CfPs: The Indian Media Economy: Social Transactions in Digital India | 6-8 December | IIT Bombay, India

The Indian Media Economy: Social Transactions in Digital India (IME 2017)

6th-8th December 2017

Venue: IIT Bombay, India

Call for Papers

The reconfiguration of social, cultural, economic and political relationships in parallel with the pervasive application of digital technologies has been regarded as an epochal shift in the Western world. In India, the breathtaking rapidity and scale of digitisation provides us with an even greater remaking of human relationships. This is an era where rapid commodification proceeds in tandem with the spread of digital media devices. For ordinary people, social media platforms bring new economic opportunities along with the monetisation of the personal and the everyday. In this context, it is evident that the rise of a Digital India is being accompanied by new aspirations and understandings of modernisation, participation and development.

This conference will explore the challenges and opportunities for the media industries in the context of ambitious plans for a 'Digital India'. From the academic perspective, the event will explore the complexities of infrastructure provision, service demand and media labour in the changing landscape of 'Digital India', along with the instances and processes through which new sets of social, economic and political transactions are being established between citizen and state, markets and publics, cultures and commodities in the 21st century.

The symposium is co-hosted by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Queensland, and Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Our key themes will be:

• Digitisation in the Media Industries
  
• Remediation of Markets and Currencies
  
• Digital Media Commodities and Content
  
• Digital Publics and Mediated Politics
  
• Media and Development Infrastructure
  

Organising Committee:

• Adrian Athique (University of Queensland)
  
• Shishir Jha (IIT Bombay)
  
• Vibodh Parthasarathi (Jamia Millia Islamia)
  
• Sunitha Chitrapu (Sophia Polytechnic)
  

Our call for applications is now open. There will be a limited number of places, so timely submission will be essential as per the following schedule.

• Submission of Abstracts (200 words): 1st September
  
• Selection of Abstracts: 21st September
  
• Submission of Papers (5000 words): 24th November
  

Please use skjha9[@]gmail.com and a.athique[@]uq.edu.au for all correspondence with the subject heading as "Proposal for IME 2017".