[Reader-list] Short Term Research Projects in Social Media: Selected Proposals 2016

[The Sarai Programme]

The Sarai Programme is committed to developing a public architecture for
creating knowledge and creative communities. In keeping with this
commitment, we seek to develop a community of scholars, writers and
practitioners who are motivated to make the materials and outcome of
research available for public access and circulation, with the
understanding that an imaginative engagement with social experience will be
best fostered by a sharing of information, ideas, research materials and
resources. We see our system of Short Term Research Projects as a resource
that will be built on by many people working whether individually or in
groups, but with a sense of collective endeavour and public purpose.

The Call For Proposals for the Short Term Research Projects in Social and
Digital Media attracted over 90 applications from all over the country, and
it took a careful scrutiny of all the applications to reach our decision.
We received applications from scholars as well as practitioners, young
researchers and older, and proposals looked at a wide range of themes. The
applications testify to an emerging research interest in developments in
the last decade, as researchers and practitioners strive to reflect on the
contemporary histories and techno-material practices opened by social media
in India. Due to limited resources, we were unable to support many
interesting proposals. We encourage those interested in the field to keep
track of lectures and workshops and other work Sarai is planning to develop
in the area of social media.

Please see below excerpts from selected proposals for this year’s Short
Term Research Projects in Social Media.
<http://sarai.net/short-term-research-projects-in-social-media-selected-proposals-2016/>

1. Ankush Bhuyan, 'Digital Identities: The Online Circulation of Bodo VCD
Films and Music Videos'

This project aims to capture the current moment where social media
intersects with VCD films and music videos, in their entirety or in the
form of clips available online, and questions of Bodo identity.

2. Epsita Halder, 'Media and Mobilization: Digital Media and the Shia
Public Sphere in West Bengal'

The project tries to locate digital culture in Shia districts of Bengal to
understand identity formation of the community after the advent of new
media. It engages with this new visual-aural piety of these diverse
modalities of transmission and reception, and locates, traces and analyses
the new efforts to identify contemporary Shia communities

3. Onkar Hoysala, 'A Practice Perspective on Technologies Used in
Transportation Studies'

This project considers one area of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)
research – modelling and simulation

4. Ritika Pant, 'Broadcast to Broadband: Televisual Experiences in the Age
of the Digital'

This project, thus, seeks to engage with the interactions between an older
medium of broadcast (television) with a newer means of distribution
(internet) and explore how this new interface is introducing us to the
“post-broadcast” moment.

5. Shiva Thorat, 'Culture of Downloading in Khandesh region  and the Story
of Transfer of Media: An Auto Ethnographic Study'

The small business of ‘copy-paste’ and transferring media material into
memory cards of mobile phones is common to small towns like Shirpur and in
larger cities like Pune, Mumbai. The current study seeks to explain what
kind of equations and notions of society associated with these ‘downloading
workers’ and their consumers

6. Swati Janu, 'Incrementality in Digital Consumption within Informal Urban
Settlements: Tracing Purchasing Patterns of Mobile Technology Through
Mobile Recharge Kiosks'

The research aims to analyze the patterns of mobile technology purchases –
data recharge and offline media download on phones – through phone recharge
kiosks in informal settlements.

7. Vibhushan Subba,'The Returned: The Rise of B-Movie Cinephilia'

This project seeks to track the creation, nature and evolution of B-Movie
cinephilia -which has produced a mobile and alternative archive- in order
to understand the altered relationship between the producers of content and
digital technology and stage a debate around censorship, ownership and
alternative histories.