The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies is organising The Act of Media workshop on 8th to 10th January 2016.
The workshop examines how media-enabled subjectivities produce new sites of departure in the law. The shift from theatre to cinema; cinema to video; and video to satellite television have been productive sites for law’s engagement with technology. The understanding of traditional notions of sovereignty, jurisdiction, and a public sphere defined by rational discourse have been challenged by the contemporary post Web 2.0 moment and the sheer speed, reach and inter-media circulation that this moment has enabled, breaking the bubble sphere of the old Internet.
The workshop brings together law and media practitioners, legal and media theorists, scholars from the law and social sciences, media and visual studies and media anthropology. The workshop is a space to throw open and explore new ideas and work in these fields, and engage with ongoing research in this area, while keeping in mind the nuances of legal and media practice.
Limited seats are available to attend the workshop. To register, please fill up this form.
The schedule for the workshop is listed below. We encourage you to use #ActOfMedia to Tweet about the workshop.
9:30 am to 10:00 am: Tea and Introductory Remarks
ACT I SCENE I: Forensics, Evidence, and the Legal Trial
Chair: Ravi Sundaram
Part 1: Time 10:00 am to 11:30 am
Mayur Suresh: “The Multiverse of a Terrorism Trial”
Jinee Lokaneeta: “Narco Videos, Forensic Psychologists and the Truth Telling Apparatus: Tracing Evidence, Law and Media Trials”
Tea: 11:30 am to 11:45 am
Part 2: Time 11:45 am to 1:15 pm
Megha Sahadev: “An Archival of Betrayal: The Use of Personal Documentary Evidence of Domestic Violence in the Courtroom and Beyond”
Pallavi Paul: “Objects as Exhibits: Performance of the Forensic”
Lunch: 1:15 pm to 2:15 pm
ACT I SCENE II: Free Speech, Privacy, and Consent
Chair: Nivedita Menon
Part I: Time: 2:15 pm to 3:45 pm
Francis Cody: “Defamation Law and the Political Body in Tamil News”
Arudra Burra: “Civil Liberties and Political Ideology: The Early Constitutional History of Freedom of Speech”
Tea: 3:45 pm to 4:00 pm
Part II: Time: 4 pm to 5:30 pm
Ranjit Singh: “Making up Aadhaar: Stories at the Intersection of Law, STS and Public Values”
Bishakha Datta: “The Faultlines of Consent”
ACT II SCENE I: Law, Media, Medium
Chair: Lawrence Liang
Time: 9:30 am to 11:30 am
Avishek Ray: “Testimonial Evidentialism and the Media: The Famine Paintings of 1943”
Ishita Tiwary: “Video and the Moment of Legal Disruption”
Smarika Kumar: “The Legal Understanding and Assertion of Authority of Law over New Technologies”
Tea: 11:30 am to 11:45 am
ACT II SCENE II: Cinema and Censorship
Chair: Ravi Vasudevan
Time: 11:45 am to 1:45 pm
Kartik Nair: “Paperwork/Film: Censorship and the Hindi Horror Film After the Emergency”
Silpa Mukherjee: “Censored, Curated and Licensed: Item Numbers after Film”
Ravinder Singh: “Censoring the Afterlives of National Heroes”
Lunch: 1:45 pm to 2:45 pm
ACT II SCENE III: Legal Procedure, Online Culpability, and Electronic Evidence
Chair: Jawahar Raja
Time: 2:45 pm to 4:45 pm
Abhinav Shrivastava: “Decoding the Relation between Evidence Law and Media Technologies in South Asia”
N. S. Nappinai: “Culpability for Online Content”
Apar Gupta: “Striking Down or Reading Down: Examining Litigation Strategies in the Challenge to Criminal Defamation Law”
ACT III SCENE I: Law, Language, and Media Cultures
Chair: Francis Cody
Time 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Shaunak Sen: “The Sting Effect”
Arpita Ghosh: “’Dirty Words’: Law, Media and Language in the AIB Roast”
Siddharth Narrain: “ ‘Objectionable Material’ and the Changing Contours of Hate Speech Law”
Tea: 12:00 pm to 12:15 pm
ACT III SCENE II: Round Table Discussion
Time: 12:15 pm to 1:45 pm
Lunch 1:45 pm