low voting turn out. Roots intervention: Look at where people go to enroll for voting and how we can clean up the electoral role at the grassroots level. Net intervention: Jaagte Raho: A portal People can register online to vote.	Crisis: How to get a driving license in Bangalore. Roots intervention: People were not getting them because they don’t know the correct process or what to do. They don’t know the hows or the whys. Net intervention We created a section called How To and put the process of a) How to get a driving license b) why do you go and get a driving license c) what are the documents you need to carry.

Right now we are playing the role of facilitator, but eventually we don’t want to be those facilitators. We want these platforms to be bridges between the citizen and the government.

My only problem with this is that an information structure based and reliant on digital technologies will only allow the interests of the middle class to permeate the system. How will information from other groups feed into the structure?

JS: We definitely want to enable access for everyone, but we don’t want a duplication of efforts. If the road is broken; even if one person complains and gets that pothole fixed then the road will be good for everyone to use. At the end of the day what we want people is to participate. From then we can take it to the next level and ask: ok what are we really missing in terms of planning? where are we missing participatory budgeting? where can we involve everybody: not only the urban but everybody. That’s what it takes it to the next level.

Stage 2: Encouraging citizen participation in decision-making processes

How does access to information improve urban governance?

JS: A very basic important aspect of where you live is to find which is your ward who is your electoral representative and what does he do. People don’t even know which ward they are living in, which is their assembly constituency, etc. Engaging with the electoral representative, then engaging with civic agencies. These are things you need to have in place before we start looking beyond this.

And you are facilitating this information?

JS: Yes, we are trying to map out services in the neighborhood and give more information about this. We have Municipal Commissions in Bangalore, and most people don’t know where these agencies are located, so our survey team went out found the offices and mapped them.

We use maps a lot because we make a lot of emphasis in spatial data. We want people to participate: tell us where their the park or playground is, locate it and then we take this information and find out: what is the budget allocated for this park, when was the last clean up, what is the future of this park, etc. At the same time, we want the citizen to tell us about its state and their wish-lists for this park.

You mention spatial data. What is the best way to use it? and who should manage it?

One thing we see when we interact with civic agencies or electoral, is that most of them don’t have a grasp of the analytics to understand what is the ground level situation, and that is where we come in. We have an information structure in place and we make data accessible. This helps representatives understand what are the patterns: a) what are the trends, b) where are their successes, c) where are their failures. Data needs to play a major role in how we take our decisions. It cannot be intuitively thought out.

Stage 3: Making governments accountable and transparent

How can these resources make the government more accountable?

We need more [information] systems in place to identify what is accessible in terms of services and infrastructures. First step is making things transparent; and making elected representatives, civic agencies, citizens -all these people accountable. We believe that accountability and participation goes hand in hand. You need to participate in order to make it accountable. The process of engagement is empowering for the citizen once they realize they can bring about change."

It takes time to get things done; change happens very slowly. And we can’t keep blaming the government if we don’t participate. We don’t lend them a hand, and let’s be honest, we probably don’t have the resources. So, how do we enable the government? How do we empower them? That’s something Janaagraha works for: helping the government do what they need to do.

***********

The next interview will feature Surabhi HR from Political Quotient, an organization working to redefine how youth engage with politics in the digital era. We will refer back to the characteristics about information economies and e-governance outlined on this post and use Janaagraha's experience as a backdrop, to explore the work PQ is doing: organizing spatial data, improving information structures for the government and bridging communication between citizens and their elected representatives.

Sources:

Benkler, Yochai. The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. Yale University Press, 2006.

Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/information-structures-janaagraha

Institute for Internet & Society 2014, Pune

samantha — 2014-04-07T11:31:23Z

Last month, activists, journalists, researchers, and members of civil society came together at the 2014 Institute for Internet & Society in Pune, which was hosted by CIS and funded by the Ford Foundation. The Institute was a week long, in which participants heard from speakers from various backgrounds on issues arising out of the intersection of internet and society, such as intellectual property, freedom of expression, and accessibility, to name a few. Below is an official reporting summarizing sessions that took place.

Day One

February 11, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 9.40 a.m.	Introduction: Sunil Abraham, Executive Director Centre for Internet and Society
10.00 a.m. – 10.15 a.m.	Introduction of Participants
10.15 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.	Internet Governance and Privacy: Sunil Abraham
12.00 p.m. – 12.30 p.m.	Tea-break
12.30 p.m. – 1.00 p.m.	Keynote: Bishakha Datta, Filmmaker and Activist, and Board Member, Wikimedia Foundation
1.00 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Participant Presentations
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea Break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet: Nishant Shah, Director-Research, CIS

This year’s Internet Institute, hosted by the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), kicked off in Pune to put a start to a week of learnings and discussions surrounding internet usage and its implications on individuals of society. Twenty two attendees from all over India attended this year, from backgrounds of activism, journalism, research and advocacy work.

Attendees were welcomed by Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Program Officer for Media Rights & Access at the Ford Foundation, the event’s sponsor, who started off the day by introducing the Foundation’s initiatives in pursuit of bridging the digital divide by addressing issues of internet connectivity.

Internet Governance & Privacy, Sunil Abraham
The Institute’s first session was led by Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of CIS, and engaged with issues of internet governance and privacy with reference to four stories: 1) a dispute between tweeters from the US and those in South Africa over the use of hashtag #thingsdarkiesays, which is said not to be as racially derogatory as it is in the US; 2) Facebook’s contested policies on photos featuring users breastfeeding, 3) a lawsuit between Tata and Greenpeace over the organization’s use of Tata’s logo in a video game created for public criticism of their environmentally-degrading practices, and lastly, 4) the case of Savita Bhabhi, an Indian pornographic cartoon character which had been banned by India’s High Court and which had served as a landmark case in expanding the statutory laws for what is considered to be pornographic.

Each of these stories has one major thing in common: due to their nature of taking place over the internet, they are not confined to one geographic location and in turn, are addressed at the international level. The way by which an issue as such is to be addressed cuts across State policies and internet intermediary bodies to create quite a messy case in trying to determine who is at fault. Such complexity illustrates how challenging internet governance can be within today’s society that is no longer restricted to national or geographic boundaries.

Sunil also goes on in explaining the relationship between privacy, transparency, and power, summing it up in a simple formula; privacy protection should have a reverse relationship to power—the more the power, the less the privacy one should be entitled to. On the contrary, a direct correlation goes for power and transparency—the more the power, the more transparent a body should be. Instead of thinking about these concepts as a dichotomy, Sunil suggests to see them as absolute rights in themselves—instrumental in policies and necessary to address power imbalances.

The Web We Want, Bishakha Datta
The Institute’s kickoff was also joined by Indian filmmaker and activist, Bishakha Datta, who had delivered the keynote address. Bishakha bridged together notions of freedom of speech, surveillance, and accessibility, while introducing campaigns that work to create an open and universally accessible web, such as the Web We Want and Sexuality and Disability. Bishakha stresses how the internet as a space has altered how we experience societal constructs, which can be easily exhibited in how individuals experience Facebook in the occurrence of a death, for example. Bishakha initiated discussion among participants by posing questions such as, “what is our expectation of privacy in this brave new world?” and “what is the society we want?” to encompass the need to think of privacy in a new way with the coming of the endless possibilities the internet brings with it.

Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet, Nishant Shah
CIS Research Director, Nishant Shah, led a session examining internet as a technology more broadly, and our understandings of it in relation to the human body. Nishant proposes the idea that history is a form of technology, as well as time, itself, for which our understanding only comes into being with the aid of technologies of measurement. Although we are inclined to separate technology from the self, Nishant challenges this notion while suggesting that technology is very integral to being human, and defines a “cyborg” as someone who is very intimate with technology. In this way, we are all cyborgs. While making reference to several literary pieces, including Haraway’s Cyborg: Human, Animus, Technology; Kevin Warwick’s Living Cyborg; and Watt’s small world theory, Nishant challenges participants’ previous notions of how one is to understand technology in relation to oneself, as well as the networks we find ourselves implicated within.

Also brought forth by Nishant, was the fact that the internet as a technology has become integral to our identities, making us accessible (rather than us solely making the technology accessible) through online forms of documentation. This digital phenomenon in which we tend to document what we know and experience as a means of legitimizing it can be summed in the modern version of an old fable: “If a tree falls in a lonely forest, and nobody tweets it, has it fallen?”

Nishant refers to several case studies in which the use of online technologies has created a sense of an extension of the self and one’s personal space; which can then be subject to violation as one can be in the physical form, and to the same emotional and psychological effect—as illustrated within the 1993 occurrence referred to as “A Rape in Cyberspace.”

Attendee Participation
Participants remained engaged and enthusiastic for the duration of the day, bringing forth their personal expertise and experiences. Several participants presented their own research initiatives, which looked at issues women face as journalists and as portrayed by the media; amateur pornography without the consent of the woman; study findings on the understandings of symptoms of internet addiction; as well as studies looking at how students engage with college confession pages on Facebook.

Day Two

February 12, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Wireless Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy, CEO and Co-founder at Teritree Technologies
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Wired Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Network, Threats and Securing Yourself: Kingsley John, Independent Consultant
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea Break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Practical Lab: Kingsley John
4.45 p.m. – 5.00 p.m.	Wrap-up: Sunil Abraham

Day Two of the Institute entailed a more technical orientation to “internet & society” across sessions. Participants listened to speakers introduce concepts related to wired and wireless internet connectivity devices and their networks, along with the network of internet users and how one may secure him or herself while “online.”

Wireless & Wired Technology, Ravikiran Annaswamy
Senior industry practitioner, Ravikiran Annaswamy had aimed to enable the Institute’s participants to “understand the depth and omnipresent of telecom networks” that we find ourselves implicated within. Ravikiran went through the basics of these networks—including fixed line-, mobile-, IP-, and Next Generation IP-networks—as well as the technical structuring of wired and wireless broadband. Many participants found this session to be particularly enriching as their projects aimed to provide increased access to internet connectivity to marginalized areas in India, and had been without the know-how to go about it.

Network, Threats and Securing Yourself, Kinglsey John
An instructional session on how to protect oneself was given by Kingsley John, beginning with a lesson on IP Addresses—what they are and the different generations of such, and how IP addresses fit into a broader internet network. Following, Kingsley demonstrated and explained email encryption through the use of software, Kleopatra, and how it may be used to generate keys to encrypt emails through Thunderbird mail client.

Evening Discussion

A handful of participants voluntarily partook in an evening discussion, looking at the role of big players in the global internet network, such as Google and Facebook, how they collect and utilize users’ data, and what sorts of measures can be taken to minimize the collecting of such. Due to the widely varying backgrounds of interest among participants, those coming from this technical orientation towards the internet were able to inform their peers on relevant information and types of software that may be found useful related to minimizing one’s online presence.

Day Three

February 13, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Free Software: Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Chairperson, Free Software Foundation
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Open Data: Nisha Thompson, Independent Consultant
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Freedom of Expression: Bhairav Acharya, Advocate and Adviser, Centre for Internet and Society
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Copyright: Nehaa Chaudhari, Program Officer, Centre for Internet and Society

The third day of the Internet Institute incorporated themes presented by speakers ranging from free software, to freedom of expression, to copyright.

Free Software, Prof. G. Nagarjuna
Chairman on the Board of Directors for the Free Software Foundation of India, Professor G. Nagarjuna shared with the Institute’s participants his personal expertise on software freedom. Nagarjuna mapped for us the network of concepts related to software freedom, beginning with the origins of the copyleft movement, and also touching upon the art of hacking, the open source movement, and what role software freedom plays in an interconnected world.

Nagarjuna looks at the free software movement as a political movement in the digital space highlighting the user’s freedoms associated to the use, distribution, and modification of software for the greater good for all. This is said to distinguish this movement from that of Open Source—a technical and more practical development-oriented movement. The free software movement is not set out to compromise the fundamental issues for the sake of being practical and in that sense, ubiquitous. Instead, its objective is “not to make everybody use the software, but to have them understand why they are using the software,” so that they may become “authentic citizens that can also resonate why they’re doing what they’re doing. We want them to understand the ethical and political aspects of doing so,” Nagarjuna says.

Open Data, Nisha Thompson
Participants learned from Nisha Thompson on Open Data; what it is, its benefits, and how it is involved in central government initiatives and policy, as well as civil society groups—generally for uses such as serving as evidence for decision making and accountability. Nisha explored challenges concerning the use of open data, such as those pertaining to privacy, legitimacy, copyright, and interoperability. The group looked at the India Water Portal as a case study, which makes accessible more than 300 water-related datasets already available in the public space for use from anything from sanitation and agriculture to climate change.

Freedom of Expression, Bhairav Acharya
Bhairav Acharya, a constitutional lawyer, traced the development of the freedom of speech and expression in India. Beginning with a conceptual understanding of censorship and the practice of censorship by the state, society, and the individual herself, Bhairav examines the limits traditionally placed by a nation-state on the right to free speech.

In India, modern free speech and censorship law was first formulated by the colonial British government, which broadly imported the common law to India. However, the colonial state also yielded to the religious and communitarian sensitivities of its subjects, resulting in a continuing close link between communalism and free speech in India today. After Independence, the post-colonial Indian state carried forward Raj censorship, but tweaked it to serve to a nation-building and developmental agenda. Nation-building and nationalism are centrifugal forces that attempt to construct a homogenous 'mainstream'; voices from the margins of this mainstream (the geographical, ethnic, and religious peripheries) and of the marginalised within the mainstream (the poor and disadvantaged), are censored.

Within this narrative, Bhairav located and explained the evolution of the law relating to press censorship, defamation, obscenity, and contempt of court. Free speech law applies equally online. Broadly, censorship on the internet must survive the same constitutional scrutiny that is applied to offline censorship; but, as technology develops, the law must innovate.

Copyright, Nehaa Chaudhari
CIS Programme Officer, Nehaa Chaudhari examined the concept of Copyright as an intellectual property right in discussing its fundamentals, purpose and origins, and Copyright’s intersection with the internet. Nehaa also explained the different exceptions to Copyright, along with its alternatives, such as opposing intellectual property protection regimes, including the Creative Commons and Copyleft. Within this session, Nehaa also introduced several cases in which Copyright came into play with the use of the internet, including Hunter Moore’s “Is Anyone Up?” website, which had showcased pornographic pictures obtained by submission bringing rise to the phenomenon of “revenge porn.” Instances as such blur the lines of what is commonly referred to as intellectual property, and what specific requirements enables one to own the rights to such.

Day Four

February 14, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	E-Accessibility and Inclusion: Prashant Naik, Union Bank
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Patents: Nehaa Chaudhari
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.	Fieldwork Assignment

Day Four of the Internet Institute introduced concepts of eAccessibilty and Inclusion on the internet for persons with disabilities, along with patents as an intellectual property right. Participants were also assigned a fieldwork exercise as a hands-on activity in which they were to employ what they’ve learned to initiate conversation with individuals in public spaces and collect primary data while doing so.

eAccessibility and Inclusion, Prashant Naik

Prashant Naik started off the day with his session on E-Accessibility and Inclusion. Prashant illustrated the importance of accessibility and what is meant by the term. Participants learned of assistive technologies for different disability types and how to create more accessible word and PDF documents, as well as web pages for users. Prashant demonstrated to participants what it is like to use a computer as a visually impaired individual, which provided for an enriching experience.

Patents, Nehaa Chaudhari
Nehaa Chaudhari led a second session at the Internet Institute on intellectual property rights—this one looking at patents particularly and their role within statutory law. Nehaa traced the historical origins of patents before examining the fundamentals of them, and addresses the questions, “Why have patents? And is the present system working for everyone?” Nehaa also introduced notions of the Commons along with the Anticommons, and perspectives within the debate around software patents, as well as different means by which the law can address the exploitation of patents or “patent thickets”—such as through patent pools or compulsory licensing.

Fieldwork Assignment, Groupwork
Participants were split into groups and required to carry out a mini fieldwork assignment in approaching individuals in varying public spaces in Pune in attempts to collect primary data. Questions asked to individuals were to be devised by the group, so long as they pertained to themes examined within the Internet Institute. Areas visited by groups included the Pune Central Mall, MG Road, and FC Road.

Day Five

February 15, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	E-Governance: Manu Srivastav, Vice President, eGovernments Foundation
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Market Concerns: Payal Malik, Economic Adviser, Competition Commission of India
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Digital Natives: Nishant Shah
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Fieldwork Presentations

Day Five of the Internet Institute brought with it sessions related to themes of e-governance, market concerns of telecommunications, and so called “Digital Natives.”

eGovernance, Manu Srivastava
Vice President of the eGovernments Foundation, Manu Srivastava led a session on eGovernance—the utilization of the internet as a means of delivering government services communicating with citizens, businesses, and members of government. Manu examined the complexities of the eGovernance and barriers to implementation of eGovernance initiatives. Within discussion, participants examined the nuanced relationship between the government and citizens with the incorporation of other governing bodies in an eGovernance system, as well as new spaces for corruption to take place.

Market Concerns, Payal Malik
Payal Malik, Advisor of the Economics Division of the Competition Commission of India shared her knowledge on market concerns of the telecommunications industry, and exclaimed the importance of competition issues in such an industry as a tool to create greater good for a greater number of people. She demonstrated this importance by stating that affordability as a product of increased access can only be possible once there is enough investment, which generally only happens in a competitive market. In this way, we must set the conditions to make competition possible, as a tool to achieve certain objectives. Payal also demonstrated the economic benefits of telecommunications by stating that for every 10% increase in broadband penetration, increase in GDP of 1.3%. She also examined the broadband ecosystem in India and touched upon future possibilities of increased broadband penetration, such as for formers and the education sector.

Digital Natives, Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah shed some light on one of the areas that the Centre for Internet & Society looks at within their research scope, this being the “Digital Native.” As referred to by Nishant, the Digital Native is not to categorize a specific type of internet user, but can be said for simply any person who is performing a digital action, while doing away with this false dichotomy of age, location, and geography.

Nishant examines varying case studies in which “the digital is empowering natives to not merely be benefactors of change, but agents of change,” from the Blank Noise Project’s “I NEVER Ask for it…” campaign in efforts to rethink sexual violence, to Matt Harding’s foolish dancing with groups of individuals from all over the world.

As occurrences in the digital realm, however, these often political expressions may be rewritten by the network when picked up as a growing phenomenon, in order to make it accessible to online consumers by the masses. In doing so, the expression is removed from its political context and is presented in the form of nothing more than a fad. For this reason, Nishant stresses the need to become aware of the potential of the internet in becoming an “echo-chamber”—in which forms of expression are amplified and mimicked, resulting in a restructuring of the dynamics surrounding the subject—whether it be videos of boys lipsyncing to Backstreet Boys in their dorm room going viral, or a strong and malicious movement to punish the Chinese girl who had taken a video of her heinously and wickedly killing a kitten after locating her using the Human Flesh Search Engine.

Fieldwork Presentations, Groupwork

To end off the day, participant groups presented findings collated from the prior evening’s fieldwork exercise, in which they were to ask strangers in various public places of Pune questions pertaining to themes looked at from within this year’s Institute. Participants were divided into four groups and visited Pune’s FC Road, Mahatma Gandhi Road, and Central Mall.

Groups found that the majority of those interviews primarily accessed the phone via the mobile. There was also a common weariness of using the internet and concern for one’s privacy while doing so, especially with uploading photos to Facebook and online financial transactions. People were also generally concerned about using cyber cafes for fear of one’s accounts being hacked. Generally people suspected that so long as conversations are “private” (i.e. in one’s Facebook inbox), so too are they secure. Just as well, those interviewed shared a sense of security with the use of a password.

Day Six

February 16, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Wikipedia: Dr. Abhijeet Safai
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Open Access: Muthu Madhan (TBC)
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Case Studies Groupwork
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Case Studies Presentations

As the Institute came closer to its end, participants got the opportunity to hear from speakers on topics pertaining the Wikipedia editing in addition to Open Access to scholarly literature. Participants also worked together in groups to examine specific case studies referenced in previous sessions, and then presented their conclusions.

Wikipedia, Dr. Abhijeet Safai
The Institute was joined by Medical Officer of Clinical Research at Pune’s Symbiosis Centre of Health Care, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, who led a session on Wikipedia. Having edited over 3700 Wikipedia articles, Dr. Abhijeet was able to bring forth his expertise and familiarity in editing Wikipedia to participants so that they would be able to do the same. Introduced within this session were Wikipedia’s different fundamental pillars and codes of conducts to be complied with by all contributors, along with different features and components of Wikipedia articles that one should be aware of when contributing, such as how to cite sources and discuss the contents of an article with other contributors.

Open Access, Muthu Madhan
Muthu Madhan joined the Internet Institute while speaking on Open Access (OA) to scholarly literature. Within his session, Muthu examined the historical context within which the scholarly journal had arisen and how the idea of Open Access began within this space. The presence of Open Access in India and other developing nations was also examined in this session, and the concept of Open Data, introduced.

Case Studies, Groupworks

Participants were split up into groups and assigned particular case studies looked at briefly in previous sessions. Case studies included #thingsdarkiessay, a once trending Twitter hashtag in South Africa which had offended many Americans for its use of “darkie” as a derogatory term; the literary novel, The Hindus, which offers an alternative narrative of Hindu history had been banned in India for obscenity; a case in which several users’ avatars had been controlled by another in a virtual community and forced to perform sexual acts, referred to as A Rape Happened in Cyber Space; and lastly, a pornographic submission website, Is Anyone Up?, for which content was largely derived from “revenge porn.” Each group then presented on the various perspectives surrounding the issue at hand.

The Cyborg, Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah led an off-agenda session in the evening looking more closely at the notion of the human cyborg. Nishant deconstructs humanity’s relationship to technology, in suggesting that we “think of the human as produced with the technologies… not who produces technology.” Nishant explores the Digital Native as an attained identity for those who, because of technology, restructure and reinvent his or her environment—offline as well as online. Among other ideas shared, Nishant refers to works by Haraway on the human cyborg in illustrating our dependency on technology and our need to care for these technologies we depend on.

Day Seven

February 17, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Internet Activism: Laura Stein, Associate Professor, University of Texas and Fulbright Fellow
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Domestic and International Bodies: Chinmayi Arun, Research Director
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Participant Presentations
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Hot Question Challenge

The last day of the week-long Internet Institute examined concepts of Internet Activism and Domestic and International Bodies. Some participants led presentations on topics of personal familiarity, before a final wrap-up exercise, calling upon individuals to share any new formulations resulting from the Institute.

Internet Activism, Laura Stein

Associate Professor from the University of Texas, Laura Stein, spoke on activism on the internet. Laura examined some grassroots organizations and movements taking place on the online and the benefits that the internet brings in facilitating their impact, such as its associated low costs, accessibility and possibility for anonymity. Despite the positive effects catalyzed by the internet, Laura stresses that the “laying field is still unequal, and movements are not simply transformed by technology.” Some of the websites exemplifying online activism that were examined within this session includes the It Gets Better Project, which aims to give hope to LGBT youth facing harassment, and the national election watch by the Association for Democratic Reforms. Additionally, Laura spoke on public communication policy, comparing that of the US and India, and how this area of policy may influence media content and practice.

Domestic and International Bodies, Chinmayi Arun
As the Internet Institute’s final speaker, Research Director for Communication Governance at National Law University , Chinmayi Arun, explores the network of factors that affect one’s behavior on the internet—these including: social norms, the law, the markets, and architecture. In referring to Lawrence Lessig’s pathetic dot theory, Chinmayi illustrates how individual’s—the pathetic dots in question—are functions of the interactions of these factors, and in this sense, regulated, and stresses the essential need to understand the system, in order to effectively change the dynamics within it. It is worth noting that not all pathetic dots are equal, and Google’s dot, for example, will be drastically bigger than a single user’s, having more leveraging power within the network of internet bodies. Also demonstrated, is the fact that we must acknowledge the need for regulation by the law to some extent, otherwise, the internet would be a black box where anything goes, putting one’s security at risk of violation.

Hot Question Challenge
The very last exercise of the Institute entailed participants asking each other questions on demand, relating back to different themes looked at within the last week. Participants had the chance, here, to bridge together concepts across sessions, as well as formulate their own opinions, while posing questions to others that they, themselves, were still curious about.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/institute-for-internet-society-2014-pune

Digital Design: Human Behavior vs. Technology - Vita Beans

denisse — 2015-10-24T14:29:23Z

What comes first? Understanding human behavior and communication patterns to design digital technologies? Or should our technologies have the innate capacity to adapt to the profiles of all its potential users? This post will look at accessibility challenges for digital immigrants and the importance of behavioral science for the design of digital technologies. We interview Amruth Bagali Ravindranath from Vita Beans.

CHANGE-MAKER: Amruth B R

PRODUCT:
Vita Beans and Guru G

METHOD OF CHANGE:
Borrow elements from behavioral science and social marketing to make technology more intuitive.

STRATEGY OF CHANGE:
Make technology easy to use, fun and effective.

Chirptoons: Create Cartoons in a Jiffy. Designed by Vita Beans
(The animation seems to be skipping a few lines. Check box below for a transcript)
Design your own here: http://bit.ly/1dOEpPo

Transcript of animation:

Ajoy: Hi!
Usha: Hi! What will we talk about today?
Ajoy: We will learn to design digital stories!
Usha: What do you mean by digital stories?
Ajoy: What we are doing right now!.
Telling a story through a digital medium.
Usha: Oh! But what is so complicated about that?
You write a story and then you post it online What’s
the big deal?
Ajoy: This is true. But you want everyone to access
your story right?
Usha: Yes! Of course!
Ajoy: Then you need to think about your audience!
Are you sure they all know how to use this technology?
Usha: Well...no, not really.
Ajoy: Do you know what makes it challenging for them?
Or how to adapt technology to make it easier?
Usha: Eh, no...no clue :(
Ajoy: Then read on.Today we will take a step back.
We must think about human behaviour first!
and then design our technology accordingly.
Usha: Sounds good! Let's do it.

First off, apologies for such a feeble and sad animation. When I was given access to Chirptoons, I was quite confident I would be able to produce a somewhat interesting introduction to this post and get you excited about our next interview. However, between first-time user friction and a couple of glitches in the program, I found myself -a semi-savvy digital native who has been using technology, almost every day of her life, for the last 15 years- struggling to create the cartoon and clearly failing at it. The biggest challenge was translating what I had in mind into a digital format (The demo was very straightforward. I was just particularly inept), and it was frustrating to the point I decided to drop it, leave it as is, publish my unfinished cartoon and turn this post into a reflection on 'design challenges behind digital storytelling', so I could move on with my life.

What I experienced with Chirptoons is what many users: both digital natives and immigrants constantly face due to the pace at which new digital technologies are emerging. While the privileged demographic who has physical access to technology has a decent knowledge of basic web browsing and document processing features, there is still a very large gap in accessibility in terms of how to navigate more complex formats. At the end of the day, producers retain the creative power and determine the functions and flexibility of the technologies we use in the day to day. Just think of Facebook and its constant interface updates. We have all felt the wrenching need for that 'dislike' button to make our interactions a tad more honest, yet we have no power to create it or change Facebook's format to one that enables our needs better.

So far, we have explored information from different angles: as activism, as visual design, as stories; and how digital technologies have been used strategically to disseminate it. However, our analysis is lacking a better understanding of the digital. We have been focusing on citizens as technology 'consumers', and we have not looked at whether digital infrastructures are accessible enough for users to become 'producers'. The question is: how do we do this: how do we engage different users with different digital literacy levels, skills and aptitudes in the production of digital content? With this post we bring a new topic into our series: accessibility and Information infrastructures. This one will focus on design and the role of behavioural science. Our interview with Amruth Bagali Ravindranath, brought a very unique perspective into the conversation, from which I would like to highlight three points:

a) The importance of behavioral science for design. Amruth stressed why we need a thorough understanding of behavioral and cognitive science in the design of digital technologies and how crucial it is to investigate the decision processes and communication strategies of humans to make technologies user-friendly and context appropriate.

b) How public relations and social marketing concepts can also provide insight on how to target and engage potential users more effectively. This point starts to answer some of the questions we raised on the Information Design post: thinking about the citizen as a consumer. This point also works as an alternative take on how to target civic engagement through technology.

c) How to engage different type of users: not only the digital native, but also digital immigrants[1]

who still play crucial roles as information gatekeepers in fields such as education or urban governance.

Vita Beans

We interviewed Amruth Bagali Ravindranath, Founder of Vita Beans to answer some of these questions. Vita Beans’ mandate is to create inspiring, easy-to-use applications in areas of education and human resources, to share knowledge in innovative, fun an effective ways. The logic behind their technological framework is trying to mimic the profile of the human brain linked to decision making -including economic, evolutionary, emotional, and psychological elements- and design their applications based on these patterns. Some of the products they offer are cognitive skill development applications, game based learning applications, educational technology research, among others, and their latest educational product: Guru G was chosen by the Unreasonable at Sea program (by Unreasonable institute & co-founder of Stanford d.school) as one of the 11 companies changing the world.

"We are trying to adapt to how the user wants to use something, rather than expecting the user to learn. This is essential in the education space to make things work".

Guru G is a "gamified teaching, teacher training & open certification platform", that aims to democratize access to technology for quality teachers. Rather than focusing on the student as most education technologies do, Guru G believes that teachers are the most important element of the education system. Enabling teachers, means quality education will reach the lives of hundreds of students during their professional life time, and with this in mind, Vita Beans designed a platform that is engaging, easy to use and intuitive, designed specifically with teachers, schools and governments in mind.

Unreasonable Barcelona: Anand Joshi, Guru-G from Unreasonable Media on Vimeo.

Inspiration

"Teachers don't use and don't like to use technology"

The idea came from the products Vita Beans had already developed for the education space, such as their text2animation & text2game prototypes. They had produced over 80 collaborative games teachers were using in the classroom. Students play together in teams and learn about different topics through the process of gaming. However, suddenly they realized teachers had great ideas they didn't know how to translate into a digital form because they did not have the knowledge or the skills to create digital content. This is, according to Amruth, the crisis they are trying to solve in the education space: the quality of teachers, access to good teachers and the difficulty for teachers to adopt new technologies were the biggest challenges. "

The design challenge

Their initial prototypes were designed with assumptions based on their gamification experiments with students. "We miserably failed with teachers and we discovered what a good gamification system for teachers looks like by prototyping with teachers and looking at the small things. It was an interesting learning experience." They identified two common reasons why they hesitated to adopt anything new in the classroom.

Teachers don't want to feel like they can't use something a student can.
Teachers can't visualize themselves using that tool, this there is an element of uncertainty and lack of confidence.

It was imperative for Vita Beans to switch focus: "Any tool you design, you expect to train the user to understand your tool, and if they refuse to do that; you blame them." They used their behavioural science background to come up with infrastructural solutions that solve the limitations from the outset.

The solutions

They started prototyping with natural language processing for their text2animation & text2game projects. NLP is a branch of computer science concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages. Teachers articulated their ideas in simple English and the program used NLP to take what they said, try to understand what they were trying to visualize and convert into programming language to build an animated movie out of it (like what we used to open this article -but with hopefully better results). Amruth was very confident about the potential of this prototype and shared with us that UNICEF might take it up and implement it as an open source animated video and game creation tool in Africa.

They also developed an adaptive navigation engine for one of their game based learning platforms; a tool that adapts to what you are trying to do: "There is no fixed way to navigate from one task to another. It tries to learn the closest action that each teacher is trying to do and it executes that. It tries to learn how the teacher wants to use it."' This was a success. They incorporated touch screens to make the product more intuitive and the teachers picked it up quickly.

Amruth claims they are the first in the world to develop a gamification platform specifically for teachers and the reason was their solution to the navigation issue. This experience also indirectly helped in designing Guru-G.

"Amruth Bagali Ravindranath talks about text2animation & text2game prototypes"
Amruth B R, at TedxMcGill. Courtesy of YouTube

These design solutions and the learnings from each project inspired the team to come up with products which have been adopted commercially across 10 states in India, reached 4000+ schools & over 3 million kids internationally through partners in India & North America. They have helped education companies build their primary and secondary school education products, (including one of India's top classroom technologies), have been covered by the media and won several entrepreneurship awards. More information here and on their website. Our question is: what is it about behavioral science that helped Amruth's team arrive to this epiphany in tech design?

Behavioral Science and Social Marketing

Comparing marketing to advocacy is bound to be met by resistance and perhaps controversy. I raised this question when we interviewed Maya Ganesh for the Information Design post, and stated the following in our conclusion: "Our consumption habits in the market are shaping how we process and interact with information in the public space. The possibility of 'consumer behavior' permeating modalities of activism, reinforces the need to explore more interesting strategies for information dissemination." Now that we are starting to look closely at the infrastructure supporting information, I will stubbornly return to the same question: to what extent should we borrow tactics for advocacy from marketing? and add: how much of it should permeate the design of digital technologies?

Amruth made a casual reference during our interview that triggered this thought. We were discussing the importance of understanding behavior patterns, when he brought up Edward Bernays. This man used psychoanalysis, psychology and social science to design public persuasion campaigns and could get masses to choose what he wanted them to without them realizing it. While this sounds awfully dangerous and manipulative, I would like to rescue the idea of understanding human behavior well enough to design technology around it and I will entertain this thought in the context of social change -please, don't judge.

Pillip Kotler, S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, wrote a paper bringing marketing and social change together: “Can social causes be advanced more successfully through applying principles, concepts and techniques of marketing?”. He defines marketing as:

"a sophisticated technology, that draws heavily on behavioral science for clues to solve communication and persuasion related to influencing accessibility. [...] Most of the effort is spent on discovering the wants of a target audience and creating goods and services to satisfy them" (Kotler, 1971)

This definition is a useful bridge to link marketing with accessibility of digital technologies. G.D. Wiebe wrote an influential paper on social marketing, that coined the question: "Why can't you sell brotherhood and rational thinking like you can sell soap?", that later influenced public information campaigns by USAID, the WHO, and the World Bank [2] . While he recognized how these models can to an extent commodify human behavior and social principles, he stressed that knowledge of behavioral science is a useful framework for product planning, that must be given a socially useful implementation. He developed the following criteria of considerations:

Criteria	Description
Force	The intensity of the person's motivation toward the goal -a combination of his predisposition prior to the message and the stimulation of the message
Direction	Knowledge of how or where the person might go to consummate his motivation.
Mechanism	The existence of an agency that enables the person to translate his motivation into action.
Adequacy	The ability and effectiveness of the agency in performing its task.
Distance	Estimate of the energy and cost required (by the user) to consummate the motivation in relation to the reward

Considering this framework is part of recognizing how knowledge circulating market networks affects our behavior. Nishant Shah addressed two ideas along these lines in the thought piece. First, he suggests us to recognize the negotiations that take place in the state-citizen-market ecosystem, and how they affect our rights, demands and responsibilities in society. Second, how this leads to a different understanding of the citizen as an "embodiment of these state-market negotiations". Keeping consumer behavior, and the forces shaping, enabling and constraining it in mind, is an interesting framework when we think of ourselves as information consumers -and as Yochai Benkler posits in The Wealth of Networks- in an ongoing transition to information producers. This also depends on how we think of information. We usually define content as information, but the structure and infrastructure are also pieces of 'information' we continuously shape through our interaction with technology. Hence, when we talk about making information accessible, we are also talking about producing legible and intelligible infrastructures.

Linking it back to digital technology

I am aware that the relationship we are trying to draw seems little far-fetched, but Amruth and the Vita Bean's team experience shows this behavioral-science approach, not only has a lot of potential, but is seldom explored in the education technology market. He told us about his success story with a behavior simulation engine. They used neuroscience as a base to build computer based activities and games to predict the behavior of its users on specific situations. They had an accuracy of 86%, which according to Amruth, is larger than every known psychological framework, and according to their testimonial, above most behavioral tests in the market (which only yield 20-40% of accuracy). Amruth said: "That was the first behavior research connection that brought us into the start-up space. Exploring games, exploring human behavior."

Design challenges in
mobile applications**

Make it noticeable
Make it useless if not shared
Manufacture peer pressure
Easy to personalize
Must evolve constantly
(static stories die)

We can also link these ideas back to storytelling. Amruth and I discussed what is the best way to use technology to engage users with digital stories. He made a good point at pairing up both processes: "What makes a storytelling session effective is how you contextualize a story for the person you are sitting with. As kids we are used to a one way process. As adults, stories are more interactive, so you may bring a new dimension, and the story might go in a very different direction. The technology must enable and reflect that." Compelling narratives must motivate the audience to interact with the stories, and digital devices must perform the same function. The infrastructure and interface of technologies must be intuitive, familiar and persuasive enough to sway users into interacting with it.

A way to do this is by pairing up technologies with the criterion above. In terms of functionality: provide them with a mechanism that translates the users ideas into action, that is efficient at enabling them, and that reduces the 'distance (the cost or amount of energy needed) to perform a task -as has been accomplished with Guru G in India. As for the force and direction of motivation, Amruth brought up some design challenges when discussing adoption of mobile applications [**"by analysing what increases the probability of a solution / campaign growing organically by word of mouth, going viral, and specifically what make something fashionable". See box on the left]. These challenges may vary from one application to the other but, at the end of day, the analysis and conceptualization of the product must be persuasive and empathetic with its users.

Making Change

To close our interview, Amruth and I talked about what it means to 'make change' through digital design. He believes 'making change' is composed of three elements:

Empathy: Your attempt to make change will depend on the amount of empathy you feel towards the people you are trying to create change for. "We spend time interacting with teachers, classrooms, just to get an idea of how the teacher thinks, empathize with prospective users".
Imagination: How you translate this empathy into solutions. "Imagination helps you think of as many solutions as you can to solve the design and adoption challenges"
Action: The most challenging stage according to Amruth: "If your technology is too hard to use, you will lose audience. If it's not impactful enough, it is trivialized. How do you reach a balance in making it effortless and yet, impactful?"

This post took a step back in our analysis of citizen action, to uncover a less visible space where change is also taking place: the intersection of the user with the machine. We seldom look at the relationship: producer-machine-consumer (and its multiple combinations) and how our behavior is being reconfigured by new digital technologies (in this project). The pace at which we need to upgrade our own operation systems, requires a degree of digital literacy that is not being facilitated by the state, the market or even civil society. Vita Beans, is one of the few examples of market actors working towards cutting the middle-man between users and digital technologies. If widely adopted, this model has the potential of re-organizing the state-citizen-market dynamic: from how citizens interact with the technology market to how new ways of producing and using technology might shape citizens' negotiation with the state.

This was also a set of explorations. It is a fairly new area in our research that will lead to more conversations with people who understand technology as an infrastructure and as material, as opposed to us- who often understand it as a practice, a space or an actor. Our goal is to bring content and infrastructure closer together, and make a stronger emphasis on inter-disciplinarity and multi-stakeholderism as a strategy to leverage change.

Footnotes:

[1] Refer to Marc Prensky's Digital Native, Digital Immigrant, for more on the limitations of digital immigrants in the education space; "It‟s very serious, because the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language". Access it here: http://bit.ly/IMBu0j

The CIS book : Digital Alternatives with a Cause, is also an interesting and comprehensive read of what comprises a digital native or digital immigrant today: http://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook

[2] The World Bank makes reference to G.D. Wiebe's thinking on their blog: http://bit.ly/1jNZVZA. Also refer to: Baker, Michael (2012). The Marketing Book. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 696 and Lefebvre, R. Craig. Social Marketing and Social Change: Strategies and Tools to Improve Health, Well-Being and the Environment\year=2013. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. p. 4. for examples of these interventions. Finally, the Wikipedia page on Social Marketing explains the role of G.D. Wiebe in the field: http://bit.ly/1lw4jPV

Sources:

Kotler, P., & Zaltman, G. (1971). Social marketing: an approach to planned social change. Journal of marketing, 35(3).

Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.

Wiebe, G.D. (1951-1952). "Merchandising Commodities and Citizenship on Television". Public Opinion Quarterly 15 (Winter): 679.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/digital-storytelling-human-behavior-vs-technology

Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2

denisse — 2015-10-24T14:30:15Z

This post compares the method of storytelling with performances. To illustrate this, we explore the narratives of the Blank Noise project and The Ugly Indian, two civic groups from Bangalore making interventions in the public space. Part 2 looks at the role of actors and the stage in performances to explore the role of agency and the public space in storytelling.

This is part 2 of our analysis of Blank Noise and The Ugly Indian, two civic groups thriving in Bangalore by making a strategic use of storytelling to intervene in the public space. In the previous post, we explored the mediums and narratives used by these organizations to craft an identity for themselves. This one will look at the impact of this identity on the agency and actions of their volunteers. We will also draw some final conclusions relating the analysis back to the Making Change project.

How to navigate this post:

Section	Performance	Storytelling
Pre-production	Preparing all elements involved in a performance including locations, props, costumes, special effects and visual effects.	Preparing all elements needed to convey the message of the story including: spoken word, text, images, audio, video or other artifacts.
Screenplay	A written work narrating the movements, actions, expressions and dialogues of the characters.	Building a narrative in storytelling
Actors	Actors performing characters in a production.	The relationship between storytelling actors and agency
Stage	Designated space for the performance of productions	The public space as the stage for storytelling
Action!	Cue signifying the start of a performance	When storytelling leads to action

3.actor
ˈaktə/
1. a person portraying a character in [a dramatic or comic] production
2. a participant in an action or process

The cast of a production learns the script from beginning to end; rehearses the lines and internalizes the characters they have been chosen to represent. In the same way actors sustain the narrative of the production while they are on stage, we too act upon the identities we have chosen for ourselves in our day to day (Giddens, 1991). Oggs & Capps call this: constructing agentive identities: “participants assume agentive stances towards present identities, circumstances and futures” (1996; Hull, 2006). Embracing a set of traits and integrating them to the ‘story of the self’ (Gauntlett, 2002; Giddens 1991). This suggests there is a direct relationship between self-identity and agency, that will influence how we conduct ourselves in the public space.

As seen in the last section, The Ugly Indian’s self-ascribed identity frames their speech and action:

The Ugly Indian

We are a group of Ugly Indians who feel strongly about the state of visible filth in our cities.
Our philosophy can be described simply as: Kaam chalu mooh bandh. Stop Talking, Start Doing.
We believe in direct action, with a common-sense problem-solving approach. 
We do not finger-point or blame the system. We aim to make a change from within - 
one that sustains because everyone wants it and is comfortable with it.

This means the online identity of the organization (on Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and their website) must be consistent with the offline actions of volunteers in clean drives and TUI inspired activities.

Indira Nagar Rising	Koramangala Rising

TUI Clean Drives (Click to enlarge)
Photos courtesy of The Ugly Indian Facebook Album.
Visit the rest of the album here.

"[Join us] if you think like us, and want to achieve something meaningful in your immediate surroundings."

The Ugly Indian

Given the anonymity of the voices behind the narrative, the ideas and attitudes endorsed by TUI organizers can only remain at the discursive level, and it is TUI volunteers who collectively translate the set of beliefs into action. In other words, volunteers are the agentive extension of the movement, as they use their agency to execute the plan of action designed by the anonymous TUI organizers. The narrative in this case becomes somewhat of a ‘creed’ for responsible civic action, and while most volunteers choose to “stick to the script”, they are not really given the opportunity to explore their own narrative within.

In the case of Blank Noise, if we take another look at its mandate, it is collaborative by definition.

Blank Noise
Blank Noise is a public and participatory arts collective that seeks to
 explore the range of street interactions and recognize 'eve teasing' as
 street sexual harassment/ violence.

The processes to translate the Action Hero identity into action are far more open-ended than in the case of TUI. There is further room for volunteers to interpret what being an Action Hero means to them (as an identity), how they will respond to it (as agents), and how do they fit in the larger context of the Action Hero narrative (in the collective). The role of volunteers is to participate in the construction of a new narrative for the public space, defined by how women feel, what they think and do when they navigate it. It is not conclusive, and each intervention is an invitation for further dialogue.

"Adding agency to the equation gives the actor a purpose and new -revised- conception of the self and aligns its behavior with who he wants to be. "[2]

Blank Noise volunteers take ownership of who they want to be in the public space. Through their testimonials and actions, they do not only draft an identity for themselves, but they create one -or many- for the streets, for women, for men, for sexy, for safety. Stretching out our 'performance' analogy even further, their type of action is what we would deem improvisational theatre: the improvisation and intuition of BN volunteers takes over the dialogue, action and characters, as these are “created collaboratively by the players as [the play] unfolds in present time”[1]

4. stage
steɪdʒ/
a raised floor or platform, typically in a theatre, on which actors, entertainers, or speakers perform.

Finally, the stage. This is the space where actors display these learned identities in front of (or with) members of the audience. While stories are not necessarily presented on a conventional ‘raised floor or platform’, stories are meant to permeate "the stage" of the 'public space'. In spite of what Sartaj Anand told us in his interview: “stories as increasingly personal and local”, in order for them to trigger imagination and public discussion they must also be public and visible. Hannah Arendt posits in Essays for Understanding, that the task of storytelling is to extend the meaning of the actions, symbols and allegories into the public, making them visible to broader audiences and initiating a process of critical thinking among them (Jackson, 2002; Oni, 2012; Arendt, 1994). Hence, the role of storytelling in the public space has two functions:

a) Visibility:

Enhanced visibility is an extremely powerful asset. Narratives produced by activist-oriented storytellers do not only reflect greater autonomy of production, but also enjoy a wider rate of consumption[3] (Vivienne, 2011). From a tech-optimist perspective, multimedia representations of these stories further this visibility, making it also accessible to broader online audiences.

The Ugly Indian in particular thrives on visibility, due to its beautification mission. Its highly visible presence online is used to ratify the work they are doing to erradicate "visible" filth:

"X was a big fan of the Broken Windows Theory – which suggested that if a street looked ugly or neglected, it attracted more anti-social behaviour, while a well-maintained and beautiful street discouraged vandalism and often earned respect from passers-by. [...] Could the ugly Indian’s civic behaviour be a function of the environment and the signals it gives him? If so, could changing the environment change behaviour?" Chapter 7 - Nudge

In the case of Blank Noise, they use online visibility to re-introduce the testimonials collected through their interventions and installations, back into the public space.

Reporting to Remember (2009)

Triggered by the Mangalore pub attack, the report wants to compile a list of incidents involving attacks on/threats to women under the pretext of culture, tradition and religion.

By who:

Political parties
Religious groups
Individuals

2. Nature of attack:

who they attacked
why they attacked
You can also send articles/links explaining that.

3. When: Date

4. Location: Region.

Make a Sign (2009)
Volunteers were welcome to say anything they wanted.

What Blank Noise wants to say:
We are talking of safer cities not feared cities
We are talking of independent women, not paranoid women.
We are talking about collective responsibility- don't tell me to be even more 'cautious'.
We are talking about eve teasing as street sexual harassment and street sexual violence.
We are talking about autonomous women, not just mothers daughters and sisters amidst fathers brothers and sons.

Tales of Love and Lust

The vocabulary project, stems from a need to build a dictionary of 'eve teasing', Blank Noise asked participants to email in to comments and remarks they had heard addressed to them on the street. BN compiled them into an 'eve teasing' vocabulary.

The vocabulary was represented in the form of charts, school-style, simple lettering and graphics, in an attempt to desexualise and remove obscene reference from the terms that are used leerily at us on the streets.

Find the full list of interventions, campaigns and tactics here.

b) Political:

"[Politics is] the space of appearance that comes into being whenever men are together in the manner of speech and action, predating and preceding all formal constitutions of the public realm”

Hannah Arendt (1989) [4]

This visibility also re-conceptualizes how we do politics by creating political spaces. Setting up a ground for public discussion creates the opportunity to flesh out our ability to be political (Rawls 1971 in Sen, 2005). Hence, producing and consuming a story with, for and by the public, should constitute a political experience in itself -especially in the context of civic interventions as is the case of both our productions.

However, this does not seem to be the case for TUI. The identity of The Ugly Indian focuses on action; on collecting manpower to fill voids left by the state in waste management. In the words of Nishant Shah, they are aligning their work with needs and systems that have already identified by the state, as opposed to devising new modes of engagement or participation. Having said that, staying away from politics is an intentional mandate, and their focus today is removing all obstacles that stand between the middle class and their action in the public space; even if that includes extricating the group from its political nature. For now, spreading ‘action’ and its ‘visibility’ in the network is a priority. The bigger their beautification spectacle grows, the better.

Blank Noise has a different view of how to engage the middle class [5]. The group has identified the need to talk about ‘sexual harassment’ in public; a conversation that has not been addressed and is continually dismissed by the state. This void is hence being filled with stories and articulations of the communities involved [6],as a mean of resisting the stronger dominating narrative of silence around the issue. As opposed to TUI, the priority of Blank Noise is to reassert our ability to perform our role as active, visible and political agents in the public space; initiating a larger process of social critique in their network [7]

(We interviewed Jasmeen Patheja earlier in the project and discussed Blank Noise's political nature. Read the article here)

5. action! (and conclusions)
ˈakʃ(ə)n/
something done so as to accomplish a purpose.

As per definition, action must be purpose-driven, and throughout the last two posts, we have unpacked how this sense of purpose can be built using storytelling. We explored this looking at its methods, narrative identities, actors and spaces of action.

In the case of both organizations, storytelling was imbued in their organizational identity, the interaction with their volunteers and; the way in which they disseminate information. Expanding on what we said in the first installment on storytelling: its interactive nature makes it a tool for empowerment. The identities created by both organizations resonated so much with their audiences, that volunteers adapted their own identities and actions in the public space to align with them and participate in their initiatives.

The post also brought attention to the challenges of locating the ‘political’ within the spectacle. Storytelling as a mode of engagement is effective: it captures people’s attention and participation. However, it becomes problematic when the story becomes a creed adopted without question, as is the case of The Ugly Indian. The lack of opportunities to craft new arguments in public discussion leads to an equally passive participation to the one the group intended to eradicate. Citizens get involved without making critical connections with the material realities they are working to reverse. The citizen is trapped in the performance of citizen awakening and they are ceasing to articulate new ideas. In the case of Blank Noise, the political precedes the spectacle, but at the end of the day, it still relies on a visible and manageable network to disseminate its narrative and attract new story-lines and actors into the discourse.

On the issue of visibility: at the outset of the project we asked the question: what is it about the spectacle that makes it so enticing, and what can we borrow from it to strengthen political participation? [8]. This post visited the three elements that, according to Shah, makes an event visible: legibility, intelligibility and accessibility[9]; and started to answer some of these questions.

Performance	Storytelling	Visibility
Pre-production	The mediums chosen to tell the story (images, video, text, digital technologies) are used to give clarity to the message.	Legible
Screenplay	Creating (or borrowing narratives) from history and fiction makes stories easy to relate to, better understood and hence, better received by the audience	Intelligible
Actors	Acting out these identities shows the message was understood and internalized by the audience.	Intelligible
Pre-production	Digital technologies are effective at disseminating the story and making it more accessible in the public online space.	Accessible
Stage	Telling the story in the public (online and offline) space makes participation and interaction more likely.	Accessible

Finally, the main role of technology in storytelling is to provide and enhance visibility for stories (from all three fronts). As much as the thought piece criticizes the spectacle hype and suggests we move beyond it, this research is finding it useful to look further into: why visibility is desirable for advocacy and how it can bring new and different stakeholders into the process. At least, it seems to be working for The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise. Their outreach is for the most part online and digital media continues to be their best friend to scale up their visibility, showcase their actions and/or installations and sustain their narratives.

I will not make a conclusive statement on whether we should use storytelling for social change or not. However, understanding the power of stories and learning how to craft consistent narrative structures is -as Ameen Haque, founder of The Storywallahs told me- as fundamental for storytelling, as it is for activism: At the end of the day, "movements need supporters. Supporters need leaders; and leaders need to be good storytellers".

Footnotes:

[1] Based on the Wikipedia Definition of Improvisational Theatre. "Improvisational Theatre, often called improv or impro, is a form of theater where most or all of what is performed is created at the moment it is performed. In its purest form, the dialogue, the action, the story and the characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script." http://bit.ly/1hnByRp

[2] (Oggs & Capps, 1996; Miller, 1995; Hull, 2006).

[3] Refer to Sonja Vivienne's ethnography: Trans Digital Storytelling: Everyday Activism, Mutable Identity and the Problem of Visibility. She puts forward the experience of activists from the LGBT community who used storytelling to reassert, negotiate and in cases, expose their identities.

[4] Find resources to read more on Hannah Arendt's work on narrative and action here: http://stanford.io/1ge7JkX

[5] While the project does seek to collect voices across traditions, cultures, religions, etc; its reliance on digital technologies to crowdsource stories keeps the practice somewhat gentrified and homogenous. Lack of diversity in public discussion is a huge constraint for democracy, but from our conversations with Jasmeen, we understand this is a challenge to be tackled at a later stage of the project

[6] Refer to Nishant Shah's Whose Change is it Anyway?. (Page 29): "only certain kinds of discourses are made possible through technology-mediated citizen action. This discourse is often alienated from specific histories, particular contexts, and the affective articulations of the communities involved. It leads to a gentrification of contemporary politics that discounts anything that does not fit into the quantified and enumerated rubric of citizen action in network societies."

[7] Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator and philosopher, was a strong proponent of using dialectics to question social structures around class, and stories come across as a way to link issues around power back to our personal experiences Refer to: Shor and Freire, 1987 and Williams, 2003.

[8] Some of the questions we have been exploring in Methods for Social Change: http://bit.ly/OCKrgy

[9] Refer to Nishant Shah's Whose Change is it Anyway?. (

Sources:

Arendt, Hannah (1994) Essays in Understanding Edited with an Introduction by Jerome Kohn. The literary Trust of Hannah Arendt Bluecher.

Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hull, Glynda A., and M. Katz. (2006) "Crafting an agentive self: Case studies of digital storytelling." Research in the Teaching of English 41, no. 1: 43.

Jackson, Michael. (2002) The politics of storytelling: Violence, transgression, and intersubjectivity. Vol. 3. Museum Tusculanum Press,

Oni, Peter (2012). "The Cognitive Power of Storytelling: Re-reading Hannah Arendt in a Postmodernist/Africanist Context."

Sen, Amartya. The argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian history, culture and identity. Macmillan, 2005.

Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.

Shor, I. and Freire, P. (1987) A pedagogy for liberation:dialogues on transforming education. Bergin & Garvey, New York.

Williams, Lewis, Ronald Labonte, and Mike O’Brien. "Empowering social action through narratives of identity and culture." Health Promotion International 18, no. 1 (2003): 33-40.

Vivienne, Sonja (2011). "Trans Digital Storytelling: Everyday Activism, Mutable Identity and the Problem of Visibility” Gay & Lesbian Issues & Psychology Review 7, no. 1.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance-2

Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 1

denisse — 2015-10-24T14:31:11Z

This post compares the production behind a performance with the process of storytelling. To illustrate this analogy, we explore the stories of the Blank Noise project and The Ugly Indian- two civic groups from Bangalore making interventions in the public space. This post looks at the stages of pre-production and the screenplay to explore methods and narratives in storytelling.

spectacle
ˈspɛktək(ə)l/
a visually striking performance

performance
pəˈfɔːm(ə)ns/
an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people: the audience. Sometimes the dividing line between performer and the audience may become blurred, as in the example of "participatory theatre" where audience members get involved in the 
production.

One of the mandates of this project is to locate discrepancies between "spectacles"[1] and realities of change to identify less visible examples of citizen action. However, an alternative route is to identify the characteristics of the spectacle, and learn how they can be used to make activism more visible: that is, more legible, intelligible and accessible. In this context, storytelling comes across as a method that can provide the same experience and benefits of a performance. This potential manifests itself in two ways:

a) First, in its infrastructure. We find that the structure holding stories together plays an important role in their ability to deliver a clear message. By unpacking the process of staging a performance -from what happens in the dressing rooms to what happens on stage- we will identify the building blocks of performances and by default, those comprised in effective storytelling.

b) Second manifestation occurs in the audience. The dynamic of performances resembles how we behave every day in our "socially and constructed worlds". We are constantly telling stories about ourselves and this 'sense of being' is what determines our actions and behavior (Holland et al, 1998). Furthermore, as social beings, we also build identities as a community and engage in "collective moments of self-enactment" (Urciuoli, 1995).

Linking this back to our project, understanding the performative potential of storytelling; its infrastructure and how it can touch on issues of identity, agency and collective action, is relevant to tackle challenges in activism and civic engagement -where the collective is very much linked to the political. To illustrate the relationship between storytelling and performance, I will use the example of two civic groups thriving in Bangalore: Blank Noise (founded by Jasmeen Patheja, who we interviewed back in January) and The Ugly Indian; and I will ask you to think about them as theatrical productions:

(The following images are 'Broadway posters' adapted to the identity of these groups. They were created merely for the purpose of this post and do not reflect the views of these organizations).

The Ugly Indian
stop talking. start doing.

Blank Noise
set new rules for street behavior

These groups were formed (in 2003 and 2010 respectively) to re-conceptualize how we understand our presence in the public space; Blank Noise focusing on sexual harassment and women safety and The Ugly Indian on waste management and civic interventions. On this post, we will look at their campaigns and identify features of the spectacle/performance in the storytelling methods they are using to communicate their mandates and interact with their volunteers. So, without further ado, let's explore this glossary of tweaked theatrical terminology:

How to navigate this post:

Section	Performance	Storytelling
Pre-production	Preparing all elements involved in a performance including locations, props, costumes, special effects and visual effects.	Preparing all elements needed to convey the message of the story including: spoken word, text, images, audio, video or other artifacts.
Screenplay	A written work narrating the movements, actions, expressions and dialogues of the characters.	Building a narrative in storytelling
Actors	Actors performing characters in a production.	The relationship between storytelling actors and agency
Stage	Designated space for the performance of productions	The public space as the stage for storytelling
Action!	Cue signifying the start of a performance	When storytelling leads to action

1. pre-production
ˈpri-prəˈdʌkʃ(ə)n/
the action of making or manufacturing from components or raw materials prior to the initial performance.

The stage of pre-production is when all the locations, props, cast members, costumes, special effects and visual effects are identified. It works in tandem with the screenplay to ensure the maximum consistence, coherence and clarity in the story. In the same way, planning storytelling also implies selecting the right elements and materials to hold the story together. Initially, only traditional mediums were available, such as spoken word, text and images; but storytellers today (the directors orchestrating these productions) are experiencing an urgency to re-invent and adapt the language of their stories to make it accessible in the network[3] (Hull and Katz, 2006; Urciuoli, 1995) and the practice has evolved into 'trans-media' or digital storytelling. Formats like audio-bytes, videos, sms, mobile apps are also part of its semiotic makeup and these mediums are mixed and matched to enhance the visibility of the message. As Scott McCloud suggests in ‘Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art’: “we need to invent new ways [and] develop new techniques of showing the same old thing” (1994) to make sure people still listen to what we have to say.

Both Blank Noise and The Ugly Indian have led highly visual campaigns in the online space, as they combine blogging with videos, audios, images and active community managers that interact with their volunteers. A few examples of the mediums they are using to capture the public's attention:

Video: Blank Noise did this art intervention, using real rape and sexual harassment reports from 2003 to challenge what we consider 'normal' and 'news'-worthy when it comes to sexual harassment and domestic violence:

Artifacts: ‘I never ask for it’ campaign: Blank Noise asked women to send garments they wore when they experienced ‘eve-teasing’ to challenge the notion “that women ask to be sexually violated”

I never ask for it. http://bit.ly/1mnEhMJ

Audio: Blank Noise documents and disseminates stories of sexual harassment as told by their Action Heroes' This is: Kitab Mahal's story.

The message transmitted by the garments, the video and the audio are based on cultural and social constructions of what ‘sexual harassment’ means. Removing one of the garments from the installation, for instance, removes it from its resistance identity and hence, it can only exist in the narrative context Blank Noise is constructing alongside its volunteers.

On the other hand, The Ugly Indian's mandate is to change people's "rooted cultural behaviour and attitudes [...] to solve India's civic problems"; starting with the visible filth on the streets. It does not pursue systemic change, but seeks impact at the behavioral level. One of the methods it uses to achieve this, is the dissemination of images and videos showcasing their work. Their publications minimize the use of text in order to drive attention to aesthetics:

They recently complemented their graphic stories, by starting a blog that documents "the philosophy and the process" that drives The Ugly Indian. This excerpt from Chapter 3 explains their visual strategy and why they have chosen before-after pictures to communicate their work:

“The citizens of the online world are brutal – they only care for instant gratification and real results. So are citizens in the real world. They too only care for results. [...] V & X know that and have focused all their energies on delivering this dramatic result, this single Before-After image, that is proof of dramatic change. And it has worked – in terms of creating initial positive impact (both on the ground and online). Whether it will survive and change community behavior is another story. But this initial impact is crucial, as we will discover later, in generating respect from the community and the authorities.”

“When pictures carry the weight of clarity in a scene, they free words to express a wider area. And when words lock in the meaning of a sequence, pictures can really take off” Scott McCloud on comics

This is how pre-production is important for storytelling. Planning, designing and choosing the right elements, and how they interact with one another, will determine the level of legibility and meaning we give to the story (McCloud, 1994). Each medium: video, audio, text, music, etc.- becomes “a new literate space” or “symbolic tool” storytellers have on hand to portray narratives about the self, family community and society (Hull, 2006), and the introduction of digital technologies into storytelling space, coupled with the current hype around the method, signals we are moving towards a more strategic use of technology to produce and share knowledge more effectively. In this way, the choice of mediums and technologies will reflect a "conscious construction of identity" and "performances of the self" (Vivienne, 2011); a theme we will explore further in the 'screenplay' section.

2. screenplay
ˈskriːnpleɪ/
The script including descriptions of scenes and some camera/set directions.

The process of writing a screenplay is a careful exercise of creation and articulation. The dialogues, expressions and actions of the characters are narrated and located in a specific context that will determine how the events of the play unfold. The ability to build a coherent narrative structure is, in itself, a powerful tool of self-expression that enables the storyteller to a) construct an identity for the story and b) expose it to the public. Let's take a closer look at each stage:

a) Self-expression is directly related to the amount of freedom we experience in our ecosystem. Barriers to expression can come through our political regime or in the form of social norms and taboos, as is the case of conservative pockets in India. In either context, storytelling comes across an alternative outlet to describe ambiguous, unapologetic and personal truths (Vivienne, 2011). It enables less visible voices to claim a space and construct their own narrative within. Blank Noise has been very active on this front, as it creates opportunities for its volunteers, participants (dubbed Action Heroes), and otherwise silent voices to articulate their emotional and physical experiences in the public space. One of the ways they did it was by publishing a step by step guide to unapologetic walking, and then requesting people to participate:

step by step guide to unapologetic walking: http://bit.ly/1bz3MZZ

" Our street actions over the last few years have been based on emphasizing small simple scenarios- which can be challenging even though they appear 'normal' and everyday. For instance- should it be hard to just 'stand' on the street as an 'idle' woman? Would you 'dare' try it?"

The idea behind this intervention is to re-conceptualize how women navigate the public space, drawing inspiration, ideas and encouragement from the “personal truths” and stories shared by women who are doing it. This grants them greater autonomy at representing themselves through their online and offline presence and the narrative is continuously re-shaped through new submissions and testimonials.

b) Self-representation is how you create yourself: who you want to be and how you want others to see you. Miller’s work on identity and storytelling explores the role of storytelling in socialization and self-construction: “stories change depending on who is listening” (1993) as we construct ourselves with and for other people. In the same way a character in the script cannot come to life without an audience, the identities we create for ourselves need a public that recognizes who we are and our role in the world. Anthony Giddens' work on identity also draws a relationship between our identity and its narrative: “self-identity is not a set of traits but a person’s reflexive understanding of their own biography (...) and the capacity to keep a coherent narrative going: integrating events in the external world and sorting them into the story of the self” (Gauntlett, 2002; Giddens 1991).

The Ugly Indian took a solid stance against middle class apathy and idleness in its narrative, and with this premise, it built an identity for the organization that represents the opposite: a selfless, active, responsible middle class citizen. These are some examples:

Anonymous identity	Middle class citizen	How they are different to the common middle class citizen
“They call themselves The Ugly Indians and operate anonymously [...]. If you aren’t aware of The Ugly Indian (TUI), that’s understandable – they work hard to stay anonymous and underground, and want only their work to speak for itself.” (Chapter 1)	“The more the urban middle-class see ‘people like them’ mucking about in garbage, the more they will face up to the issue and start thinking about it [...] This leap from ‘it’s someone else’s job’ to ‘it’s my duty to fix this’ is what can transform our cities – this leap has to be made in the mind!” (Chapter 6)	“There is a specific purpose to making Amir (the garbage truck driver) talk. X and V are looking for cues on what really troubles him, what improvement in his daily working life he will really appreciate. Too often, well-meaning urban middle-class do-gooders think they know what the working class needs (gloves, better equipment and so on) and they get it so wrong. Listening without being judgmental is an art, and X and V are good at that. (Chapter 8)

You can read more about TUI’s story here.

“Human lives become more readable and intelligible when they are applied to narrative modes borrowed from history and fiction; and in function of stories people tell about themselves.”

Ricoeur, 1991

The set of traits chosen by The Ugly Indian is important. Their initiative is intentionally gentrified as they want it to resonate specifically with the middle class (as they are "people like them"). But at the same time, they integrate a reflexive understanding of their role as citizens by mentioning the need for a personal awakening ("this leap has to be made in the mind!") and further interaction with stakeholders outside of their network ("making the truck driver talk"), that will enable the common middle class citizen transition into the level of 'street and citizenship authority' TUI is at. On top of this, their clean drives back up this discourse, and while their identity remains incognito, the work is widely shared on social media every week -drawing a coherent narrative between their speech and their actions.

c) Interaction with audience: Finally, once the storyteller has created a coherent identity, its sense of purpose must also be evident for the audience. The possibilities for this are endless, but I would like to draw attention to the super-hero narrative chosen by both Blank Noise and The Ugly Indian. Both groups are seeking an internal awakening in their volunteers by juxtaposing their experiences with what a 'hero' would do in the same situation.

Bangalore Hero video on The Ugly Indian:

“Our message to all Bangalore citizens is simple. Go out and be a hero on your own street.
Take charge of it. Don’t be helpless. You have the power. You just need to go and use it”

Blank Noise's Action Hero game:

The Action Hero Game is built on a series of personal challenges in the city.
The game is simple. Your game partner and opponent is you.
There is no one method or quick solution to be an Action Hero. 
Each potential Action Hero goes to a new area in his / her city. On arriving there potential Action Heroes receive 'challenges' via phone messages 
Action Heroes across locations receive a set of 6 tasks over 4 hours via sms
If you don't wish to do a task (eg task 1a) text us and we will send you another task (eg task 1B) 
Are you an Action Hero? 
Find out! Play this game!

Blank Noise Action Hero
http://bit.ly/1fld8cV

“Share your Action Hero experience: An Action Hero sets new rules for behaviour. She could experience fear and threat, but devises ways to confront it. Being fearless is a process. Every person is a unique Action Hero.Tell us how you said NO to sexual violence. [...] This blog set out to record testimonials of when and how you became an Action Hero; documents and shares the memory of when you surprised yourself, did the unexpected. [...] You are an Action Hero not by the magnitude of what you did but how it made you feel. You are an Action Hero by the way you define your own Action Heroism. We don't have a reference for you.]

They both advance ideals of courage, fearlessness and responsibility in the public space through their campaigns. These are not only desirable traits by any citizen -let alone marginalized or silenced voices in the case of Blank Noise- but the strategy also speaks to a language of hope and empowerment we can relate to at a human level. It sheds light on our fears, our limits and the extent to which we are willing to use our power to act.[3] Mediating this message with digital technologies also creates the illusion of an omniscient narrator who is drawing the volunteers' path to heroism and guiding their journey through it. As Ricoeur puts it: "there is no self-understanding that is not mediated by signs, symbols and texts; and self-understanding will coincide with the interpretation given to these mediating terms" (1995) It is ultimately the interpretation the volunteers give to this ideal, and the magnitude to which they identify with it, what will determine their eagerness to emulate it and translate it into action. As said in the last post, one of the faculties of good storytelling is turning the experience being told, into the experience of those who are listening (Benjamin, 1955).

Before moving on to how 'action' unfolds in the performance, it is worth reflecting on the role of narratives, identities and mediation in collective action. Why do we need the hero narrative to mobilize agents? Why is heroic citizenship the gold standard and why does it work as a method for engagement? The topic is unfortunately out of the scope of this post, but the next one will attempt to address how identities as these ones can mediate our agency and action in the public space.

******

Access Part 2 here to look at the role of actors and the stage in performances to explore the role of agency and the public space in storytelling. We will also draw some final conclusions relating this back to the Making Change project.

Footnotes:

[1] Refer to Nishant Shah's Whose Change is it Anyway?. He argues that global audiences engage with local causes that embody "spectacles of the rise of the citizen". This is problematic as the more significant -less visible/undocumented- acts remain unnoticed, while they may be central to understand what it means to make change in a networked and information society. He posits we need to move beyond this 'spectacle imperative',recognize the context of these revolutions and re-evaluate how we conceptualize 'action'.

[2] Novelty: Quick exercise: run a quick google search of the words: ‘storytelling + social change’. You will find stories by influential magazines and publications, including Forbes, the Huffington Post and Open Democracy, all from 2013-2014. ‘Storytelling’ seems to be the newly (re)discovered tactic to advance business and social impact objectives, noticed by activists and corporates alike.

[3] For more on our power as agents and the role of narrative and identity, refer to Paul Ricoeur's work on the selves and agents (Oneself as another) and narratives (Time and Narrative). "As the most faithful articulations of human time, narratives present the moments when agents, who are aware of their power to act, actually do so, and patients, those who are subject to being affected by actions, actually are affected." Resources here: http://stanford.io/1c0pUwQ

Sources:

Benjamin, Walter. (1977): "The storyteller."89.

Gauntlett, David (2002), Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction, Routledge, London and New York.

Giddens, Anthony. "Modernity and self-identity: self and identity in the late modern age." Cambridge: Polity (1991).

Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain, (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hull, Glynda A., and M. Katz. (2006) "Crafting an agentive self: Case studies of digital storytelling." Research in the Teaching of English 41, no. 1: 43.

McCloud, Scott. (1993)."Understanding comics: The invisible art." Northampton, Mass

Miller, P. (1994). Narrative practices: Their role in socialization and self-construction. In Neisser & Fivush (eds.), The remembering self: Construction and agency in self narrative (pp. 158-179). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Miller, P. & Goodnow, J. J. (1995). Cultural practices: Toward an integration of culture and development. New Directions for Child Development, No. 67 (pp. 5-16). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (1996). Narrating the self. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25, 19-43.

Ricoeur, Paul (1991). "Narrative identity." Philosophy today 35, no. 1 : 73-81.

Ricoeur, Paul. (1995) Oneself as another. University of Chicago Press,

Urciuoli, B. (1995). The indexical structure of visibility. In B. Farnell (ed.), Human action signs in cultural context: The visible and the invisible in movement and dance (pp. 189-215). Metuchen, NJ & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.

Vivienne, Sonja (2011). "Trans Digital Storytelling: Everyday Activism, Mutable Identity and the Problem of Visibility” Gay & Lesbian Issues & Psychology Review 7, no. 1.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-performance

10 Ways to Say Nothing New

nishant — 2015-04-14T13:17:52Z

The rise of the listicle, a safe, non-thinking information piece that tells us what we already know.

Nishant Shah's article was published in the Indian Express on January 19, 2014.

I Always Like to begin the New Year with a self-fulfilling prophecy, assured in the fact that like New Year resolutions, it will quickly be forgotten in the attention deficit times that we live in. Nevertheless, it is always a fun exercise, to play Cassandra, and utter ominous things about the time to come. I am looking at my fasterthan-byte feeds online and trying to figure out the new trend that is going to be the absolute death of us in 2014. I did some research (Google search), consulted some experts (asked friends on Facebook),analysed critiques (trolled on Twitter), and looked at current trends (followed funny Tumblrs) and finally have the answer. The thing that we must brace for is the list — or rather the listicle (an article that is written like a list).

Have you noticed it? Almost anything that is anything on the internet lately has been presented to us as a list. There are lists for everything — of things people say, of things people do, of things people want to say about people who do things. On websites in the business of making things go viral (and slightly fermented), the listicle has emerged as the next best thing.

Now, I don’t want us to run away with the idea (10 ways to run away with ideas — coming soon on Viral Nova) that lists are new. Lists have always existed and have been one of the most basic forms of archiving, sorting and storing human knowledge and information. However, the new lists that are doing the rounds on BuzzFeed, Reditt, Viral Nova and everywhere else need attention. The listicle is an incredible performance of the strange, the silly and the deranged. Like reality TV judges, they are empty, cliché-ridden and yet seductive. They are supposed to produce profound truths, give us insights into our everyday practices, harness the wisdom of crowds and help curate overloaded information feeds to distil what is most relevant and useful. In itself, that is a fantastic ambition and for somebody who is constantly moaning about there not being enough time to follow everything on the internet (way too many videos of pandas making friends with wallabies on Vimeo these days), I appreciate the ability that listicles have of reducing read-time and giving us tweet-sized nuggets of wisdom. Bam! Our lives have changed!

And yet, as you look at these lists, you slowly start realising that listicles are significantly empty. They try to pass on the banal, the boring, the insipid and the extraordinarily common-sense as knowledge, information and wisdom. I am randomly looking at the last five listicles on my timeline — 20 reasons why a 20-something would never survive Hunger Games (right, because that’s the message of the books — get children to kill each other!), 31 insanely clever ideas to remodel your new house (a lot of them using chopped up coke bottles and toilet paper rolls for that intimate ambience), 18 ways of discovering happiness through travel (my first rule is “be very rich”), 25 universal horrors of hair removal (let it grow! Let it grow! Let it grow!) and seven ways of making a to-do list that works (get it? Get it? A list about making an efficient list. May I please say #FacePalm?)

So, snide remarks aside (10 ways to let go of sarcasm?) what does this mean for us? Why are listicles so popular? Why are the tech-savvy, educated people online, who could be overthrowing authority (all hail, Snowden) and feeding starving children in a poor country of their choice — why are they all spending the time with listicles? I am proposing that the listicle is the final death of politics, criticality and thought on the internet. We have already seen how online conversations quickly devolve into an exercise in creative name-calling and racist, bigoted bullying. The internet has already shown us that all debates end in accusations of fascism (Godwin’s law) and that anything that you say online is going to offend somebody who will then come back, like the ghost of Christmas past, and haunt you. In the hostile space that the internet has become, not the very least because everybody is not watching porn, searching for pictures of animals, or pirating music and movies, we are all trained to be the saints who were persecuted for their beliefs. There is no such thing as a bad person on the internet. Everybody is smug, holier- than-thou, and even when wrong, are saintly wrong, and thus martyrs. For a medium that was supposed to encourage conversation, unless you are in the company of people you know, the internet has become a hunting ground, where the only thing you can do safely is make a list. And hence, the listicle.

True, once in a while, there are some really cool listicles (though they might lead to mild electrocution or house burning down, but hey, no pain, no gain, right?) and they do help in visualising and transmitting information very fast. At the end of the day, listicles are the space that conversations go to die. The listicle is a safe, non-offensive, non-thinking information piece that tells us what we already know, confirms what we had always suspected, and gives validation to the impressive schools of thoughts like “My grandmother says so” and “I have heard that”. It is a way by which we escape deep thought or engaged talk, basking in the enchantment of our own brilliance, no longer in need of thinking anymore, because look, look how beautiful our thoughts look in the listicle, and look, how many people are sharing it! The listicle has risen and it looks like it is just going to get more popular. Maybe it is time to write a listicle about why we shouldn’t be writing listicles.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-january-19-2014-nishant-shah-10-ways-to-say-nothing-new

Creative Activism - Voices of Young Change Makers in India (UDAAN)

denisse — 2015-04-14T13:21:22Z

This post is a short account of what happened at UDAAN in December 2013 — a conference that gathered 100 youth from across the country to discuss pressing environmental issues and creative strategies to tackle them. We conducted a survey to map the perspectives of these young change-makers and get a glimpse of how India's youth is now framing and going about making 'change'



CHANGE-MAKERS: Youth (India)

EVENT: UDAAN 2013 organized by 350 India: a global organization building grassroots movements across the country.

METHOD OF CHANGE: Behavioral change, solidarity networks and creative activism.

“Change or making change is to bring about a paradigm shift in the way we do certain things. To alter our general way of life as it remains now into something that is positive and ideal.”

This is one of the many responses we collected from UDAAN participants on what it means to make change in India today. So far, in previous articles, we have looked at organizations working with specific demographics and themes. On this opportunity, we are exploring the ideas behind a group conformed by individuals coming from different walks of life, who embody an array of historical, linguistic and cultural understandings of the world, yet still find an intersection at their intents for change. We addressed the core questions raised in the project's thought piece: Whose Change is it Anyway: “What is the understanding of change with which we were working? What are the kinds of changes being imagened? Whose change is it, anyway?” -to start touching base with the ideas underpinning their actions, and identify how -or whether- it introduces new ways to define this concept.

UDAAN 2013

I had the privilege of joining this inspiring group during a four day conference and got the opportunity to share with students, activists and entrepreneurs from 13 states of India (chosen from a pool of 2000 applicants) involved in social change practices across the country. Despite the diverging world views among participants, the sense of a common purpose was almost undisputed. Every attendee was committed to mitigate the detrimental impact of climate change in their cities, protect vulnerable populations and advocate for justice. However, the most interesting points of contention lied on how to translate this commitment into individual and collective action, create conditions that enable change, and encourage community participation in environmental, political and social issues.

With these questions in mind, the conference focused on providing strategies of action and the attendees explored all sorts of lobbying and political participation mechanisms through its workshops. Three main elements stood out for me. First, the cocktail of tactics provided by experienced campaigners: from direct resistance and non-violent action to story-telling and street theater; participants were inspired to experiment and re-conceptualize activism.

Space Theatre Ensemble

Educators Collective

Second, the use of gamification in the workshops, facilitated by the experiential learning group Educators Collective, was the key to introduce values of leadership, solidarity and sustainability into individual behaviour and team practices. And finally, the add of 'unconference slots' to the program empowered attendees to share their methods, initiatives and projects in an open platform. This fostered peer-to-peer learning and more importantly reinforced the net of support and the immense amount of admiration (that grew exponentially between participants) for each other's work.

Youth and Activism in India

Coming from the perspective of our research project: Making Change, it was second nature to me to question frameworks utilized around "making change". I was pleasantly surprised to find an array of perspectives and experiences floating around panels, workshops and keynote presentations. They were definitely seeking consensus, yet in a way that did not inhibit diversity of thought, intellectual curiosity and self-reflection. This sparked the idea of collecting these views and use them as a sample of the current status of youth activism in India. Particularly considering how many of the strategies taught at UDAAN, while incredibly powerful, require a set of resources (including capital, time and energy) that are not readily accessible for all aspiring activists in the country.

These thoughts are consistent with a couple of articles I referred to for context on Indian youth and activism. Starting with the IRIS Knowledge Foundation and the UN-HABITAT's report: "State of the Urban Youth, India 2012: Employment, Livelihoods, Skills". It states that in only seven years, India will become the youngest country of the world with a median age of 29 years old. This, coupled with the fact that India's youth is the largest group in the working-age population — in a country that is expected to become one of the world's next major economic powers (Ilavasaran, 2013) — has, according to Padma Prakash, led demographers and economists to consider youth as the future of the country's economic growth. Having said that, these promising prospects do not reflect that 87.2% of the unemployed of the country are youth, only 27% of Indian youth is literate and 64% is located in rural areas. These facts display a constant negotiation between precariousness and hope, and particularly the high level of dissonance between the expectations and opportunities surrounding this group. Furthermore, as put by Prakash, despite the amount of economic information we have on this group, we lack a deep understanding of the social constructs underpinning their motivations and actions. On one hand, Ilavasaran suggests precariousness is the trigger behind both their unrest and their activism. On the other, the path they end up taking will depend on how they understand making change and their role within this process.

This dilemma was quite evident at UDAAN. Youth from all over India came together to fervently speak about the grievances climate change is causing in their regions and share the stories behind their struggles. On this note, the conference represented an incubator for their ideas and frustrations. and one of its main goals was to steer all this energy towards a path of constructive positive change. Carpini on his work on civic engagement (2000) outlines three factors that lead to participation: motivation, opportunities and capabilities; and how the interplay of the three result in different patterns of change-making. Hence, what is left to answer is how will this chaotic ecosystem shape youth's ideas of creating change? And to what extent will these conditions determine their motivation, opportunities and capacities of participating in the process? The survey we sent out to participants is only a starting point to reflect on these points. It did not aim to resolve these questions, but instead gather a snapshot of how politically and socially active young citizens are locating change and framing some of the biggest challenges of its generation.

Online Survey

About 25 people participated in the survey. The survey had five questions that explored three concepts analyzed in the Making Change research project: change, civic engagement and methods of change. It was divided into three sections:

a) Definitions: Participants were asked how they understand 'change' and 'making change'.

b) Actors: Participants were asked to reflect on their role and the role of youth in the process of making change. It also touched on concepts of active citizenship and engagement.

c) Methods: This section looked at the practices and methods preferred by youth for making change. Participants were asked to think about strategies and tactics discussed at the UDAAN workshops or other initiatives of interest, and how ICT/technology affect the process.

The purpose was to collate as many ideas and perspectives around change-making from this group and hence, the questions were broad and open-ended. The participants remained anonymous and details about their age, religion, region, socio-economic status, etc., were not disclosed. The language barrier and access (and frequency of access) to social media platforms was a big limitation to obtain a larger sample but the responses still reflected interesting patterns, which were later classified and categorized using a keyword system.

The results were displayed on the info-graphics found below:

Infographic 1* reflects the different ways participants outlined change-making: definitions of 'change' and 'making change', type of change (positive, neutral or confrontational), location of change (individual, society or system) and time of change (now, future, long-term).
Infographics 2* and 3 outline the profiles of a change-maker and an active citizen.
Infographic 4 lists their preferred methods of change -in no particular order. The bottom section reflects the spectrum of opinions around the use of technology.

*The percentages reflect the portion of respondents who reflected this view and the texts are excerpts of the respondents' answers.

This presentation format was chosen for three reasons: first, to facilitate the consumption of raw data collected from the survey and make visual associations between themes. Second, to put into practice some the recommendations from the storytelling workshop to make research more accessible to the public. And third, as a somewhat self-serving experiment to measure a) the ability of a graphic designer rookie, with no previous experience (like me), to create visual aids and graphics with free online tools, and b) explore empirically some of the methods I have encountered through my research: Methods for Social Change. Hence, the following results will not be of an academic nature as previous posts, but will instead clarify some of the patterns, evident in the original responses, that may have been lost in graphic translation.

Locating Change: Definitions

"Change is any alteration from an established status-quo. Making change is creating a system that is self-sustaining and capable of surviving over a long period of time"

In spite of including both concepts on the same question, most respondents differentiated them in their answers. Approximately 50% of the sample responded 'change' was either an irreversible process or an outcome to a process, while the other 50% implicated themselves in the 'change' process, stating it means to shift and modify how we act and think. A similar spirit was reflected about 'making change'. About 29% of the participants acknowledges a break from previous practices, and 29% considers we are implicated through the adoption of a new model of action. Interestingly enough, only 5% considers making change a duty or a responsibility. This low percentage signals making change is understood as non-compulsory which does not affect active politically involved citizens but leaves the more passive and idle off the hook when it comes to acknowledging their role in the process of change.

Moving on to type of change: 38% of the respondents consider making change a neutral process that does not guarantee a positive change (as considered by 33% of the sample). It was defined as an event that merely breaks the norm or from usual practices. A possible reading of this is that a group is not mobilizing its efforts with a plausible positive alternative in mind. Instead, it seeks difference without a deeper considerations of how will it differ from the conditions it is breaking from. This fits into the 'politics of hope' paradigm brought up by Shah in the piece: This approach to change and the idiom 'making a difference' is "so infused with the joy of possibilities" that it doesn't evaluate whether the outcome will lead to further assurance or precariousness, when compared to the earlier structure. This approach limits structural, systemic and sustainable change, an issue that was also evident in the results of the time-line. 0% thinks change must be made immediately but the rest of the sample was divided into making plans for the future (19%) and a smaller number on securing a self-sustaining system (10%) to replace the former.

Infographic 1: Making Change (Generated using: easel.ly-)

Finally, on the question of where is change located, we find the first instance of a pattern that was evident throughout the survey. On this category 38% finds change must occur externally: either in society and others (19%), or through the shift from a status quo that is perpetuating inequality (19%). Yet the largest group (24%) identified that change must occur internally first. The role of the self was also very prominent in the following sections as well.

Agents of Change

After locating change, the project also intends to understand who are the main actors and stakeholders lumped into the category of 'citizen' or 'citizen action'. On this survey, these actors were dubbed 'change-makers'. Respondents were free to describe what they understood by the term and the social construct determining the model they were working towards (as aspiring change-makers themselves). The second actor we inquired about was 'active citizen'. The concept of citizenship is ambiguous terrain, yet there seems to be a connection between the identity confered by the 'citizen' status and the respondents' inner call for action.

a) The Change-Maker:

"I think that all of us can be change-makers. We need to be sure of what and why we need to change and have a vision of how the world will be after making the change"

The Change-Maker (Infographic 2) was defined by the four characteristics outlined below.

Infographic 2: The Change Maker (Generated using: easel.ly )

Each characteristic was coupled by actions that reinforce this behaviour. For example, understanding the issue (33%) comes hand-in-hand with inciting motivation through information: 'If one aspires to change, then one must first understand what is to be changed, how it is to be changed and what would replace the changed system. The primary step is to realize and acknowledge the problem, educate others and then action” (Anonymous survey respondent, 2013) Another interesting example is how the 28% that identified the individual as the source of change, also recommend self-reflection on how to create the most impact: "[My role as a change-maker is] practicing what I preach and learning to critique myself constructively and in a manner that helps me improve" (Anonymous survey respondent, 2013) This brings a different light to Carpinis categorization of 'capabilities' in social change. It is no longer about participation in an external movement but more about how the individual secures sustained change through his own consistent and coherent behaviour.

b) The Active Citizen

"An active citizen is who follows the constitution, understands and takes responsibility for himself and for influencing his family and community for the betterment of life's social, economic and environmental issues"

Self-awareness was a key point in how the active citizen was personified. It was one of most emphasized points, placing more responsibility on the role of the citizen as opposed to on the issue at hand. Attitudes such as 'realizing the problem', 'taking responsibility' and 'taking initiative' reflect that the individual is finding motivation on taking ownership of his choices and decision-making power. The individual is focusing less on antagonizing the structure and is instead elevating his identity to a fearless, noble status -the citizen is becoming the hero of its own narrative. This ego-emphasis, is also motivating the citizen to invest on increasing its own knowledge capital and attain a thorough understanding of the issues, to then heighten individual and collective awareness around them. The objective is either local -give back to its community- or normative -work towards justice and equity- but there seems to be consensus on the starting point.

Infographic 3 - The Active Citizen (Generated using: easel.ly)

Methods for Change

“By going out there and making the change! Get down and dirty. Then use those examples in the form of story, pictures, etc. and inspire others around you to first change themselves and then help change society!”

Finally, infographic 4 displays a mapping of the methods brought up by participants. Again, awareness and behavioural change were the most popular, placing information and the individual at the epicenter of change-making. The impact of the theater and story telling workshops on participants was also evident, on several mentions to the power of 'artivism'.

Infographic 4: Methods for Social Change (Generated using: easel.ly )

In regards to communication and technology, I was surprised to find that many respondents find it insufficient. They instead recognize the need for strong offline communities making sure activism online translates into the offline realm. “[online platforms] are vital in building quick connections amongst those who feel alike towards bringing change. But eventually, all struggles for change have to be offline [...] technology could be the first step that eventually leads the path to more offline and personal connections.”(Anonymous survey respondent, 2013) : Others were wary about its power and they recognize it can be used to both help and contain the activist with the same intensity: "Technology can either blind people or give them sight."(Anonymous survey respondent, 2013) These views reflect youth has moved on from the tech hype that pervades the digital activism discourse. The role of technology was not excluded from the conference's tactic package and the group perceives technology as a powerful complement, yet it still places a lot more emphasis on creating sustainable change through education, behaviour and offline interactions than through digital interventions.

Conclusion

Comments at the aftermath of the event reflected participants had undergone a collective mental shift on how to create social change. We arrived looking outwards: accustomed to pointing fingers and scouting for common enemies that personify the misdoings of inequality perpetrators. Five days at Fireflies later and after UDAAN's intervention, I can safely say we left looking inwards. We are now determined to seek information and identify the most effective ways to mainstream it and make it accessible; we are impelled to reconnect with our creative and artistic selves and put them at service of communication; we are encouraged to share our personal stories and have them inspire solidarity and movement in our communities, and above all, we will continue to pursue the level of behaviour-action consistency that legitimizes our efforts at making change. The conference turned out to be a very organic experience and it provided all of us with a space to connect with ourselves and one another in a time of growing loneliness and isolation in the digital age.

Furthermore, the thoughts that surfaced on the survey are important pointers to continue uncovering what drives civic engagement among youth. Seeing these activists locate change in the self was a refreshing break from the times we used to overindulge in the possibilities of technology-mediated change. It seems that the digital is already so embedded in our interactions and ecosystems that it has not only has ceased to be novel, but it is recognized as insufficent, and hence, the attention has returned back to the user and its offline communities. With this in mind, the group that attended UDAAN, as part of the demographic who represents "the promise and future of India's growth", is taking up the challenge of strengthening ideas of making change in their networks. Have them succeed, and this 'growth' will be met by a current of better informed, better armed young activists working to secure a self-sustaining system for the generations to come.

** Thanks to everyone who participated on the survey, Special mention to UDAAN organizers, Educators Collective and the wonderful UDAAN 2013 group**

Sources:

HABITAT, UN. "State of the Urban Youth, India 2012.", (2013)
Ilavarasan, P. Vigneswara. "Community work and limited online activism among India youth." International Communication Gazette 75, no. 3 (2013): 284-299.
Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. (April 30, 2013).

Resources:

Easel.ly: To create and share visual ideas online: www.easel.ly/‎
Info.gram: Create infographics: infogr.am
More on UDAAN: http://world.350.org/udaan/
More on Global Power Shift (350) - http://globalpowershift.org/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/young-voices-udaan

Information Design - Visualizing Action (TTC)

denisse — 2015-04-17T10:34:22Z

This is the second part of the Making Change analysis on information activism. It explores the role of the presentation and design of information to translate information into action.

CHANGE-MAKER: Maya Ganesh

PROJECT: 
Visualizing Information for Advocacy

METHOD OF CHANGE:
Redesign the production, presentation and representation of data to stimulate citizen action.

STRATEGY OF CHANGE: 
- Demystify the technology, strategy and tactics behind information design
- Train people on how to use them for their projects.
- Empower people and increase political participation at the grassroots

Part 2: Information Design

Tactical Technology aims to demystify strategies that stimulate citizen participation through the production, presentation and representation of data. Their 2010 program: Visualizing Information for Advocacy focuses on finding "the right combination of information, design, technology and networks" (2010) to communicate issues and stimulate action. As explored in the last post, campaigns must not only inform citizens, but must persuade them into acting. The way information is presented: the symbols, shapes and sequences plays a big part in creating deeper connections between the consumer and information. Using more visual advocacy examples, I will list three elements that underpin this connection: symbols, design and consumption culture.

I. Symbols

Marks or characters representing an object, function or abstract process

Lance Bennett’s work on civic engagement (2008), identified two features in information that motivate citizens to act:

a) Familiar values and activities
b) Action options that facilitate decision-making and the participation process

By personalizing data and finding symbols that embody these values and action options, the citizen is more likely to engage with the information. Throughout this post we will look at some examples, outside of Tactical Tech, that are applying these principles.

Example 1:
Dislike Poverty Campaign-  Un Techo para mi Pais (TECHO) Latin America

First example is this is the campaign by the Chilean NGO Un Techo para mi Pais. The organization’s main objectives are to a) to eradicate poverty and b) build a strong body of volunteers that epitomize a new way of understanding citizenship in the region. They are very popular among youth, in part due to their communication strategies and their use of social media. Recently, the ‘No Me Gusta’ (Dislike) campaign was featured in Spanish graphic design activism blog: Grafous, and the non-profit marketing website Osocio for its creative use of 'slacktivism' to mirror the young citizen's attitude towards poverty.

Slacktivism: "actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement, e.g. liking or joining a campaign group on a social networking website"

No Me Gusta campaign, Un Techo para mi Pais. Photo courtesy of Grafous: http://www.grafous.com/no-me-gusta/.

The images juxtapose pictures of slums and an adaptation of the Facebook Like button - a familiar symbol of affirmation and approval among youth- into a Dislike button: enabling expression of discontent. This is coupled with the phrase: “if you dislike this, you can help by logging onto (...)”, channeling this disapproval into a plan of action. The campaign shows a thorough understanding of its target audience: including the visual culture of social media users, their digital habits and their satisfaction driven behavior (embodied by the like button). It ridicules the user by facing him with two realities: the ineludible situation of poverty versus his redeemable slacktivist idleness. This strategy proved to be effective and attracted the attention of potential volunteers; asserting the middle class, tech-savvy identity of the TECHO volunteer throughout Latin America.

Nonviolent methods and
Civic Participation

Capture attention.

Increase visibility of activism.

Reduce the stake of participation
for citizens

Attracts 'risk-averse' citizens and
creates 'safety in numbers'.

Success of campaign is more likely
(if 3.5% of population participates)

The use of familiar symbols is one of the 198 strategies listed by Gene Sharp in Part Two of The Politics of Nonviolent Action (explored in a past post). In the same spirit, Tactical Technology’s project 10 tactics provides “original and artful” wide communication non-violent methods to capture attention and disseminate information. This includes slogans, caricatures, symbols, posters and media presence, which besides from grabbing attention also reduces the stake of participation for citizens. According to Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, these methods increase the visibility of activist efforts, because they create a sense of ‘safety in numbers” and hence draw the “risk-averse” into the movements. Furthermore, their study shows that if a campaign manages to capture the active and sustained participation of only 3.5% of the total population, it is likely to succeed (2008).

While this statistic shows that enhancing the visibility of social change campaigns is an extremely resource-efficient strategy, on the other hand, it confirms information is in the hands of a privileged minority. The information-poor activist is completely reliant on the values and symbols the middle class chooses to downstream, unless information is designed by grassroots organizations who can localize it -one of the main objectives of Tactical Technology. The flow of ideas and conversations among the middle class, though not inclusive, is already stimulating the spirit of information dissemination. However, representations of data are not enough to trigger cognitive associations between the citizen and the issues. We must also consider the design and aesthetic features of these representations and how they inspire civic engagement.

II. (Graphic) Design

Communication, stylizing and problem-solving through the use of type, space and image.

MG: Presentation continues to be a problem. We have focused a lot on this, but it continues to be an issue when people have and are using information. You can’t assume people will get it and you need to think about what kind of information you have and what kind of audiences you want to see it, etc.

Liz Mcquiston, author of the 1995 and the 2004 editions of Graphic Agitation explored how art and design brings political and social issues to the fore. She argues that the increasing ubiquity of digital technology since the 90s, plus a popular ‘do-it-yourself’ culture, is creating a new environment of political protest that empowers individuals to take ownership of the creation and consumption of information. This is in line with Richard Wurman’s argument on the rise of the prosumer: digital users who are not only consuming but are also producing an unprecedented amount of information, which states that larger volumes of information, coupled with the expressive potential of art and design, makes personalized relationships with data possible, having it cater to our interests, needs and contexts (2001).

Example 2:
Design for Protest by Hector Serrano (University Cardenal Herrera)

Information design is creating ready-made avenues for civic engagement by breaking data down and providing step by step guides for implementation. For instance, students from the University Cardenal Herrera in Spain collaborated together in the project: “Design for Protest”, led by Hector Serrano, graphic designer and activist. The concept was to design “effective and functional” tools of demonstration, rooted in the rising number of protests around the world during the economic crisis. The students created communication tools: from foldable banners to protest umbrellas that allow protesters in Spain (and around the world) to convey their messages in creative, quick and affordable ways. This is the perfect conflation between consuming information proposals and producing new information from the grassroots to intervene in the public space.

Paraguas (Umbrella). Photo courtesy and How-to: Design For Protest: Paraguas

Light Banner. Photo courtesy and How-to: Design For Protest: Light Banner

Pocket Protest. Photo courtesy and How-to: Design for Protest: Protesta de Bolsillo

The field of information design is creating ready-made avenues for civic engagement. It is breaking down data and providing step-by-step guides for implementation. Although the Design for Protest project is not creating a permanent source of information, it is providing feasible alternatives to display information both in short-lived protests as much as in long-term campaigns, facilitating action-taking and abiding to the second feature of Bennett's hypothesis: providing action options to aid decision-making. Ganesh commented how these tool kits are also a mean Tactical Tech uses to secure sustainability and continuity:

MG: We have many available resources: from tools and guides (mobile in a box, security in a box, etc.), to the website. It is very focused on the digital tools that support what you want to do with your campaigning. You have a plethora of websites telling you what tools to use but not how to use it or how to think about how you want to use them for campaigning. As a result you have campaigns that are not well thought or that don’t use the appropriate type of technology, or driven by the technology first than what they want to do. This is one of the ways in which it continues.

III. (Culture) Design

Localizing information design

The ‘prosumer’ model aligns with an active model of citizenship we describe in a previous post. It fits citizens who are active and willing to find resources, and create and disseminate information that resonates within their context. Yochai Benkler’s work on information production (2006) Also touches on how cultural production enhances democratic practices in network societies. He argues that creating cultural meaning of the world has two important effects:

a) Sustains values of individual freedom of expression.
b) Provides opportunities of participation and cultural reassertion.

Ganesh’s account of the experience of Tactical Technology in the Middle East also highlights how cultural remix is a form political and creative empowerment:

MG: It is interesting how the Arab version has evolved. We had support to extend Ten Tactics in the Arabic region, but we didn’t want to do translations and tell people what to do. We wanted to see how people are thinking about information activism in their region, what kind of products would be useful to them. We’ve already printed 2000 copies and we are left only with 140. It is really popular because people really want to do this. We’ve met with 5-7 groups in the Arab region we’ve known for a long time. We said: here’s money (originally meant for translations) take our resources, anything you’ve found that we’ve published and: customize it, remix it, break it up and put it back together again; turn it into a resource that you can feel you can use with your communities. Partnering up, you must keep in mind their mandates and their communities.

Localizing design and aesthetics is essential to keep the connections between data-citizen relevant. This is explored from the perspective of post-colonial computing by Irani et. al; a project that aims to understand how ‘good design’ must be consistent with cultural identities and the transformative nature of cultural formation between the context and the individual (2010).

Example 3:
Proudly African and Transgender by Gabrielle Le Roux (In collaboration with Amnesty International and IGLHRC)

An interesting example of this is the work done by Gabrielle Le Roux, in collaboration with African trans and intersex activists (IGLHRC). A showcase of portraits and uncovered narratives of transgendered Africans in East and Southern Africa: that reasserts interesex and transgender identity in a society were these issues remain taboo and hence under the radar.

These visuals were exhibited in Europe by Amnesty International, and showcased in the Black Looks community (who participated in Tactical Tech’s 2009 InfoCamp) as well as in the WITS Centre for Diversity Studies research on Politics of Engagement: an interactive collaboration on social change through art-activism and research.

Example 4:
Camp Acra et Adoquin Delmas 33 - Haiti

An example less inclined on aesthetics but focused on visual documentation is the Camp Acra et Adoquin Delmas 33 blog, from Haiti. A site in which Camp Acra members are documenting their settlement and growth after the 2010 earthquake through essential information and images, fostering community building and communal identity reassertion.

“visual representations of information gives context to numbers, uncovers relationships and engages the viewers in ways that raw information could never do”
David McCandless

As David McCandless,data journalist, information designer and author of The Visual Miscellaneum points out: “visual representations of information gives context to numbers, uncovers relationships and engages the viewers in ways that raw information could never do” (2009). Having these representations mingle with culturally specific undertones provides opportunities to create solidarity ties between the citizen and its culture, as well as the add of “individual glosses” through action, critical reflection and participation (Benkler, 2006). However is this need for an aesthetic approach to information and culture representation a result of our consumer behaviour? Is it problematic that activism is catering to a model of promotion and presentation of information to incite participation? The next section will look shortly at the consumption culture in information activism.

IV. Consumption (Culture)

Is information design catering to consumption habits instead of citizen needs?
As seen, information design is grounded on the premise that the representation of data must create deep connections with its audience in order to incite a reaction. However, is this the result of a culture of consumption? Let’s not forget the citizens targeted by visual campaigns are also consumers in constant interaction with the market. Kozinet’s study of virtual communities of consumption (1999), is in line with Wurman's description of the behavior of a prosumer:

Behaviour of consumer vs. information prosumer

Kozinet - Virtual communities of consumption	Wurman - The prosumer
Discerning consumer	Displays curiosity in information
Less accessible for one-to-one processes	Suspicion over information gate-keepers
Producers of large amounts of cultural information	“New-found hunger” to find information related to its interests

Moreover, the Kozinet suggests a few strategies of how to interact with the consumer that also fit the strategies presented by Bennett at the beginning of this analysis:

How to connect with the consumer vs. citizen

Kozinet - Virtual communities of consumption	Bennett - Features of information for civic engagement
Segmentation of consumers	Tailor information to values and activities familiar to the citizen
More interaction with consumer	Suggest action options to facilitate decision-making and participation
Create loyal networks of consumption

With this parallel in mind, we asked Ganesh the extent to which info-activism resembles market consumption models:

MG: You need to think strategically about how it’s going to get picked up, where you want to promote your information, how you want to publish, present it; and push it. The problem with NGO, activists and independent individuals is that they are not as empowered financially [...]. If you look at the corporate section, journalism, etc; you have huge institutions and a lot of more finances behind this stuff. NGOs have one shot to make it work. That’s when people like us come in, to demystify, give people training and create platforms.

Comparing activists with ‘virtual consumption communities’ questions the extent to which corporate and social impact models are feeding of each other to present information and succeed. A deeper analysis of this relationship falls out of the scope of this post, but it is worth mentioning when exploring activism in information network societies. As Ganesh clarified, info-activism is not related to marketing, but visualizing information in attractive and interesting ways is crucial not only to persuade, but to make activism accessible and enticing. Today, ten years after it was founded, Tactical Tech maintains a critical approach to their work. It is now moving on to a next stage, beyond the mere representation of data and paying closer attention to the type of information that enhances impact and influence of their tactics.

MG: We have definitely moved on thinking about interesting ways of looking at this. Our questions are more critical and political right now. The nature of platforms, the nature of information sharing, what is the true face of social media? There is so much information and data right now. Once information is out there how do you actually make it evidence for evidence-based advocacy. We are trying to play with that idea a little bit. It's not only about having impact but also influence.

Conclusion:

Part 1 and 2 of this analysis have explored the process of transforming data into civic action. In part 1 we re-visited the question of information communities. We found that diversity in political opinion democratizes the debate in the public space. Information strategies must focus on making information from the grassroots visible and strengthening offline networks that facilitate information dissemination. In part 2, we explored the strategies behind the presentation and representation of this information.

Three main findings came from this analysis:

a) Non-violent visual advocacy is more likely to reduce the stakes of participation for the common citizen making political engagement more likely.
b) The role of design for short or long-term advocacy is to simplifythe process of civic action, facilitate decision-making and makethese projects self-sustainable.
c) Our consumption habits in the market are shaping how we process and interact with information in the public space. The possibility of consumer behavior permeating modalities of activism reinforces the need to explore the most interesting strategies for information dissemination.

From the perspective of the Making Change project’ it is interesting to explore this method to social change as a breach from the ‘spectacle’ criticism outlined by Shah. He argues that in contemporary activism, only a limited production of images enter the network - images in many cases detached from the material realities and experiences that shape the change process in the first place. This tendency results in paraphernalia over the visual, disregarding the crises that led to the inception of protests. The findings from this analysis indicate that visual persuasion is essential to capture the attention of citizens, and hence, the need for a pinch of ‘spectacle’ in data presentation cannot be overlooked. The challenge info-activism now faces is making data’s dissemination self-sustainable in offline communities through the strategy and design of its campaigns.

Furthermore, the data, stories and narratives Tactical Tech is working to uncover can only be effectively transformed into action through a reconfiguration of the data-citizen relationship. Information strategies, besides from focusing on how to make data enticing, must also focus on the recognition of a status quo of idleness around how we consume, produce, question or interact with information. Tactical Tech has gone a far way at spearheading this line of thought and spreading graphic resistance through civil society, however this is not sufficient unless this recalibration occurs at the individual citizen level.

Sources:

Bennett, W. Lance. "Changing citizenship in the digital age." Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth 1 (2008): 1-24.
Benkler, Yochai. The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. Yale University Press, 2006.
Bimber, Bruce, Andrew J. Flanagin, and Cynthia Stohl. "Reconceptualizing collective action in the contemporary media environment." Communication Theory 15, no. 4 (2005): 365-388.
Brundidge, J.S. & Rice, R.E. (2009). Political engagement online: Do the information rich get richer and the like-minded more similar? In Chadwick, A. and Howard, N.H. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics (pp. 144-156). New York: Routledge
Kozinets, Robert V. "E-tribalized marketing?: The strategic implications of virtual communities of consumption." European Management Journal 17, no. 3 (1999): 252-264.
McCandless, David. The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World's Most Consequential Trivia. Collins Design, 2009.
Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.
Wurman, Richard Saul, Loring Leifer, David Sume, and Karen Whitehouse. Information anxiety 2. Vol. 6000. Indianapolis, IN: Que, 2001.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-design-activism-1

Information Activism - Tactics for Empowerment (TTC)

Denisse Albornoz — 2015-04-17T10:36:01Z

This is the first of a two-part analysis of information activism for the Making Change project. This post looks at the benefits and limitations of increasing access to information to enable citizenship and political participation.

CHANGE-MAKER: Maya Ganesh

PROJECT: 10 Tactics for Information Activism

METHOD OF CHANGE: 
Information activism at the intersection of data, design and technology

STRATEGY OF CHANGE:
-Demystify the technology, strategy and tactics behind information activism.
-Train people on how to use them for their projects.
-Empower people and increase political participation at the grassroots

I came into the office today and CIS Director gifted me the Red House edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: ‘We are All Born Free”. Skimming through it, I found a series of graphics and artistic interpretations of Articles 1 to 30:


							Article 5 Photo courtesy of Library Mice blog: http://bit.ly/1cAMpYy


							Article 24 Photo courtesy of Illustration Cupboard: http://bit.ly/1kI5EBd

The purpose of this book is to find “exciting ways to socialize young people to very real issues”, rewrite human rights in a “simple,accessible form” and stimulate imagination to “observe and absorb details in a way that words struggle to express”. While specifically targeted for 12+ children, these images create associations and connections that trump the dullness of black and white texts for any audience; offering an alternative way of presenting complex bodies of knowledge crucial for our survival, such as the Declaration of Human Rights.

Change: information interventions to inspire and facilitate change-making among civil society networks.

In the same spirit, Tactical Technology aims to use information design strategies to create similar associations in the field of activism. The Tactical Technology Collective is an organization dedicated to the intersections of data, design and technology in campaigning. Its has two main programs: Evidence & Action that works with data management in digital campaigning; and Privacy & Expression that provides digital security and privacysupport advice to activists. The collective envisions change as a creative and pragmatic intervention that inspires and facilitates change-making among civil society networks. We interviewed Maya Ganesh, who is part of the E&A program, and our conversation shed light on benefits and the challenges of using visual advocacy strategies to create social change.

On this opportunity, I will explore the potential of information activism to create opportunities and spaces of engagement. Following Saussure’s dyadic model of the sign, it will be split in two parts. The first entry will look at the ‘signified’: the ideas, associations and cultural conventions derived from information and how these could solve crises of civic engagement and citizen action. The second entry will look at the ‘signifier’ -the shapes and sequences that compose the knowledges navigating political activism. These will be viewed from the strategic, design and technological point of view. Both parts will be informed by our conversation with Maya and complemented by literature on political engagement in the digital age. On a less academic note, the posts will also refer to the experience of graphic designers, artists and bloggers who are experimenting with information design to express dissent in transnational platforms.

Part 1: Is Information Power?

‘Transforming Information into Action’ is Tactical Technology’s take on the traditional idiom ‘Knowledge is Power’. The collective’s experience shows there are a number of steps to transform raw data into political power and for the purpose of this analysis, I will only look at information disseminated with this particular intention. This will aid to understand the relationship between increasing information availability and having it trigger civic action in contemporary activism. According to Fowler and Biekart, acts of public disobedience and activism after 2010 share the objective of reclaiming active citizenship through ‘novel ways’ that counter traditional political participation mechanisms (2013). Hence, we want to know if information activism is one of these ‘novel’ strategies enabling citizenship in the digital era.

More power to whom?

Overcoming information inequity
If information activism is “the strategic and deliberate use of information within a campaign”, the first step is to question the type of information used in these campaigns. While many scholars claim that access to political opinion increases participation in the democratic process by fostering debate and inclusive deliberation on policy issues (Dahl, 1989, Bennett, 2003, 2008; Montgomery et al. 2004,) Brundidge and Rice’s exploration of Internet politics shows that strategies that merely increase access to information are flawed by design. They claim that increasing information mainly benefits the middle class, who counts with previous exposure to political knowledge and hence processes it with greater ease. This group ultimately dominates the public discourse widening -what they call- the ‘knowledge gap’ between socioeconomic classes (Brunridge and Rice, 2009, Bimber et al. 2005). This is the ‘information’ version of the gentrification of politics explored by Shah in the Whose Change is it Anyway thought piece, and a definite deterrent of collective action at the grassroots level.

A basic example to show how this manifests in the information environment is this info-graphic on Social Activism created by Column Five and Take Part and presenting the findings on their 2010 study on Social responsibility:

Example 1:
Social Activism Study (2010): How can brands engage Young Adults in Social Responsibility?

Access complete info-graphic here: http://www.2012socialactivism.com/images/infographic.png

The information is clear, the presentation is clean. This graphic could mobilize the middle class citizen who works in a company and has time and money to spare in donations and fund-raising activities. The graphic is informational yet it does not offer alternative participation avenues for groups outside of the politically savvy, young, educated and affluent circle (Brundidge and Rice, 2009) Instead, it reiterates socioeconomic inequalities from the offline community into the information landscape. With this in mind we asked Maya whether gentrification was a barrier for info-activism interventions at the grassroots:

MG: The things we are documenting are by citizens with socioeconomic barriers and obstacles. It is not our mandate to reach out to the ‘common citizen’ but it is very much our mandate to look at what is happening and what is happening to people with socioeconomic barriers who are lower on the ladder. If you look at Syrian info-activism, these are people facing the worst situations you can imagine, and they are doing it [...] and we document what they are doing, trying to understand it, pull out trends and then showing people.

Empowering information communities

Offline networks support information dissemination
In this respect, offline community networks are key to bridging the knowledge gap cited above. The relationship between organizations like Dawlaty, SMEX and Alt City and groups in the Arab region function as a core of ideas and resources from which localized methods and solutions emerge (read more here). This flow of information, coupled with the offline support, makes information from less visible demographics visible, deepens democracy and creates opportunities for these actors to participate and set the public agenda (2009). We asked Maya in what other ways information activism facilitates this process:

MG: We have moved on a lot from information activism. 10 Tactics is quite old for us now but it is still interesting to see how this stuff works. This material was produced in 2008-9 and is very popular with our audience. A lot of our work now is [...] take this material to newer communities of activists or people who have been around for a long time but are getting involved with the digital for the first time. That’s one part of our work and it’s sort of self-sustainable that way.

Therefore the value of information activism, rather than increasing the quantity of available data, is how it enables diversity and visibility of political opinion in the public sphere. One of the better known examples of information design interventions that gloat inclusiveness is:

Example 2
Occupy Design: the collective that builds “visual design for the 99%”:

2011

2011
Images courtesy of Experimenta Magazine: http://bit.ly/1hGpvOP

By presenting income and unemployment statistics about the American middle and lower class in the public space, activists from Occupy Design made the claims of the Occupy Wall Street Movement visual and visible. This enabled this group, the 99%, to reclaim the space not only through physical mobilization but also through the expression of subjectivities and open -graphic- power contestation. According to Pleyers, the pervasiveness of the movement both at the offline, online -and in this case, visual- levels created opportunities of horizontal participation, asserting spaces of democratic experience (2012).

From Information to Action

Is information enough?
Nevertheless, exposure to powerful images does not necessarily guarantee impact and influence, much less civic engagement. We asked Maya what she thought motivated civic action:

MG: External things push you over the edge. A flash-point issue could tip you over to do something different, even if you are that someone that has never been involved in anything. The gang rape in Delhi for example: it has sparked a lot of people who have never been involved and are now pushed to [act]. There are different precipitating factors and that’s why the stories of people: what people do, how they do it and why they do it, matters.

Women protesting in Bangalore after the Delhi gang rape. Photo courtesy of Dawn: http://bit.ly/1cAFLRP

Whether it is ‘external things’, a ‘flash-point issue’ or ‘precipitating factors’; the individual must make a connection between new events and how they affect the current status quo. A set of critical skills must be in place, as well as a desire to participate in civic life. (Brundidge and Rice 2009, as well as Montgomery et al. 2004) Richard Wurman, the american graphic designer, refers to this in his book ‘Information Anxiety’. He posits that there is an ‘ever-widening gap’; a ‘black hole’ between data and knowledge that limits our ability to make sense of information; even if it is vital for our context and survival. “The opportunity is that there is so much information; the catastrophe is that 99 percent of it isn’t meaningful or understandable” (Wurman et. al 2001) How do we reconcile this challenge with Tactical Technology’s mandate? What is the turning point between exposure to information and engagement in civic action?

In this post two issues behind information dissemination have been explored:

The risk of creating homogeneous political discussions by catering only to middle class’ interests; overlooking diversity of political expression in the public discourse.
The need for offline communities to facilitate information dissemination on the ground and mainstream the technical and financial support offered by collectives such as Tactical Technology.

The next question is how info-activism creates the connections between data and information to trigger civic engagement, and on this note, we proceed to analyse the role of the ‘signifier’ in information dissemination on the next post. Part two post will look at the strategy, design and technology behind the symbols and sequences of information, and how these determine the citizen’s perception of its ability to create change.

Access Part 2: Information Design, following this link:

Sources:

Biekart, Kees, and Alan Fowler. "Transforming Activisms 2010+: Exploring Ways and Waves." Development and Change 44, no. 3 (2013): 527-546.
Brundidge, J.S. & Rice, R.E. (2009). Political engagement online: Do the information rich get richer and the like-minded more similar? In Chadwick, A. and Howard, N.H. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics (pp. 144-156). New York: Routledge
Bennett, Winston. "Communicating global activism." Information, Communication & Society 6, no. 2 (2003): 143-168.
Bennett, W. Lance. "Changing citizenship in the digital age." Civic life online: Learning how digital media can engage youth 1 (2008): 1-24.
Dahl, Robert A. Democracy and its Critics. Yale University Press, 1989.
Kathryn Montgomery et al., Youth as E-Citizens: Engaging the Digital Generation. Center for Social Media, 2004. Retrieved February 15, 20
Pleyers, Geoffrey. "Beyond Occupy: Progressive Activists in Europe." Open Democracy: free thinking for the world 2012 (2012): 5pages-8.
Shah, Nishant “Whose Change is it Anyways? Hivos Knowledge Program. April 30, 2013.
Wurman, Richard Saul, Loring Leifer, David Sume, and Karen Whitehouse. Information anxiety 2. Vol. 6000. Indianapolis, IN: Que, 2001.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-information-is-power

Digital Native

nishant — 2015-04-17T10:40:02Z

The end of the year is supposed to be a happy, feel-good space for families, friends, societies and communities to come together and count our blessings. It is the time to look at things that have gone by and look forward to what the New Year will bring.

The article was originally published in the Indian Express on December 22, 2013.

And yet, when I started writing this piece, my horizons seemed to be eclipsed by the amount of violence we have witnessed in the last year, and the inability of our governance systems to deal with them.

Around this time last year, the nation had woken up to the horrors a young woman suffered as a group of men raped her in a moving bus in Delhi. The inhumanity of the crime, her tragic death, and the fact that despite our collective anger and grief, the year has been dotted with violence of a gendered and sexual nature, should be enough to quell any celebrations. What happened to her and then to many other reported and invisible survivors of sexual violence in the country has seen a dramatic transformation of the digital public sphere.

Spurred by anger, frustration and the realisation that we are often the agents of change, people have taken to the streets and the information highway in unprecedented forms. Every reported incident of sexual violence — from the young intern who was molested by a former Supreme Court judge to the now infamous Tehelka case — sparked great ire on Twitter, Facebook, blogs and collaborative user-generated content sites. Hashtags have trended, videos have gone viral. Men and women have bonded together to speak against the increasingly unsafe spaces we seem to inhabit.

Responding to this public demonstration and outrage, we have seen some positive developments from the governments and judiciary systems which are morally, legally and constitutionally bound to look after us. And yet, we are quickly realising that much of this is not enough. While the law takes its course and tries to craft and enforce more efficient regulation to prevent and protect victims of such violent crimes, we have despaired at how it doesn't seem to change things materially.

The digital spaces that we have used to fight, to protest and to call for action, are also where we have shared the frustration at how little material reality has changed. Hashtags on Twitter have gone through life cycles of anger, protest and despair, as the complex structures of archaic laws, slow judiciary processes, prejudiced judges, and a populist politics which is often superficial, take their toll on processes to establish justice, equality and freedom for our societies.

As tweets and Facebook updates have now clearly told us, through testimonies and witness accounts, these questions cannot be understood in isolation. The social media has consistently reminded us that the December 16 gang rape was not just about one woman. It was about the misogynist societies that we are constructing and the fundamental flaws in systems which encourage the idea that men have ownership of the bodies and lives of women in our country. Across the year, through campaigns by online intervention groups like the Blank Noise Project or through note-card viral memes like "I need feminism" have emphasised the need to acknowledge these not as "women's problems" or "exceptional" problems. These are problems that need to be understood in the larger context of human rights, and our rights to life, dignity, equality and freedom enshrined in our Constitution.

And yet, as another year comes to an end, the social media is ablaze at a decision that has marked one of the darkest days in recent judicial history. On December 11, the Supreme Court of India repealed the landmark historical judgement issued by the Delhi High Court that read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises same-sex relationships. Finding this in defiance of our constitutional rights, the well-weighed judgment was celebrated across social media — nationally and globally — for its recognition that the problem of discrimination is never just about one demography or section of the society. As the LGBTQ communities stood in shock, there was something else that happened on social media.

For once, the comments of disbelief, anger and surprise turned into a roar for correcting such a verdict. And it is not only the LGBTQ identified people and activists who are joining this clamour. Straight people, people with families, families with LGBTQ children, are all coming out and finding a common bond of solidarity that works around hashtags and viral sharing of messages. The world of social media has shown how we have learned, that we cannot leave the underprivileged to fight for themselves. Because, if we ignore the discrimination against them, we will have nobody to support us when we are being treated as sub-human and irrelevant in a country that has often done poetic interpretations of what constitutional rights mean.

I started writing this piece with despair. But I slowly realise that maybe there is something to be thankful about this year. That even when our archaic systems of justice are catching up with the accelerated transformations in our lives, the social media does act as a public space where those bound together in their belief for equality and justice can act in solidarity. On Twitter, this fateful day, everybody was queer. And they did not have to identify themselves as men or women, straight, gay or lesbian. Despite our bodies, our differences, our status and practices, we can claim to fight for those whose voices, bodies, lives and loves are being negated in our country. And if you cannot take to the streets to make your support felt, remember that the digital public sphere is active and buzzing. Those in power have no choice but to take into account the collective voice on the internet, which demands and shall build open, fair and equal societies.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-22-2013-nishant-shah-digital-native

Communication	Government to Citizen	Citizen to government
Portal	Aadhar Kiosk	Portal for Public Grievances
Link	http://resident.uidai.net.in/	http://pgportal.gov.in/
Interface