Internet Histories
The RAW programme has been interested in the histories of computing and Internet in India from its very inception. This cluster addresses the making of Internet in India – from questions of communication infrastructures, regulatory practices and formation of expertise, labour and industries of connecting India to the Internet, integration of Internet and computers into the functioning of the public and private sector agencies in India, coming of Internet-based solutions into the human development topics and practices, to early net cultures and netizens in India, roles of Internet in media and device cultures in India, spaces and geographies of Internet in India; and the making of the Indian cyberspace in terms of contents, users, and real/virtual practices. It is also interested in excavating the longer history(ies) of electronic communication in its various forms in India, and locating its implications and remnants in the contemporary experiences of Internet in India.
Projects
- Histories of Internets in India (2008-2011)
Publications
- Rewiring Bodies by Asha Achuthan
- Archive and Access by Rochelle Pinto, Aparna Balachandran, and Abhijit Bhattacharya
- Porn: Law, Video and Technology by Namita Malhotra
- The Last Cultural Mile by Ashish Rajadhyaksha
- Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities by Pratyush Shankar
Recent Posts
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Internet, Society & Space in Indian Cities - A Call for Peer Review
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by
Prasad Krishna
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last modified
Apr 06, 2015 03:52 PM
- Pratyush Shankar's research project on "Internet, Society & Space in Indian Cities" is a part of the Researchers @ Work Programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. His monograph explores the trajectories of transformation and perception of cities in India in context with the rise of Information Technologies for communication and presence of an active digital space.
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Attentional Capital in Online Gaming : The Currency of Survival
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by
Prasad Krishna
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last modified
Apr 03, 2015 10:46 AM
- This blog post by Arun Menon discusses the concepts of production, labour and race in virtual worlds and their influence on the production of attention as a currency. An attempt is made to locate attentional capital, attentional repositories and attention currencies within gaming to examine 'attention currencies and its trade and transactions in virtual worlds. A minimal collection of attention currencies are placed as central and as a pre-requisite for survival in MMOs in much the same way that real currency become a necessity for survival. The approach is to locate attentional capital through different perspectives as well as examine a few concepts around virtual worlds.
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The Attention Economy - A Brief Introduction
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by
Prasad Krishna
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last modified
Apr 03, 2015 10:48 AM
- This post examines attention economy as a brief prelude to a paper and monograph to be published on it. It examines the current theses on attention economy and a few approaches to reading attention economy in gaming besides foregrounding the attention economy and its functions and influence in MMORPGs.
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Re:wiring Bodies: Call for Review
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by
Nishant Shah
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last modified
Apr 03, 2015 10:50 AM
- Dr. Asha Achuthan's research project on "Rewiring Bodies" is a part of the Researchers @ Work Programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. From her vantage position, straddling the disciplines of medicine an Cultural Studies, through a gendered perspective. Dr. Achutan historicises the attitudes, imaginations and policies that have shaped the Science-Technology debates in India, to particularly address the ways in which emergence of Internet Technologies have shaped notions of gender and body in India.
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Rethinking the last mile Problem: A cultural argument
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by
Nishant Shah
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last modified
Apr 03, 2015 10:54 AM
- This research project, by Ashish Rajadhyaksha from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, is mainly a conceptual-archival investigation into India’s history for what has in recent years come to be known as the ‘last mile’ problem. The term itself comes from communication theory, with in turn an ancestry in social anthropology, and concerns itself with (1) identifying the eventual recipient/beneficiary of any communication message, (2) discovering new ways by which messages can be delivered intact, i.e. without either distortion of decay. Exploring the intersection of government policy, technology intervention and the users' expectations, with a specific focus on Internet Technologies and their space in the good governance protocols in India, the project aims at revisiting the last mile problem as one of cultural practices and political contexts in India.
