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A digital anthropologist examines the online lives of millions of people in China, India, Brazil, and across the Middle East—home to most of the world’s internet users—and discovers that what they are doing is not what we imagine. New-media pundits obsess over online privacy and security, cyberbullying, and revenge porn, but do these things really matter in most of the world? The Next Billion Users reveals that many assumptions about internet use in developing countries are wrong. After immersing herself in factory towns, slums, townships, and favelas, Payal Arora assesses real patterns of internet usage in India, China, South Africa, Brazil, and the Middle East. She finds Himalayan te...
There is much excitement about Web 2.0 as an unprecedented, novel, community-building space for experiencing, producing, and consuming leisure, particularly through social network sites. What is needed is a perspective that is invested in neither a utopian or dystopian posture but sees historical continuity to this cyberleisure geography. This book investigates the digital public sphere by drawing parallels to another leisure space that shares its rhetoric of being open, democratic, and free for all: the urban park. It makes the case that the history and politics of public parks as an urban commons provides fresh insight into contemporary debates on corporatization, democratization and priva...
A radical paradigm shift in the way we think about AI and tech, taking hope and inspiration from the aspirational users of new technologies around the world. When it comes to tech, the mainstream headlines are bleak: Algorithms control and oppress. AI will destroy democracy and our social fabric, and possibly even drive us to extinction. While legitimate concerns drive these fears, we need to equally account for the fact that tech affords young people something incredibly valuable—a rare space for self-actualization. In From Pessimism to Promise, award-winning author Payal Arora explains that, outside the West, where most of the world’s youth reside, there is a significant different outl...
Digital media histories are part of a global network, and South Asia is a key nexus in shaping the trajectory of digital media in the twenty-first century. Digital platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, and others are deeply embedded in the daily lives of millions of people around the world, shaping how people engage with others as kin, as citizens, and as consumers. Moving away from Anglo-American and strictly national frameworks, the essays in this book explore the intersections of local, national, regional, and global forces that shape contemporary digital culture(s) in regions like South Asia: the rise of digital and mobile media technologies, the ongoing transformation of established media ...
A digital anthropologist examines the online lives of millions of people in China, India, Brazil, and across the Middle East—home to most of the world’s internet users—and discovers that what they are doing is not what we imagine. New-media pundits obsess over online privacy and security, cyberbullying, and revenge porn, but do these things really matter in most of the world? The Next Billion Users reveals that many assumptions about internet use in developing countries are wrong. After immersing herself in factory towns, slums, townships, and favelas, Payal Arora assesses real patterns of internet usage in India, China, South Africa, Brazil, and the Middle East. She finds Himalayan te...
Focusing on the Iranian presidential elections of 2009 and ensuing demonstrations in major cities across Iran and world, Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age provides a balanced discussion of the role and impact of modern communication technologies, particularly the novel utilization of 'small digital media' vis-^-vis the elections and global media coverage. Written in a non-technical, easy to read, and accessible manner, the volume will appeal to scholars, students, policy makers and print professionals alike. To provide a global overview of media coverage and diverse perspectives on the controversial 2009 presidential election, this book consists of 24 original essays, covering issues from global media coverage to new media-social networking, from the ideological-political dimensions to the cultural facets of the elections. Organized in a cohesive manner, the writing styles and presentation remain varied and richly informative.
Digital technologies have transformed the way many creative works are generated, disseminated and used. They have made cultural products more accessible, challenged established business models and the copyright system, and blurred the boundary between
"Payal has beautifully defined success as to ‘reach where you want from where you are.’ She emphasizes rightful karma or focused execution to keep you on the right path so that you are always walking in a direction that takes you toward your goal." Dr. Arun Arora, CEO, EDVANCE "This book is full of practical tips on how to become a successful leader and the best part is Payal has narrated it wonderfully with appropriate fables and relevant case studies.... Her entrepreneurial attitude and impactful wisdom are commendable and evident in the IPL series." Swapna Hari, Director, Cognizant "This book by Payal Nanjiani will join the best of business literature for emphasizing attitude as our b...
Billions of dollars are being spent nationally and globally on providing computing access to digitally disadvantaged groups and cultures with an expectation that computers and the Internet can lead to higher socio-economic mobility. This ethnographic study of social computing in the Central Himalayas, India, investigates alternative social practices with new technologies and media amongst a population that is for the most part undocumented. In doing so, this book offers fresh and critical perspectives in areas of contemporary debate: informal learning with computers, cyberleisure, gender access and empowerment, digital intermediaries, and glocalization of information and media.
Understanding the embedded and disembedded, material and immaterial, territorialized and deterritorialized natures of digital work. Many jobs today can be done from anywhere. Digital technology and widespread internet connectivity allow almost anyone, anywhere, to connect to anyone else to communicate and exchange files, data, video, and audio. In other words, work can be deterritorialized at a planetary scale. This book examines the implications for both work and workers when work is commodified and traded beyond local labor markets. Going beyond the usual “world is flat” globalization discourse, contributors look at both the transformation of work itself and the wider systems, networks...