New Media and New Politics in Urban India (completed)
Across the world, and most certainly in the global South, there has been a proliferation of political activisms organized, mobilized and conceived on the ‘new media’ – a shorthand term for convergence technologies delivered through computers, cellular phones and a variety of hand-held devices. In Africa and Asia, the explosion of affordable smart phones and social networking sites has sparked new hopes of political participation, and new arenas for public debate and political action. Presupposing the secular politics of new media, a large crop of studies have enthusiastically proposed that the Internet would be at the forefront of media-led democratic revolution. This project investigates the emerging mediated arena of political participation, to understand how technological modernity, nationalism, religion and civic enthusiasm articulate to constitute new political voices in and through new media in urban India. The project examines the structures and discourses of middle class civic activism, mediated nationalism and networked publics to unravel state-society relations emerging through social media cultures in the global South.