Centre for Internet and Society

Facebook sees its salvation with its cryptocurrency Libra

nishant — 2019-07-02T03:58:08Z

Facebook’s Libra is designed to take control of our digital lives.

The article by Nishant Shah was published in the Indian Express on June 30, 2019.

In the early days, when we were still discussing the possible implications of building a data-surveillance system like Aadhaar in India, one of the persistent narratives was that in return, Aadhaar will build the infrastructure that gives legal and financial identity to the homeless, underserved, and the unbanked populations of the country. I remember how, at one consultation, Nandan Nilekani had jokingly mentioned that the single entry login framework of Aadhaar is easy to understand as the “Facebook of government services”. There were actual rumours that Aadhaar was seeking to collaborate with Facebook to see if we could log in to the public delivery systems using Facebook’s technical infrastructure.

The probable Aadhaar-Facebook collaboration never happened, but the other idea of Aadhaar enabling mobile payment, financial inclusion through digital outreach, and the possibility of leapfrogging an entire demography into digital transactions, has a different take. Aadhaar did not necessarily build a public infrastructure for banking. However, in establishing a unique identity, it did pave the way for the notorious demonetisation that pushed people into virtual and cashless transactions, and ironically, opening up the Indian market for the Chinese-controlled Paytm app to take over. Paytm is a clear symptom of China’s digital global dominance where TenCents and Alibaba are monopolising the world financial systems by becoming the de facto digital financial delivery systems for the emerging financial inclusion markets.

A little late in the game, but perhaps with a blockchain advantage, Facebook has entered this business of converting unique identification and engagement into a financial service, with the announcement of their new cryptocurrency endeavour, Libra. Much like those early days of Aadhaar, Facebook has positioned Libra as a pro-poor facilitator of financial inclusion for the large user base who are going to be connected to the Internet for the first time. The progressions of its interest in becoming the naturalised platform for all digital activities, as opposed to its presence as a space for sharing cute cat pictures and passive aggressive videos of relationships, is clear.

By launching Libra — the details are still scarce, but it seeks to create its own currency for the next generation, in collaboration with companies like Uber and Visa — Facebook has thrown its hat into a complete Black Mirror control of our digital lives. They want the user to first get connected to the Internet through Internet.org. Next, they want to control the websites that the users can use for free, by making Facebook the default entry point into digital data sharing. They would then collect and sell the data mined from these free services, and target the users to buy and consume using money developed by Libra. It is a fascinating, if not an ominous, cradle-to-grave scenario.

Currently, Facebook, in its humanitarian guise, is putting forth Libra as a .org service that selflessly seeks to transform the lives of financially excluded populations, who, in one fell swoop, would be online, on Facebook, and using Facebook’s currency in one single access point. However, it is clear to see that Libra is not a service for social good — Facebook is converting its advertisement-based exploitation of user data into clear financial goals. Remember, how we darkly used to laugh that data is the new currency? Well, here is Facebook’s Libra proving that data is not just the new currency, it can be the currency.

Facebook’s wealth has entirely been predicated on data as currency and attention as economy. The last few years have been a revelation of how Facebook has capitalised on its data and attention monopoly. In this new step, Facebook is no longer interested in using data to facilitate the financial expansion — with Libra, Facebook is going to become an actual broker of the money that we use. And once we have bought enough of this currency and use it in our everyday transactions, it can never devalue, because if it’s false, the biggest loser will always be the newly banked individual whose first financial identity is not going to be a banking account but Facebook.

In Libra, Facebook sees its salvation. It has long been critiqued that Facebook is facing obsolescence and threat from other social media networks and Libra is yet another way by which Facebook diversifies its portfolio and secures its future by making it the default service for how we live, work, talk, and love.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-june-30-2019-facebook-sees-its-salvation-with-its-cryptocurrency-libra

Digital native: Are You Still Having Fun?

nishant — 2017-05-05T01:37:40Z

Before you accept a fun app into your digital ecosystem, prepare yourself for the data you will be giving away.

Nishant Shah is a professor of new media and the co-founder of The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore. The article was published in the Indian Express on April 17, 2017.

So, I hope, by now, you have figured out who your celebrity lookalike is. Mine, for her sins, is Emma Watson. Now, as you scratch your heads and wonder how a “facial recognition algorithm’”decided that my mug matches with the stunning actor who shall always remain imprinted as Hermione Granger to my Harry Potter- fan-boy self, it is worth wondering how on earth I know this.

If you have been on Facebook the last week or two, you will have noticed that almost all of your friends, as if drawn in a zombie apocalypse, taking this quiz and posting their results. It was a simple enough app — you upload a picture, and then using advanced computer morphing, it shows how your face transitions from yours to the stunning celebrities that we love and worship.

Nothing better on a Monday morning to know that the barely human face you are wearing — a mixture of grump and where-is-my-coffee — actually looks like the photoshopped avatar of a celeb. In many ways, this was a truly progressive app because it refused to look at gender, race, ethnicity, age or any of the other criteria of biometric representation and no matter what super-grouch face you presented, it always matched you with the celebrity you always secretly wanted to look like anyway.

Now, listen! I know that the earnest value of social media is essentially in apps like these. The point of these apps, which are largely just a continuation of the old trash magazine quizzes about self-determination and expression, is that they continue to enthrall, enchant and make our everyday click-and-scroll lives slightly more memorable and enjoyable. However, unlike those old Cosmo and Vogue quizzes which you secretly took to see if you are more a Miranda or a Carrie (I know that is an old reference, but hey, this is an old quiz!), these apps have a more sinister dimension.

When you clicked on that small app, because your friend did so, you did not count on three things. One, that as you nonchalantly clicked on ‘OK’ giving permission to this app to your Facebook profile, you also gave it consent to access your almost entire social media profile. Most of these apps are able to now look at your friends list, your contact list, your messaging history, your photo-gallery, and can access your microphone and camera, to give an answer that is so fake, it can easily masquerade as an elected official.

Second, that you might have taken the test for a moment of childish fantasy and then decided to move on with your life. Except that even if you did not share that post, the results were saved because you gave that app consent to use your uploaded picture in its own advertisement and also gave it authority to show your friends that you were stupid enough to take this test. This also includes your boss on Facebook, who might see what you were doing at 2.44 that afternoon when you were sitting in a serious meeting that was supposed to engulf you. Just like your friend might not have actively shared the first click-bait post but the app posted on their behalf.

And third, you gave this app the permission to not only harvest your Facebook profile for data that it is going to sell to third-party consumers who are curious to know about your location, age, eating habits, cultural preferences, friendship networks, and mood representations so that they can customise advertisements to sell you things that you didn’t know you wanted. In the world of Big Data, a single click-based consent can be the beginning of an avalanche of data mining, where, before you know it, all your correlated data across all your apps – sometimes sensitive data that might even betray your financial and physical safety — can easily be harvested, and all because you wanted to check out a fun app.

Apps pretend to be benign and often are so. However, when you accept an app into your digital ecosystem, it is sometimes useful to be slightly more cautious of what the added value of the app is. And before you say yes, it might also be good to just take a little more caution about what permissions you are granting it, and whether you really want to give away that data for a moment of fun. Facebook and other social media networks will continue to warn you about keeping your information private and safe from strangers. However, they will refuse to remind you that when you are online, your private data is more likely to be harmfully abused and used by apps with celebrity pictures and dancing babies, rather than the friend from school who has already probably put you into a block list.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-april-17-2017-digital-native-are-you-still-having-fun

WikiWars: Programme

nishant — 2010-01-05T17:37:43Z

The programme for Wikiwars, 12th, 13th January - MS Office document

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/uploads/wikiwarsprog

WikiWars: Programme - pdf

nishant — 2010-01-06T10:15:46Z

The WikiWars programme, 12th, 13th January - PDF document P.S. Thanks, A. Kumaran, for making this better formatted copy

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/uploads/wikiwarsprog1

Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report

nishant — 2009-11-12T07:28:45Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnrep1

Digital Natives with a Cause? - Summary of Report

nishant — 2009-11-12T07:34:55Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnsum

Our Internet and the Law

nishant — 2012-03-26T09:28:22Z

Nishant Shah was interviewed by the BBC Channel 5 (Radio) for its Outriders section. Jamillah Knowles reports this through this blog post published by BBC Radio on 24 January 2012.

Hello Outriders!

This week on the podcast we look at some of the problems netizens are facing when it comes to access and sharing online. SOPA, the stop online piracy act and PIPA - protect IP bills have been making headlines from the United States, where the bills were designed and all over the web where protesters showed that they did not want this sort of legislation to be passed.

It's a tricky topic as there are many protesters raising their voices against the laws and there are plenty of people who support these ideas too.

Indian internet

Along with these headlines about legislation in America, there are many other places around the world that are debating how best to manage a population that has an increasing presence on the internet.

In India, a court case is continuing that may affect how social networking websites work. Not in relation to copyright material, but as a reaction to offensive content being spread and shared.

So, what do they mean by offensive content and who are the big names in this case?

Friend of Outriders, Nishant Shah, is the Co-Founder and director of research at the Bangalore based Centre for Internet and Society, he explained the case and more about the effects of a possible outcome.

Friend of Outriders, Nishant Shah, is the Co-Founder and director of research at the Bangalore based Centre for Internet and Society, he explained the case and more about the effects of a possible outcome.

Last week also saw a huge story of the web as content sharing website Megaupload was taken down and the site's owners were charged with copyright violation.

As a response, the loose network of hackers and activists known as Anonymous activated their own take down campaign, targeting the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Upload down

Many users of the MegaUpload site watched countless hours of video posted by other people with accounts on the site, copyright or otherwise, but the shut down does not just mean that people are no longer able to watch videos, it also means that people who had put files on that site, are currently unable to access them.

One such customer is Jay Springett, who is a technology consultant, photographer and musician. I asked him how he came to use the site and if he had heard anything about getting his files back.

Well, we hope that Jay does get his raw files back and I grateful to him for talking to us about his experience - it's good to have a reminder about our information and files online. Take care of what you own and think twice about the reliability of the cloud. Though you may never be in this situation - and we hope this is the case, it's always a very good idea to keep copies of your own files, you never know what might be ahead as the internet changes.

Well, thanks to our guests as ever and of course you too can share your internet adventures or experiments with electrical things. Drop me a line at outriders at bbc dot co dot uk, tweet at me on Twitter where we are @BBC_Outriders or search for Outriders on Facebook and Google+ to add us to your feed.

Until next week!
~ Jamillah

Listen the Podcast here

The original blog post was published by BBC Radio

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-law

Digital Native: Getting through an election made for the social media gaze

nishant — 2019-04-28T04:12:45Z

In the poll season, social media platforms thrive on wounded outrage disguised as politics.

The article by Nishant Shah was published in Indian Express on April 21, 2019.

There is palpable excitement as the most populous democracy in the world goes out to vote. Last election, which saw the saffron sweep, we realised the role of social media platforms in electoral politics. From the controversial selfie by the aspiring Prime Minister flaunting the lotus symbol, that was reported as violating the advertisement rules set by the Election Commission, to the mass mobilisation of ideology-based voters, orchestrated by automated bots and the hashtag brigades of #acchedin, there was no denying that digital strategies are going to form the backend of a robust political campaign.

In a country of hypervisible lynch mobs staged via WhatsApp, polarised hatred exacerbated by armies of trolls, and the fluency with which hate speech has been normalised on the tweetosphere, social media and digital apps are front and centre in this election. People are coming out of voting booths and, even before the exit pollsters catch them, they are making Snapchat videos and “I voted” selfies, clearly identifying the parties they support. The verified social media accounts of leading political parties are doubling down on their poll promises of a communal purge of “infiltrators”, divine curses for the heretic who doesn’t vote for the “party of gods”, and threats of profiling if a community voted for the correct party and subsequent dire consequences. The door-to-door campaigning of the past has obviously been replaced by the tweet-to-tweet mixture of threats, cajoling, and blood lust that seems to set the tone for our current political climate.

At the same time, the manifestos of the two leading coalitions, as well as the affidavits of the people running for office, are under deep public scrutiny. The BJP, in a Freudian blooper, announced itself as working for violence on women, incurring the sarcastic wrath of Twitter. One minister, who has been running through various cabinet positions, including education, was called to task to explain her wide repertoire of unverified degrees that change every voting season. Complaints against suspicious Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have made themselves heard loudly on social-media discussion forums. And lately, the YouTube videos of people allegedly showing the easy removal of the indelible ink from the voting fingers, exploded into public view, jeopardising the integrity of the one-person-one-vote paradigm.

Social media, it would seem, is everywhere. And its ubiquity is ensuring that all stakeholders of the electoral process are performing for the social media gaze. Our leaders are talking in tweet-sized morsels, hoping to get their last messages in. The organisers of the massive process have taken to debunking false claims, providing verified information, and guiding people to their voting processes. The voters are not only wearing their party colours, but also canvassing for their favourite leaders, either through proclamations of patriotism or through emotional messages of voting against hate and discrimination. Voting groups are scrutinising and discussing the party manifestos and also the unexpected alliances coming into being in the quest of reaching the majority mark.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-april-21-2019-nishant-shah-getting-through-an-election-made-for-social-media-gaze

Digital Native: The Dream of the Cyborg

nishant — 2017-02-02T14:56:37Z

We have arrived at hybrid realities, where the technological and the human cannot be separated. The digital future we had once imagined is already here.

The article was published in the Indian Express on January 8, 2017.

The digital is not just in the future, it is the future. If we do a broad overview of where things are, we realise that almost everything we do, own, and are, is touched by digitality. Here are two short thought experiments. Look around you, think about your day, do a quick stocktaking exercise of things that you possess and communicate with, and try and think of one thing that is untouched by the digital. You realise that digital is not just the visible smart screens and computing devices. It works in insidious and networked ways to shape the world as we understand it. From the food we eat, that comes to our supermarkets, accompanied by barcodes that track it to the money that sits in our banks, and is now available only through digital transactions; from your own body that is being probed by digital health care instruments as well as its connectivity with digital objects, to the very idea of nature in the face of simulation models of climate change, we realise very quickly that the digital is now the default context of our life. The scope of digital might be uneven — there might be varying levels of access and literacy — but this is increasingly becoming the beginning point of all our realities.

Let’s do a reverse thought experiment. Look around you again, review the different processes, products and people around you, and try and find something that is purely digital and has no connection with anything that is human, natural or social. You will also arrive quickly to the conclusion that while the digital operates with agency, constructing smart things and cities, and shaping and facilitating our lives in ways that we can’t imagine, the digital is still incredibly human and social. The algorithms that can seem to be independent, still implement human visions. The robots — physical and virtual — that interact with us, are still engaging with and shaping the human factors. The purely technological is as difficult to find as the purely non-technological or natural.

These realisations, quotidian as they are, are indicative that we live hybrid realities, where the technological and the human cannot be separated, and, indeed, it is impossible to extricate one from the other. It is easy to look at the phone in a hand and say that one is a device, the other is a hand. But the device only has meaning once it is in a hand, and the hand that is used to the comfort of that phone feels like it is missing something when the phone is removed. We live fused lives. We are getting enmeshed in visible and invisible digital networks in ways that are unprecedented. The digital future that we had once imagined, is already here.

Despite this cyborg reality, when we think of the future, we continue to make clear and discrete separations between the human and the technological. We imagine new modes of life and living, where we will either have achieved singularity, where the human self could be converted to code and thus transferred to a new body when the biological body gives up. Or, it could be a state where nanotechnological robots will be rushing through our body, cleaning, preserving and saving, making us live forever. We dream of the world being connected through unceasing data streams so that all our devices can speak to each other. This is the imagination of a hyperconnected world, where we live with the Internet of Things.

However, it is good to realise that the Internet of Things is actually the Internet of Everything. It doesn’t mean that everything we see will be connected on the Internet. On the contrary, what it means is that everything that gets connected to the Internet will be considered a thing. One of the biggest challenges that the digital future poses to us, is how to understand our notions of being human. As the digital becomes the default way by which we are identified, stored, sorted, remembered, and kept alive, it becomes important to realise that as we turn digital, we turn into things. The data which was supposed to be a part of us, often becomes something that stands for us, and in some instances, replace us. What emerges with it is a new data reality, where we are represented only by things — data — that is then governed, shaped, and controlled, as a way of governing and forming the human subject. Thus, you don’t need to be killed in person — it can be done merely by deleting your data and identity from all databases, rendering you without support. Similarly, you do not need to be confined, but the data that you leak in all your everyday activities becomes a way by which you can be tracked, so that the entire world becomes your cage where you can be seen. You don’t need to necessarily have human contact, you can just connect using an algorithm, without really knowing whether the thing on the other end is human or not.

As we celebrate the Internet of Things and a future where all things stay connected, it would be important to dwell on what happens to the human being when it also becomes a thing in this connected network.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-express-nishant-shah-january-8-2017-digital-native-the-dream-of-the-cyborg

Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?

nishant — 2015-04-10T09:22:29Z

Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society 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.

Introduction

In the 21^st Century, we have witnessed the simultaneous growth of internet and digital technologies on the one hand, and political protests and mobilisation on the other. Processes of interpersonal relationships, social communication, economic expansion, political protocols and governmental mediation are undergoing a significant transition, across in the world, in developed and emerging Information and Knowledge societies.

The young are often seen as forerunners of these changes because of the pervasive and persistent presence of digital and online technologies in their lives. The “ Digital Natives with a Cause?” is a research inquiry that uncovers the ways in which young people in emerging ICT contexts make strategic use of technologies to bring about change in their immediate environments. Ranging from personal stories of transformation to efforts at collective change, it aims to identify knowledge gaps that existing scholarship, practice and popular discourse around an increasing usage, adoption and integration of digital technologies in processes of social and political change.

Methodology

In 2010-11, three workshops in Taiwan, South Africa and Chile, brought together around 80 people who identified themselves as Digital Natives from Asia, Africa and Latin America, to explore certain key questions that could provide new insight into Digital Natives research, policy and practice. The workshops were accompanied by a ‘Thinkathon’ – a multi-stakeholder summit that initiated conversations between Digital Natives, academic researchers, scholars, practitioners, educators, policy makers and corporate representatives to share learnings on new questions: Is one born digital or does one become a Digital Native? How do we understand our relationship with the idea of a Digital Native? How do Digital Natives redefine ‘change’ and how do they see themselves implementing it? What is the role that technologies play in defining civic action and social movements? What are the relationships that these technology based identities and practices have with existing social movements and political legacies? How do we build new frameworks of sustainable citizen action outside of institutionalisation?

Rationale

One of the knowledge gaps that this book tries to address is the lack of digital natives’ voices in the discourse around them. In the occasions that they are a part of the discourse, they are generally represented by other actors who define the frameworks and decide the issues which are important. Hence, more often than not, most books around digital natives concentrate on similar sounding areas and topics, which might not always resonate with the concerns that digital natives and other stake-holders might be engaged with in their material and discursive practice. The methodology of the workshops was designed keeping this in mind. Instead of asking the digital natives to give their opinion or recount a story about what we felt was important, we began by listening to their articulations about what was at stake for them as e-agents of change. As a result, the usual topics like piracy, privacy, cyber-bullying, sexting etc. which automatically map digital natives discourse, are conspicuously absent from this book. Their absence is not deliberate, but more symptomatic of how these themes that we presumed as important were not of immediate concerns to most of the participants in the workshop who are contributing to the book.

Structure

The conversations, research inquiries, reflections, discussions, interviews, and art practices are consolidated in this four part book which deviates from the mainstream imagination of the young people involved in processes of change. The alternative positions, defined by geo-politics, gender, sexuality, class, education, language, etc. find articulations from people who have been engaged in the practice and discourse of technology mediated change. Each part concentrates on one particular theme that helps bring coherence to a wide spectrum of style and content.

Book 1: To Be: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download here

The first part, To Be, looks at the questions of digital native identities. Are digital natives the same everywhere? What does it mean to call a certain population ‘Digital Natives”? Can we also look at people who are on the fringes – Digital Outcasts, for example? Is it possible to imagine technology-change relationships not only through questions of access and usage but also through personal investments and transformations? The contributions help chart the history, explain the contemporary and give ideas about what the future of technology mediated identities is going to be.

Book 2: To Think: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download here

In the second section, To Think, the contributors engage with new frameworks of understanding the processes, logistics, politics and mechanics of digital natives and causes. Giving fresh perspectives which draw from digital aesthetics, digital natives’ everyday practices, and their own research into the design and mechanics of technology mediated change, the contributors help us re-think the concepts, processes and structures that we have taken for granted. They also nuance the ways in which new frameworks to think about youth, technology and change can be evolved and how they provide new ways of sustaining digital natives and their causes.

Book 3: To Act: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download here

To Act is the third part that concentrates on stories from the ground. While it is important to conceptually engage with digital natives, it is also, necessary to connect it with the real life practices that are reshaping the world. Case-studies, reflections and experiences of people engaged in processes of change, provide a rich empirical data set which is further analysed to look at what it means to be a digital native in emerging information and technology contexts.

Book 4: To Connect : Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Download here

The last section, To Connect, recognises the fact that digital natives do not operate in vacuum. It might be valuable to maintain the distinction between digital natives and immigrants, but this distinction does not mean that there are no relationships between them as actors of change. The section focuses on the digital native ecosystem to look at the complex assemblage of relationships that support and are amplified by these new processes of technologised change.

We see this book as entering into a dialogue with the growing discourse and practice in the field of youth, technology and change. The ambition is to look at the digital (alter)natives as located in the Global South and the potentials for social change and political participation that is embedded in their interactions through and with digital and internet technologies. We hope that the book furthers the idea of a context-based digital native identity and practice, which challenges the otherwise universalist understanding that seems to be the popular operative right now. We see this as the beginning of a knowledge inquiry, rather than an end, and hope that the contributions in the book will incite new discussions, invoke cross-sectorial and disciplinary debates, and consolidate knowledges about digital (alter)natives and how they work in the present to change our futures.

Click here to order your copy. We invite readers to contribute reviews of an essay they found particularly interesting. Contact us: nishant@cis-india.org and fjansen@hivos.nl if you want more information, resources, or dialogues

Nishant Shah

Fieke Jansen

For media coverage and book reviews, read here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook

Book 1: To Be, Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?

nishant — 2015-05-15T12:08:32Z

In this first book of the Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Collection, we concentrate on what it means to be a Digital Native. Within popular scholarship and discourse, it is presumed that digital natives are born digital. Ranging from Mark Prensky’s original conception of the identity which marked all people born after 1980 as Digital Natives to John Palfrey and Urs Gasser’s more nuanced understanding of specific young people in certain parts of the world as ‘Born Digital’, there remains a presumption that the young peoples’ relationship with technology is automatic and natural. In particular, the idea of being ‘born digital’ signifies that there are people who, at a visceral, unlearned level, respond to digital technologies. This idea of being born digital hides the complex mechanics of infrastructure, access, affordability, learning, education, language, gender, etc. that play a significant role in determining who gets to become a digital native and how s/he achieves it. In this book, we explore what it means to be a digital native in emerging information societies. The different contributions in this book posit what it means to be a digital native in different parts of the world. However, none of the contribution accepts the name ‘Digital Native’ as a given. Instead, the different authors demonstrate how there can be no one singular definition of a Digital Native. In fact, they show how, contextualised, historical, socially embedded, politically nuanced understanding of people’s interaction with technology provide a better insight into how one becomes a digital native.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook1

Book 2: To Think: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?

nishant — 2011-09-15T14:35:43Z

We started the Digital Natives with a Cause? Knowledge programme, with a series of questions, which were drawn from popular discourse, research, practice, policy and experiences of people engaging with questions of youth, technology and change. Our ambition was to consolidate existing knowledge and to look at knowledge gaps which can be addressed in order to build new frameworks to understand the role that digital natives see themselves playing in their own understanding and vision of change. This Book 2 To Think, takes up the challenge of constructing new approaches and each essay in this book, through case-studies, analyses and divergent perspectives, offers a novel way of understanding processes of technology mediated citizen-driven change.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook2

Book 3: To Act : Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?

nishant — 2011-09-15T14:40:51Z

In Book 3 of the Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? collective, we enter into dialogue with some of the severest and most heated debates around digital natives and their ability to effect change. To Act collides with the discourse on young people’s ability and role in technology mediated processes of change, heads-on. It deliberates on some very dense questions about how digital natives execute their visions of change using new forms of mobilisation of resources and sharing/production of information.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook3

Book 4: To Connect : Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?

nishant — 2011-09-15T14:47:04Z

In Book 4, To Connect of the Digital (Alter)Natives with a Cause? series, we try to understand digital natives through their environment. Digital natives do not operate in a vacuum, their actions are shaped by the fast changing geo-political landscape, interaction with other actors and the global architecture of technology. In our Digital Natives with a Cause? research, it has become clear that at the heart of all digital natives discourse lies the question of power. Along with power, questions of race, class, gender and socio-economic situation cannot be ignored when talking about digital natives. We found that on one hand digital natives are destabilising existing power structures and challenging the status quo. On the other, the geo-political context in which digital natives live, affect their activities, beliefs and opinions. Then there are actors that can destroy, influence or support digital native activity which give rise to questions of control that resonate within this new generation

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook4

Re:wiring Bodies - Dr. Asha Achuthan

nishant — 2011-09-21T07:23:44Z

First draft of the monograph on "Rewiring Bodies" by Dr. Asha Achutan; format for Microsoft Office users

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/rewiringdoc