Digital Media Platforms: Conceptual Understanding - Class 6 PDF Download

Essentially digital technology is seen in three forms, “Artefacts or devices, activities and practices, social arrangements or organizational forms” (Lievrou, L. and S. Livingstone: 2006) and also “A set of social relations which incorporate the use of technologies with various results” (Miller, V.:2011) within the ‘information society.’ It is a medium - a ‘connection’ or “interface (system, device, or technology) that human beings use to communicate with each other” (Panikkar, A.:2007). However, the question is the Internet a medium only for the egalitarian society? Or, does it push the social sector towards a new form of marginalization where ‘technical’ access defines participation? These pertinent questions are discussed in this section to explore the theoretical understanding of Internet-based platforms as form and medium.

Production, Mediation, and Participation

From voice command, audio-video recording to ease of uploading the content, Internet-based digital devices have the flexibility of usage. Today, the Internet is reaching the marginalized segments of society to a large extent if not all. Interestingly, ‘consumable media content’ like videos, text messages’ GIFs, etc. is being created and shared on social media sites such as Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and taking the unheard voices to the rest of the world. However, media production depends on specific technical aspects.
For example, to get noticed by the authorities and social mainstream, the content produced by the marginalized has to be in circulation unless and until it reaches the desired effect. However, in the competitive world of the Internet, only the ‘entertaining’ content remains alive. Here, we have to take notice of what Steve Hill and Paul Bradshaw (2018) have said about “native content,” “They needed to find out what content worked best in attracting and retaining audiences on this new medium.”
In this process, they mention the challenges of resource allocation for multi-platform visibility of content and also to remind us of the situation, “If a change in a social platform’s algorithms leads to a publisher’s content becoming less visible to users, then viewers are going to drop” (Hill and Bradshaw:2018). Mediation is a complex process, where one entity represents the whole body. Often such narratives take extreme shapes with opposing interpretations and result in “the symbolic frontiers between ‘us’ and ‘them’” (Orgad, S.:2012).
Though the process of mediation on the Internet ought to be different from other media that work ‘one-way,’ ‘one person’s narrative,’ yet even on two-way media platforms provided by the Internet, they are more or less the same due to lack of technical accessibilities as discussed above. In the absence of authentic content, the severe issues either remain hidden or take a distorted shape of ‘entertainment’.
Therefore, we need a ‘bottom-up approach,’ “As it provides further evidence that the disadvantaged are in the best position to know theft-own needs” (Alakhunova et al.:2015). With “bottom-up planning and participation,” individuals, as part of marginalized sections, participate in content production and consumption that reflects their actual voices and language, theft own concerns and conditions, issues of their development and governance, theft mobilization and participation, and importantly then-knowledge, time and space (Slater, D.:2013).

Network Embeddedness and Heterogeneity

Media practices are embedded in the technology they use. This is also true for Internet-based media. It directs our minds, body, and thus, social relations and worldview. For example, the social imagery attached to the mobile phone you use, the Internet-based work you perform, like - clicking pictures, chatting with friends, ‘browsing’, and exploring new relationships on Social Networking Sites (SNSs) - all are seen with set practices. Ashok Panikkar (2007) asserts, “Human beings do not merely ‘use’ machines; they immerse themselves in the ‘system’ that the machine brings with it.”
This leads to the ‘ controlled/embedded’ use of machines, sometimes, against the benefits to marginalized sections compromising their own knowledge-sets. Don Slater (2013) cites the example of the ‘North-South’ divide to explain the domination of ‘globally marginalized communities’ by the narratives of ‘transformation into an information society. We live in a society where “the social is itself mediated” by the Internet.
Thus, the media constitute social processes and realities that are ‘mediated’ and embedded with certain types of fixed visibilities to generate the effect. Embeddedness plays a role when the issues and events are constructed in a formulaic manner, like - traditional media giving no space for the native content. For example, webcasts of traditional news formats, films, and TV series or visual stimulation on small screens attract more viewers than any story without it and lead to the embedded process of filter-based selection of content. There is another technical embeddedness as well.
For example, ‘virtual communities’ are formed only when people carry on the public discussion over a period of time through intellectual and social organization. Generally, those are the people of a particular ideology who have access to the Internet (Rheingold:1993; Whitley:2000; Wilfred:2007). Another problem is the users’ data being analyzed for marketing. For example, “Facebook’s Instant Articles format allows publishers to embed ‘in-house analytics tools or third-party measurement services’” (Facebook for Developers, as cited in Hill and Bradshaw:2019). Nevertheless, if one understands the process of embeddedness, one can easily use the same technology as emancipatory media.
Attributes like hybridism, hyper-textuality with the possibility of multimedia expansion (interconnectedness of information), and content-creativity enhance the heterogeneity. However, this will require a consistent dialogue coming from the marginalized sections/individuals. For example, content can be added and edited continuously on open websites such as Wikipedia. Blogs and video blogs can be made for the expansion of the viewer and heterogeneity in worldview.

Cyberoptimism vs. Cyberpessimism

While cyber optimism celebrates the role of the Internet as a ‘free, interactive, democratising’ medium; cyberpessimism sees it with scepticism. Manual Castells and Gustavo Cardoso (2006) view the Internet as the catalyst of the “structural transformation.” They find the “new technological paradigm” as interacting and working “according to the needs, values and interests of the users” (cited in Narayan, S.S., and Narayan, S.: 2016).
In such a decentralised ‘network society,’ the marginalities mitigate with the expansion of communication access to individuals through various means like mobile phones and personal computers. Broader participation of individuals/sections changes the relationship matrix and thus paves the way for the emancipation of castes, genders, classes, and all at the margins. Shani Orgad (2012) observes the Internet to be a “More flexible and participatory communicative platform to cultivate intimacy at a distance on an ongoing, long-term basis,” for instance, long-term “reciprocal” relationship between bloggers/YouTubers and their audiences.
The Internet-based content representing local issues/cultures often offers action-driven dialogue. It “Can help to enhance recognition and understanding of difference, and contribute to nourishing a richer and more complex global imagination” (Orgad: 2012). However, it ends in less impact due to a lack of consistency, depth, completeness, and interest. Conversely, scholars cite problems, such as anonymity of sources, doctored content posted for political agenda and propaganda, ‘fictionality’ of the virtual world that aggravate marginalization.
Such content on the Internet becomes the cause of riots, spatial disturbances, child/women trafficking, and abuse. The blurriness between real and virtual gives way to the ‘unstable order’ of ‘liquid times’ (Appadurai, A.: 1996; Bauman, Z.:2007). Shani Orgad (2012) also highlights the problem of “exposure to multiple storytellers” showing opposing/contestable accounts of the same reality that can confuse meaning-making, i.e. which account of reality to believe in? Don Slater (2013) cites an example of how Internet-based content has enlarged the rural-urban divide by representing only the “urban modernity.”

Digital Divide to Digital Citizenship

Based on the idea of ‘lack of access to the ICT and e-resources, the concept of the digital divide itself is a part of marginalization. The expanded theory of the digital divide includes subtle-unidentifiable ‘multiple deprivations’ in terms of the quality of access with the availability of the Internet. It includes the ease of full access; for example, if an individual accessing the information cannot write an email, it cannot be called ‘full access to the Internet’.
According to the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Nielsen report, with mobile telephony, India has 10% more Internet users in rural areas than in urban cities as of November 2019 with 227 million active Internet users (TOI, May 6, 2020). This can be marked as a paradigm shift mitigating the ‘urban-rural digital divide’.
The Internet available in vernacular languages over voice command became a pathbreaker in this direction. The move resulted in increased interactivity and participation in e-governance. With a broader knowledge base in User-Generated-Content (UGC), people are raising awareness on social media to make the authorities aware of the situation in almost every sector of governance like health, education, public distribution systems (PDS), farming sector, etc.
Marginalized sections/individuals and other stakeholders are engaging in dialogue for governance as never before. Andre Lemos and Julio Valentim (2007) call this “telematics culture with new practices of sociability” as part of an inclusive information society with “connectedness” {see also, Giddens, A: 1991; Castells, M.:2000). However, Internet accessibility is still lagging far behind the marginalized individuals/sections based on gender and class.
The qualitative assessment also questions the type of content consumed - whether the content is useful in bringing about social change.
Ashok Panikkar (2007) explains the same in terms of news content that “does not allow for the creation of nuanced and analytical information,” and discussions turn into debates. Here, if the content is ‘manufactured’ only by a few, it will remain controlled by similar traditional structures. Therefore, the question arises as to who controls the system and ‘activity’ (Selwyn, N.:2004). The problems of spectrum distribution, free Wi-fi, and net neutrality (Weinberger:2003; Press, L.: 2003 cited in Lemos and Valentim:2007), powerful narratives, skewed consumption pattern towards entertainment, and lack of content production by the marginalized for severe engagement of the society/government remain the areas of concern in order to bring the ‘digital citizenship’ to all. Don Slater states (2013), “Access to a network means for producing, processing and circulating information.”