The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 211 to 225.
Colour Me Political
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dn2
<b>What are the tools that Digital Natives use to mobilise groups towards a particular cause? How do they engage with crises in their immediate environments? Are they using their popular social networking sites and web 2.0 applications for merely entertainment? Or are these tools actually helping them to re-articulate the realm of the political? Nishant Shah looks at the recent Facebook Colour Meme to see how new forms of political participation and engagement are being initiated by young people across the world.</b>
<p></p>
<p>On Facebook, now acclaimed as one of the most popular social
networking sites in the world, the one thing that almost all the users engage
is, in updating their status updates. These updates can be varied – capturing
personal moods and emotions, reporting on things that strike one in the course
of a normal day, offering political opinions, suggesting movies and books to
friends, and often making public announcements of important events in life. The
updates appear as a live feed, updates in almost-real time, letting people in
networks connect, know, discuss and share information about their personal
lives. Often, to outsiders, these updates would appear pointless; I remember
somebody asking me, “But why would I want to know what you had for breakfast?”
Many status updates indeed border on the everyday and ordinary, of no interest
to anybody but the immediate networks.</p>
<p>However, in the first half of January in 2010, Facebook
users across the world started observing a strange pattern. Many people in
their networks were making one word status updates with the name of a colour.
Just that. A colour. Facebook users woke up to find “Green!”, “Red!”, “White!” “Black!”
in their live feed. No explanations and a cryptic silence. It was a viral
phenomenon, with the colours appearing across the board, in different parts of
the world, spanning all languages, cultures, and contexts. Also, it was
observed, almost all of the users putting this update, were women. It created a
lot of discussion, speculation, curiosity and conspiracy theories. Blog posts
discussing this phenomenon started appearing. People were twitting about it.
There was an element of surprise, and perhaps of frustration, because the
people making those colour updates were refusing to offer any explanations.</p>
<p>Eventually, after a few internet years (about 3 days, I
think!) the word got out. It was a meme. A meme is an internet gene (because it
replicates) which spreads virally, through different social communication and
networking sites. It invites people to participate in a series of actions,
either to answer a question or perform a certain act, and pass it along. The
colour updates were a part of the meme which was doing the rounds on the
internet:</p>
<p> "Some fun is
going on.... just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color,
nothing else. And send this on to ONLY girls, no men .... It will be neat to
see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see
how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in
their status."</p>
<p>
What the message managed to do was take an
important cause and through fun, and play, and a little bit of excitement, got
young women around the world to ponder on the possibility, cure and prevention
of breast cancer. What was just a personal update capturing space suddenly
became a place of political mobilisation and participation. Both, men and
women, reading those colours, took a moment to think about breast cancer and
spread the word among their friends. Discussions, which started with curiosity,
ended with a sombre note. While there are speculative theories about how some
women in Detroit started this particular meme, there is no credible source of
information.</p>
<p> What is particularly of interest, is how, without any apparent
funding, or organisation, or the infrastructure that generally accompanies such
behemoth projects, this viral meme captured more attention and had more people
participating than most campaigns started by traditional activists or
governments. What Facebook, and other spaces like it offer, is the
infrastructure and the potential for such massive movements. As the Digital
Natives grow up with new technologies, they change the landscape of political
and social transformation. And the cryptic colour updates is telling us the
story of how things will change in the future.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dn2'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dn2</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceDigital ActivismDigital NativesYouthSocial Networking2011-08-04T10:34:27ZBlog EntryMeet the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dn1
<b>Digital Natives live their lives differently. But sometimes, they also die their lives differently! What happens when we die online? Can the digital avatar die? What is digital life? The Web 2.0 Suicide machine that has now popularly been called the 'anti-social-networking' application brings some of these questions to the fore. As a part of the Hivos-CIS "Digital Natives with a Cause?" research programme, Nishant Shah writes about how Life on the Screen is much more than just a series of games. </b>
<p>
In the new year, 2010, one of the most startling stories was of mass
suicides. About 50,000 people were affected. Legal cases were filed. The
interwebz were abuzz with the tale of how they did it. There was talk
about a website that was responsible for this. The blogosphere went into
a frenzy discussing the ‘new lease of life’ that these suicides
provided. Videos of people caught in the act found their way onto
popular video distributing spaces. And for everybody who talked about
it, it was partly a joke and partly a gimmick. However, for a
significant population, across the globe, the news came as a shock and a
moment of self-reflection.</p>
<p>
Meet the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. It is a simple online machine which
helps people commit digital suicide by destroying their digital
identities on popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn and Myspace. It is software that deletes every single
transaction which you may have ever performed in your digital avatar.
Messages sent to and received from friends, stored notes, results of
viral quizzes, pictures of the last party that you attended, status
messages describing state of mind, high scores and social assets on
social networking games, links shared, videos uploaded – everything gets
deleted, allowing you one last chance to re-live your digital life
before it locks you out of the 2.0 web for once and for all. To many
this might sound funny, but for the people, whose lives are lived,
stored, shared and experienced in the online spaces that Web 2.0 has
developed.</p>
<p>
We find them in universities and colleges, multitasking, preparing a
classroom presentation while chatting with friends and keeping track of
their online gaming avatars. We encounter them in offices, glued with
equal passion, to dating or social networking sites, and moderating geek
mailing lists. We chance upon them in homes and bedrooms, sharing the
most private and intimate details of their lives using live cam feeds
and audio/video podcasts. If these images are familiar to you, you have
encountered a digital native. It might have, recently, been a ‘child’
who knows how to use the mobile phone more effectively than you do, or a
teenager who can connect your machine online while thumb typing on the
cell phone, in a language which is not very familiar to you. It could
also be the saucy colleague in office, who is always on the information
highway, making jazzy presentations and animations or playing games with
their virtual avatars, or the taxi driver who has learned the power of
GPS maps or even the <em>chaiwallah</em> around the corner who uses his
mobile phone to download new music and conduct a romantic affair.</p>
<p>
These techno-mutants are slowly, but surely taking over the world. By
the end of 2010, the global youth population will be about 1.2. Billion
and 85 per cent of it will be in the developing countries of the world,
growing up with digital and Internet technologies as an integral part of
their life. They might not be a significant number now, but they are
going to be the citizens of the future, taking important decisions about
the destinies of nations and states, creating businesses and running
economies, educating young learners and shaping public opinions. And
they are learning the fundamentals of these actions in their online
interactions on Web 2.0 spaces using digital tools to morph, mobilise,
mutate, and manage their social, cultural and political lives and
identities. It is of these people that this column writes of – people
who are marked by digital and Internet technologies in strange and
unprecedented ways.</p>
<p>Originally published at http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News as a part of the Knowledge Programme: "Digital Natives with a Cause?"</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dn1'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dn1</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceDigital NativesAgencyCyborgsCybercultures2011-08-04T10:34:22ZBlog EntryDigital Natives Research Project Coordinator
https://cis-india.org/news/research-coordinator
<b>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?" </b>
<p>The job profile is as follows:</p>
<ol><li>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.</li><li>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.</li><li>Working closely with academic researchers, scholars, and practitioners in the development sector to develop content for an international website on Digital Natives.</li><li>Supervise and coordinate the production of the Digital Natives research in print and digital content.</li><li>Strategise and execute dissemination, design and collaboration strategies for developing the Digital Natives research areas.</li><li>Supervising intellectual and financial logistics for the project.</li></ol>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cis-india.org/publications/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf/view">http://www.cis-india.org/publications/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf/view</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/research-coordinator'>https://cis-india.org/news/research-coordinator</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital Natives2011-04-02T12:48:41ZNews ItemMarch 2010 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! We bring you updates of our research, news, and events for the month of March 2010 in this bulletin.</b>
<h3><b>News Updates</b></h3>
<p class="ecxmsonormal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>An Open Answer to Office</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /> </span>OpenOffice with its new features is giving Microsoft Word tough competition, says Deepa Kurup in this article published in The Hindu.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/open-office" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/news/open-office</a></p>
<h3><b>Upcoming Events</b></h3>
<p class="ecxmsonormal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>CPOV: Wikipedia Research Initiative</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /> </span>The second WikiWars conference will be held in Amsterdam from 26 to 27 March 2010<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpov" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/cpov</a></p>
<p class="ecxmsonormal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>CI Global Meeting on A2K</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /> </span>CIS is a co-sponsor of the Consumers International Meeting on A2K to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on April 21 and 22, 2010.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/events/ci-global-meeting-a2k" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/events/ci-global-meeting-a2k</a></p>
<h3><b>Research</b></h3>
<p class="ecxmsonormal" style="text-align: justify; "><b>India Game Developer Summit Bangalore 2010</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /> </span>The India Game Developer Conference held at Nimhans Convention Centre on the 27th of February, 2010 was attended by Arun Menon who is working on The Gaming and Gold Project at The Centre for Internet and Society. The Developer forum brought together game developers from different sectors of the Game Production Cycle, with hardware manufacturers like Nvidia demonstrating their latest 3d technology and Software developers like Crytek and Adobe demonstrating the latest in developer tools for creating and editing games on multiple platforms.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/gaming/india-game-developer-summit-in-bangalore-2010" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/research/cis-raw/histories/gaming/india-game-developer-summit-in-bangalore-2010</a><br /> <br /> <b>10 Legendary Obscene Beasts</b><br /> Nishant Shah analyses a peculiar event of vandalism which has now become the core of free speech and anti-censorship debates in mainland China. Looking at the structure of user generated knowledge websites and the specific event on the Chinese language encyclopaedia, 'Baidu Baike', he shows how, in cities where spaces of political spectacle and public protest are quickly diminishing, the Internet has become a tool for producing new public spaces of demonstration and protest.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/grants/ISShanghai/itcity4" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/research/grants/ISShanghai/itcity4</a></p>
<p class="ecxmsonormal"><b>WikiWars - A report</b><br /> In this blog, Nishant Shah analyses about the WikiWars, the first of the three events held in Bangalore on January 12 and 13.<br /> <a href="https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wwrep" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/wwrep</a></p>
<h3><b>Telecom</b></h3>
<p class="ecxmsonormal"><b>Understanding Spectrum</b><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><b><br /> </b></span>What is spectrum and how do government and commercial decisions on this scientific phenomenon affect public facilities and costs? Shyam Ponappa examines this in his latest blog published in the Business Standard on March 4, 2010.<b><br /> </b><a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/telecom/blog/understanding-spectrum%0c" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org/advocacy/telecom/blog/understanding-spectrum</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2010-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomIntellectual Property RightsAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-13T05:02:42ZPageFill The Gap: Global Discussion on Digital Natives
https://cis-india.org/research/grants/digital-natives-with-a-cause/dntweet
<b>More often than not people don't understand the new practices inspired by Internet and digital technologies. As such a series of accusations have been leveled against the Digital Natives. Educators, policy makers, scholars, and parents have all raised their worries without hearing out from the people they are concerned about. Hivos has initiated an online global discussion about Digital Natives. So, to voice your opinion, start tweeting with us now #DigitalNatives.</b>
<div class="content-view-full">
<div class="class-event">
<div class="pagecontent">
<h2>If you cannot attend Fill The Gap, you can also join us in a global discussion on some of the issues being discussed at #DigitalNatives<br /></h2>
<br />
<p>1.
Are
you an apolitical consumer, or do you have ambitions?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNatives" target="_blank">http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNatives</a></p>
<p>2.
Are
you a little prince or princess, who only wants to talk to like minded people
or are you different?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesPrincess" target="_blank">http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesPrincess</a></p>
<p>3.
Is
Wikipedia your bible or do you really know something?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesWiki" target="_blank">http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesWiki</a></p>
<p>4.
Are
you a digital dinosaur? They say you don’t know anything about ICT!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalDinosaur" target="_blank">http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalDinosaur</a></p>
<p>5.
Why
use the Internet, why don’t you march the streets?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesProtest" target="_blank">http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesProtest</a></p>
<p>6.
Plans
to change the world? What do you need?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesChanceTheWorld" target="_blank">http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesChanceTheWorld</a></p>
<br />If you are in Amsterdam, here is the information you will need to attend the event:<br />
<h2>Fill the Gap! - 7</h2>
<h3>
R U Online?</h3>
<div class="date">Date: 15 January 2010 </div>
<div class="date">Time: 12.30 until
17.00 hour</div>
<div class="date">Location: Het Sieraad, Postjesweg 1, Amsterdam</div>
<br />
<strong></strong>The seventh edition of Fill the Gap! is all about the power of youth
and IT in developing countries. How can their skills be strengthened
and put to use for a better world? Hivos, apart from cohosting the
event, will be involving digital natives to hear their stories about
ICT and engagement.
<br />
<p>
An Open Space event on the potential of new (mobile) media and youth in
developing countries. For everyone in politics, the profit and the
non-profit sectors who is interested in ICT and international
development cooperation.</p>
<p>
The use of new (mobile) technology is the most natural thing in the world for the youth of today.</p>
<p>
Shaped by the digital era and at ease with creativeity, these
innovators use new media to change the world. Just think of the Twitter
revolution in Iran. What can the international development sector learn
from this? How could international development cooperation use the
potential power of youth to tackle development problems?</p>
<p> The seventh edition of Fill the Gap! is all about the power of
youth and IT in developing countries. How can their skills be
strengthened and put to use for a better world? The kick-off will be
hosted by Jennifer Corriero, co-founder of Taking IT Global: the
international platform for youth and the use of new media for a better
world. Then the floor is open to discuss your own ideas with people
from new media, the business world and the international development
sector during the Open Space sessions. Join in: come to Amsterdam on
Friday January 15th and be inspired during Fill the Gap!<br />
<br /> Registration is free. The programme is in English.</p>
<br /><a href="http://www.fill-the-gap.nl/Fill_the_gap_7?" target="_blank">» Fill the Gap</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/grants/digital-natives-with-a-cause/dntweet'>https://cis-india.org/research/grants/digital-natives-with-a-cause/dntweet</a>
</p>
No publishernishantSocial mediaDigital ActivismDigital GovernanceDigital NativesAgencyYouthFeaturedCyberculturesNew PedagogiesDigital subjectivitiesICT2010-01-22T10:54:13ZBlog EntryNative plays
https://cis-india.org/news/native-plays
<b>Online activist groups are helping change perceptions about the internet generation, says Shweta Taneja, Time Out Bengaluru.</b>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>For <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/staff/nishant-shah" class="internal-link" title="Nishant Shah">Nishant Shah</a>, 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.” </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The paper “<a href="https://cis-india.org/publications/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Digital Natives with a Cause? A Report">Digital Natives with a Cause?”</a> is available as a free download at www.cis-india.org. </p>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://bit.ly/7LEq26">Link to the original article</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/native-plays'>https://cis-india.org/news/native-plays</a>
</p>
No publisherradhaDigital Natives2012-01-03T11:08:46ZNews ItemDigital Natives with a Cause?
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep
<b>Digital Natives With A Cause? - a product of the Hivos-CIS collaboration charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology with a specific attention for developing countries to create a framework that consolidates existing paradigms and informs further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.</b>
<p></p>
<p><img class="image-left" src="../dnr/image_preview" alt="Digital Natives Report" /><a href="https://cis-india.org/" class="external-link">The Centre for Internet and Society</a>, Bangalore and <a class="external-link" href="http://http://www.hivos.net/">Hivos</a> have assessed
the state of knowledge on the potential impact of youth for social
transformation and political engagement in the South. This report ‘<em>Digital Natives with a Cause?’</em>
charts the scholarship and practice of youth and technology and informs
further research and intervention within diverse contexts and cultures.</p>
<p>
The report displays that digital natives have a potential impact as
agents of change. It concludes that multidisciplinary theoretical
approaches venturing beyond the cause-and-effect model and providing
the necessary vocabulary and sensitivity are crucial to understanding
Digital Natives. The lament that youths are apolitical is a result of
insufficient attention to activities that do not conform to existing
notions of political and civil society formation. Digital Natives are
sensitive and thoughtful. It is time to listen to them and their ideas,
and to focus on their development as responsible and active citizens
rather than on their digital exploits or technologised interests.</p>
<p>The report specifically focuses on youth as e-agents of change within emerging information societies to explore questions of technology mediated identities, embedded conditions of social transformation and political participation, as well as potentials for sustained livelihood and education. It identifies the knowledge gaps and networks and further areas of intervention in the field of Digital Natives.</p>
<p>As a first step in working towards enabling Digital Natives for
social transformation and political engagement, Hivos and CIS will
organize a Multistakeholder Conference Fall 2010.</p>
<p>A summary of the report, as well as the detailed narrative are now available for discussion, debate, suggestions and ideas.</p>
<p class="Inleiding"> </p>
<p class="Inleiding">Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report Download Pdf document <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnrep1" class="internal-link" title="Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report">Here</a></p>
<p class="Inleiding">Digital Natives with a Cause? - Report Summary Download Pdf document<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnsum" class="internal-link" title="Digital Natives with a Cause? - Summary of Report"> Here</a></p>
<p class="Inleiding"> </p>
<p class="Inleiding">The report is also available at <a class="external-link" href="http://http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-on-Digital-Natives">http://http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause/News/New-Publication-on-Digital-Natives</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnrep</a>
</p>
No publishernishantRAW PublicationsDigital NativesWeb PoliticsFeaturedBooksDigital subjectivitiesResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:31:14ZBlog EntryDigital Natives with a Cause? A Report
https://cis-india.org/publications-automated/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf
<b>Youth are often seen as potential agents of change for reshaping their own societies. By 2010, the global youth population is expected reach almost 1.2 billion of which 85% reside in developing countries. Unleashing the potential of even a part of this group in developing countries promises a substantially impact on societies. Especially now when youths thriving on digital technologies flood universities, work forces, and governments and could facilitate radical restructuring of the world we live in. So, it’s time we start listening to them.
</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/publications-automated/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf'>https://cis-india.org/publications-automated/cis/nishant/dnrep.pdf</a>
</p>
No publisherradhaDigital Natives2012-03-13T10:43:09ZFileChina's Generation Y : Youth and Technology in Shanghai
https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/GenerationY
<b>Within the context of internet technologies in China, Nishant Shah, drawing from his seven month research in Shanghai, looks at the first embodiment of these technologies in the urbanising city. In this post, he gives a brief overview of the public and academic discourse around youth-technology usage of China's Generation Y digital natives. He draws the techno-narratives of euphoria and despair to show how technology studies has reduced technology to tools and usage and hence even the proponents of internet technologies, often do a disservice to the technology itself. He poses questions about the politics, mechanics and aesthetics of technology and offers the premise upon which structures of reading resistance can be built. The post ends with a preview of the three stories that are to appear next in the series, to see how youth engagement and cultural production can be read as having the potentials for social transformation and political participation for the Digital Natives in China.</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/GenerationY'>https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/GenerationY</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceSocial mediaShanghaiCyborgsCyberculturesDigital Natives2009-09-21T14:09:16ZBlog EntryIT and the cITy
https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/itcity
<b>Nishant Shah tells ten stories of relationship between Internet Technologies and the City, drawing from his experiences of seven months in Shanghai. In this introduction to the city, he charts out first experiences of the physical spaces of Shanghai and how they reflect the IT ambitions and imaginations of the city. He takes us through the dizzying spaces of Shanghai to see how the architecture and the buildings of the city do not only house the ICT infrastructure but also embody it in their unfolding. In drawing the seductive nature of embodied technology in the physical experience of Shanghai, he also points out why certain questions about the rise of internet technologies and the reconfiguration of the Shanghai-Pudong area have never been asked. In this first post, he explains his methdologies that inform the framework which will produce the ten stories of technology and Shanghai, and how this new IT City, delivers its promise of invisibility.</b>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Shanghai. City of bits, bytes and
Baozi. China’s home-grown success story that eclipses the colonial legends of
HongKong. The city that was, until the Bejing Olympics, the showcase city which
is now working hard at recovering some of its stolen glory as it prepares for
the World Trade Expo in 2010. A city that is constantly at war with itself,
trying to museumise its past, eradicate pockets of history and times, and
running to escape its present and live in a futuristic tomorrow. A city that
broke the distinctions of the public and the private, by privatising all that
was public, and by encouraging the private to be constructed for a public
spectacle. There are many stories of Shanghai to be told, but the one that
needs to be told now, is about the space of the city and how, in its attempt to
become an IT city, it has become a city of surfaces, all reminding you, in an
overwhelming hypervisual way that is the predominant aesthetic of cyberspaces,
that it is the city that not only houses technology but also embodies it,
becoming, possibly, the only city in Asia that brings the IT back into the
City.</p>
<img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/shanghai/image_preview" alt="Aerial view" class="image-left" title="Aerial view" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A cursory glance around you,
perhaps travelling in the uber efficient metro system that feeds into the
mobile metaphor of accelerated speed and space that Shanghai has become, or
just walking down the more touristy XinTianDi where the rich and the famous of
Shanghai’s society hang out, or walking down the HuaiHai Road where
sky-scrapers fortress the sky and shopping malls greet you with neon-lit spaces
of consumption, you are overwhelmed at the significant and ubiquitous presence
of internet technologies. The buildings are designed to be interfaces, rather
than walls, covered constantly with the graffiti of digital advertisements,
live weather and stock updates, displaying the latest block-buster movie, or
just presenting a kaleidoscopic array of lights spiralling in a dizzying,
schizophrenic style on the surfaces of the buildings. As you walk through the
sci-fi inspired urban landscape, you try and suppress the feeling of being
inside a giant-size arcade game, waiting for a gobbling monster to come and
devour you, and continue browsing at the city that never remains the same –
either the surfaces mutate so that not even signboards or billboards remain the
same, or the very buildings disappear into rubble under the shadows of gigantic
cranes, as a concentrated demand for real estate necessitates a constant
recycling of limited space (The estimate says that 60 per cent of Shanghai gets
rebuilt every ten years), or high speed transport dissolves the city into a
blur so that only the biggest and the brightest buildings stay as north-stars
to the fluid geography of the city.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If you happen to stand on the
magnificent Bund in PuXi (The older Shanghai), you keep on looking down at the
ground beneath your feet, making sure that it is still there, because the
slightly lurid but dazzling sky-line that faces you, with huge LCD screens
mounted on buildings, lights flirting with low lying clouds on the top of
gigantic buildings, and a constant buzz of electricity breaking the waves in
the Huangpu river, you know that you are in a city that gives IT its address.
No other city in Asia – not even the almost-not-Asia spaces of Tokyo or
Singapore – gives you the assurance of being completely and totally immersed in
the glory of Internet technologies. Shanghai stands, networked, connected,
mobile, accelerated, and in a time-less vacuum that hoovers the future into the
present, as a city that technology studies will have to reckon with in a
paradigm of its own.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Bund/image_preview" alt="Shanghai Bund" class="image-right" title="Shanghai Bund" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And so strong is this seduction
of technology that conversations about technology and its place in Shanghai,
always revolves around the surface – about the building of the surface, about
the dissolution of depth (temporal or spatial),
and about imagining the city only in terms of light, connectivity, and
speed. So that the historicity in PuXi
becomes a flat display of the Chinese Way (Zhongguo Fangshi) and the
work-in-progress present in PuDong remains a quest for the future. In this split discourse, the questions and concerns - about governance, about citizenship, about regulation, about cultural production and political negotiation - become invisible. Like the buildings, which get guised in digital cloaks, the questions that pressingly need to be asked but are always postponed, also get cloaked in the rhetoric of development propelled by ICTs and globalisation. In a city that was constructed to eternally deflect attention, ownership or voices, how does one begin to scratch at the surfaces (Literally and figuratively) to search for something more than narratives of consumption, solipsist self-gratification, and self-congratulatory development?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It is with this agenda, in this city, torn and
marked and seamlessly stitched by technology, that I start to unravel my
questions about Internet and Society in China, trying to look at relationships
between technologies, city spaces and identities, drawing from seven months spent
at the Centre for Contemporary Studies at the Shanghai University. These stories, written with retrospective memory and embellished by the privilege of
hindsight, posit a set of questions about Internet technologies, construction
of city spaces, and manifestation of identities in China, but especially in
Shanghai, to locate potentials of social transformation, political
participation, engagement and discourse, which has not been transplanted on
technology studies in China. In the process it also lays down a framework to
understand how, in an oppressive or authoritarian regime, the cultural becomes
the grounds upon which foundations of new political intervention and social
change can be built.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This blog, in its ten different
entries, relies on academic and popular discourse, semi-structured interviews,
participant observation, field work, conversations, and personal experiences that
I collected in my stay there, trying to deal with the double translations of
culture and language. Whenever I have been unsure – and those moments have been
many – I have tried to discuss and debate ideas with colleagues, friends, peers
and participants, to ensure that the observations or arguments are qualified by
more than just a neo-colonial meaning making sensibilities. Despite that rigour, if faults remain, they
are all mine, and hopefully will serve as points of entry into a fruitful
discourse.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/itcity'>https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/itcity</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceinternet and societyShanghaiICT4DDigital NativesCyberculturesDigital subjectivitiesIT Cities2009-09-18T10:45:27ZBlog Entryi4D Interview: Social Networking and Internet Access
https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/i4d-interview-social-networking-and-internet-access
<b>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.</b>
<h3 align="left">Mechanism of Self-Governance Needed for Social Networks</h3>
<h3 align="left">Should social networking sites be governed, and if yes, in what way?<br /></h3>
<p align="justify"><img src="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/uploads/nishantshah1.gif/image_preview" alt="Nishant Shah" class="image-left" title="Nishant Shah" />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.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>How do we address the concerns that some of the social networking spaces are not "child safe"?</strong> </p>
<p align="justify">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.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>What are the issues, especially around identities and profile information privacy rights of users of social networking sites?</strong> </p>
<p align="justify">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.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>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?</strong></p>
<p align="justify">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. </p>
<p align="justify">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.</p>
<p align="justify"><a class="external-link" href="http://www.i4donline.net/articles/current-article.asp?Title=netgov-Speak:-Lead-up-to-IGF-2008&articleid=2169&typ=Coulum">Link to original article on i4donline.net</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/i4d-interview-social-networking-and-internet-access'>https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/i4d-interview-social-networking-and-internet-access</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceDigital NativesPublic AccountabilityCyberculturesCommunitiesDigital subjectivitiesDigital Pluralism2011-09-22T12:51:57ZBlog EntryCollaborative Projects Programme
https://cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme
<b></b>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society recognises collaboration and
consultation as its primary mode of engaging with research and
intervention. The <strong>Collaborative Projects Programme (CPP)</strong> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The CPP is <strong>NOT</strong> 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.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>List of Projects under the Collaborative Projects Programme:</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>2. Disability, Learning and Digital Participation - in partnership with <a class="external-link" href="http://www.inclusiveplanet.org/">Inclusive Planet</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme'>https://cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceFamilyDigital NativesPublic AccountabilityObscenitye-governanceCyborgsCyberculturesProjectsNew PedagogiesCommunitiesDigital subjectivitiesDigital Pluralism2011-08-23T03:04:56ZPageStorytelling and Technology - Sartaj Anand
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-sartaj-anand
<b>This post outlines the general characteristics of storytelling. The second section is an interview with Sartaj Anand, the founder of EgoMonk and BIllion Strong, who talks about storytelling as a strategy to build trust at the intersections of business and technology. This is the first of a series of installments exploring the potential of storytelling for social change.</b>
<pre><strong>CHANGE-MAKER:</strong> Sartaj Anand<strong>
ORGANIZATION: </strong>EgoMonk & Billion Strong<strong>
STRATEGY OF CHANGE: </strong>Leverage technology by focusing on the relationship between people and technology, and build trust by localizing and personalizing communication
<strong>
METHOD OF CHANGE:</strong> Storytelling<strong>
</strong></pre>
<h3 align="right"><em>“We all have something to say. Question is: will anyone listen?”</em></h3>
<div align="right">Understanding Comics<br />Scott McCloud, 1994</div>
<p align="justify"> </p>
<p align="justify">Today, everybody seems to be talking about ‘storytelling’. From activists to corporates; they are all jumping on this nostalgic bandwagon and embracing once again an enthralling habit of yesteryear: the ability to tell good stories. The practice has taken an identity of its own. It's distancing itself from its roots in oral tradition, and morphing into a state-of-the-art communication strategy. This is no selfless trend, though. Behind the hype, lies their thirst for (your) attention, and the belief that they do not only have a story to tell, but that it is a story that matters. In the context of “making change” particularly, when political and social crises emerge, the public space is flooded by a series of narratives and discourses as told by different actors. This explosion of stories culminates in an overload of information that could end up saturating its intended audience. This is not only undesirable, but dangerous when underneath the noise lies a message important for human dignity and survival. So, what is it about a story that will make it worthy of your attention? And how can this seemingly simple, yet complex tactic culminate in further engagement?</p>
<p align="justify">To explain storytelling as a method to create change, I will focus on how this practice can be utilized to enhance visibility and effectiveness of advocacy practices, as outlined in the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/methods-to-conceive-condense-social-change">research overview</a>. I will start by unpacking ‘storytelling’: focusing on its purpose and functions. I will also look at the the relationship between the storyteller and the audience, and also at how storytelling redefines ‘the public space’. Although I will be putting my best effort to explain the workings behind his method, I will rely on the storytellers themselves to learn about the power of well-crafted and well-delivered stories to make change. This opportunity’s change-actors: Sartaj Anand, The Ugly Indian, Blank Noise, come from different fields and will show very different perspectives of how the narratives of change utilized in their stories, re-articulates how users/citizens/customers interact and experience content.</p>
<h2><strong>Telling Stories</strong></h2>
<p>So, what is storytelling? And what makes it so different from other forms of narration? I consulted the work of German philosophers Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt to unpack the nature of this practice and its ability to transmit knowledge.</p>
<div align="justify" class="pullquote">“the storyteller takes what he tells from the
experience and <span class="st">he in turn makes it the experience of those who are listening</span>” <em><br /></em>
<div align="right">W. Benjamin, 1977</div>
</div>
<p align="justify">In Benjamin’s essay “The Storyteller” (1955) he laments the demise of storytelling: “<em>less and less frequently do we encounter people with the ability to tell a tale properly [as if] the ability to exchange experiences [had been taken away from us]”.</em> Having its origins in oral tradition, storytelling for the most part consists of taking experiences worth sharing and disseminating them in the community with a specific, and according to Benjamin, a useful purpose in mind. It could be a moral, a maxim or a practical advice (1977), but at the end of the day, the audience takes away a new piece of information it did not have at the beginning of the story. This lesson may be related to the past of the storyteller or one of his characters, but its value lies in how it can now be extrapolated to the audience’s future. </p>
<p align="center"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Benjamin1.jpg/image_preview" title="Benjamin 1" height="246" width="419" alt="Benjamin 1" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p align="center" class="discreet">Ann Rippin's rendition to The Storyteller by Walter Benjamin. Visit her wordpress <a href="http://annjrippin.wordpress.com/thirteen-notebooks-for-walter-benjamin/">here</a>.</p>
<p align="justify">Hannah Arendt, German-American philosopher from the early 20th century also had a lot to say about storytelling and ‘narratives’. She understood it as a framework, backed up by a strong tradition of its own, and a structure that embodies how our mind works: <em>“the mind doesn’t simply re-create sequences of events as they occur, but it creates new sequences and integrates events into appropriate existing sequences; the mind is constantly forming narratives” </em>(Kieslich, 2013.). This understanding of the practice goes beyond Benjamin’s proposition that we become part of the narration as it occurs. Arendt posits that our mind is already manufactured to construct sequences and connections in the same way in which we build stories -as opposed to the way we structure our essays, novels or tweets- before we tell them. Being such an embedded cognitive process, it feels familiar, comfortable and natural, which derives into a “critical appreciation” for the events of the story, and leads you to make deeper connections on how they relate to your life (Oni, 2012).</p>
<p> (Read more on Arendt and storytelling here: <a href="http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=5229">The Story of Reconciliation – Hannah Arendt Center)</a></p>
<p align="justify">However, both Benjamin and Arendt’s analysis is still very focused on the oral vs. prose question. Entering the 21st century we face the question of the role of digital technology and our highly visual culture in facilitating, amplifying or limiting the process of storytelling. On this point, I jumped to the end of the 20th century and looked at one of the many forms of storytelling: the comic. Scott McCloud’s “Understanding the Comic” (1994) takes you through the whole process of creating a coherent interplay of words and pictures that “convey information” and/or produce an “aesthetic response in the viewer”. Why are aesthetics important? , Because, according to McCloud, the inclusion of art is both the rejection and affirmation of our human condition. On one hand, art (or how we respond to it) is a rejection to our basic instincts, allowing us to express needs beyond survival and reproduction. On the other hand, it is a vehicle through which we assert our identities as individuals and pursue a “higher purpose and truth” (1994). Digital storytelling is imbued with visual stimuli: pictures, videos, graphics, that enhance the sensory experience, and as we explored in the Information Design posts (Find Part 1:<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-information-is-power">Information Activism</a>, and Part 2: <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/tactical-technology-design-activism-1">Information Design</a>) create new (and deeper) channels to approach and understand the message delivered by these stories.</p>
<table class="plain" align="center">
<thead align="center"></thead>
<tbody align="center">
<tr>
<td align="center"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/UnderstandingomicsMcCloud.jpeg/image_preview" style="float: left;" title="SMC" height="341" width="228" alt="SMC" class="image-inline image-inline" /></td>
<td>
<p align="center"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/FotoFlexer_Photo.jpg/image_preview" style="float: right;" title="SMC 2" height="346" width="400" alt="SMC 2" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
</td>
<td>
<p align="center"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Comic3.jpg/image_preview" alt="SMC 3" class="image-inline image-inline" title="SMC 3" /></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p align="right" class="discreet">Excerpts of Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud</p>
From these three perspectives we understand the following about storytelling. It is:
<blockquote>
<ul><li>A practice rooted in the tradition of sharing experiences</li></ul>
<ul><li>Participatory and interactive: the experience of the storyteller becomes the experience of the audience.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The purpose of storytelling is to pass on a message, moral guidance or practical advice to the audience, through its content.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The form or structure of narratives is determined by sequences of facts and events, which is the same way we build stories in our minds.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The experiential and familiar nature of storytelling makes it easier to engage with and relate to. </li></ul>
<ul><li>The inclusion of images, art and media produces an aesthetic response in the viewer, providing the audience an opportunity for self-expression and freedom.</li></ul>
</blockquote>
<p align="justify">Translating these characteristics to the theme of the Methods for Social Change project (how to build a sense of citizenship and civicness through technology-mediated practices. More <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/methods-to-conceive-condense-social-changehere">here</a>): storytelling (re)emerges as a promising vehicle for political change, especially when in par with the “technological possibilities” of our times (Benjamin, 1977). If we choose to entertain this thought, we find how its roots in community traditions make stories an excellent meeting point to form solidarity networks and stronger offline communities to sustain activism. The logical and sequential format of stories are interesting mediums, not only to transmit new ideas on citizenship and engagement; but make them relevant and appealing. Finally, 'the moral of the stories' are seeds for introspection and reflection, that may shape how we understand our role in society as a whole. At the end of the day though, it is storytellers who will lead this journey and meeting them is the first step to gauge how the theory of storytelling unfolds in the practice.</p>
<p align="justify">In the next section, we will meet some of the actors utilizing this method in different fields - and there are plenty of storytellers out there, gifted in skill and
practice conveying an array of messages to an equally diverse public- but before moving on I will close with an excerpt from Lisa Disch’s essay that brings all these points together:</p>
<blockquote>
<h3 align="center">“[Storytelling] is more adequate than arguments to depict ambiguities of a multidimensional social reality” <br /></h3>
</blockquote>
<p><br />In other words, it is a practice that strips narratives from all ornaments, displaying the complexities of humanity in its most intuitive and experiential form.</p>
<h2 align="JUSTIFY"><strong>(Story)Tellers</strong></h2>
<h3 align="right"><em>Great storytellers: creators who devote their resources in controlling</em></h3>
<h3 align="right"><em> this medium to convey their messages effectively”</em></h3>
<p align="right">Understanding Comics<br />Scott McCloud (1993)</p>
<p align="justify"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Sartaj.jpg/image_preview" style="float: right;" title="Sartaj" height="185" width="255" alt="Sartaj" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p align="justify">Our first storyteller is Sartaj Anand; an India-based entrepreneur, founder of the innovation and strategy consulting firm: EgoMonk and active member of TED, Ashoka, Sandbox, Kairos Society and the Pearson Foundation networks (More about his work in his <a href="http://www.plussocialgood.org/Profile/19625">Social Good profile</a>). His self-described “unreasonable dream” is to impact one billion people with his work and create “life-changing experiences”. He strives to do this by a) leveraging the relationship between people and technology and b) through his recently launched non-profit Billion Strong. Also, as opposed to other change-makers we’ve interviewed in the project, he comes from an engineering and business background; bringing a for-profit perspective into our melange of multi-stakeholder approaches to change.</p>
<p align="justify">The following interview touches on digital storytelling as one of the ways Anand is using to leverage technology. His vision highlights how you cannot disconnect people from the processes you are utilizing to impact their lives. Incorporating a more humane focus in the way we use technology, and in how we construct stories, is according to his experience, the best way to have practices resonate to and be appropriate for the public.</p>
<p align="right" class="discreet">Sartaj Anand,</p>
<p align="right" class="discreet">Founder of EgoMonk and Billion Strong<strong><br /></strong></p>
<p align="left" class="callout"><strong>Tell us about your background and the intersections of your work with technology.</strong></p>
<p align="justify">I started with an engineering background and my thesis was on language processing; figuring out how people talk and how that needs construction data. Fundamentally at some point, I figured out that technology is not the problem, people are; so that’s how I moved into my current focus in business: which is innovation strategic consulting. I frequently rely on technology to enable or actualize change but I don’t necessarily create it. The challenge is how we leverage the technology we have [...] and that’s where I can add the most value.</p>
<p align="left" class="callout"><strong>How do you leverage technology in the context of making change then?</strong></p>
<p align="justify">I leverage technology in terms of using it but focusing on the ‘people’ side of it”: the relationship between people and technology. That’s the main intersection point. [...] This is what I mean when I talk about technology, innovation, social structures and change.</p>
<p align="center"><iframe src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/26146622" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" align="middle" height="356" width="427"> </iframe></p>
<div align="center"> <strong> <a title="Ideas for Change" href="https://www.slideshare.net/sartajanand/ideas-for-change" target="_blank">Ideas for Change</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/sartajanand" target="_blank">Sartaj Anand<br /></a></strong>
<div align="left"> </div>
</div>
<p align="justify">Economically, business models have to replicate and service society. If businesses serve their people, they capture maximum value and gain efficiency over ten, twenty years (and this is appealing to all the capitalists in industrial businesses). However, towards the course of these years a lot of things can change and you progressively become more and more outdated. When you have this premonition, that's the point when you need to step in and cannibalize your own business model.</p>
<p>
For example, for seven years, music labels sold cds only. Then Apple came in with iPods and digital music downloads. After milking this for 10 years, what it should have done is fortify it and start streaming music to capture maximum value, like Spotify did. [...] This is a model EgoMonk works with and we try to communicate these things to our clients. They have the power to execute it, but they have to internally feel confident with all their stakeholders, whether it is for-profits with their board; or non-profits with donors and program partners. This is a choice we need to commit to. A lot of the problem in the change process (technology enabled or otherwise) is trust building. At the end of the day you are working with people, and this is a challenge.</p>
<p class="callout"><strong>In order to build this trust you must be aiming for a deeper and personal communication with your clients. How are you including this in your business model?</strong></p>
<p align="justify">We focus a lot on communication and that’s something we rely on increasingly; and I found it has to have a Why-What-How model -borrowing from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Tw0PGcyN0">Simon Sinek's gold circles</a>. In that order.</p>
<div align="center"><iframe src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/20996308" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" height="356" width="427"> </iframe></div>
<div align="center"> <strong> <a title="Storytelling 101" href="https://www.slideshare.net/sartajanand/storytelling-101-20996308" target="_blank">Storytelling 101</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/sartajanand" target="_blank">Sartaj Anand</a></strong></div>
<p> </p>
<p>People don’t buy the 'what' of it, without the 'why' you do it. For example, Apple is great because it works to improve your life, to inspire you, amuse you: make your life better. What they do comes second: Apple is an electronics company, an application company. Last is the how: It makes the iPhone. We apply a similar model and this is something I apply in my storytelling also. I’m a believer that every story has to have an end or a moral: something that is more hopeful and optimistic. Rely on that but decide that also, I’m not the only one around: stories are increasingly personal and local.</p>
<p class="callout">
<strong>Given the personal and experiential nature of storytelling, I assume it is a challenge to mainstream it in your services. Tell us more about the practices you are using to implement it and how they break from more traditional communication practices in the past.</strong></p>
<h3>EgoMonk<br /></h3>
<p>EgoMonk is an Innovation and Strategic Management Consultancy (More about EgoMonk <a href="http://egomonk.com/">here</a>). Particularly this means that:</p>
<p align="justify">a) We start with the hypothesis that<strong> we don't know everything</strong>. With that in mind, we borrow amazing frameworks from amazing institutions. For example, <a href="http://holacracy.org/how-it-works">Holacracy</a>;
(a “purposeful organization” technology that changes how the
organization is structured, how decisions are made and how power is
distributed); '<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/02/04/playing-to-win-how-strategy-really-works/">How will you win</a>'
philosophy from traditional large companies,, where they equate every
decision to a couple of questions like what's your winning aspiration?,
where will you plan?, how will you win?, what capability
systems/processes need to exist to make this a sustainable practice that
outlives you? This approach gets us halfway there, [especially] working
with people who haven't had access to this before.</p>
<div align="center">
<div align="center"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/EGomonk3.jpg/image_preview" title="egomonk 3" height="246" width="419" alt="egomonk 3" class="image-inline image-inline" /></div>
</div>
<p align="center" class="discreet"> <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/egomonk.com">EgoMonk</a>'s services</p>
<p align="justify">b) <strong>We localize it.</strong> We work with high impact entrepreneurs and turn their life goals into a four week plan. We frame it: What happens if after four weeks, you die. If these are four weeks you have to live: what really matters to you? What do you want to accomplish professionally and personally? Once you go through that exercise we say: What can continue sustainable during your life? What can you take away? We focus on timing and what you have to do. Once you put that concept of mortality into every day's existence, you start behaving differently.</p>
<p align="justify">c) We work with <strong>gamification</strong>. For example, we worked in a factory and completely changed the incentivization for their workers into something that is more fun. The challenge was: how do you improve the process of well-being in an industrial environment. How do we make working enjoyable for them? This model consists of short-term rewards: if you work really hard over this much time, you get 10 points and this gets you a (reward) with your family. This has never happened before.</p>
<h3><strong>Billion Strong</strong></h3>
<p>
Billion Strong is a platform. We want to impact a billion people and mobilize a billion dollars every year. The concept behind it is that the future is completely decoupled from our reality. It is highly utopian and right now we are not there and my hypothesis is that we'll never get there because our perspectives and assumptions keep evolving. This non-profit aims to accelerate the future in our lifetime so we can at least enjoy some of its benefits. It focuses on six things: culture, mobility, technology, art, nutrition and divinity. Each of these will be used as levers to impact a billion people.
In the case of Billion Strong, user adoption is the most frequent challenge you face in the non-profit space. I will explain this using our first two projects:</p>
<p align="justify"><strong>a) Project 1 - Divinity:</strong><br />We want to take religion, God and spirituality as a lever to impact people. A manifestation of this is the release of an open source tool kit to convert religious institutions into co-working spaces.</p>
<blockquote style="float: left;">
<p align="center"><strong>Centers of religion are:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Everywhere and permanent</li>
<li>Well known by the community</li>
<li>Community centers</li>
<li>Safe</li>
<li>Non-profit and non-taxable</li>
<li>Underutilized 99% of the time</li>
<li>Disconnected from youth</li></ul>
</blockquote>
<p align="justify"> Centers of religion have always been centers of education and community oriented, but within the last generation they've become prayer halls, and I think this is the wrong way of using this infrastructure. There are a couple of narratives being negotiated here (See box to the left).</p>
<p align="justify">In this case [the open source tool-kit] has a framework, and it is dynamic to the point where your choices in real time will influence the policies of this place and their physical manifestation. So you ask questions in a flow chart: Do you want men and women to work together or not?; Do you have the ability to buy new furniture or you want to use the existing furniture?; when you ask these questions you navigate a flow chart, depending on your choices. They will lead to a different output and when they see that, it is immediately empowering. This is storytelling, and this what will help us navigate the adoption issues. It's essentially us saying you own it; you know exactly what is good for your own community. In terms of the narrative, each copy will be different and adapted to its language. It has to be made for this community and everything has to be localized for that story you are telling. The religious and cultural narrative needs to be blended into it.</p>
<p align="justify"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p align="justify"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p align="justify"><strong>b) Project 2 - Nutrition:<br /></strong>Meat consumption is a huge challenge and highly unsustainable. We will use kick-start mechanics in a mobile app to trigger and enable change in food habits. We are obviously very digitally inclined right now. It's easy to capitalize on that, but instead of giving them money, we will ask them to skip a meal, go vegetarian for today or for the week and we are going to support that.</p>
<p align="justify">Adoption is a huge challenge, so we'll ask them: Where do you stay? They'll say: Amsterdam [for example], and it will provide them with a template. If you are vegetarian for today, for the week, or the month, this is your meal plan and all you need. Users will find meals close to them and won't have to worry about it anymore. And we will map their impact in real time through info-graphics and data visualization. They will be constructing and visualizing their own story in real time and we’ll present it through different narratives.</p>
<p align="justify" class="callout">
<strong>We are also looking at multi-stakeholderism in this project. Both EgoMonk and Billion Strong seem to be a combination of business, technology and communication strategies. Why multi-stakeholderism? </strong></p>
<p align="justify">Three reasons:</p>
<p align="justify">a) The future is<strong> multi-domain. </strong>You will never understand the whole picture if you say: I’m only going to solve water, but what about the pipes, the roads, the environment, infrastructure, cultural issue. One domain is no longer good enough. You will never be a complete expert of the complete ecosystem.</p>
<p align="justify">b) <strong>Adoption models</strong> will always be a challenge and right now it’s a compromised formula. Now it's a zero-sum game. We literally need to escape that and make it future-oriented; make it 1+1 through partnerships.</p>
<p align="justify">c)<strong> Storytelling </strong>is also getting more mainstreamed into change management and multi-stakeholderism. At the end of it, if you tell a good enough story, you can sell and get people to believe in your projects. This inherently builds partnership models. There is something that is permission marketing: all sales in the future are relationship based and indirect sales.(E.g. Red Bull is all about the experience) That’s how we have to be when we talk about multi-stakeholderism. Everything needs to be built in.</p>
<p align="justify">_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________</p>
<p align="justify"><em>** Next installment will look at how storytelling enhances visibility and accessibility, and how it is being used by Urban Governance groups in Bangalore.**</em></p>
<h3><strong>Sources:</strong></h3>
<ul><li>Arendt, Hannah (1994) Essays in Understanding Edited with an
Introduction by Jerome Kohn. The literary Trust of Hannah Arendt
Bluecher.p.308
</li><li>
<div id="gs_cit2" class="gs_citr">Benjamin, Walter. (1977): "The storyteller."89.</div>
</li><li>Disch,Lisa Jane (1994) Hannah Arendt and the limits of Philosophy. Cornell University Press. p.172-173
</li><li>
<div id="gs_cit2" class="gs_citr">Kieslich, Ingo. (2013) "Walter
Benjamin, Hannah Arendt: Storytelling in and as theoretical writing."
PhD diss., Vanderbilt University,</div>
</li><li>McCloud, Scott. (1994)."Understanding comics: The invisible art." <em>Northampton, Mass</em> <br /></li><li>
<div id="gs_cit2" class="gs_citr">Oni, Peter (2012). "The Cognitive Power of Storytelling: Re-reading Hannah Arendt in a Postmodernist/Africanist Context."</div>
</li></ul>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-sartaj-anand'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/making-change/storytelling-sartaj-anand</a>
</p>
No publisherdenisseMaking ChangeDigital Natives2014-03-12T11:43:19ZBlog EntryBook 1: To Be, Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook1
<b>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.</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook1'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dnbook1</a>
</p>
No publishernishantRAW PublicationsResearchers at WorkPublicationsDigital Natives2015-05-15T12:08:32ZFileDigital Natives with a Cause? Report
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/publications/dn-report
<b>Youth are often seen as potential agents of change for reshaping their own societies. By 2010, the global youth population is expected reach almost 1.2 billion of which 85% reside in developing countries. Unleashing the potential of even a part of this group in developing countries promises a substantially impact on societies. Especially now when youths thriving on digital technologies flood universities, work forces, and governments and could facilitate radical restructuring of the world we live in. So, it’s time we start listening to them. </b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/publications/dn-report'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/publications/dn-report</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaRAW PublicationsResearchers at WorkPublicationsDigital Natives2015-04-17T11:04:51ZFile