Centre for Internet and Society

Life in the City Slums

pardvaanoli — 2012-04-04T10:57:21Z

Name(s): E.James Rajasekaran
Location: Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India
Age: 53
Profession: Social Worker

Video Genre: Documentary

Interview

What do you understand by the term Digital Native?
The term Digital Native is meant for users of digital equipment. Nowadays, even the common man utilizes digital devices in his daily life.
In this sense, I consider myself a digital native.

There is a perception that the digital native is typically a Young, White, Male from the Global North (America), plugged in to his
gadgets and apathetic to causes. Would you agree?
I cannot agree with this perception. People who are connected to gadgets have their own concerns on issues around them and if there is a chance to participate, the youngsters will participate. That’s how we saw the youth participate in Anna Hazare’s campaign against corruption in India.

Activism has changed in the last decade. Hunger strikes and sloganeering are exceptions to the rule. How effective are digital activism campaigns in raising awareness about an issue?
I don’t think activism has changed all that much as we still march on the streets holding placards and utilize hunger strikes effectively to protest. Of course, digital activism campaigns can be a supportive mechanism in our protest to mobilize mass support.

Are digital natives taking the easy way out with what critics refer to as ‘clicktivism’?
Sharing online is used as a tool for mobilizing mass support. However, it is also important to follow the matter in action on the field.

Are we seeing a trend where digital natives are more involved with local causes than with global issues?
I would say we are more interested in global issues than local situations. However, an issue always starts at the local level before it turns global. Unless the campaign has local importance it cannot achieve its goal.

Comment on the role of ICT in citizen action
Scientific progress has made it possible to use ICT tools for the development of society. It is in our hands to use these tools in a positive way to effect change.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/life-in-the-city-slums

Connecting Souls, Bridging Dreams

judeebendiola — 2012-04-04T10:08:19Z

I come from a third world country where technology seemed hard to reach in the 90s, especially by the not-so-privileged. As we progressed, technology has not only become ubiquitous (in malls, institutions and companies) but also, it has come to be used by the common man. My video will answer how technology bridges the gap between dreams and reality.

Video Genre: Documentary and live action

Marie Jude Bendiola

Location: Singapore

Age: 24

Profession: Marketing Executive

I'm an actor, writer, host, marketing executive, journalist, researcher, dancer, soon to be singer, producer,newbie in modelling, traveller, philanthropist, traveller, daughter, sister, friend,a proud Filipino, son of God, and a student of life. Be my... Friend on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/judeebendiola Follower on Twitter:https://twitter.com/#!/judeebendiola Audience in Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/judeebee?feature=guide Fan in Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/112398447067099126396/

Interview

What do you understand by the term Digital Native? Do you consider yourself one? Do you think you need to belong to a particular socio-economic-geographical background to be considered a Digital Native?
For me, Digital Native means being equipped most of the time with gadgets that we have nowadays. The idea pertains to the usage of these gadgets to alleviate day to day activities or for mere pleasure. I can say that I am a Digital Native because from the moment I wake up, go to work, eat or rest I usually have a gadget in my hand. Being a Digital native doesn’t entail belonging to upper class of the society. In Philippines, most citizens own a cell phone or television. Government and private institutions bring mobile libraries or computers to depressed areas so they can be empowered by technology. One of the primary requirements of being a digital native is not your political, regional, societal or even physical status but instead it requires a level of openness or acceptance to the new technology that’s in your hands. I think the issue is how you plan to utilize this gadget to help yourself in your daily life, and how responsible you are in carrying out their functions for the promotion of the common good which may not be detrimental to others. If you’re an open and responsible user of technology then I think you are worthy to be called a Digital Native.

How effective are digital activism campaigns in raising awareness about an issue?
The online platform is an instrument for freedom of expression. Just like any protests on the street, technology provides a bigger arena to anyone to fight for their rights. But I would also add that though it is good to state what you believe in and what you’re supporting online, we should also be more responsible as users of technology. As long as we still respect others and there are no derogatory statements that may harm others, social media platforms have been useful in many ways.

A recent example of online activism is the ‘Get Kony 2012’ video campaign created by US-based NGO Invisible Children. What are your thoughts on the campaign?
It’s heart-breaking but at the same time empowering. The video compares life in a developed country with that of a developing one and exposes what is happening in Uganda. It effectively motivates us to do something good, now.

Are we seeing a trend where digital natives are more involved with local causes than with global, larger issues that don’t immediately impact their lives?
I think the use of technology empowers everyone from high officials to ordinary individuals to push their cause, stand for their rights and make this world a better place. Any local cause from a community which is posted online is no longer just a local cause but can transform into an issue that has global resonance. Somewhere in the world, other places might be experiencing the very issue that a small community is trying to highlight, so social media platforms help project a local cause into a global one. It makes our world closer so that everyone can lend a helping hand no matter how many miles we are all apart.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/connecting-souls-bridging-dreams

The Philosophy of Black & White

gathejoe — 2012-02-17T05:27:47Z

Name: Joseph Gathecha
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Age: 27
Profession: Reporter

Black and White is a colour combination for the layman, but intensely they may be used in multiple ways or forms: as signs and symbols, as animations, decorations, and to convey myths, beliefs, taboos and many other concepts. Kibera’s slum, in the surburb of Nairobi, Kenya, is the perfect place to showcase this contrast of extremes and how digital technology is a thread connecting what I want to convey.

Video Genre

Film

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/the-philosophy-of-black-white

To Act or to Watch

guerassimova.lyuba — 2012-02-17T05:18:13Z

I want to explore the border between the urge to act and the collective irresponsibility created by online media. In initial stages of the spread of digital communication methods, they can empower, and if used smartly, they can create changes even in the more digitalized communities/countries. However, there is a big 'but': collective irresponsibility - the potential for change has in many societies become diffused into pointless social networking, which creates only passive supporters for a cause but does not lead to any positive action. I want to look at the choices we have to make and how we can learn from communities that are not so digitized in order to 'remember' where our power for change lies.

Video Genre: Documentary / film

Lyuba Guerassimova

Location
Bulgaria

Age
25

Profession
Student

Bio

Hi there! I am a 25 year old student from Bulgaria and my video has been inspired from all the revolutions happening around us and how their success or failure is attributed to Facebook, Twitter, etc. However, I have remained very skeptical, even more so when it comes to my country and online campaigns - the public has been relying on the Internet as a method of self expression but has forgotten how to act. As a result, from 10 000 supporters online, only 50 show up for a protest. It is inspired by the overall theme of Book 3 of the Digital AlterNatives with a Cause (published by Centre for Internet & Society and HIVOS) and the essay stories where communities are empowered by technology.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/to-act-or-to-watch

Video Proposals: Top 14

praskrishna — 2013-09-09T01:11:40Z

Here are the ideas from our 14 digital native video contest finalists. Videos will soon be online! Voting begins from 10 March.

Joseph Francis

A young man gets ready to start his day: switching on his cable box, checking his Blackberry, listening to music, and microwaving his food. As he leaves, he turns on his iPod and sends a text message via his cell phone. Waiting for the train, he responds to emails and posts to Facebook. He sends a tweet and then gets to work. All day answering emails and phone calls while staring at a computer screen. Finally he ends his work day only to stare at a digital screen for train arrivals. Inside the train, he once again begins sending messages and tweets. Once he gets to his destination, he is told by an attractive woman to “unplug” and be with her. The End. Credits roll.

Marie Jude Bendiola

I come from a third world country where technology seemed to be hard to reach back in the 90s; especially by the not-so-privileged. As we progressed, technology has not only become ubiquitous (in malls, various institutions and technological hubs) but also, it has come to be used by the common man. My video will answer how technology bridges the gap between dreams and reality. It will be a fusion of documentary and re-enactment of real life events and dramas.

Cijo Abraham Mani

I want to convey the power of digital media by showcasing the reach of social media with specific examples from a tweet-a-thon panel discussion and #bloodaid tweets.

TJ K.M.

My video explores the spiritual aspect of digital technology and how rather than getting in the way of our spiritual expression, it is actually bringing us face to face with it, if only we choose to look. The video will be a mixture of live action and stop motion animation/puppetry where digital devices take on a transcendent character similar to nature spirits in various cultures. I plan to investigate the tendency to exclude digital devices and technology from being categorized alongside nature as if it is somehow exempt from or superior to this category. Using symbolism and motifs from various cultures such as the Native American Hopi, Balinese Hinduism and Japanese Shintoism, my video will create a world where the technology we use daily is viewed not just as a means for socio-cultural exchange and communication but is available for the nurturing of our souls if we so choose.

Mike Hickey

My video proposal would be centered on my involvement in the electronic music scene. Over the last couple of years, I have gained a large following across numerous platforms, including YouTube and Facebook that puts me as one of the top promoters of this genre. I am an admin on several Facebook pages that total around 200,000 fans combined. I am a very influential in the music I post and help shape this music scene to what it is.

Thomas Burks

We have a small production company in Birmingham, Alabama. I was hired on a year ago to do film and commercials for them as they expand into advertising and video coverage of events. We only have about 3 employees including myself, working out of our homes. We recently acquired a space to open a studio and retail location downtown where we live. We use Facebook, blogs, and viral marketing all the time to get our name out there. Our account executive is constantly monitoring our Facebook for client orders and bookings. We are beginning to use twitter to provide information more fluidly to people. We believe this might be a year of growth for our small company, as we are becoming able to provide much higher quality content. We're fully digital; constantly updating our websites and blogs, and I believe we would be able to tell a great digital story. We submit numerous small films and skits; we cover awesome concerts, and rely so heavily on the digital world to show our content. That will be the gist of our video.

John Musila

Map Kibera Trust is an organization based in Kenya’s Kibera slums. Using digital gadgets and technology, they have transformed the community by placing it on the map as it was only seen as forest when viewed on a map. They also film stories around the community and share them with the world on their YouTube channel and other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Through this they have been able to highlight and raise awareness about the challenges the community faces. Our video would show Kibera’s role in bringing about change.

Andrés Felipe Arias Palma

I think many people are digital natives unknowingly. Being a digital native is a relationship with activism and society, not as they initially thought. It was a condition of being born in specific times and external factors. In the video, I will interview people about who and what is a digital native? How to use the Internet? What are the advantages and disadvantages for society where everything is run with the power of the Internet?

Joseph Gathecha

Martin Potter

Over a period of nearly four years, moving across small towns in Australia and South East Asia, I have seen the most extraordinary innovations at a local community level. My video will focus on these local stories with global impact. I am pursuing a PhD in participatory media and this will lend a uniquely academic perspective on the concept of collaboration, community life and innovation.

E. James Rajasekaran

I live in the temple town of Madurai in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. I am a social worker and the plight of people living in slims is something that my NGO is closely associated with. My video will bring out the efforts of the people who live in the slums of Madurai.

Anand Jha

Bangalore is home to a lot of technology start-ups. A lot of geeks, who find it limiting to work for corporations, are driving a very open source-oriented, frugally-built and extremely demanding culture. While their products are standing at the bleeding edge of technology, their personal lives too are constantly driven on the edge, every launch being a make or break day for them. The project would aim at capturing their stories, their frustration and motivation, looking at the possibilities of Indian software scene moving beyond the services and back-end office culture into a more risk prone but more passionate business of technology.

MJ

As a digital native living in a developing country l have carried out a series of both online and offline projects which have always strived to benefit Zimbabweans in a number of ways since 2000. These projects have increased my interactions with computers. I got married to the computer in 2000 when I bought my first PC; in a way, my relationship with a computer is now intimate. Even though this computer I bought was an old 386 machine made obsolete by faster Pentium III models, this did not affect my love for this computer. My video will focus on a dream-waking reality moment of my digital life.

Test User

I am a test user from the future

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/video-proposals

Journey to and from Digital

joseph.francis1218 — 2012-03-14T08:38:30Z

Video Genre: Film

Joseph Francis

Location: Brooklyn, NY United States
Age: 31
Profession: Film Producer/Director

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/journey-to-and-from-digital

Essay Review: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause

praskrishna — 2012-02-10T05:53:30Z

Hivos and the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) are pleased to announce the monthly essay review event. It starts from the midnight of February 17 and ends on the midnight of February 26. Hurry! Pick any essay from the four book collective of Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? and send us your reviews.

Hivos and CIS have consolidated their three year knowledge inquiry into the field of youth, technology and change in a four book collective “Digital AlterNatives with a cause?”.

This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen, asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and practice around 'digital revolutions' in a post MENA (Middle East - North Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging contexts from the Global South.

The event invites readers from around the world to pick any one essay from the books and review it in the week of 17-26 February 2012.

Previously found reviews can be found here.

For submission guidelines, please get in touch with: Nilofar Ansher (nilofar.ansh@gmail.com)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/events/essay-review

Big Stories, Small Towns

martingpotter — 2012-04-04T09:44:13Z

Name(s): Martin Potter
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Age: 37
Profession: Filmmaker

Video Genre: Online Documentary

Interview

Do you identify with the term Digital Native – how do you define it?

Digital Natives use technology as a natural part of their day to day life – socializing, work, communications, and community building. We don't need to be born into an era of technology - these are skills and patterns of use that can be acquired, given the right circumstances. Maybe I am a digital native, who knows.... I don't think you need to belong to a particular economic group, however you do need to belong to a social context that facilitates peer engagement and networking and support, otherwise you may not be able to find something of interest in the technology without support.

Do you agree with the perception that the digital native is typically a “White, American, Young, Geek” apathetic to social causes?

Mostly agree. But the vital, inspiring and connected others who don't fit that description are the ones who seem to define the term - the use of social media to organize in the context of the recent Arab uprisings and the innovation in broad social use of media in developing regions is far more interesting. It seems the exceptions are defining the rules.

Can digital activists from developing nations create an impact through social media and online campaigns?
I'm from Australia (a developed country) where people still live in dire poverty in several areas. I see people in developing contexts (nations) leading the way in re-framing technologies for their use. I strongly believe that all levels of society can potentially participate in a digital world and can begin to address the unlevel playing fields of their societies and our global society.

Do you think traditional forms of activism are now supplemented by digital campaigns? What is your reaction to the “Get Kony 2012” video campaign?

One does not replace the other, but it can serve to enhance and expand the reach of such campaigns (traditional). As for Kony 2012, it’s a very successful social media campaign with a problematic message; a great piece of polemic media, but to what end? Will it achieve its goal? In light of the meltdown of its maker and the questioning of the NGO Invisible Children will this encourage a cynical backlash from the people who invested in it - those that watched, shared and donated?

Are we seeing a trend where digital natives are more involved with local (neighborhood) causes than with global issues?

I think local causes may not have as much involvement. Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone points to a dilution of community at local levels. I think being connected to the world at a distance may lead to local social isolation. We have to focus on engaging with community and the people around us with the new tools, not opt out pretending we're a part of a bigger picture.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/big-stories-small-towns

Alternative Approaches to Social Change

praskrishna — 2012-01-30T06:04:23Z

Review of Maesy Angelina’s essay, "Digital Natives’ Alternative Approach to Social Change", in Digital Alternatives with a Cause Book 2: To Think, pp.64-76 by Nuraini Juliastuti.

Dominant assumptions about social movements need a redefinition. They are not compatible with youth movements, which are mainly operated within the framework of contemporary technology development.

Although being acknowledged as ‘the potential future directions of activism’, the capability of digital-based movements to bring about concrete changes has been in doubt. It has been associated with degrading terms such as ‘slacktivism’ or ‘click activist’. Some scholars consider it a quasi-movement, and argue that it needs to be accompanied with “real” activism.

Each movement calls for a different analytical lens. The source of predicaments of the digital movement opponents revolves around the persistence of focusing on concrete aspects of a movement. Unless we consider the tangible aspects, a proper understanding of a digital movement cannot be realized.

Observations about intangible aspects of a movement will keep a research from clinging to activism with a capital A, and start seeing a gradation in the social movement practices. It is constructive and opens the door to analyses of multi-dimensional movements such as the Blank Noise initiative (India). Drawing on methods of identifying new developments to the field of social movement, Maesy examines some aspects of it: the issue, strategy, site of action, and internal mode of organization.

First, a straightforward summary of Blank Noise. It is a movement to address sexual harassment against women in public spaces in India. Sexual harassment includes staring, catcalls, groping, and is usually disregarded as a one-off, casual incident. It also takes under purview ‘eve teasing’, generally considered soft sexual harassment. Established in 2003, the main workspaces of the collective are a combination of street interventions and online campaigns mediated on social media sites such as blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter.

Blank Noise attempts to subvert populist notions of what activism is within culture. Artistic approaches are regarded not as merely illustrational, but integrated into the methods of drawing attention to sexual harassment.

It chooses not to see things through a simple black and white perspective, but from a more complex view; loose, not rigid, is an instructive term to explain the character of the movement that is held together by two stakeholders: youth and technology.

In the antecedent period—this essay provides little space for it and hence lacks a historical explanation—social movements were carried out by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The keyword ‘society empowerment’ was in application then; embedded within is the idea of power relations. The NGO activists are powerful agencies and therefore have the authority to empower others.

In the case of Blank Noise, it consciously disrupts the mainstream notion of what a social movement entails and at the same time, displays coherencies within the accepted movement’s principles: the collective thus offers alternative approaches. An alternative movement however, is indicative of a classic pattern within the trajectory of social movements - it is a natural occurrence in response to a static state of affairs. Negotiations of the appropriate ways to confront circumstances are accelerating, putting old concepts of voluntarism, political participation, social contribution, and the meaning of being an activist into fragile categorizations. They are all subject to constant reinterpretations.

A new question then arises: as local people acknowledge Blank Noise as an outstanding example of citizen activism in India, does this youth initiative differentiate itself from other youth movements of its kind?

Online spaces formerly built to showcase the profile of movement organizers have now transformed into collaborative workspaces to archive and advocate women’s right movement. Interactivity has permeated through online spaces, replacing the static nature which was earlier associated with activism-related websites. The distance between the initiators and the participants is disappearing. The initiators and the participants are no longer two separate entities and are now joint content producers.

Some literatures characterize a social movement as a form of intellectual intervention. It is the practice of social intervention where the power is arranged in a relatively clear intellectual hierarchy. The dynamics of the action spaces has blurred such a hierarchy. Nonetheless, the question of class is still worth asking.

The issues of the ideologies of technologies being used in a movement, how they are operated, the actors behind them, what discourses are being developed, whose interests do they speak on behalf of, are important matters to be further explored to bring forth a reflection on power dynamics.

An undemanding way to value a social movement is through impact examination. A common way to assess impact is by observing the tangible aspects of the movement or campaign: the number of participants in activities conducted (do men and women participate equally in them?); the number of meetings; the organization’s coverage; public response to the campaign; statistics of crime. It asserts that a significant impact can be achieved through concrete goals and demands.

The question of impact meets its philosophical turn when dealing with a grey issue such as normalization of street sexual violence. The meaning of street sexual violence is hard to pin down. One of the possible ways to cope with it is through a micro-movement. It is a strategy, which aims to create changes at the personal level. The meaning of empowerment is shifting. In the case of Blank Noise, as the author puts it, “they empower people through their experience with the collective”.

Blank Noise differs from other types of movements in their inability to identify the opponent. Or, rather, they live a situation where it is impossible to establish who and what the opponent is. Rather than merely seeing it as a representation of the faltering state, as many scholars usually do, the author sees it as a ‘grey productive gesture’. It directs the course of the movement to a constant dialogue with the meaning of participation. Often unintentionally, it engages in the search of the meaning of what one can contribute to the others, without having the need to incorporate in, or being absorbed into, old society empowerment jargon. It attempts to remake the language of a movement.

But how should an opponent be defined? And how should change be defined? Although indirectly, the discussion on ways of organizing the movement as well as articulating the issue—the uncertainty about their values included, points to the base of the debate on the concept of activism. As each context is walking its own social-technological life path, and the division between the debatable terms ‘quasi-activism’ and ‘real activism’ requires an elaborate explanation, what changes should social movements bring (and how ‘real’ should they be), is still a difficult question to answer.

Changes function both as the foundation and goal of the digital native movement. Much as they indicate hopefulness, changes often turn out to be grim and lead to frustrating facts. As alternative ways of social movements are developing and being performed in various contexts, in particular historical junctures many things remain the same. Instead of progress, a series of setbacks become apparent.

It is as if each new movement’s strategy would bring back the possibilities of reversals and stagnancies, putting causes and choices in question. It is not about the seemingly clear separation between decisiveness and indecisiveness. This is the time when being decisive offers clichéd, predictable acts, which are often twisted into an intense, conservative attitude. This is the time when being indecisive is promisingly progressive and demonstrating the signs of thinking critically. It may seem indefinite, but it provides spaces for resiliency, an important character to develop amid the chaotic situation.

Nuraini Juliastuti is the co-founder of KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (http://kunci.or.id/) established in 1999 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She is currently a PhD student at Universiteit Leiden, Netherlands, focusing on popular music in Southeast Asia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/media-coverage/alternative-approaches-to-social-change-1

Tweet a Review of Digital AlterNatives with a Cause Books

praskrishna — 2012-01-07T14:42:32Z

Essays from 'Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?' books are getting reviewed. We invite everyone to participate in this book review event! Deadline: January 31

Read one essay from the 'Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?' books published by the Centre for Internet & Society and HIVOS.
Download PDFs here.

Post a review on your blog

Tweet the review's link on Twitter using #TweetReview and copy @cis_india

For e.g. "Unpacking the shiny packaging of Digital Natives" Book 2 To Think #TweetReview http://cis-india.org/digital-natives/unpacking-from-shiny-packaging @cis_india
Send us a link to your view

For more details about the event and the essays you want to review, email: nilofar.ansh@gmail.com

Tweet-a-Review is a monthly event organized as part of the 'Digital Natives with a Cause?' project.

Read previous reviews here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/events/tweet-a-review

The Digital Classroom: Social Justice and Pedagogy

nishant — 2015-05-08T12:36:29Z

What happens when we look at the classroom as a space of social justice? What are the ways in which students can be engaged in learning beyond rote memorisation? What innovative methods can be evolved to make students stakeholders in their learning process? These were some of the questions that were thrown up and discussed at the 2 day Faculty Training workshop for participant from colleges included in the Pathways to Higher Education programme, supported by Ford Foundation and collaboratively executed by the Higher Education Innovation and Research Application and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

The workshop focused on 3 chief challenges in contemporary pedagogy and teaching in higher education in India as identified by HEIRA: The need for innovative curricula, challenges to social justice in education, and possibilities offered by the intersection of digital and internet technologies with classroom teaching and evaluation. In the open discussions, the participating faculty members used their multidisciplinary skills and teaching experience to look at possibilities that we might implement in our classrooms to create a more inclusive and participatory environment. The conversations were varied, and through 3 blog entries I want to capture the focus points of the workshop. In this first post, I focus specifically on the changing nature of student engagement with education and innovative ways by which we can learn from the digital platforms of learning and knowledge production and implement certain innovations in pedagogy that might better help create inclusive and just learning environments in the undergraduate classroom in India.

Peer 2 Peer: One of the observations that was made unanimously by all the faculty members was that students respond better, learn faster, engage more deeply with their syllabus when the instructor has a personal rapport with them. Traditionally, the teachers who have established human contact which goes beyond the call of duty are also the teachers that have become catalysts and inspirations for the students. Especially with the digital aesthetics of non-hierarchical information interaction, this has become the call of the day.

Establishing the teacher as a peer within the classroom, rather than the fountainhead of information flow, is an experiment worth conducting. Like on other digital platforms, can we think of the classroom as a space where the interlocutors each bring their life experience and learning to start an information exchange and dialogue that would make them stakeholders in the process of learning? This would mean that the teacher would be a facilitator who builds conditions of knowledge production and dissemination, thus also changing his/her relationship with the idea of curriculum and teaching.

Reciprocal evaluation: It was pointed out that the grade oriented academic system often leads to students disengaging with innovative and meaningful learning practices. With the pressure of completing the curriculum, the students’ instrumental relationship with their classroom learning and the highly conservative structures of higher education that do not offer enough space to experiment with the teaching methods, it often becomes difficult to initiate innovative pedagogic practices. Learning from the differently hierarchised digital spaces, it was suggested that one of the ways by which this could be countered is by introducing reciprocal evaluation patterns which might not directly be associated with the grades but would recognise and appreciate the skills that students bring to their learning.

Inspired by the Badges contest at HASTAC, it was suggested that evaluation has to take into account, more than grades. Different students bring different skills, experiences, personalities and behaviours to bear upon the syllabus. They work individually and in clusters to understand and analyse the curriculum. Recognising these skills and the roles that they play in their learning environments is essential. Getting students to offer different badges to each other as well as to the teachers involved, helps them understand their own learning process and engages them in new ways of learning.

Role based learning: Within the Web 2.0 there is a peculiar condition where individuals are recognised simultaneously as experts and novices. They bring certain knowledges and experiences to the table which make them credible sources of information and analysis in those areas. At the same time, they are often beginner learners in certain other areas and they harness the power of the web to learn. Such a distributed imagination of a student as not equally proficient in all areas, but diversely equipped to deal with different disciplines is missing from our understanding of the higher education classroom.

We discussed the possibility of making the student responsible not only for his/her own learning but also the learning of the peers in the classroom. Making the student aware of what s/he is good at and where s/he is lacking allows them to gain confidence and also realise that everybody has differential strengths and aptitudes. Such a classroom might look different because the students don’t have to be pitched in stressful competition with each other but instead work collaboratively to learn, research and produce knowledge in a nurturing and supportive learning environment.

These initial discussions look at the possibility of innovative classroom teaching that can accommodate for the skills and differences of the students in higher education in India. The conversations opened up the idea that the classroom can be reshaped so that it becomes a more inclusive space where the quality of students’ access to education can be improved. It also ties in with the larger imagination of classrooms as spaces where principles of social justice can be invoked so that students who are disadvantaged in language, learning skills, socio-economic backgrounds, are not just looked at as either ‘beyond help’ or ‘victims of a system’. Instead, it encourages to look at the students as differential learners who need to be made stakeholders in their own processes of learning and education.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/pathways/facultyworkshop

Unpacking Digital Natives from their Shiny Packaging

praskrishna — 2011-12-25T05:04:43Z

The ‘Digital natives’ concept is neither necessarily nor inherently positive, as YiPing Tsou highlights in her article Digital Natives in the Name of a Cause: From "Flash Mob" to "Human Flesh Search". The essay was published in the Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Book 2, To Think. Argyri Panezi reviews the essay.

In this article, the writer supports that China, despite having a plethora of hacker talents, does not conform to the typical paradigm of liberal, usually anti-government, group of digital natives. She explains that the so-called “red hackers” are working hand-in-hand with the dominant ideology, fighting against the enemy abroad while hunting down the enemy within who disrupts the ‘harmony’ (of the nation). Focusing on China’s digital culture, Tsou demonstrates that digital natives, despite what is commonly thought of them as a universal group, can also engage in far from civic-minded activities. The stories of Human Flesh Search as described in the article, gives flesh to this argument.

‘Human Flesh Search’ is a Chinese phenomenon of online crowdsourcing that targets ‘morality violators’ (the modern versions of medieval witches). Most importantly, the punishment meted out to these ‘violators’ is not only harsh (the mob versus an individual) but also reaches beyond cyberspace, affecting the real lives of the one who’s hunted, even affecting the lives of their family. All the examples given, illustrate how this ‘naming-and-shaming’ trend becomes an insidious calling card of the entire hacking society in China.

As Tsou explains, Human Flesh Searches mobilize masses of people online or offline to identify certain violators of ‘morality’ that the community seeks to punish because the ‘crimes’ might not be punishable by the law. Indeed, the Human Flesh Search stories bring in mind B-grade reality shows: as the first story goes, the real identity of a woman staring in a kitten-killing video is discovered and consequently, the woman is attacked both in cyberspace (via email, social media networks) and in real space (her residence, work place). Another story seems more serious, mainly from a political and legal perspective; a student expressing himself in favor of a Korean ruling in a sports game is immediately dealt by the online community as a traitor who has to pay for what he has said online. What seems to follow, within these stories, are blatant violations of privacy and freedom of speech.

What message do the Human Flesh Searches stories convey? What are these stories teaching us? While Internet enthusiasts have connected digital natives with progressive liberal movements, it is also the case that some can be (ab)using the powers of technology, and principally the power of crowd-sourcing, engaging in phenomena that even recap medieval witch-hunt. It is clear that the rationale of the author is not to call for more regulation or censorship online, but rather to point out that technology and the Internet is merely a tool, and as every tool it can have both good and bad uses; a knife might be used safely in a kitchen, it can save lives in the hands of a doctor, and can take lives in the hand of a murderer.

Tsou cleverly alternates between the phrases ‘wisdom of the crowd’, ‘crowd-sourcing’ and ‘irrationality of the crowds’. While the majority can collaborate to get brilliant results, it can also quickly become a tyranny against anything ‘different’, ‘irregular’ or ‘immoral’. Wikipedia is a famous example of the first (a success story of mass collaboration) but also the second (see the editing wars on Wikipedia talk pages).

In all, Tsou effectively reminds us that the aspiring digital stories of peer-to-peer culture and civic empowerment, including technology-mobilized revolutions such as the recent examples in the Middle East and elsewhere, do have a counter side, what the author calls “the dark force of digital natives”. The importance of this realization is immense. Internet romanticism can be at the very least naïve, and at most dangerous as it gives space to the abusers to continue their work using a tool that is wrongly considered solely equalizing, empowering, liberating.

Argyri Panezi, a native of Greece, studied law at the University of Athens and at Harvard Law School (focusing on issues of Internet law and policy), now practicing as an attorney at law in Brussels, Belgium.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/unpacking-from-shiny-packaging

On Natives, Norms and Knowledge

praskrishna — 2011-12-23T04:40:10Z

Philip Ketzel reviews Ben Wagner's essay "Natives, Norms and Knowledge: How Information Technologies Recalibrate Social & Political Power Relations Communications" published in Book 4: To Connect.

Using digital technologies has become so convenient that with the rise of the so called digital revolution arose also the need to reflect it. A very impressive compilation of reflections dealing with the role and impact of the “user” (or digital native, as it is now called) comes in the form of a four book collective called Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? by the Centre for Internet & Society and Hivos. The fourth book features Ben Wagner’s essay Natives, Norms and Knowledge: How Information and Communications Technologies Recalibrate Social and Political Power Relations. It is a text I strongly recommend, especially to those interested in the reasons behind contemporary policies that try to regulate digital activism such as the US SOPA Act.

Wagner starts out by recapitulating the fact that, as any technological progress, the digital revolution has produced profound cultural changes. In order to make these changes more visible and to question their implications, he analyses the ways in which they can be understood as shifts of "sociological, normative and knowledge boundaries" (p. 22).Yet behind every boundary lies a legitimising process setting it up. Hence, Wagner is also interested in the discourses and institutions that legitimise these shifts of boundaries.

So where and how are the boundaries being shifted?

For example, there is the fact that now more people have the power to influence what we call reality or history. Wagner points out that this new power is socially seen less evenly distributed than one would hope. He says "it seems that the existing elite has simply expanded and been complemented by an additional 'digital elite'." (p. 22) Though the old-school elite still holds some aces up their sleeves in order to keep this new 'digital elite', respectively digital natives, under control. This is for instance, according to Wagner, reflected in the ways the media keeps producing and sustaining stereotypes of the unsocial nerd, which makes it possible to easily stigmatise subversive elements such as Mr. Assange.

Analysing the effects of this newly gained power, Wagner looks at the norms set up by digital natives. Instead of pining down a list of certain norms, he has a much better approach by saying:

[T]he tools provided by the internet have unmasked pre-existing norms which were not previously evident. The tools of the internet bring these norms to the surface by allowing for their practise an environment which seems to offer endless opportunities to those connected to it. (p. 24)

So we’re dealing with a new playground on which the digital natives seem to dominate the rule defining process. This makes it problematic for the political system, as its purpose is to keep social order and also to acknowledge, reflect and integrate certain shifts of norms. As an example for such a critical discourse, Wagner refers to the rise of the Pirate Party.

However, this establishment of a new social order is strongly correlated with a re-bordering of knowledge, as Wagner states. On the one hand there are those who seek to open up knowledge borders by for example sharing files, while on the other hand there are those who call for more restrictions because they fear a digital "wild west culture" (p. 26) or a destruction of their position. Both sides have valid points, and Wagner correctly highlights the conflict a society faces when this re-bordering process "takes place outside of realms where it can be contested." (p. 28)

This review is part of the Tweet-a-Review event organized by the ‘Digital Natives with a Cause? Project and is republished here from Philip Ketzel’s blog.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/on-natives-and-norms

Digital Native: Twin Manifestations or Co-Located Hybrids

praskrishna — 2011-12-23T04:36:40Z

Samuel Tettner reviews ‘Digital Natives and the Return of the Local Cause’ from Book 1: To Be. The essay is authored by Anat Ben-David.

Ben-David’s piece is a well-articulated and informed attempt to resolve two of the several conceptual fuzziness of the term “Digital Native”. She attempts this in a philosophical manner: trying to move away from the ontological “who are Digital Natives?” to an epistemological “when and where are Digital Natives?” Her reasoning is that this perceptive change will allow us to unpack the duplicity of a hybrid term and to understand if it refers to a unique phenomenon in the world worth exploring.

To answer the when and the where, Ben-David situates the term into its constituencies: digital and native, contextualizing the words using two approaches; historiographical (when) for the digital and geopolitical (where) for the native.

The digital is semantically pin-pointed in the short but active history of information technology within an activism framework, to use a broad word. The author then places two events side to one: First the 1999 manifestations against World-trade Organization protests in Seattle and then the 2011 Tahir Square protests in Egypt. Are these two phenomena different in nature? Is Tahir Square a more technologically advanced version of Seattle? Are the basic mechanisms the same, albeit with new faces and shinier phones?

Ben-David postulates three reasons for placing the manifestations on a different trajectory. First, “The Internet” of 1999 and “The Internet” of 2011 are distinctively not the same thing. The second is that the demographic constituting the protest are not the same: in 1999 they were mostly Civic Society Organization (CSO) employees and volunteers, while in Tahrir they were mostly civilians and concerned citizens connected through their local networks.

The third concerns the spatial and symbolic nature of the protests. In Seattle, the protests were against large transnational corporations; Seattle was chosen because it hosted the World Trade Organization that year. In Egypt, the protest was directed against local corruption and concerned itself with local governance issues. Tahir Square was chosen because the protests were directly about, of and in Egypt.

Which brings us to the where. The ‘Native’ is used by Ben-David to refer to the ongoing structural shifts towards localized activism campaigns. This change came with the growing realization that transnational activism campaigns that tried to effect change across loosely cohesive cross-sections of the world, tended to lose touch with their points of origin and remain in suspended animation. Local campaigns seem to be more responsive and agile, specially in their ability to enter into dialogues with the needs of local populations. The spontaneity of action, the granular level of the causes, and the lowered threshold of the agents and initiators are some of the aspects Ben-David sees in emergent campaigns, which are critically different from activism campaigns in the past.

Of course, the location and the time intertwine eventually. A growing trend in the development of the digital world has been the localization of frameworks, methodologies and approaches. The author’s use of Richard Roger’s four stages of the evolution of politics about the web is outstanding: It shows us without telling us that the distinction between when and where is purely analytical and that they really are a single entity of the time-space continuum.

Ben-David succeeds in contextualizing both the digital and the native as different sides of the same coin: as two manifestations of the growth and maturation process that technology-mediated activism has been through over the last 10 years. The result is an internally-consistent perspective which sees Digital Natives habituating hybrid-timespaces alongside heterogeneous actors, where the relationship between the local and the global is contingent, transitory, dynamic – and knowledge can be transformed and adapted to fit actors and their causes.

This review is part of the Tweet-a-Review event organized by the ‘Digital Natives with a Cause? Project and is republished here from Samuel Tettner’s blog.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/twin-manifestations

The Digital Other

nishant — 2015-05-14T12:07:42Z

Based on my research on young people in the Global South, I want to explore new ways of thinking about the Digital Native. One of the binaries posited as the Digital ‘Other’ -- ie, a non-Digital Native -- is that of a Digital Immigrant or Settler.

I am not comfortable with these terms and they probably need heavy unpacking if not complete abandonment. Standard caricatures of Digital Others show them as awkward in their new digital ecologies, unable to navigate through this brave new world on their own. They may actually have helped produce digital technology and tools but they are not ‘born digital’ and hence are presumed to always have an outsider’s perspective on the digital world order.

As I’ve interacted with young people in the Global South, one thing suddenly started emerging in dramatic fashion -- that many of the youth working extensively with digital technologies in emerging ICT contexts often shared characteristics of the Digital Other. In countries like India, where the digital realm became accessible and affordable to certain sections of the society as late as 2003, there is a learning curve among youth that does not necessarily match the global thinking on Digital Natives. Even though these young people might be considered Digital Natives, because they are at the center of the digital revolution in their own countries, there is no doubt they are also Digital Others relative to Global North and West conceptions of young people in digital networks.

There is a very popular tweet that was making the rounds recently, which suggested that Digital Natives don’t have an account of the digital just like fish don’t have a theory of water -- they take to the digital as fish take to water. In this analogy lies a very important distinction between Digital Others and Digital Natives. Out of necessity, Digital Others have a relationship of production, control and design with the technologies they work with. They have a critical engagement with technology, as they code, hack, design, and create protocols and digital environments to suit their needs and resources. Digital Natives, on the other hand, have a purely consumption based interaction with the technology they use.

I want to repeat that. The Digital Natives I’ve observed have a purely consumption based interaction with the technologies they use. I know this sounds weird in the face of widespread perceptions that Digital Natives have participatory, engaged, intuitive relationships with technology. We are supposed to be living in prosumer times, where the user on the Infobahn is a consumer and producer of information. But Web 2.0 entities like Facebook have created a business where the user is not just consuming but indeed the user is the consumed. While Facebook and Twitter revolutions are interesting in how users have been able to ‘abuse’ information censorship and create new communities of political protest, we still have to remember that the technologies that supported these revolutions were closed, proprietary, and coercive -- often even putting users in danger.

From my perspective and my research, we have conflated access to information with access to technology, and we have misread this increased access as a sign of intimate relationship with digital technology and the Internet. However, for many youth, media production and information sharing are actually merely forms of consumption.

What is most alarming to me is that the individual’s relationship with original production and design of technology is on the decline. More and more, technology platforms and apps that Digital Natives interact with are closed hardware and software systems. Private corporations produce and shape the tools of interaction, producing seductive interfaces and information engagement choices that make opaque the actual working of the technologies we use. I am concerned that, increasingly, Digital Natives are acting as pure consumers of technology and gadgets, and seem willing to do so.

Banner image credit: World Bank Photo Collection http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/3492673512/

Nishant wrote the original blog post in DML Central. Read it here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/the-digital-other