media, information, the contemporary
Feature

Call for Proposals: Short Term Research Projects in Social and Digital Media

The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, invites proposals from individuals for research projects on contemporary social and digital media, its ecologies and histories. Research is supported by a project grant from the Indian Council of Social Science Research.

Themes

We are interested in the following themes:

  • Legal research: Cases related to circulation of images and messages
  • Platform: Design, participation, revenue, alternatives
  • Media streams: Delivery and distribution of media (cinema, news, music,
    images)
  • Governance, media infrastructures, censorship and leakage
  • Censorship, government and commercial regulations and public campaigns
  • Intermedia junctions: screen cultures, interface design, data streams
  • Memory: Storage, databases, retrieval, devices
  • Online media as archive
  • Financial flows and social media
  • Issues of privacy/disclosure
  • Social media campaigns: Organized politics, petitions, activism
  • Practice-based research on software and multimedia platforms
  • Mobile phone culture and effects

In select cases, applications from themes beyond the above list will be considered.

This research project takes inspiration from the pioneering Sarai Independent Fellowship programme that initiated and supported a host of individual researchers working on contemporary culture.

Sarai seeks once again to support a diverse community of researchers: academics, practitioners (filmmakers, software programmers, artists, journalists etc), and independent scholars. See here the list of previous Independent Fellowship projects.

Conditions:

  • Like the previous programme, we propose to mobilise collaborative models of research: we expect selected researchers to interact both with Sarai’s in-house research group and a larger community, and deposit their materials in the Sarai archive for public access and use.
  • Researchers do not have to be resident in Delhi, but will contribute regularly with postings on their research in online platforms. There will be a final paper and presentation in a workshop at Delhi.
  • Applicants should be resident in India, and should have an Indian Bank Account and Income Tax PAN in her/his name.
  • The research project will be available for up to six months and for a maximum amount of Rs. 1,00,000/-.
  • The research projects will run from May 1, 2014 to October 31, 2014.

Application Details

You need to send:

  • A proposal (max 1000 words)
  • A two page work-plan
  • An updated CV
  • Two work samples

Please email these as PDF file(s) to dak@sarai.net with “Application for Short Term Research Project” in the subject header.

Last date for applications: April 10, 2014

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