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New Media Practices in China, Part 2: Mobile Phones

Mobile “Graffiti Advertising,” Beijing, 2007 ** Bandit Phone Display, Shenzhen, August 2008

As mentioned in my previous post, China’s mobile phone market has seen tremendous growth in a relatively short period of time. With the diffusion of cell phones in China, certain distinctive (though not wholly unique) traits of mobile phone use have emerged. The first is that although business people in China make voice calls frequently, the majority of mobile phone users, including youth, communicate primarily via text message. The sheer volume of text messaging in China is astounding. In 2007, 592.1 billion text messages were sent, for an average of 1.6 billion/day and a daily revenue of 160 million yuan (roughly US $21 million) (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/08/content_7581868.htm). In most cases, text messaging is not necessarily used for reasons of courtesy to those occupying the same public space (as in Japan). On the contrary, loud mobile phone conversations on public transport, in restaurants, and on elevators are not uncommon. I have even heard people answer their cell phones in movie theaters. Rather, one reason for the prevalence of texting is it is cheap: about US 1.4 cents per message.

Text messages in China are often self-written, but the use of pre-written messages is also common. These types of messages are widely available and can either be copied from inexpensive books for sale at kiosks and mom and pop stores or downloaded from the Internet, though most people merely forward messages they have received. The contents are usually jokes, sentimental poems, erotica, or holiday greetings. For example, during the 2008 Chinese New Year period, approximately 17 billion text messages were sent. Though people from all walks of life send pre-written messages, among the rural-to-urban migrant women I met during my fieldwork in 2006-07 there was a large reliance on such messages. One reason was in order to compensate for low literacy levels (especially difficulty with inputting characters) (Wallis, 2008).  Another was to communicate emotions the women felt they could not properly express in their own words and to explore their sexual identity (Lin, 2005; Wallis, 2008). However, the flowery language of many such messages means that they are often disparaged by those who are more educated (Wallis, forthcoming). There is also a growing awareness in China that most pre-written messages are meant to cater to the tastes of lower social strata (Cartier, Castells, & Qiu, 2005).

Though most cell phone users in China use pre-paid cards due to their flexibility and convenience, mobile phone calling plans in China are not merely innocuous economic configurations based on rational market forces. Like so many other products and services that have arisen in the past decade or so, they bear distinct attributes intended to bestow status and to differentiate among users. One of the most noticeable examples of this distinction derives from mobile phone numbers themselves. First, cell phone prefixes are linked to a specific provider, with more prestige going to China Mobile. As the incumbent in the mobile phone market, China Mobile tends to offer better coverage and more service options in most areas (though the recent telecom restructuring might change this). Second, one’s number also reveals the type of service plan one has. For example, China Mobile’s “GoTone” brand provides subscribers with a variety of services, including international roaming, mobile Internet, mobile banking, MMS, GPS, and a “mobile secretary.” Beyond phone services, GoTone, as the package for “high-class customers,” also offers VIP clients “distinguished” airport service and a professional style golf club (http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/). On China Mobile’s website, the company boasts GoTone’s “intangible assets” that are “symbolized in success, self-confidence, and high taste” (http://www.chinamobile.com/gotone/profile/intro/). The blurb for the service even indirectly invokes the language of quality (suzhi) through comparing GoTone customers’ level and quality of “development” to its own. This information is not only available to subscribers or those who have perused China Mobile’s promotional materials. Because it is widely known that GoTone uses the 134 through 139 prefixes, these three-digit prefixes confer status on their users (This is perhaps somewhat akin to area codes in certain parts of the U.S., as in Los Angeles, for example, where a 310 area code, which signifies a Westside residence, carries more prestige than an 818 area code, which is used for phone numbers in the San Fernando Valley).

Regardless of provider or service plan, one’s mobile phone number itself is a mark of prestige. Unlike in the U.S. where numbers are usually randomly assigned to a cell phone subscriber, in China SIM cards with mobile numbers must be purchased separately in order to use a phone. Since mobile numbers in China are rather long (11 digits), numbers that have repeating digits are more expensive because these types of numbers are easier to remember. Numbers are also more costly based on whether they are considered lucky or unlucky. A phone number with a large amount of eights, for example, will be more expensive, and again confer status, since eight is an auspicious number in Chinese culture. On the other hand, a number ending in four (a homonym for death in Chinese) will be inexpensive and possibly create discomfort for a caller.

Mobile phones have now become a personal necessity for a vast majority of China’s city residents and they seem to be everywhere. Whole city blocks full of cell phone shops exist in cities as diverse as Beijing in the north and Nanning in the south. Urban metro stations, bus stops, and rooftops have all become display sites for ubiquitous cell phone advertising. Radio and TV shows, Internet portals, and advertising companies all vie for attention on and through people’s cell phones, and for those who don’t have the money to promote their services by such legitimate means, spray painting one’s mobile number on walls or sidewalks has become a new kind of guerrilla advertising (often for quasi-illicit services), as in the image above on the left.

Mobile users in China, particularly urban youth, tend to change handsets quickly. One reason is that the mobile handset industry in China consists of both global brands as well as a number of domestic manufacturers that release new models much more frequently than in other parts of the world. Another factor is that the heavy use of pre-paid phone cards means users are not locked into a contract with a particular phone. A recent trend has been the popularity of “bandit” phones (shanzhaiji), so-called because they fall into a grey zone in that they are not black-market phones, but they are not fully legal either. They are manufactured by small companies in southern China and are distinguished by being relatively cheap and loaded with functions. Sometimes they look like replicas of popular models, such as the iPhone, but come with a name such as “Hiphone.” Other bandit phones have cool or kitsch designs (see image above right). Bandit phones are popular among low-income groups such as migrants as well as trendy, geeky kids, but also among those who buy them to express a nationalist sentiment by not buying a global brand such as Nokia. Ironically, however, in purchasing a bandit phone, they are undercutting China’s legitimate domestic phone market (Zheng & Chen, 2008).

In terms of in-depth research on mobile phone use, thus far the focus has been on either the urban or the rural-to-urban migrant population, though exceptions where both populations have been included in the same study do exist, such as in the work of Fortunati, Manganelli, Law, and Yang (2008) and Yang (2006). This split in research design is in line with what are perceived to be vast gaps between these two populations in terms of material resources, life conditions, and opportunities. Both bodies of literature have found, not surprisingly, that young migrant workers in southern factories and “cool” (linglei) urban youth in Beijing voiced similar connections between owning a mobile phone and perceived social status or maintenance of “face” (Yang & Chu, 2006; Wang, 2005). In addition, gendered differences in preferences of mobile phone types as well as discourses about mobile phones have also been found among both groups (Yu & Tng, 2003; Wallis, 2008).

Perhaps because of the particular position they occupy within Chinese society, more in-depth research has been done on mobile phone use among rural-to-urban migrants than among urban residents. Cartier, Castells, & Qiu (2005) argue that “working class ICTs” such as the xiaolingtong (“Little Smart”), a less expensive mobile phone with limited geographic mobility (it runs off the fixed-line telephone system), as well as pre-paid calling cards enable migrants to become part of the “information have-less” (as opposed to have-nots). Recently, the popularity of Little Smart phones seem to be declining as the costs of standard mobile phones also decrease. Cell phones have become crucial tools for migrants, who often have minimal access to landlines outside of public call bars (huaba), to maintain as well as expand their social networks (Chu & Yang, 2006; Law & Peng, 2006). Dating via the mobile phone – where a relationship is initiated and sustained through text messaging and voice calls with a face-to-face meeting not taking place for several months – has also become a common feature of mobile phone use among young adult migrants (Law & Peng, 2006; Wallis, 2008). In using mobile phones to autonomously establish intimate relationships, young migrant women in particular challenge parental authority in such decisions. However, I noticed that they also engage in practices that blend the traditional as much as the technological, through, for example, relying on intermediaries for introductions (Wallis, 2008). However, more widespread availability of QQ (a chat program) on cell phones may be changing this situation, as QQ has become a popular venue for anonymous sexual solicitations. Still, whatever the means, those migrant women who establish intimate relationships outside of parental approval are not always able to follow through on their plans for the future, for reasons of self-protection, filial obligation, and financial security (Ma & Cheng, 2005). Thus, the long-term effects of such autonomy remain unknown.

Due to the nature of Chinese social relationships and the distinctions made between friends, colleagues, classmates, and the like, several studies have found that many rural-to-urban migrants do not have anybody they consider a “real friend” in their immediate vicinity (Law & Peng, 2006; Ma & Cheng, 2005). Thus, the cell phone emerges not so much as a “supportive communication technology” (Yoon, 2003) for relationships that are primarily maintained through face-to-face contact, but as an “expansive communication tool” used for maintaining ties with friends and lovers who are spread all over China (Wallis, 2008). In other words, many migrants have a number of close relationships that are maintained almost strictly through their mobile phone.

A final body of research on mobile phones in China has examined how cell phones, particularly via text messaging, are increasingly used for popular mobilization and subverting the dominant discourse. Such usage first became widespread during the SARS outbreak in 2003, when ordinary citizens used SMS to counter the government’s attempt to block dissemination of information about the epidemic through traditional media channels (Castells, et al., 2007). Yu (2004) argues that such usage constituted a “third realm” in state-society relations and a means of “informed citizenship” (p. 31). Since that time, SMS has been implicated in everything from organizing protests to block the construction of a toxic chemical plant (Nanfang Dushibao) to mobilizing “angry youth” during anti-Japanese riots in 2005. Though the government has tried to keep pace with the information spread via text messaging through devising new filtering and tracking techniques, it certainly cannot control all of the content sent through SMS (Qiu, 2007). For this reason, it uses both “hard power” techniques such as periodically arresting users for spreading “malicious rumors,” as well as softer measures, including sponsoring contests for ordinary citizens to write “red” (“healthy” or encouraging) messages and quash so-called “yellow” (sexual or pornographic) messages (Zhang, 2006). Because text messages often contain politically and morally subversive content, He (2008) argues that SMS, as a “fifth” media channel, has become a “major carrier of the nonofficial discourse” in China. This certainly was the case during the 2008 Olympics, when I received SMS jokes skewering the skills (or lack of) of China’s soccer team and praising the athletic as well as sexual ability of China’s gymnasts. The role of text messaging in China in creating a space for alternative discourse and a virtual public sphere is clearly a fascinating topic for further research.

References
Cartier, C., Castells, M., & Qiu, J. L. (2005). The information have-less: Inequality, mobility, and translocal networks in Chinese cities. Studies in Comparative International Development, 40(2), 9-34.

Castells, M., Fernandez-Ardevol, M., Qiu, J. L., & Sey, A. (2007). Mobile communication and society: A global perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chu, W.-C. & Yang, S. (2006). Mobile phones and new migrant workers in a South China village: An initial analysis of the interplay between the ‘social’ and the ‘technological.’ In P.-L. Law, L. Fortunati & S. Yang (Eds.), New technologies in global societies (pp. 221-244). Singapore: World Scientific.

Fortunati, L., Manganelli, A. M., Law, P., & Yang, S. (2008). Beijing calling… Mobile communication in contemporary China. Knowledge, Technology, Policy, 21, 19-27.

He, Z. (2008). SMS in China: A major carrier of the nonofficial discourse universe. The Information Society, 24, 182-190.

Law, P.-L. & Peng, Y. (2006). The use of mobile phones among migrant workers in Southern China. In P.-L. Law, L. Fortunati & S. Yang (Eds.), New technologies in global societies (pp. 245-258). Singapore: World Scientific Press.

Lin, A. (2005, June). Romance and sexual ideologies in SMS manuals circulating among migrant workers in Southern China. Paper presented at the International Conference on Mobile Communication and Asian Modernities. City University of Hong Kong

Ma, E. & Cheng, H. L. H. (2005). ‘Naked’ bodies: Experimenting with intimate relations among migrant workers in South China. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 8(3), 307-328.

Qiu, J. L. (2007). The wireless leash: Mobile messaging service as a means of control. International Journal of Communication, 1, 74-91.

Wallis, C. (2008). Technomobility in the margins: Mobile phones and young rural women in Beijing. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Southern California.

Wallis, C. (forthcoming). (Im)mobile mobility: Marginal youth and mobile phones in Beijing. In R. Ling & S. Campbell (Eds.), Mobile communication: Bringing us together or tearing us apart? New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Wang, J. (2005). Youth culture, music, and cell phone branding in China. Global Media and Communication 1(2), 185-201.

Yang, B. (2006, October). Privatizing public spaces and personalizing private spaces: The role of the mobile phone in social networking in Beijing. Paper presented at Beijing Forum 2006, Beijing University.

Yang, S. H. & Chu, W.-C. (2006). Shouji: Quanqiuhua beijingxia de ‘zhudong’ xuanze—Zhusanjiao diqu nongmingong shouji xiaofei de wenhua he xintai de jiedu (“Mobile phone: ‘Selecting their own initiative’ under the background of globalization”). In Jincheng nongmingong: Xianzhuang, qushi, women neng zuo xie shenme (Rural-urban migrants: Situations, trends and what we can do) (pp. 301-308). Beijing People’s University Institute for Agriculture and Rural Development.

Yoon, K. (2003). Retraditionalizing the mobile: Young people’s sociality and mobile phone use in Seoul, Korea. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(33), 327-343.

Yu, H. (2004). The power of thumbs: The politics of SMS in urban China.” Graduate Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, 2(2), 30-43.

Yu, L. & Tng, T. H. (2003). Culture and design for mobile phones in China. In J. E. Katz (Ed.), Machines that become us: The social context of personal communication technology (pp. 187-198). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Zhang, Y. (2006). “Hong duanzi” weijiao “huang duanzi.” (“Red” messages suppress “yellow” messages). Jiaoshi Bolan (Teachers Digest) 139, 31-32.

Zheng, T., & Chen, Y. (August 21, 2008). Fengkuang shanzhaiji (Crazy bandit phones). Nanfang Renwu Zhoukan (Southern People Weekly), 24, 56-59.

     

New Media Practices in India, Part 1: Introduction

Welcome to the next country in our blog series on New Media Practices in International Contexts. Over the next two weeks, I will be providing overviews of the use of new media, specifically mobile phones, the internet and games, in India, and I invite you to share your thoughts on what you read, as well as fill in the gaps that invariably exist in a summary like this one.

This is especially true for the country under consideration, which, with almost 1.2 billion people, is the second most populous country in the world. India is also a country of marked contrasts, where ancient and modern practices coexist and the chasm between the rich and the poor is visible and palpable to all. The 2007/8 Human Development Index places India 128th out of 177 countries (http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_IND.html). While a third of India’s population is urban, and divided between a growing middle class and vast slums, the great majority live in rural areas. The country has experienced strong economic growth, with growth rates of close to 10 percent in 2006 and 2007 (which are expected to slow down with the global recession (http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200902051923.htm). In spite of these economic advances, India’s social inequalities persist; indeed, the drop in poverty reduction since the 1990s, as compared to the 1980s, has shrunk and personal and regional inequality are increasing (Jha 2008).

About 17% of the population is between 15 and 24 years old (http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/mdg/SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=656&crid=356), and it is these young people that are experiencing the changes brought by new media technologies most dramatically, both in their personal and professional lives. The focus of my posts will mainly be on the new media practices of these young people, practices that need to be situated however within the larger framework of the role played by ICTs in India’s economic, political and socio-cultural contexts. In this regard, Ravindran (2008) talks about a cultural politics of new media modernity in India, including the policing of proliferating new media technologies use among young people. Specifically, a discourse of moral danger is generated by “self-styled guardians of morality and culture” (8), who use especially India’s vernacular newspapers to create a moral panic among the population at large about new media technologies. I will elaborate on this cultural politics in my mobile phone and internet posts; suffice to say here that young people are using these very technologies to counter the moral panic discourse by presenting technological progress as unstoppable.

In this introductory post, I will lay out the Indian ICT landscape and infrastructures and present a brief overview of the academic literature on the topic.

The ICT Landscape

Despite India’s prominent role in the technology industry, there continues to be a vast gap in the use of technology in the country. Leung (2008) suggests that India’s relationship with internet technology falls into two stark dichotomies: Indians are represented as either technically-savvy techno-elites or as poverty-stricken subjects who need help to bridge the digital divide.

The rise of the Indian technology industry, which was facilitated by the government’s deregulation of the telecom industry from the mid 1990s onwards and generated US $64 billion in annual revenues in 2008 (5.5 percent of the national GDP (http://www.nasscom.org/upload/Annual_Report07-08.pdf), has contributed to India’s global economic success. It has also “creat[ed] a new generation of young professionals who are often the first in their families to have a debit card, benefits, to live alone or with roommates” (McKenzie 2007). These changes are accompanied by transforming generational relationships, sexual mores and power shifts, all of which are contributing to the moral panic discourse. Furthermore, India’s software industry has been rocked by the Mumbai attacks and revelations of massive accounting fraud at Satyam Computers, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7818220.stm, once considered a poster child of corporate citizenship. Nevertheless, it will continue to be the destination of thousands of young Indians, fulfilling their, and their families’ aspirations, of a better life.

ICT is also seen as benefiting those who remain excluded from these high-tech dreams, by harnessing the power of these technologies for development purposes. There are thousands of so-called ICTD (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) initiatives underway in India, funded by a wide variety of actors, ranging from governments (national and state) to corporations to NGOs and foundations inside and outside the country (cf. Schwittay 2008). New technologies are deployed to provide e-government services, improve education and healthcare and foster economic development, and are thought to overcome gender and caste inequalities. Initial unbridled enthusiasm over the impact of ICTD programs has given way to a more nuanced view of their potentials, and to an awareness of the need to situate them in the political, economic, socio-cultural and technological contexts of their places of application (Brewer et al 2007, Sreekumar 2006).

Technology Infrastructures

Until the mid-1990s, ownership of a telephone was considered a luxury in India, with waiting periods of up to several years for a landline, even after paying hefty application fees (Kumar and Thomas 2006). In 2007, 3.37 per hundred inhabitants had fixed phone lines (http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/DisplayCountry.aspx?code=IND), paying an average of US $3.30 per month for its maintenance (World Bank 2006).
Mobile phones, by contrast, have become a consumer item embraced by a broad segment of the population. As of October 2008, there were a little over 32 million mobile phone subscribers, which is about 26 percent of the total population (http://www.india-cellular.com). Many more Indians have access to mobile phones through sharing arrangements of various kinds. I will devote Wednesday’s post to a closer look at mobile phone practices in particular.

Similar to landlines, only 3.17 per hundred inhabitants had personal computers at home in 2007
(http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/DisplayCountry.aspx?code=IND), which are heavily concentrated in more affluent households. However, the lower middle class is beginning to embrace computers enthusiastically, driven by status ambitions and especially by aspirations of a better future for the young through access to technology and technology skills leading to technology jobs (Rangaswamy 2007b). Correspondingly, the demand for purchasing a home computer is mainly driven by high school and college age children, especially those who attend schools with low-quality ICT facilities. Computers are a compulsory subject in Indian schools, adding to the pressures to own a home computer, and children become the de-facto teachers of their parents.

Recognizing this as an emergent market opportunity, there are a number of high-tech companies developing products and pricing models to target the lower classes. One example is Intel’s and Microsoft’s pay-as-you-go computer purchase program, which was unveiled in May 2006 and piggybacks on the popularity of pay-as-you-go mobile phone cards (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/may06/05-21EmergingMarketConsumersPR.mspx).
A recent initiative by India’s Human Resource Development Ministry should also assist the lower classes in owning their own computers. A laptop computer costing as little as US $10, developed by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, is currently being tested and expected to become commercially available in June 2009 (http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jan302009/national20090129115438.asp).
One of the targets of this government program are educational institutions, which would receive the computers at a subsidized price. In conjunction, the program envisages to provide broadband connectivity to about 20,000 institutions. This is important given that the number of broadband internet subscribers is minuscule, at 0.37 per hundred (http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/icteye/DisplayCountry.aspx?code=IND. The ultimate aim is to create a virtual technological university, and to this effect, the government also plans to produce e-content on every subject, which would be made available free of cost.

Schools are indeed one of the places where innovative practices are put in place to connect young people to computers and the internet. In October 2008, the government of Andhra Pradesh (AP), the most populous state in Southern India that has long invested in ICTs, contracted the Silicon Valley company nComputing to outfit computer labs in 5,000 schools with a virtualization software that allows multiple users, all working on their own stations, to connect to one computer. (The deal provides 50,000 computing seat, in a state with 1.8 million children, which shows the magnitude of the undertaking).
http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/ncomputing-provides-18m-andhra-pradesh-students-with-computer-access-72200.php
Another initiative is the multi-mouse developed by Microsoft Research India, whereby children, each with their own mouse, can play games on one computer, leading to higher student engagement (Pawar, Pal and Toyama 2006).

There have also been efforts to provide children with access to computers outside the formal school setting, such as the Hole in the Wall project established by Dr. Sugata Mitra. In 1999, when he was a research scientist at NIIT, Mitra installed a computer in the wall separating NIIT’s headquarters from an adjacent slum of Kalkaji in New Delhi, in order to observe how children taught themselves how to use the computer (Mitra 2005, Mitra and Rana 2001, Mitra et al 2005). The project was scaled across India with the help of the International Monetary Fund, and has also been emulated in other countries, for example through the Digital Doorway program in South Africa.

Another important way in which many Indians, especially young men, access new technologies is via public access points. In urban areas, internet cafes are the primary space where first-time technology users become initiated (Rangaswami 2007a). These cafes are run on a commercial basis, and chat rooms, stock trading and networked gaming are among the most popular uses. In his study of Bangalore internet cafes, Nisbett (2005) found that while members of different socio-economic classes frequent them, many used them for such mundane tasks as email and internet-related chat (IRC). Furthermore, the young people that were the immediate focus of Nisbett’s study actively appropriated and shaped ICT spaces in ways that went beyond communication agendas and lead to the acquisition of a broad range of IT skills.

Between half and three quarters of the users of internet cafes are male, often students, which shows that unless specific steps are taken to ensure that women and lower castes also have access to the technologies provided there, the marginalization of these groups will increase further (Sreekumar 2006). It is here where of internet kiosks established and maintained by governments or NGOs aim to bridge this gap. These kiosks are often found in slums or rural areas; one study estimated that rural internet kiosks could provide the first experience with ICT for as many as 700 million Indians (Rangaswamy 2007a). However, another study of rural internet kiosks in Tamil Nadu found that they too were mostly used by male school and college students, from higher socio-economic status (Kumar 2004). Thus, there specific development aims need to be actively shaped and pursued, rather than merely stated.

The Literature on New Media Practices in India

My blog posts are based on various sources: information gleaned from journalistic and popular sources; a growing, but still limited, academic literature on the topic, and personal research findings of myself and colleagues. The academic literature is produced mainly by Indian scholars, mainly of whom study or teach at U.S. or English universities and maintain strong research ties to India. (In parallel, many technology initiatives work with engineers and scientists of Indian descent, sometimes trained in Western universities, who are familiar with Indian contexts.)

There are a number of themes found throughout most of this literature. One is the emphasis on the larger context of technology production and consumption, especially its relation with opportunities for economic development, questions of access and digital divide, and integration with social concerns. There is also much attention paid to non-resident Indians and the (virtual) ties they maintain with their homeland. This diaspora is not only a research subject, but also funds some of the ICTD projects mentioned above. Another unique aspect is the active participation of Microsoft Research India, a corporate emerging market research lab, in the production of the academic literature (Toyama, Rangaswamy and Donner, who will be cited frequently, are all part of the lab). The extensive literature produced by this group, for example around rural internet kiosks, is produced with an eye towards the commercial potential of new media technologies, which does not stand in the way of providing detailed analyses of their use.

Over the next two weeks I will examine in-depth new media practices of predominantly, but not exclusively, young people centered on mobile phones, gaming, the internet and digital media production. As you read these blogs, I invite your comments and suggestions for further research.

References Cited:

Brewer, E. et al (2007). The Challenges of Technology Research for Developing Regions. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 5 (2), 15-23.

Jha, R. (2008). Economic Reforms and Human Development Indicators in India. Asian Economic Policy Review, 3 (2), 290-310.

Kumar, R. (2004). Social, governance, and economic impact assessment of information and communication technology interventions in rural India. Thesis submitted to the MIT department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Kumar, K. and A. Thomas (2006). Telecommunications and Development: The Cellular Mobile ‘Revolution’ in India and China. Journal of Creative Communications 1: 297.

Leung, L. (2008). From “Victims of the Digital Divide” to “Techno-Elites”: Gender, Class, and Contested “Asianness” in Online and Offline Geographies. In Gajjala, R. and V. Gajjala (Eds.) South Asian Technospaces, 36, 7-24.

McKenzie, D. (2007). Youth, ICTs and Development.” Paper published by the World Bank Group. Available at http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/0,,contentMDK:21698394~pagePK:64165401~piPK:64165026~theSitePK:469382~isCURL:Y~isCURL:Y,00.html

Mitra, S. (2005). Self organizing systems for mass computer literacy: Findings from the hole in the wall experiments. International Journal of Development Issues, 4(1), 71 – 81.

Mitra, S. et al (2005). Acquisition of Computer Literacy on Shared Public Computers: Children and the “Hole in the wall.” Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 21(3), 407-426.

Mitra, S. and V. Rana (2001). Children and the Internet: experiments with minimally invasive education in India. British Journal of Educational Technology, 32(2): 221-232.

Nisbett, N.(2006). Growing up Connected: The role of Cybercafés in widening ICT access in Bangalore and South India, Paper presented at the Development Studies Association Annual Conference 2006.

Pawar, U., J. Pal and K. Toyama (2006). Multiple Mice for Computers in Education in Developing Countries. Paper presented at 2006 ICTD conference Berkeley.

Rangaswamy, N. (2007a). ICT for Development and Commerce: A Case Study of Internet Cafes in India. Paper presented at the 9th international conference on social implications of computers in developing countries. Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Rangaswamy, N. (2007b). The Aspirational PC: Home Computers and Indian Middle class Domesticity. Unpublished paper prepared for Microsoft Research India.

Ravindran, G. (2008). The Cultural Politics of New Media Modernity in India: Reading the Roles of Moral Panic Agents and Mobile Phone Users. Paper presented at International Workshop on ICTs and Development: Experiences from Asia. National University of Singapore.

Schwittay, A. (2008) A Living Lab: Corporate Delivery of ICTs in Rural India. Science, Technology and Society, 13(2), 175-210.

Sreekumar, T.T. (2006). ICTs for the Rural Poor: Civil Society and Cyber-Libertarian Developmentialism in India. In G. Parayil (Ed.), Political Economy and Information Capitalism in India: Digital Divide Development and Equity. (pp 61-87). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

World Bank (2006) ICT Indicators. Available at http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:5RQVpZxFaeYJ:devdata.worldbank.org/ict/ind_ict.pdf+price+basket+telecommunication+india&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a