Centre for Internet and Society

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Using Social Media for Mobilisation: Discussion with Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin

sachia — 2011-08-20T22:28:42Z

Zainab Bawa reports on the discussion with Peter Griffin and Dina Mehta, hosted at CIS on 19 June 2009, on 'Using Social Media for Mobilisation'.

Iran Elections and the Twitter Revolution …

Memes – how and why do some memes become popular on Twitter?

FaceBook – privacy, community, locality, socializing?

Blogs – once, we thought they would revolutionize the world, but how are blogs now placed vis-à-vis twitter and facebook?

Many questions abound concerning the phenomenon called 'social media', particularly in the wake of the protests taking place in Iran and the ways in which information has reached out to the world about what is going on in the country. The panel discussion on social media, organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) on 19 June 2009, aimed to understand how mobilisations take place through social media and how memes are engineered and spread across communities. We invited Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin to join us as panellists at the event and share their experiences.

Dina and Peter set up the tsunami help blog in December 2004 (http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com) which for the first time demonstrated the importance of social media tools in coordinating local efforts and disseminating information in the region. What caused them to become involved through this medium? Both Dina and Peter used discussion forums and email during the formative years of the internet in India. 'The sheer miracle of chat', as Peter puts it, also allowed them to connect with people. When the tsunami struck, they became nodes through which action was mobilised and information was spread. It still remains to be explored how nodes develop in different circumstances, how spaces of conversations develop and what causes some individuals to enter the space of social media and inhabit them in significant ways, to the extent of becoming nodes for coordination and mobilisation.

So, what is social media? Dina says she does not like the term. But, since it is used so commonly, she follows the tide. For Dina and Peter, social media is a set of tools which can be mobilised for various purposes – for a call to action, response to a crisis, and persuading people to support a cause, among many other things. What is curious however is that the use of social media becomes more marked and prominent during moments of crisis. This observation led one audience member to ask whether social media is mirroring some of the behaviours of mainstream media. Dina pointed out that social media does not exist in opposition to mainstream media – both complement each other. Social media becomes more powerful during moments of crisis due to some of the following factors:

Powerful search functions;
Tools for aggregating content which helps in picking up the noise;
Hash (#) tags which make it easy to search and to connect and contribute to ongoing conversations and mobilizations.

These help to amplify what is going on. Dina also referred to the simplicity of social media tools which enables diverse individuals to participate in their own ways. She cited the recent example of showing solidarity with the Iranian revolutionaries by adding the colour green to one’s Twitter image. 'I only had to click to indicate whether I wanted to show support in this way and a program automatically applied the green colour to my twitter image without my having to do anything. I don’t have to write code to participate in this medium. I can be anyone,' she added.

What is also unique is that unlike newspapers and early television, interactions via social media tend to be two-way. For instance, blogs have made it possible for individuals to become publishers of their own materials whether it is diary-like entries or filter blogging. Moreover, in the case of the protests following the Iran elections, people used their mobile phones to capture images, make videos and post these on the internet for others to see.

Individuals from the audience raised questions about how they and their organisations could use social media tools effectively to raise funds and to communicate their causes/issues to other people. To this, both Dina and Peter suggested that it is important to find the spaces where conversations about issues are already taking place and to participate in them. They also stated that credibility is built over time through acts of giving to different communities that develop around various issues. Dina also emphasised the need to recognise target audiences, identify the mediums they use regularly and accordingly develop strategies concerning the use of social media. If the outreach group is more tuned into radio, it is more effective to reach out to them in this way. Dina mentioned that the mobile phone is a powerful medium that is often neglected because of the publicity that the internet tends to receive. She said that in South East Asian countries, people have better mobile phone connectivity, and often, political activism has taken place by spreading messages through mobile phones. One of the participants questioned the feasibility of moving from an existing yahoogroup to start a new discussion group; to which another audience member responded that it is preferable to stay with existing mediums used rather than to switch. Discussion forums require more participation and if the goal is only to send out announcements, a yahoogroup serves the purpose.

The issue of arm-chair activism was also raised – whether social media is in fact leading people to participate in issues only through clicking ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Peter stated that this is true, but the ease of transmitting information to others enhances the possibility of moving beyond arm-chair activism. 'For instance, I am concerned about eve teasing and harassment of women in public spaces, but I may not have the time to participate in an intervention or gathering on a particular day. However, I forward the email/invitation to my friends who are concerned similarly and they may choose to participate on-site,' he explained.

The lack of connectivity to the internet and therefore to social media was referred to in the discussions. An audience member pointed out that according to a recent study, only 10% of the people in India are connected to the internet. Peter immediately remarked that the figure of 10% translated into 10 million people which is still a large number that can be reached out to. Similarly, it was pointed out that English is still the predominant language of the web and therefore social media can be exclusive. In this respect, the issues are developing technologies for facilitating the use of scripts, the extent to which the masses use languages other than English on the internet and also whether people in fact use the internet and other communication technologies as a means to learn English. In this context, a participant drew our attention to a twitter community of approximately 800 people who tweet regularly in Malayalam.

The discussion brought up some interesting nuanced perspectives on social media that users and novices may not have thought about. Questions still remain about the efficacy of social media, the nature and characteristics of communities that are formed around use of social media, distinctions between networks and communities, etc. Over time, these questions will be answered as usage increases and trends are studied in all their complex aspects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/event-blogs/using-social-media-for-mobilisation-discussion-with-dina-mehta-and-peter-griffin

Using Social Media for Mobilisation

sachia — 2011-04-05T04:33:30Z

Panel discussion with Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin

For some time now, blogs, facebook and other forms of social media have been used extensively for rallying people around an issue or a cause. However, what makes some of these campaigns more successful than others? Does the workability of social media for mobilisation depend on the manner in which information is designed and/or disseminated?

This panel brings together two well-known names from the world of social media, Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin, to explore "meme engineering" and understand what makes some forms of use of social media more effective than others.

Speakers

Dina Mehta is a founder and Managing Director of Mosoci India. She has spent twenty years specializing in qualitative research and ethnography. She is at the forefront of technology trend research in India and works with a global portfolio of companies; including learning journeys, and immersions for innovation teams. She brings her unique perspective to understanding the emerging social aspects of new technology and the impact of new media on youth and mobility. Her work has led her to study the impact of technology in rural markets, follow trend-setting youth in urban settings, dig deep into motivations and possible triggers across a wide range of demographic and psychographic groups, explore and identify underlying value propositions and key drivers/barriers in several categories.

Peter Griffin is a well-known blogger and has been involved with a number of collaborative projects, including the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog (also known as TsunamiHelp), MumbaiHelp, Think Bombay, and the WorldWideHelp group and its associated projects. All of these project have been concerned with bringing together the web and free tools on one hand, and concerned web natives and public goodwill on the other, to assist in disaster relief. Peter is also the co-founder, joint editor and co-moderator of the writing community, Caferati. He is currently associated with a national business magazine in the capacity of editor, special features.

Time and Date

Friday, 19 June, 2009; 6.30-8.00 pm

Venue

Centre for Internet and Society, No. D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers, 14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052

Map

For a map, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/using-social-media-for-mobilisation

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Updated List of Signatories for Letter Supporting WIPO Treaty for the Reading Disabled

sachia — 2011-08-25T08:35:54Z

The list of signatories to a letter in support of the WIPO Treat for the Reading Disabled has been updated.

In November last year, CIS launched a nation wide signature campaign to support the treaty for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled proposed by the World Blind Union to the WIPO. The letter was, at that time, endorsed by 16 organisations in the disability sector throughout the country. The treaty is scheduled to come up again for discussion in a couple of months.

CIS has been carrying on its work of gathering support for the letter. The updated list of signatories is as follows.

Name of Organization	Contact Person
Akhil Bharatiya Drishtiheen Kalyan Sangh	Mr. Ajay M. Joshi
Amulya Sahara	Sh. Ashok Kumar Goyal
Andhjan Kalyan Trust	Mr. Praful N. Vyas
Arushi	Sh.Anil Mudgal
Astha	Ms Radhika M. Alkazi,
Atmajyoti Vikas Samitee	Mrs. Priti Yadav
Blind People's Association (Ahmedabad)	Mr. R.P. Soni
Blind Person's Association (Kolkata)	Mr. Amiyo Biswas
Blind Welfare Council	Sh. Yusuf Kapadiya
Centre For Internet And Society	Sunil Abraham
Devnar Foundation for the Blind	Dr. A. Saibaba Goud
Discipleship Centre	Mr. John A
Farook College	Prof. K. Kuttialikutty
Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya	Ms. Prabha Puran Sharma
Human Development Institute	Ms. R.C. Meena
Indian Association for the Blind	Mr. S.M.A. Jinnah,
Indira Mahila Mandal Hudco New Nandeds	Sh. Nagnath Ramji Kadam
Jamia Millia Islamia	Prof. Zubair Meenal
Janta Adarsh Andh Vidyalaya	Mrs. Kalpana Sharma
Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya	Rajesh Gupta
Jyoti Sroat School	Bertha G. Dkhar
L.V. Prasad Eye Institute	Ms. Beula Christy
Lakshmi Bai College	Dr. Nalini Govind
Maulana Azad Library (Aligarh Muslim University)	Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan
Mitra Jyothi	Ms. Madhu Singhal
Montfort Centre For Education	Mr. Michael Mathew
National Association for the Blind, Delhi
NAB-Phiroze & Noshir Merwanji Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind (Mount Abu)	Sh. Vimal Kumar Dengla
National Association for the Blind (Uttarakhand)	Mr. Shyam Dhanak
National Association for the Blind (Chandigarh)	Sh. Vinod Chadha
National Association for the Blind (H.)	Ms. Shalini Vats Kimta
National Association for the Blind (India)	Sh. Suhas V. Karnik
National Association for the Blind (Jharkhad)	Sh. Ar. Sahay
National Association for the Blind (Junagad)	Ms. Rinaben V. Jasani
National Association for the Blind (Karnataka),	(Mrs.) Saroja Ramachandra
National Association for the Blind (Kerala)	Sh. Manoj Kurian
National Association for the Blind (Sikkim Branch)	Mr. Rajesh Verma
National Association for the Blind(WestBengal)	Sh. Arup Chakroborty
National Federation of the Blind (Guwahati)	Mohd. Imran Ali
North Ex. Blind Welfare & Educational Society	Sh. Subhash Garg
Orissa Association for the Blind	Sh. Bihari Nayak
Rajasthan Netraheen Kalyan Sangh	Sh. Jitendra Bhargava
Ramakrishna Mission Blind Boys' Academy	Sh. Sunilbaran Pattanayak
Saksham	Ms. Deepika Sood
Salwan Public School	Mrs. Vandana Puri
Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled	Sh. Ganesh
Samrita Trust	Sh. Seetarama Sastry Nori
School for the Deaf Mutes Society	Dr. Homiyar Mobedji
Score Foundation,	George Abraham
Shikshit Yuva Sewa Samiti Basti	Mr. Gopal Krishna Agarwal
Shree Andhjan Vividhlaxi Talim Kendra	Sh. Prakash Mankodi
Shri Navchetan Andhjan Mandal	Sh. Himanshu Sampura
Shri Venkateswara College	Ayesha Maliwal
Shri Vrajlal Durlabhji Parekh Andh Mahila Vikas Grah	Sh. P.J. Mankodi
Shruti Information Centre of Yashoda Charitable Trust	Ms. Sonal Sena
Shubham	Dr. Sangeeta Agarwal
Springdales School	Ms. Sonali Bose
St. Mary's School
Tagore International School	Ms. Aparna Sharma
The Blind Relief Association (Delhi)	Sh. Kailash Chandra Pande
University of Hyderabad	Dr. Madhireddy Anjaneyulu
Venu Eye Institute & Research Centre	Ms. Tanuja Joshi
Victoria Memorial School for the Blind	Mrs. Radha Subrahmanian
Welfare Centre For Visually Handicapped	Mr. Profulla Kumar Rout
Welfare Society for the Blind	Smt. Jharna Sur
Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC)	Dr. Sam Taraporevala

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/signatory-list

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sachia — 2009-02-04T14:29:58Z

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The Project Vidya Story: 'Study Locally, Learn Globally'

sachia — 2011-08-04T04:41:42Z

This is first of a series of blog entries by Ajay Narendran, the architect of Vidya and former Content Manager and Webmaster, Amrita University, guest blogging on the CIS website. His blog series will attempt to capture the experience of building an intranet archive at Amrita University, Coimbatore.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/study-locally-learn-globally-the-project-vidya-story

The Internet and Illusions of Space and Liberty

sachia — 2011-04-05T04:40:05Z

Talk by Kiran Sahi

The Centre for Internet and Society invites you to a talk by Kiran Sahi on 'The Internet and Illusions of Space and Liberty'. Kiran will use this talk as an opportunity to look at the parallels that can be drawn between the spatial elements of the mind, corporal physical space, and the virtual domains of the internet. Reflecting on the roles of these parallel domains, we can discuss how dissident elements within society, traditionally found in geographical wildernesses, have found new opportunities for freedom in the realms of the internet. The talk will also explore the idea of the internet as a heterotopia, a safe space for displaced realities, and the pressures which make it adopt a panoptic structure.

Speaker

Kiran Sahi is is a designer and educator working from his home in a village north of Bangalore. His work involves presenting and interpreting the changing socio-political geography of his locality for teachers and students visiting from international academic institutions and education authorities. He also advises on local education development projects. Kiran works as a consultant design faculty, teaching materials and sculptural design, and runs a ceramic studio that produces large scale ceramic murals for public spaces. His previous work has involved exploring cultural narratives and their visual representations. He has been interested in exploring the possibilities of a collaborative community based business involving professional designers and local craftsmen.

Time and Date

Saturday, 7 March, 2009; 5.00-6.30 pm

Venue

Centre for Internet and Society, No. D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers, 14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052

Map

For a map, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/the-internet-and-illusions-of-space-and-liberty

The Dark Fibre Files: 'Steal This Film' and the Pirate Bay Trial

sachia — 2011-08-04T04:41:57Z

In this posting, the fifth blog entry on the making of the film 'Dark Fibre' by Jamie King and Peter Mann, Siddharth Chadha discusses the Swedish trial of the Pirate Bay, which brought up some of the debates on intellectual property rights and piracy that were highlighted in 'Steal This Film'.

In August 2006, Jamie King shot Part I of 'Steal This Film' in Sweden, combining found material, propoganda-like slogans and Vox Pops, along with accounts from members of the Pirate Bay, Piratbryan and the Pirate Party. The film critiques the alleged regulatory capture attempt performed by the Hollywood film lobby in order to leverage economic sanctions by the United States government on Sweden through the WTO. The film interviews the Pirate Bay Members Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Peter Sunde and Piratbryan members Rasmus Fleischer, Johan and Sara Anderson, who recount the search and seizure raid conducted by the Swedish police, with the purpose of disrupting the Pirate Bay's BitTorrent tracker. This raid, according to the Pirate Bay members, was against the Swedish law and conducted under pressure from the Motion Pictures Association of America. The documentary was officially released on filesharing networks on 28 December 2007 and, according to the filmmakers, downloaded 150,000 times in the first three days of distribution. The Pirate Bay encouraged the downloading of 'Steal This Film II', announcing the film's release on its blog. 'Steal This Film II' was also screened by the Pirate Cinema, Copenhagen, in January 2008.

In the post-Napster era of peer to peer networks, the Pirate Bay case has been the media highlight on file sharing. After the police raided 12 different premises in May 2006, confiscating 186 servers and causing the torrent tracker to shut down for three days, the Pirate Bay re-opened to double the number of visitors, as its popularity got a shot in the arm with the extensive media coverage. While the MPAA termed the raids as extremely succesful, the Pirate Bay, which restored its servers in three days, thought otherwise. After a preliminary investigation and interrogation by the police, a four thousand page report was prepared by the prosecutor, in preperation of a trial. The Swedish prosecutors filled charges in January 2008 against four individuals they associated with The Pirate Bay for 'promoting other people's infringement of copyright laws'.

The Swedish prosecution raised a furore in the world of Intellectual Property by suing The Pirate Bay. While the prosecutors contended that millions of people get access to copyrighted materials such as movies, songs, and software programs, which can be downloaded for free by going to The Pirate Bay site, the contentious issue lies in the fact that the Pirate Bay itself does not host any files. Just as Google is an index of links, The Pirate Bay is an index of where those files are located. The original files are located across millions of computers around the world, which may only have a small fragment of the original file, and which share these fragments using BitTorrent. According to CableLabs, an organisation of the North American cable industry, BitTorrent represents 18% of all Broadband traffic. Apart from suing The Pirate Bay, the major Hollywood studios have also tried pressure tactics to contain copyright infringement. HBO in 2005, for example, poisoned torrents of its 'Rome' TV show by providing bad chunks of data to clients. It also sent cease and desist letters to the Internet Service Providers of BitTorrent users. The increased pressure from the Hollywood lobby and persistent lawsuits have resulted in the shutdown of various BitTorrent indexing sites, such as the Supernova.org, Torrentspy, LokiTorrent, Demonoid, Oink.cd and EliteTorrents.org.

The Pirate Bay Trial started on 16th Feburary 2009, with defense lawer Per E. Samuelson, arguing that it is legal to offer a service that can be used both legally and illegally, under the Swedish Law. He compared the Pirate Bay services to making cars that can be driven faster than the speed limit. On the second day of the trial, the prosecution dropped half of the charges against the Pirate Bay, due to shortcomings in evidence. Prosecutor Hakan Roswall dropped all charges related to 'assisting copyright infringement', leaving 'assisting making available' as the remaining charge. The next day of the trial saw an argument by the defense attorney Per Samuelson, which was latter dubbed as the King Kong defense, popularised by the blogs, file sharing news feeds and the media. The defense stated:

EU directive 2000/31/EC says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer. But the admins of the Pirate Bay don’t initiate transfers. It’s the users that do and they are physically identifiable people. They call themselves names like King Kong... According to legal procedure, the accusations must be against an individual and there must be a close tie between the perpetrators of a crime and those who are assisting. This tie has not been shown. The prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia...

The remaining six days of the trial saw questioning of the accused, witness depositions by plaintiffs and conflicting academic research by experts, as the prosecution tried to show that the Pirate Bay was an immensely profitable business that made money by helping others infringe copyright laws. The four operators of the site, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom, were convicted by Stockholm district court on 17 April 2009 and sentenced to one year in jail each and a total of 30 million SEK (approximately 3.5 million USD, 2.7 million EUR) in fines and damages. In its verdict the court stated that 'responsibility for assistance can strike someone who has only insignificantly assisted in the principal crime'.

Even while filming of 'Dark Fibre' was on here in Bangalore, Jamie and his crew were filming outside the courtroom in Stockholm, as the the subjects of 'Steal This Film' went on trial and were convicted. The convicted are now preparing to appeal against the sentence and the fine in the higher Swedish court.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-dark-fibre-files-steal-this-film-and-the-pirate-bay-trial

The 'Dark Fibre' Files: The Grey Market Deficit

sachia — 2011-08-04T04:41:47Z

In this, the third entry in his series discussing the making of 'Dark Fibre' by Jamie King and Peter Mann, Siddharth Chadha gives an overview of piracy in the pay TV industry.

Television emerged as one of the biggest gainers in a post-liberalisation India during the '90s. From 41 television sets and one channel in 1962, the country has come a long way, with over 130 million homes with televison. Cable TV has spurred an unprecedented revolution for the entertainment and advertising industry. As a country where more than half the population lives on a daily income of less than USD 1 but swears by its Indian Premier League, India has also emerged as the Asian giant in pay TV piracy. The Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia, in a pan-Asia survey, pegged the net loss of revenue to the television industry due to pay TV piracy at USD 1.1 Billion in 2008. In its annual report published last year, it estimates that over 21.64 million cable TV homes went unreported, either on account of theft or leakage by local cable operators. This is almost one-fouth of the 8.5 million existing cable TV connections across the country. The report also suggests that 65 percent of the total loss of USD 1.76 Billion due to cable TV piracy in Asia comes from India alone, followed by Thailand at USD 180 Million.

According to Shashi Kumar, the General Manager of Hathway Cable TV Private Limited, a Multi Service Operator, 'All cable operators report only 10-15 percent of their total subscriber base. Obviously, the piracy figures in this industry will be very high.' A cable operator in Bangalore, on the condition of being anonymous, discloses, 'We are providing cable TV connections to over 800 homes. But we declare only 250, because that is the minimum number of connections that the MSO wants. There are not enough margins in the business to sustain accurate reporting.' The average cost of setting up a cable operation now runs into crores of rupees and the business is not lucrative if it is entirely clean. The average price for a digital cable connection charged by an MSO to the local cablewallah is between Rs. 180-200, the charge to the end consumer is Rs. 250 per connection per month. This does not seem to spell profit for the cable operators. 'An amplifier alone costs Rs. 3500 per unit and serves about 20 homes. The cost of the RJ6 cable is Rs. 4300 a bundle. How can we be expected to do business on a profit margin of Rs. 50 per month? If the margins were higher, perhaps operators would not leak connections,' adds the cable operator.

While Multi Service Operators seem to be fed up of the situation, there is not much they can do about it. 'There are already 5-6 national level MSOs. And then there are new entrants into the market every month. Despite knowing that the cable operators are under-reporting connections, we continue to work on minimum level subscriptions because the market is extremely competitive. If we take action against a cable operator, we would lose out on whatever business we have to a new player,' adds Shashi, while describing the operations of their company.

The industry is now looking at growth in the number of Direct To Home subscribers as a deterrent to piracy. Estimates suggest that by 2015, over 40 percent of subscribers in the pay TV universe is likely to comprise DTH owners, up from the current five percent. Frightened of repeated instances of signal piracy on their networks, broadcasters are now investing in signal encryption technology, to ward of the pirates. However, till DTH television becomes the norm rather than the exception, one can expect more tussles between the broadcasters, Multi Service Operators, regulators and cablewallahs, in the world of pay TV piracy.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-dark-fibre-files-the-grey-market-deficit