Centre for Internet and Society

Digital Natives with a Cause? - Workshop in Chile seeks participants

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:50:30Z

The third and final workshop in the Digital Natives with a Cause? research project will take place in Santiago, Chile, from the 8 to 10 February. An open call for participation follows.

As the Internet and digital technologies become more widespread, the world is shrinking: we are constantly connected to our contexts, our people, our cultures and our networks. And you, yes YOU are a part of this change. In fact, as a digital native– someone to whom digital technologies are central to life – you are directly affecting the lives of many, sometimes even without knowing about it.

The Centre for Internet and Society and Hivos in collaboration with Rising Voices is calling out to young users of technology to join a global conversation. The 3-day workshop titled “From Face to Interface” will focus on how youth utilize new platforms, media and spaces of communication and expression in the digital age. If you have used digital technologies to make your voice heard, to express your opinion in creative ways or to create new knowledge online, we want to hear from you. These can be stories where you have used a mobile phone, GPS or PDA to access the Internet and reduce the online-offline divide, stories where you accessed interactive platforms like user-generated content websites, stories where the use of technology has become part of your identity, or stories where you have been part of a collaborative method of research, production, shared learning process, participation network etc.

We invite you to share your perspectives in an informal conversation along people with similar approaches from neighboring communities. The workshop is open to applicants from, in and around Latin America and the Caribbean who are interested in an interactive and engaging dialogue that marks the beginning of the “Digital Natives with a Cause?” research inquiry into the region.

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/dn-workshop-in-chile

Bright lights, geek city

praskrishna — 2011-05-01T02:41:34Z

Bangalore serves as my anchor because this is where the geek is, says Nishant Shah. The news was published in the Hindu on April 28, 2011.

I have spent the last couple of years on the fly, measuring life in cups of coffee consumed in transit at airports, working largely with young people in the Global South about their use of digital technologies for social change and political transformation.

It was interesting to live in non-localised time zones and out of suitcases, treating Bangalore as some sort of a laundermat where I largely came to get fresh clothes. But, in this year, as I spend more time in the city, I have started rediscovering the reason why I came to Bangalore eight years ago and decided to call it home.

I realise now, that despite my geographically distributed lifestyle, Bangalore serves as my anchor because this is where the Geek is! And I use the word ‘geek' not only to refer to the (largely male) technology population of the city, but to the people who, in their own quest for knowledge, have made a supportive, symbiotic and inclusive ecosystem of interventions, interests and interactions.

Over the years, many small and big spaces and organisations, collectives and meet-ups have made the city into a mashup that willingly or unwittingly, is a consequence of the digital technologies which are often held responsible for the ‘ruin and decline' of ‘good old Bangalore'.

Here are my three favourite such spaces: one, the experimental make-shift curatorial space Jagaa that ‘makes things happen' in the crowded topography of Shanthinagar. Over time, I have been a part of a bar-camp on digital archiving, audience to an electronic music remix concert, and learned about Dutch Colonial history at Jagaa, making it the official Geek Centre for those who want to be a part of things as they happen.

Two, the Blank Noise Project (BNP) that has now made substantial interventions in discourse on safety on our streets and gender. Using digital technologies and capital, BNP constantly involves young people in and outside the city to reclaim the public spaces through performances and writing.

Three, Kiran ‘Jace' Jonallagadda, who should be in a travel book for Geeks. Jace started the first bar-camps in Bangalore so that geeks of a feather could flock together. His technology-based, community-based venture called HasGeek is all set to become the only way of capturing the burgeoning tech interest and talent in the city.

I realise, as I write this, that this list of ‘Geeks' Up!' in Bangalore is almost exhaustive. I run through the fun, the excitement and the energy that digital and internet technologies have brought the city and I feel recharged. And I am glad that the Centre for Internet and Society, which I co-founded and work with, is in this city, with all these exciting people, just a click or a corner away.

Read the original news published in the Hindu here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/geek-city

Knowledge Warriors

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:50:07Z

Dieci anni fa, quando Jimmy "Jumbo" Wales lanciò l'idea di una piattaforma della conoscenza partecipativa e plurilingue, di tipo enciclopedico, basata sul web, pochi erano pronti a raccoglierla. L'industria della conoscenza era rigidamente divisa tra chi la produceva, chi la fruiva e chi mediava tra i due gruppi.

Scostarsi da questa struttura sembrava assurdo. Eppure Wikipedia è uno dei siti web più grandi del mondo, con oltre 17 milioni di articoli e 365 milioni di lettori in 262 lingue. Basata sulla semplice idea che la conoscenza sia un patrimonio comunitario piuttosto che individuale, Wikipedia ha invitato chiunque avesse accesso a internet a contribuire a rafforzare le proprie conoscenze attraverso un processo di discussione, costruzione del consenso e collaborazione. A differenza di una normale enciclopedia, forte del suo battaglione di "guerrieri del sapere", Wikipedia si affida ai normali utenti, che utilizzano il potere dell'informazione online per «totalizzare la somma della conoscenza umana».

A un decennio dal suo inizio, la battaglia nata intorno a Wikipedia non si placa. I suoi partigiani esaltano la democratizzazione del sapere e la sfida al regime capitalista dei diritti di proprietà intellettuale che Wikipedia rappresenta. I suoi detrattori, invece, la identificano con nuove concentrazioni di potere, un'ingiusta rappresentazione delle voci alternative e l'appiattimento delle complesse relazioni tra l'umanità e l'informazione. Seguiamo queste guerre-Wiki per vedere quali lezioni possiamo trarne per il futuro del nostro mondo sempre più Wikificato.

01 – stabilire un punto di vista critico

La neutralità del punto di vista (Npv) è uno dei capisaldi teorici attraverso cui Wikipedia garantisce la solidità delle sue informazioni e la governance delle sue comunità. Anziché cercare la "Verità", Wikipedia promuove la "Verificabilità", per cui solo quelle idee che sono già state documentate altrove, e che possono essere addotte come prova, hanno diritto di esistere nel suo universo. Le ricerche originali, le nuove idee, le incursioni artistiche e le risposte emotive non trovano spazio in questo scenario di informazione quasi piatto. La Npv mira a eliminare l'intenzione umana, il desiderio e l'investimento nella conoscenza, a favore di quanto è già documentato. Benché questo si sia dimostrato utile per risolvere dibattiti su argomenti particolarmente delicati o provocatori, non può essere una soluzione sostenibile a lungo termine.

Gli esseri umani non hanno un rapporto neutrale con la conoscenza. Come sostiene appassionatamente il guru della rete Geert Lovink, direttore dell'Institute of Network Cultures di Amsterdam: «La conoscenza, specialmente nella società dell'informazione, è potere e denaro. Wikipedia può professarsi neutrale, ma si tratta di una neutralità costruita e falsa. Cerca di nascondere i complessi meccanismi di potere che alla fine determinano quali tipi di conoscenza sono validi». A dispetto della sua prospettiva di completa inclusione e della sua ambizione, spesso Wikipedia viene definita cabalistica, basata su rituali, priva di una riflessione critica sul suo stesso rapporto con la conoscenza. Occorre riflettere criticamente sugli sforzi di rafforzare la conoscenza umana per individuare criteri che vadano oltre la neutralità e la verificabilità.

02 – superare la saggezza delle masse

Wikipedia resta uno dei più visitati siti a contenuto elaborato dagli utenti a livello mondiale. La sua struttura "Open Wiki" invita diversi attori umani e non umani (i "robot") a collaborare nella produzione e nella documentazione della conoscenza. L'esperimento condotto dalla rivista «Nature», che ha confrontato gli articoli scientifici dell'Enciclopedia Britannica con quelli di Wikipedia, ha evidenziato un livello di accuratezza e un tasso di "errori seri" simili.

Lo scienziato informatico e artista Jaron Lanier, nel libro Tu non sei un gadget, sostiene che il collettivismo online non è la soluzione giusta per documentare il sapere umano a lungo termine. Lanier afferma che l'ethos collettivista alla base di nuovi fenomeni culturali come Wikipedia in realtà riduce la qualità del prodotto finale. Parte dal principio che il design del software di piattaforme del tipo di Wikipedia produce «regole non modificabili» che portano a nuove forme di esclusione. Considera la saggezza delle masse uno strumento che dovrebbe essere usato strategicamente. Lanier contesta a Wikipedia di promuovere «il culto del dilettantismo», che rende le singole voci non essenziali – persino quelle degli esperti – e considera la saggezza collettiva più affidabile che non i tentativi rigorosi di trovare la verità e il significato.

Negli anni a venire bisognerà sottrarre la saggezza delle masse alle piattaforme che condizionano la partecipazione attraverso il design del software e dell'interfaccia. Bisognerà usarla come uno strumento piuttosto che come fine a se stessa.

03 – una svolta verso l'inclusione

Wikipedia, come incarnazione dello zeitgeist Free/Libre/Open Source (Floss), teoricamente abbraccia una cultura di apertura, inclusione e pluralismo. Il suo design tecnologico neutrale, che assicura il diritto di contribuire a chiunque abbia accesso a internet, trascura il fatto che il numero di persone che accedono a internet, globalmente, è molto basso. La mancanza di altre interfacce utilizzabili, tramite cellulari o altre forme di portable computing, fa sì che i contributori restino concentrati in specifiche parti del mondo. Johanna Niesyto, dell'Università di Seigen, nella sua tesi di dottorato afferma: «Il profilo demografico medio di un redattore di Wikipedia è quello di un maschio bianco appassionato di internet con una visione del mondo monoculturale e limitata, basata sulla razionalità occidentale». Le contributrici donne che si sono sentite silenziate dalla cultura tech maschile di Wikipedia hanno già creato spazi alternativi, come Wikichix.org.

Nonostante la sua ricerca di pluralismo, Wikipedia palesemente esclude quei processi, idee, culture e stili di vita che non rientrano nella mentalità razionale occidentale. Rifiuta altre forme di conoscenza tradizionali, effimere e orali. La popolarità di altre enciclopedie collaborative online come Baidu Baike in Cina, testimonia le implicite esclusioni del mondo di Wikipedia.

Perché Wikipedia diventi davvero inclusiva, dovrà dissociarsi dai monolitici standard culturali, morali e politici della civiltà dominante e imparare ad arricchirsi di sfumature, diventando più sensibile e pluralista per facilitare davvero la partecipazione e la diversità, a livello di contenuto, design e governance.

04 – aprirsi alla resistenza

Wikipedia è l'incarnazione del grido di guerra, scaturito dall'euforia tecnologica, per una società aperta che dovrebbe mettere l'individuo in condizioni di sfuggire alla tirannia dello stato e dei mercati. Tuttavia il cyber-realista Evgeny Morozov, dell'Università di Stanford, nel suo ultimo libro, The Net Delusion, afferma che tale cyber-utopia è frutto di «una fede naif nella natura emancipativa della comunicazione online, fondata su un ostinato rifiuto di riconoscere il suo lato negativo».

Nel quadro tracciato da Morozov, il "mainstreaming" di progetti tipo Wikipedia costituisce la fine del vero dibattito pubblico e dell'impegno politico. Con Wikipedia il dissenso è difficile. Qualsiasi intervento che violi le "Condizioni di Servizio" e dunque sfidi i presupposti fondamentali di Wikipedia, viene immediatamente "bannato" o contrastato legalmente.

Il progetto "Wikipedia Art", avviato dagli artisti Nathaniel Stern e Scott Kildall, si è scontrato con un problema simile. È iniziato come voce di Wikipedia supportata da una serie di blog e articoli scritti da un gruppo di collaborazione che appoggiava l'iniziativa. Il progetto artistico intendeva criticare e utilizzare le stesse strutture di autorità che davano autenticità alle voci di Wikipedia. Eppure l'iniziativa è stata rapidamente rimossa, all'inizio dalla comunità e successivamente dalle azioni legali intraprese dalla Fondazione Wikimedia, che gestisce Wikipedia.

Benché Wikipedia sostenga di essere uno spazio che sovverte i processi dominanti, non riesce ad accettare la resistenza e le sfide che muovono dalla più grande sfera digitale. Se vuole aderire alle originarie ideologie di internet, che avrebbe dovuto costruire un mondo di conoscenze libere e aperte, dovrà evolvere con il web, imparando ad accogliere e facilitare tali sovvertimenti.

Wikipedia resta un autentico fenomeno storico che ha cambiato il modo in cui ci confrontiamo con l'informazione e la conoscenza nel quotidiano. Ha contribuito a mettere radicalmente in discussione la logica del tardo capitalismo e della proprietà intellettuale che ha governato l'industria della conoscenza, producendo strutture di esclusione e dominio. Tuttavia, nel celebrare il suo decimo compleanno, è ora di evolvere verso un futuro in cui la Wikificazione del mondo si confronti realisticamente con le necessità di equità, pluralismo e apertura rappresentate da progetti come Wikipedia. (traduzione di Elisa Comito)

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/guerrieri-del-sapere

Information, the world's new capital - Digital Natives

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T07:41:31Z

Information is the new capital and currency of the world, Nishant Shah, of the India-based Digital Natives with a Cause, told Bizcommunity.com yesterday, 10 November 2010, as the three-day workshop on digital and internet technologies that brought together young delegates from nine African countries ended in Johannesburg, South Africa. "If the 20th century was the age of the industrial revolution, the 21st century is now actually the age of the knowledge information," Shah said.

The workshop, hosted in collaboration with the Netherlands-based Hivos Centre for Internet and Society, aimed at analysing how young Africans use the digital tools and platforms at their disposal to create social change in their environments. Delegates came from countries such as South Africa, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Egypt, Uganda, Nigeria and Kenya.

Youth need to be more involved

However, despite the power of this newly-found capital and currency, there is a general impression out there that not everyone is getting access to the information or being part of the discussion of how that information is produced. Fieke Jansen, of Hivos, said research shows most of the young people growing in the south are not being part of the discussion, as policymakers, academics and practitioners act on their behalf, thus influencing their lives.

Jansen said: "We told ourselves we should break this cycle and include them in this discussion, as we strongly believe that there is a need for young people to grow up and intersect with technology in the aim to create social change."

Shah said: "Look, worldwide there is a huge pressure on young people to become economically active. You can see how governments all over the world are putting more resources into pushing populations to get access to the digital.

"Excluding the youth by, for instance trying to censor the internet, could only mean that there is a lack of understanding of how internet works.

"Older people can no longer ignore the youth in this age of digital revolution because exposing young people to digital technology can give them more voice that could help bring change, for example they can get involved in issues such as government accountability and transparency."

Gap between academic, practice

Furthermore, Jansen said research also shows that a huge gap exists between academic and practice, something she said her organisation and its partners were working hard to address. "We need to bridge that gap because academic and practice need each other," she pointed out.

Digital Natives with a Cause, which is based in Bangalore, is a research company specialised in the intersection of internet into society. The two organisations organised another workshop in August this year in Taipei, Taiwan, attended by young delegates from several Asian countries. A third workshop is due to take place in early December in Santiago, Chile's capital city.

It is estimated that the global youth population now stands at 1.2 billion this year, 85% of which live in developing countries.

Jansen said: "There is no limit on what young people can do with digital. And age doesn't matter in technology, it is the way you approach technology that matters."

Youth, agents of change

Shah said nobody can produce change in isolation. "It is time the world saw young people not only as beneficiaries of change, but also as agents of change. So it is time we start listening to them. While the older generation needs to teach the youth, young people also need to tell them if you don't build a new army, society will be in trouble."

The Johannesburg workshop was also made possible with the help of their local partner, South Africa-based The African Commons Project.

Download and read Digital Natives with a Cause? A Report.

For more information, contact the Hivos Centre for Internet and Society at www.hivos.net, the African Commons Project at www.africancommons.org or go to www.digitalnatives.in/africa.

Read the original article here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/information

Native plays

radha — 2012-01-03T11:08:46Z

Online activist groups are helping change perceptions about the internet generation, says Shweta Taneja, Time Out Bengaluru.

In May 2008, Anivar Aravind, a Bangalore-based software consultant, came up with a strategy to petition for the release of Binayak Sen, the human rights activist who had been jailed by the Chhattisgarh government exactly a year before, in May 2007. Sen, who is known for his efforts in defending the rights of tribal and underprivileged people, had been held for alleged unlawful activities, and the detention was declared in breach of international Amnesty laws. Aravind’s ploy, to hasten Sen’s release, was entirely based in the online sphere. He created the website www.binayeksen.net, where he sought to bring together different groups of people protesting against the arrest. “By that time, it had been a year since Sen had been in jail,” said the 26-year-old, “and activists had exhausted all strategies to no avail. The movement needed to be reintroduced imaginatively.”

The website, said Aravind, was a way of using the digital space and creating an information channel to reactivate people towards the cause of freeing Sen. The website’s team went on to populate pages on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, to call for nationwide protests on specific dates. “We even provided posters and updates on local protests to facilitate people getting together,” said Aravind. Two years after the activist’s arrest, the online movement had resulted in over 60 different protest events. Sixteen of these protests were held outside the country, observed by NRIs outside various Indian embassies. On May 25 this year, Sen was released on bail. “It was the combination of mobilisation of audiences on the web and taking that protest offline and onto the streets that worked,” reflected Aravind.

For Nishant Shah, director of research at the city’s Centre for Internet and Society, Aravind is one among a strain of online users who fall under the banner of “digital natives”. “People like Aravind, who claim to live within, on, through and by the internet and digital technologies are [called] digital natives,” explained Shah. “You might be connected online, but still not be a person whose crucial social, cultural, political and economic activities, as well as imaginations, are informed by new technologies.”

In an attempt to unravel the concept, the CIS recently conducted an extensive research on the subject. “The available definitions of the term ‘digital native’ were simply based on age – children born after the ’80s, or young power-users of technology from a particular class-bracket,” explained Shah. But that was clearly not the case, realised Shah. To help with the study, CIS collaborated with The Knowledge Programme, led by the Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation, a Dutch organisation. The study aimed to examine the identity of digital natives and to understand the manner in which these natives had turned into “e-agents” of change, constantly finding new ways of engaging with different socio-cultural and political crises through digital technologies.

To explore concerns of such web usage in India, CIS recently conducted a workshop at Ranga Shankara, which involved school children, parents, teachers, activists and artists, before releasing a paper titled “Digital Natives with a Cause?” While the study attempts at busting the perception that digital users are a privileged, upper-class, English-speaking group of people who use the internet only for pleasure, it also helped subvert the idea of a generation that is believed to be largely disconnected from reality and lives in bubbles of social networks and online groups. “This new generation is not being taken seriously enough,” said Shah.

CIS has now announced an international conference – to be held next year – that will invite scholars, academics, NGOs, practitioners, policy makers and activists to explore the various contexts occupied by digital natives. The plan also includes a book that will document various successful campaigns of the kind from across the globe. “The study is a first resource tool that hopes to help researchers and practitioners formulate projects that work on youth-technology relationships,” explained Shah.

The paper “Digital Natives with a Cause?” is available as a free download at www.cis-india.org.

Link to the original article

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/native-plays

A Refreshing Start!

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:49:44Z

Parmesh Shahani enters the New Year inspired by the various ideas he’s been exposed to in The Hague and Lavasa.

The time between December and January is the time to hit the ‘re’ button. Re-fresh. Re-start. Re-think. Re-imagine. One’s own self as well as the world around us. It is the time for new ideas. The year is just beginning and everything is possible. I decide to spend this time by taking a short learning break away from the Radia tapes, 2G scams, WikiLeaks and what have you.

My first stop is Amsterdam where I go to museum hop for exactly one day. My friends are surprised when I tell them that I’m not doing any weed, and that, yes, I’ve seen it but no, the red light district isn’t really my thing. “Well, you can’t really say you’re in Amsterdam,” declares a particularly wise one to me over Facebook.

I politely disagree. My visit is intensely enjoyable and I manage to pack in the Anne Frank House (very moving, especially if you’ve read the diary, and who hasn’t?), Rijksmuseum’s famed Rembrandt masterpieces as well as the Van Gogh Museum (indescribably moving, despite the line of tourists) all in one day. It helps that I am staying at the super luxurious Sofitel The Grand. The renovated 16th century royal guest house is full of heritage listed heirlooms showcasing Amsterdam’s history dating back to 1578, so my art tour continues even after I return from my outside excursions.

Not for too long, because I quickly have to rush to The Hague, where Nishant Shah and Sunil Abraham (who together run the Centre for Internet and Society in Bengaluru, and are in my mind, two of the smartest people living in India right now) have collaborated with the Dutch organisation Hivos to put together a thinkathon on ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’ This is the third event in a series on technology, youth and engagement, that began in Taipei, moved on to Johannesburg, and will finally end in Santiago, Chile this coming February.

Nishant and Hivos’ fabulous Fieke Jansen set the tone by talking about why the question mark at the end of the title ‘Digital Natives for a Cause?’ is important. Can one think of digital natives as simply youth who have grown up with technology or can we include other older people within this term? What does it mean talking about digital natives and questions of transformation and change? What does it mean to even have a cause? Does a cause have to be framed in certain language? I discuss and debate all of this and much more with an incredible group of change-making activists, policy makers and artists from all over the world.

These include folks like Prabhas Pokherel from UNICEF Kosovo, Eddie Avila from Rising Voices Bolivia, Dorothy Okello from the Women of Uganda Network, and Simeon Oriko from the Kuyu Project in Kenya. I’m fascinated by all that they are doing. Kuyu, for instance, aims to teach young African students how to use various forms of social media to make a positive impact in their communities, through online Wikis, mobile phone networks and digital training camps. Nonkululekho Godana’s uniquely South African fashion sense catches my eye and we discuss shopping during the fun dinners, each of which is at a spectacular location in The Hague. Our thinkathon venue is the Museum of Communication, which itself is very special, with its talking installations and special multimedia galleries.

Being here gives me a chance to meet Sam Gregory from Witness, Peter Gabriel’s organisation and website that trains and equips individuals across the world to use video to document human right violations and effect change. I’ve been a big fan of what they’re doing ever since they started. It’s also great to hang out with Ushahidi’s Juliana Rotich, even if it’s only for a little while. Ushahidi develops free open source software for information collection, visualisation and interactive mapping that anyone can use to further their cause. For example, Vote Report India – that catalogued the 2009 general elections – was built on this platform.

I am extremely happy with the quality time I share with co-TED fellow Jasmeen Patheja. I’m sure that you’ve heard of her Blank Noise Project; it is a physical and virtual artistic intervention that aims at creating public awareness about eve teasing. See http://blog.blanknoise.org/ or the image of one of their Bengaluru park interventions that accompanies this column. Jasmeen has just returned from Tokyo where she’s been cataloguing Japanese women’s stories about harassment. Together, we roll our eyes at how similar men all over the world are!

At the thinkathon, a hot topic of discussion is slactivism or slacker activism that a lot of social media seems to be promoting. Is signing an online petition the same as protesting on the ground, in real life? How might we conceptualise a button clicker as an agent for social transformation? Beyond this, how might we engage digital natives in terms of policy-making processes?

I mull over all these questions on my crazy 30-hour journey from snow-bound The Hague to the artificially created city of Lavasa on the outskirts of Pune. Jetlagged as hell, I make it just in time for the first talk of the INK India conference. Compared to last year’s TED, I find everything to be smaller at INK, including the audience. The Bollywood night with Kunal Ganjawala, for instance, has about 20 people dancing in front of the stage as opposed to the 100 or so from last year. And, there are problems galore, with the poorly organised transportation, constantly crashing sound system, and general organisational chaos.

I’ve been a Lavasa sceptic ever since I heard about the project and now that I’m finally visiting, I see my worst fears have been realised. It feels like being on the set of the Truman show, with the fake looking lake, pastel coloured houses, and ever-smiling and possibly ever-afraid staff members. It seems like, at least to me, that they have been trained to not draw attention to themselves, to forcibly ‘invisibilise’ themselves, lest they prick the bubble of the middle-class fantasy of an idyllic foreign-like ‘home’. I continue to be surprised as to why the conference organisers would chose a location like this to host a conference that aims to showcase the best of innovation and knowledge. The court cases against Lavasa that are being flashed on the national news even while INK is taking place, don’t really help very much in making me change my views.

But despite the logistical hiccups and weird choice of location, INK still manages to score for me on the sheer power of its excellent speakers, and I’m glad to have been there. Where do I begin, even with the highlights? Should I tell you about James Cameron’s effortless charm, as he offers his 3D cameras to Indian filmmakers who might want to play with them? Deepak Chopra’s incredible mind on display making connections between the sub-atomic and the Vedic? Phillipe Starck’s sense of humour and his overall design genius that he wears so lightly on his oh-so French sleeves?

How about Jennifer Aaker’s incredible talk that begins with an emotional story about a bone marrow transplant, loops into a campaign to improve the number of registered South Asian bone marrow donors, and ends with her understanding of what happiness is? Or Matt Groening’s video of his father doing basketball throws, backward, while he tells us just why he named Homer Simpson’s character after him?

Just like with TED last year, the Indian speaker contingent is very inspiring. Toy inventor Arvind Gupta is a livewire on stage as he rapidly shows us one toy after the other, made from material like newspapers, old CDs, straws, matchsticks, and pencils. Clay innovator Mansukhbhai Prajapati shows us the clay filters and fridges that he makes for poor consumers in India that need such products but cannot afford their conventional avatars. Commonwealth 4x400 relay gold medallist Ashwini Akkunji recounts how her athletic career started out by running after cattle in her village in Karnataka. Conductor George Mathew talks about how a New York mugging in which he was almost beaten to death became a music lesson after his muggers found his metronome in his pocket.

Anand Kumar, founder of the ‘Super 30’ classes in Bihar that train impoverished rural youth to get into the IITs, gets a standing ovation. It is good to catch up with TED stars from last year like India’s youngest headmaster Babar Ali, who is continuing to scale up his school, or Sunita Krishnan, who has used her Google grant money to build an impressive centre for women survivors of violence.

However, my best talk is by Simon Lewis, who has produced films like Look Who’s Talking in Hollywood. Simon shares his personal story of a car crash that almost ended his life but set him off on a quest to rebuild both his mind and body, piece by piece, using technology and willpower every step of the way.

He has meticulously captured this journey in his book Rise and Shine, which you should read this year, if you can. I want to leave you with http://www.thevisualmd.com/, which is a website you should visit. INK speaker Alexander Tsiaras has shared his nine visual rules of wellness here. Check it out and see if you want to follow them in 2011. I certainly do.

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/refreshing-start

Digital Natives Research Project Coordinator

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T12:48:41Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, in collaboration with Hivos Netherlands, is looking for a Research Project Coordinator to help develop a knowledge network and coordinate international workshops for the project "Digital Natives with a Cause?"

The job profile is as follows:

Coordinating international workshops in liaison with regional partners to produce content for a book mapping technology mediated interventions by young people in different parts of the world.
Developing a knowledge network of stakeholders in emerging Information Societies in the Global South, to document debates, discussions and ideas in the field of Digital Natives.
Working closely with academic researchers, scholars, and practitioners in the development sector to develop content for an international website on Digital Natives.
Supervise and coordinate the production of the Digital Natives research in print and digital content.
Strategise and execute dissemination, design and collaboration strategies for developing the Digital Natives research areas.
Supervising intellectual and financial logistics for the project.

The candidate should be below 35 years of age and have fluent familiarity with digital platforms, trends, fashions and activities. Excellent communication and planning skills and the ability to work sensitively with partners in different countries and contexts are expected.

Candidates with an advanced degree in Sociology, Culture Studies, Communication and Management, with experience in international programme/project management within the development sector or those working in the field of youth-politics/youth-technology with experience in international collaborative projects will be given preference.

The job is based in Bangalore but requires a fair amount of international travel for logistical and substantial coordination. The position will open in May and is full-time. The position will be supported by two Project Associates who shall be selected in consultation with the Research Project Coordinator.

Consolidated consultation fees will be in the range of 34,000 -- 45,000 Rupees per month commensurate with experience. International travel and per diem will be provided based on established CIS standards.

Send in applications in SOFT COPY ONLY, along with an updated CV and samples of writing or project deliverables to nishant@cis-india.org by the 25th of April 2010. The Digital Natives with a Cause? Report is available on the CIS website for further reference at http://www.cis-india.org/publications/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf/view

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/research-coordinator

Mumbai Takes Note of Sexting, the Seamier Side of Texting

praskrishna — 2011-06-23T09:55:25Z

When Chitra started getting SMSs and emails laced with sexual innuendoes from an unknown individual, she didn't tell her mother or rush to the police. The 21-year-old grew so despondent that she dialed a psychologist for help. This article was published in the Times of India on June 19, 2011.

But last week, a 17-year-old student of L S Patkar College in Goregaon didn't react like Chitra (name changed) did when she got lewd SMSs from her teacher. The teenager approached the police and got her computer hardware teacher, Rahul Sarangle, arrested. Sarangle was subsequently released on bail, but not before Mumbai had sat up and taken note of the seamier side of texting or sexting as it is known.

Sexting is, in simple terms, text messages with a sexual overtone. It's not new; in fact, every state in the US has worked out guidelines and laws to keep a check on unsolicited sexting, especially when children are the recipients. The American Academy of Pediatrics has coined a definition: "Sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, photographs, or images via cell phone, computer, or other digital devices."

Sexting has been at the forefront of news and online search engines due to the 20-day drama of US Congressman Anthony Weiner, who resigned on Friday after it emerged that he had sent explicit pictures of himself to six women using various online tools.

The moot question is why do men such as lecturer Rahul Sarangle or politicians like Anthony Weiner sext when it can be easily traced back to them?

Experts said unsolicited sexting is about sex and perversion. Psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty said, "Such sexting occurs when the mind is obsessed; sexual thoughts are supreme and reasoning fails." He believes that a person who sexts also feels a sense of power. "The person's fingers work faster than the vocal cords. In such individuals, rational thought that should stop such urges seems paralysed," said Dr Shetty.

Said psychologst Hingoranney, "Some people are obsessed with sex or have supressed sexuality problem. They would derive sadistic thrills by sexting."

India is not without its share of sexting tales; the most infamous being the widely circulated MMS of two Delhi high school students in 2004. Said Nishant Shah, director (research) of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society, "Sexting is essentially about mobile phones. While there is no study in India on sexting, it's obvious from our sessions with youngsters that sexting is a part of the new communication patterns emerging among young people."

At times, sexting can have disastrous outcomes. While Chitra is a nervous wreck who feels she may have invited the sexts with her behaviour, American teen Jessica Logan committed suicide in 2008 after her ex-boyfriend circulated nude pictures that she had earlier in their relationship MMSed him. Shah said, "During our research in Bihar, we came across youngsters in Bihar who have suffered a great deal when an older family member read SMSs that they had sent." Any SMS to a male friend could be misconstrued as sexting in non-metro parts of India, he added.

All experts said that measures should be taken by families, schoolscolleges and society at large to protect youngsters from the ills of sexting. "Victims could feel shocked, violated and frightened,'' said Dr Shetty. "The words jump from the screen bringing a deep sense of disgust and a feeling of pain. The experience may be converted to bad memories if counseling is not done.''

Read the original published in the Times of India here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/seamier-side-of-texting

Lives suspended in the Web

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T15:45:39Z

When 14-year-old Manish sits behind his laptop, punching away at keys, his facial expressions reflecting his various online interactions, his parents stand in the doorway, watching curiously. Their son is physically at home, but to all purposes, lost in the limbo of the Internet. By all standards, Manish is a good, responsible young adult but his parents worry because they don’t seem to have any control over Manish’s online life. They find it difficult to understand the digital realms that he seamlessly integrates into his life.

As young people across the country are creating these new hybrid physical-digital spaces of work, leisure and lifestyle, the “analogue generations” remain outside, concerned about how they can ensure that their children are safe online, and not abusing the power of this largely unregulated space.

Their paranoia is amplified by the stories of uncontrolled access to pornography, of children falling prey to sexual predators, fears of intellectual property theft, and subversive and violent mobilisations that the young orchestrate through these online networks. The need to regulate, control and design this digital environment that so many of these young people inhabit is countered by their own ignorance and lack of control over these spaces. Technological solutions, like cyber-nannies and filtering software that prevent access to websites that can have questionable content, have eventually proven to be futile preventatives.

Attempts at technology-based censorship are useless because these young people, digital natives, find ways to circumvent the attempts at controlling their access. It is clear that the solutions are outside of technology, and not very different from ways in which parents have always dealt with these questions.

Here are the top five ways to do so, which do not require a parent to become a netizen overnight, but can get them involved and make sure young users of technology remain responsible, safe and canny in their interactions online.

Monitored access: Instead of figuring out censorship software, parents need to learn that as with the TV, monitored access for younger users of the Internet is completely valid. Web 2.0 rhetoric promotes a strong sense of individualism and privacy and parents often feel like they are intruding on a child’s “private” time online. However, it is completely valid for parents to be in the same room and keeping an eye on what their child is up to while surfing.

Limited time: Instead of trying to control the content, try and help the young person to efficiently manage time and digital resources. We live in a world where the impulse to stay constantly connected is very strong. However, there is no reason why the young user has to be online in all their free time. If they are given a specified number of hours a week to spend online, they learn to use their time more efficiently. Password-protect the computers, take limited expenditure accounts for their mobile phones and have strict rules (which everybody in the family has to follow) about interface access during family time.

Shared computers: As computing becomes more personal, young users access the Internet from many computing devices like cellphones, personal laptops, etc. Studies have shown that young users who use shared machines kept in common areas of the house are less prone to accessing undesirable material online. Do not keep the computing devices in bedrooms. Use shared studies or quiet corners of the living room.

Get digital and involved: One of the reasons why young people often do not communicate with parents about their technological forays is because the older generation professes a digital disconnect. Take this opportunity to initiate a two-way learning. Get your children to teach you on how to use certain platforms and websites, and in conversations, you might be able to educate them about responsible behaviour online. This peer-to-peer connection helps establish trust and a safe space to discuss problematic areas. Parents of teenagers who join social networks like Facebook and Tumblr, and get to be a part of the child’s life, often find new channels of communication opening up for them.

Storytelling: Digital storytelling has huge potential for voicing concerns and problems. For these young people, the spaces provided online are safe spaces. They write freely, tell stories, create digital content, providing a gateway into what is happening in their lives. Recognise the creative potential of young users, appreciate their ability to tell these stories — through blogs, micro-blogs, audio and video podcasts, commentary on other content, etc. Getting them to tell stories and sharing your own with them makes for greater insight. Many cross-generational storytelling projects, where younger children tell the stories of the older people in the house, or write a combined blog have proven to be quite successful online.

At the end of the day, it is good to remember that the problems that new technologies throw up are not necessarily new. The solutions need to be found in our everyday interactions and practices, and dependence on technological application is often counter-productive. Technology can only be a way by which solutions are implemented.

The article by Nishant Shah was published in the Indian Express on March 11, 2011. The original can be read here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/suspended-in-web

Can the twitterati change the world?

praskrishna — 2011-04-01T16:30:10Z

Whether it is the Ganapati immersion in Mumbai or a labour union dharna at Jantar Mantar or a hunger strike in Kolkata, India has had a rich history of people coming out on the streets. However, as cities are reshaped in the image of a 'world-class city', public spaces are being steadily appropriated into gated communities which cater to an elite section of the population.

Although the shrinking of public spaces is not the only reason the younger urban population is engaging with cyber space, it has certainly contributed to the shift. The recent historic transformations that have taken place in Egypt and Tunisia show that the digital sphere, which cannot be wholly regulated or shut down, has become the platform for protest.

When a 26-year old university graduate in Tunisia lost his only source of income after the police had confiscated his fruit and vegetable cart, he set himself on fire, setting into motion a nationwide protest which resonated through the internet. People poured into the streets and stood fast until the authoritarian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, left the country. "Without the internet, it would be possible for the massacre to happen in silence for us and for the outside world. Five years ago, without Facebook and Twitter, the same uprising would have been smothered, " says an anonymous Tunisian interviewed by @kyrah (Twitter).

In Egypt, as well, technology was harnessed to spread the word across a huge and unprecedented section of the population within a short span of time, engineering the mob gathering we saw in Tahrir Square.

In the vastly different political context of India, digital activism serves the purpose of increasing openness, access and transparency.

Nishant Shah, the Research Director for the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore argues that the evolution of digital activism in India in the first decade of the 21st century can be seen through the emphasis on creating open structures of arbitration, justice, policy and jurisdiction. "The effort has been to grant access to the state, its governance and resources to the citizens, " he says.

Initially, digital natives in India were considered programmers or techies who were not just web savvy but technologically aware. For example, Vote Report India, a citizen-driven electionmonitoring platform, was the brainchild of software developers, designers and other professionals. Maesy Angelina, whose research for her MA looked into understanding the involvement of youth in online campaigns in India, argues that the way in which digital natives are perceived has been changed, "Since the Pink Chaddi campaign, a new angle becomes more prominent: one that views digital natives as regular people who have grown up with the internet and are web savvy, but not necessarily techies. "

Campaigns such as Batti Bandh, Justice for Jessica, the 2008 Gateway of India rally after the Mumbai attacks, and most recently the group called "It's my Arunachal, Dream on China, " have leveraged the existing networks on social media websites.

However, digital activism when transplanted into a developing country such as India leverages its own forms of discrimination, excluding sections of the population without the cultural, economic and educational capital to gain access to these spaces. While the medium can be useful in generating public dialogue, it is not enough to sustain a movement if it cannot reach non-internet users. Though technology can be used to organise, these protests must then manifest into public gatherings.

"The digital can help us in re-appropriating and reclaiming the fast disappearing physical spaces of public engagement, gathering and participation in our cities, " says Shah. "The technology is not an alternative, but is embedded in the physical worlds we inhabit and it becomes a powerful tool to fight back and demand the spaces that are central to the imagination of a coherent, responsible and sapient public. "

Fight-Back, an online gender equality campaign launched in 2008, now has about 4, 000 members on its Facebook group, who act as a volunteer database nationally. The group uses its website and social media to create awareness and start a conversation which then translates into events such as their Music for Equality concerts and Women's Day marches. The group's founder, Zubin Driver, 41, argues that digital activism is on the rise in India, "Mobile phone penetration in India is already 700 million. Once internet via mobile phones becomes more common, digital activism will cut across class, caste and geographical boundaries. "

Parmesh Sahani, the founder of the Godrej Culture Lab and the author of Gay Bombay, says that even though the audience for digital activism is restricted to English-speaking, twittering, Facebooking people, congregating online often leads to people coming out on the streets. "There are great opportunities in the intersections between the digital medium and actual physical spaces. The overspill of the Mumbai Gay Pride parade into cafês near the official route goes to show that activism still persists in the peripheries of regulated spaces. "

Though often vilified as armchair activism or slacktivism, digital activism has a role to play in facilitating community building in a changing urban landscape. The new forms of organisation and intervention have the potential to be more inclusive than older modes of social transformation, crossing geographies and communities. "Every medium comes with a promise and possibility of change when it's introduced - television, print, radio, loud speaker, " says Patheja. "The conversations on the internet don't usually end there;the participants of the movement hopefully carry these ideas and beliefs to their other linked communities or spaces. "

However, all new platforms come with pitfalls. "The power of the internet and wireless social networks as tools of dissent is now well established, " says Rajni Bakshi, author of Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom. "What is not so well known is that the future of the internet itself is under threat - not just from dictatorships and repressive regimes, but from an assortment of private, profit-motivated entities. "

Read the original in the Times of India here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/twitterati-change-world

Collaborative Projects Programme

nishant — 2011-08-23T03:04:56Z

The Centre for Internet and Society recognises collaboration and consultation as its primary mode of engaging with research and intervention. The Collaborative Projects Programme (CPP) is CIS’ platform for partnering (intellectually, logistically, financially, and administratively) with other organisations, individuals and practitioners in projects which are of immediate concern to the work that CIS is committed to.

The Collaborative Projects Programme also expands the scope of research to produce a synergy between research and praxis. The CPP is, in many ways, the in-house research that CIS undertakes, in collaboration and consultation with other organisations, institutions and individuals who have a stake and a say in the field of Internet and Society. The CPP is not bound by any theme of programmatic modalities and is envisioned more as a way for CIS to extend its field and establish a strong network with other exciting spaces in the Global South.

The Collaborative Projects Programme can include, but is not limited to, organising of large conferences or workshops; developing tools for better research and advocacy; data mining towards a specific goal that complements CIS’ vision; producing original monographs/publications/books targeted at different audiences; experimenting with new technologies to affect policy and usage; implementing pilot studies and instances of existing ideas; developing schemes to integrate education and technology; public intervention and awareness campaigns geared towards particular outcomes; celebrating certain aspects of internet technologies; engaging with digital natives; and creating new environments of learning and participation online.

The CPP is NOT a grant making programme. However, we are interested in partnering on new and innovative ideas and would welcome conversations with people and organisations in the field. If you have an interesting idea that you think fits our larger vision, please contact us and we can begin the discussions.

List of Projects under the Collaborative Projects Programme:

1. The Promise of Invisibility: Technology and the City - A seven month research project initiated by Nishant Shah, in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Shanghai University, enabled by a grant from the Asia Scholarship Foundation, Bangkok.

2. Disability, Learning and Digital Participation - in partnership with Inclusive Planet

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme

i4D Interview: Social Networking and Internet Access

nishant — 2011-09-22T12:51:57Z

Nishant Shah, the Director for Research at CIS, was recently interviewed in i4D in a special section looking at Social Networking and Governance, as a lead up to the Internet Governance Forum in December, in the city of Hyderabad.

Mechanism of Self-Governance Needed for Social Networks

Should social networking sites be governed, and if yes, in what way?

A call for either monitoring or censoring Social Networking Sites has long been proved ineffectual, with the users always finding new ways of circumventing the bans or the blocks that are put into place. However, given the ubiquitous nature of SNS and the varied age-groups and interests that are represented there, governance, which is non-intrusive and actually enables a better and more effective experience of the site, is always welcome. The presumed notion of governance is that it will set processes and procedures in place which will eventually crystallise into laws or regulations. However, there is also another form of governance - governance as provided by a safe-keeper or a guardian, somebody who creates symbols of caution and warns us about being cautious in certain areas. In the physical world, we constantly face these symbols and signs which remind us of the need to be aware and safe. Creation of a vocabulary of warnings, signs and symbols that remind us of the dangers within SNS is a form of governance that needs to be worked out. This can be a participatory governance where each community develops its own concerns and addresses them. What is needed is a way of making sure that these signs are present and garner the attention of the user.

How do we address the concerns that some of the social networking spaces are not "child safe"?

The question of child safety online has resulted in a raging debate. Several models, from the cybernanny to monitoring the child's activities online ,have been suggested at different times and have more or less failed. The concerns about what happens to a child online are the same as those about what happens to a child in the physical world. When the child goes off to school, or to the park to play, we train and educate them about things that they should not be doing -- suggesting that they do not talk to strangers, do not take sweets from strangers, do not tell people where they live, don't wander off alone -- and hope that these will be sufficient safeguards to their well being. As an added precaution, we also sometimes supervise their activities and their media consumption. More than finding technical solutions for safety online, it is a question of education and training and some amount of supervision to ensure that the child is complying with your idea of what is good for it. A call for sanitising the internet is more or less redundant, only, in fact, adding to the dark glamour of the web and inciting younger users to go and search for material which they would otherwise have ignored.

What are the issues, especially around identities and profile information privacy rights of users of social networking sites?

The main set of issues, as I see it, around the question of identities, is the mapping of the digital identities to the physical selves. The questions would be : What constitutes the authentic self? What is the responsibility of the digital persona? Are we looking at a post-human world where online identities are equally a part of who we are and are sometimes even more a part of who we are than our physical selves? Does the older argument of the Original and the Primary (characteristics of Representation aesthetics) still work when we are talking about a world of 'perfect copies' and 'interminable networks of selves' (characteristics of Simulation)? How do we create new models of verification, trust and networking within an SNS? Sites like Facebook and Orkut, with their ability to establish looped relationships between the users, and with the notion of inheritance (¨friend of a friend of a friend of a friend¨), or even testimonials and open 'walls' and 'scraps' for messaging, are already approaching these new models of trust and friendship.

How do we strike a balance between the freedom of speech and the need to maintain law and order when it comes to monitoring social networking sites?

I am not sure if the 'freedom of speech and expression' and the 'maintaining of law and order' need to be posited as antithetical to each other. Surely the whole idea of 'maintaining law and order' already includes maintaining conditions within which freedom of speech and expression can be practiced. Instead of monitoring social networking sites to censor and chastise (as has happened in some of the recent debates around Orkut, for example), it is a more fruitful exercise to ensure that speech, as long as it is not directed offensively towards an individual or a community, needs to be registered and heard. Hate speech of any sort should not be tolerated but that is a fact that is already covered by the judicial systems around the world.

What perhaps, is needed online, is a mechanism of self-governance where the community should be able to decide the kinds of actions and speech which are valid and acceptable to them. People who enter into trollish behaviour or hate speak, automatically get chastised and punished in different ways by the community itself. To look at models of better self-governance and community mobilisation might be more productive than producing this schism between freedom of speech on the one hand and the maintenance of law and order on the other.

Link to original article on i4donline.net

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/i4d-interview-social-networking-and-internet-access

What scares a Digital Native? Blogathon

tettner — 2015-05-14T12:16:14Z

What Scares technologized young people around the world? In an effort to present a view often not heard in traditional discourses, on Monday the 18th of April 2011, young people from across the world blogged about their fears in relation to the digitalisation of society.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/what-scares-a-digital-native-blogathon-1

Digital Natives Workshop in Taipei: Only a Few Seats Left!!!

praskrishna — 2011-08-04T10:29:26Z

The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with the Frontier Foundation is holding a three day Digital Natives workshop in Taipei from 16 to 18 August, 2010. The three day workshop will serve as an ideal platform for the young users of technology to share their knowledge and experience of the digital and Internet world and help them learn from each other’s individual experiences.

Everybody has a story to tell, and with the Internet, it is possible to tell the story and be heard. Young people around the world use digital technologies to find a voice, an expression, a creative output and a space for dialogue. Gone are the days when the young were only to be seen and not heard. In the Web 2.0 world, the young are seen, heard and are making a dramatic change in the world that we live in.

As Internet and digital technologies become more widespread, the world is shrinking, time is replaced by Internet time, we are constantly connected and intricately linked to our contexts, our people, our cultures and our networks. And you, yes YOU are a part of this change. In fact, as Digital Natives – people who have found technologies as central to their lives – you are directly affecting the lives of many, sometimes even without knowing about it.

An Open Call for Participation

The Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore, India) in collaboration with the Frontier Foundation (Taipei, Taiwan) are calling out to young technology users to share stories about how they have tried to change things around them with the use of digital and Internet technologies. Conversely, if you feel that the presence of these technologies has significantly changed you in some way, we want to hear about that too! These can be stories where you have made a significant impact by initiating campaigns or movements for a particular cause, stories where you have used technologies to cope with problems in your personal and social life through your online persona in the virtual World Wide Web or stories where a small blog you started, or a facebook group you created, or a plurk network that you started, or a discussion group that you participated in, led to a change that has a story to tell.

The three day workshop will select 20 participants from all around Asia and in the Middle East to come and share these stories, to interact with facilitators and scholars who have worked in different countries and areas, and to form a network of collaboration and support. We will give your stories a face, a voice and a platform where they can be heard in your own voice, in your own style and in your own formats. Participants can fill in an application form (as given below) and forward it to digitalnatives@cis-india.org by 15th July 2010.

Simultaneously a website will also be hosted online where the Digital Natives will contribute to the content. Selected participants will be encouraged to document in it. Expenses relevant to the project will be granted to the selected participants.

Application Form

Name:
Gender:
Age:
Primary language of communication:
Other languages you can read and write:
Email:
Postal address:
Describe your Internet related experience / initiative(s) in 300 words. Furnish with URLs where necessary. Optionally, if images and videos are part of the description, then upload them in a high resolution version to a secure website and provide the URL.
Write in a few sentences about your expectation from the workshop.
I declare that the above information is true to the best of my knowledge.
I agree that Digital Natives will use the material I have provided for public use.

Please note that the information you provide will be kept for purposes of the Digital Natives project. Materials which you submit will be used for reporting to sponsors and for public use relevant to the project.

Dates: 16, 17 and 18 August, 2010
Venue: Taipei (Taiwan)

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

Beyond the Digital: Understanding Digital Natives with a Cause

maesy — 2012-03-13T10:43:37Z

Digital natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth digital activism and contends that an effort to understand this from the contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

The last decade has witnessed an escalating interest among academics, policy makers, and other practitioners on the intersection between youth, activism, and the new media technologies, which resulted in two narratives: one of doubt and the other of hope. The ‘hope’ narrative hinges on the new plethora of avenues for activism at the young people’s disposal and the bulge of the population, stating that the contemporary forms of youth activism represent new ways of conceiving and doing activism in the present and the future (see, for example, UN DESA, 2005). The ‘doubt’ narrative, on the other hand, questions to what extent the digital activism can contribute to broader social change (Collin, 2008) and some proponents of this view even call it ‘slacktivism’, stating that online activism is only effective if accompanied with real life activism (Morozov, 2009).

Before assessing the potentials of youth’s digital activism to contribute to social change, it is imperative to first gain a comprehensive understanding about this emerging form of activism. A brief review of existing literature on the topic found that most of the analyses are centered on three perspectives, each with its own approach, strengths, and weaknesses: the technology centered, the new social movements centered, and the youth centered perspectives.

The technology centered perspective places a great emphasis on the instrumental role of the internet and new media (see, for instance, Kassimir, 2005; Shirkey, 2007; Brooks and Hodkinson, 2008). It discusses how internet savvy young people are able to exercise their activism differently, because the technology can remove obstacles to organizing, provide a new platform for visibility and make transnational networking easier. In this perspective, the Internet and new media technologies are seen as enabling tool sand the web is viewed as a new space to promote activism. However, this perspective mainly stipulates that there is already a formulaic form of activism that can be transferred from the actual, physical sphere to the virtual arena; it does not consider that the changes caused by the way the youth are using technologies in their daily lives may also create new meanings and forms of activism. This perspective is the most dominant in literature on the topic, being the lens used by the pioneering studies on youth, Internet, and activism.

The new social movements centered perspective goes beyond that and looks at how new meanings and forms of politics and activism are created as the result of the way people are using new media technologies and the Internet. This perspective is leading the recently emerging literature on the topic and emphasizes on the trend of being concerned on issues related to everyday democracy and the favour towards self organized, autonomous, horizontal networks (for examples, see Bennett, 2003; Martin, 2004; Collin, 2008). However, this perspective treats young people merely as ‘vessels’ of the new activism and neglect to examine how their lives have been shaped by the use of new media technologies and the Internet.

The youth centered perspective, represented for example by Juris and Pleyers (2009), acknowledges that ICTs have always been part of young people’s lives and that it intersects with other factors in shaping how they conceive politics and activism. Most of the studies in this perspective were done with youth activists in existing transnational social justice movements, such as the global anti-capitalism or environmental movements. Nevertheless, this perspective mainly views youth activists as ‘becomings’ by defining them as the younger layer of actors in a multi-generational group that will be future leaders of the movement. There are very few researches on autonomous youth movements that are created and consist of young people themselves and look at the youth as political actors in its own right. In addition, the majority of studies also focused on the youth as individuals but not as a collective force.

In addition to the shortcomings of each perspective, there are also common gaps in the current broader body of knowledge on the intersection of youth, new media technologies, and activism.

Firstly, existing researches tend to define activism as concrete actions, such as protests and campaigns, and the values represented by such actions. It neglects other elements that constitute activism together with the actions and values, such as the issue taken up by the action, the ideologies underlying the formulation of action, and the actors behind the activism (Sherrod, 2005; Kassimir, 2005). Divorcing these elements from the analysis gave only a partial view of what youth digital activism is.

Secondly, the majority of studies zoomed into the novelty of new media technologies and how they are being used as a point of departure to investigate the topic. This arguably stems from an adult-centric, pre-digital point of view, which overlooks the fact that internet and new media has always been ‘technology’ for most young people just as how the radio and television have always been ‘technology’ for the previous generation (Shah and Abraham, 2009). This way of thinking divorces the ‘digital’ from the ‘activism’ in digital activism; consequently, it ignores all the other factors that are causing and shaping youth activism and fails to capture how youth actors themselves are viewing or giving meaning to this digital activism.

Finally, researches on the issue skew excessively on developed countries. It must be acknowledged that the ‘digital divide’, or the unequal access to and familiarity with technology based on gender, class, caste, education, economic status or geographical location, in developing countries is deeper and that the digitally active youth are a privileged minority. Yet, a neglect to understand their activism also means a failure to understand why and how the elite who are often perceived to be politically apathetic are engaging with their community to create social change.

The weaknesses identified above demonstrate that our understanding on this particular form of contemporary youth activism is currently obscured. Hence, the two narratives of ‘hope’ and ‘doubt’ lose their relevance given that the subject of assessment, the digital youth activism, is not even clearly understood.

Based on the above overview of the limitations, it is imperative to find a new way to approach to understand the phenomenon of digital youth activism. I will explore the possibilities of such an approach with the following arguments as the starting point.

Firstly, I argue that the key limitation lies on the adult-centric perspective in viewing youth’s engagement with new media technologies, thus what is essential is to go beyond the ‘digital’ and focus on the ‘activism’ part of youth digital activism. Secondly, I argue that exploration of the issue from the standpoint of the youth political actors themselves is crucial to counter the adult-centric perspective dominating the literature on this topic. Thirdly, since so many researches divorce the youth from the context of their activism, it is crucial to focus on a particular case study to a tease out the nuances of youth digital activism.

I have the opportunity to explore the approach through a study with The Blank Noise Project, an initiative to address the problem of street sexual harassment in public spaces that originated in 2003 in Bangalore. It has since expanded into nine cities in India with over 2,000 volunteers, all young people between 17-30 years of age. Known for their unique public art street interventions as well as their savvy online presence, The Blank Noise Project was also chosen because its growth and sustainability over the past seven years are a testament to its legitimacy and relevance for youth in India.

The research does not aim to assess the contribution of The Blank Noise Project to social change nor does it claim to represent all forms of youth digital activism in India. Rather, it aims to offer insights on one of the forms of digital natives joining forces for a cause. The research is interested in the following questions: how do young people involved in the Blank Noise articulate their politics? Who are their audience? What are their strategies? What is their conception of the public sphere? How do they organize themselves? How do they represent themselves to others? How do they see and give meaning to their involvement with the Blank Noise? How can we make sense of their initiative? While ‘activism’ is the popular term that is also used in this research, is their initiative a form of activism or is it something else altogether? More importantly, how do these young people define it by themselves? For the next few months, I will share stories, questions, and reflections that emerge along my journey of exploring those questions with The Blank Noise Project on the CIS blog.

This is the first post in the Beyond the Digital series, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme.

References:

Bennett, W.L. (2007) ‘Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age’, paper presented at

the OECD/ INDIRE Conference on Millenial Learners, Florence, Italy (5-6 March).

Brooks, R. and Hodkinson, P. (2008) ‘Introduction’, Journal of Youth Studies Vol. 11:5,

p. 473 – 479

Collin, P. (2008) ‘The internet, youth participation policies, and the development of

young people’s political identities in Australia’, Journal of Youth Studies Vol. 11:5, p. 527 - 542

Juris, J.S. and Pleyers, G.H. (2009) ‘Alter-activism: Emerging cultures of participation

among young global justice activists’, Journal of Youth Studies Vol. 12 (1): p. 57-

75.

Kassimir, R. (2006) ‘Youth Activism: International and Transnational’, in Sherrod,

L.R., Flanagan, C.A. and Kassimir, R. (eds.) Youth Activism: An International

Encyclopedia, p. 20-28. London: Greenwood Press.

Martin, G. (2004) ‘New Social Movements and Democracy’, in Todd, M.J. and Taylor,

G. (eds.) Democracy and Participation: Popular protests and new social movements, p. 29-54. London: Merlin Press.

Morozov, E. (2009) ‘The brave new world of slacktivism’. Accessed 19 May 2010 <

http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism>

Shah, N. and Abraham, S. (2009) ‘Digital Natives with a Cause? A Knowledge

Survey and Framework’. Accessed 7 April 2010 < http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause>

Sherrod, L.R. (2006) ‘Youth Activism and Civic Engagement’, in Sherrod, L.R.,

Flanagan, C.A. and Kassimir, R. (eds.) Youth Activism: An International

Encyclopedia, p. 2-10. London: Greenwood Press.

Shirkey, C. (2008) Here Comes Everybody: How Change Happens and People Come

Together. New York: Penguin Books

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs / UN DESA (2005)

‘World Youth Report 2005: Young People Today and in 2015’. Accessed 7 April 2010 <http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/wyr05book.pdf>

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause