Sunday Posts

Howard Rhinegold saw it before anyone: That, in the digital age, 'crap detection' (euphemistically  'critical consumption of content', if you like) would become a critical skill. If this needed any validation, one should look at India in the middle of this epidemic - not the one inflicted by the Bat-virus but rather one unleashed by the deluge of fake news. It's a sad spectacle: A billion people endlessly manipulated by WhatsApp messaging! And, true to form, the Indian trolls don't do nuanced nudges, carefully skirting around the boundaries of civility: They go naked, hairy, big and clear - flaunting falsities with confidence, certain that their forward-happy audience will spread the message with gusto. There are two things such a deluge of detritus are designed to do. It is supposed to manipulate a vast majority of people and make them believe something (that the Virus is a Chinese bio-agent), exaggerate something (that the crisis has been caused main...

Television is an embarrassment for education technologists. Whenever they proclaim that Internet will change education forever, breaking the entrenched institutional structures, most people around the table will say, "oh yes! we saw that with TV". Television was supposed to change education, and supposedly it did not. All one recalls of television in education is somewhat boring lectures at wee hours in the morning which no one watched: And, indeed, as far as the institutional structures are concerned, television did not disrupt anything. Usually, this leads to a discussion about socio-economic factors, the broader perspective of the rise of a new middle class, the transformation of work, all the reasons why the putative revolution by television never happened in learning. These are mostly valid reasons, but perhaps unnecessarily defensive: Television did change education and identifying these changes and drawing lessons from them are perhaps the best thing to do for to...

I can be accused of 'media determinism', but looking at the current wave of illiberal politics, I can't help but believe that this is the last stand of the broadcast media.  Two countries I closely follow are caught up in the same 'illiberal' wave - India and Britain. Two very different countries, at different stages of development: A matured media scene in Britain, where newspapers are dying and even Rupert Murdoch has to fight for his corner, when in India, ever expanding newspaper circulation and 24x7 news channels seem to defy gravity. But, then, it could perhaps be seen across the world: Even the technologically advanced Japan, the newly resurgent Russia, and even inside the Facebook nation - a march of illiberal views, based on intolerance, rejection of the other, and increasingly, violence, at least of the verbal kind. Cass Sunstein argues that this is resulting from 'media personalisation', a new media phenomenon rather than the old media (...

A little survey on my favourite research cohort - students - and everyone tells me that they don't read books anymore. I am not delusional - I already expected that - but I am still sad: It is as if no one cared about the death of my old friend. But there is more than that: I am also puzzled how to teach a Postgraduate qualification without books interfering. Some younger friends tell me that this is a Generation X problem though, something like dementia, people successfully complete research degrees without reading books, which may very well be true. However, this is a personal problem: I live surrounded by books, I spend most of my money on them and my greatest regret in life is about being separated from the collection I built up over the years but had to leave behind in India when I migrated. So, I talk in books - my teaching is often walking through the ideas etched on paper, and my efforts in the classroom are mostly focused on making students discover the joy of that secret...

I am already a fan of Open Utopia , an experiment in social reading. I met this with a pure deja vu feeling: First, an article by Jennifer Howard on the project, and then, coincidentally, an email from a Linkedin contact complaining about how rough Amazon and the various self-publishing organisations treat the authors, set me up for this. If I was feeling despondent about books and more so, about creativity, here is the answer. Indeed, I am talking about the idea rather than the specific project. Open Utopia is an experiment, carefully crafted, though I think Utopia is rather an unfortunate choice. This experiment could have been easily crafted on some other book, one, I may hope, that had a world-changing impact, and by implication, showed a deeper confidence in the way the future will indeed play out. Open Utopia, I would like to believe, is not an utopia, but more a precursor of an excitingly creative future. Printed books have to change. Those of us in love with paper, with...

Andrew Keen talks to Sherry Turkle on Alone Togethe r, a book I am reading currently.

I am asked, very often, why I write this blog. People wonder how I can find the time. Others conclude that I don't have much to do. Even my protestations that I usually get up at 5am to try writing the blog does not clarify the point: Surely I can find something more worthwhile to do even at that time, they would so. This blog, when I started writing this in October 2004, started as my 'morning pages'. I just read about the concept then. I used to write, and my aspirations during late school years (when I grew beyond the dreams of being a cricketer) was to become a journalist. I did do some fiction and poetry writing and published some of them in amateur magazines. Then, as I started working and traveling, I gradually lost the habit. I did give up and thought I couldn't write anymore. In October 2004, after having just come to England, life was tough. I did not have a proper job and was working in a Cash and Carry intermittently. It was a strange time to go back to writ...

The feeling at the news of Huffington Post being sold to AOL is - sadness. I have subscribed to Huffington Post for last couple of years. Every day, reading the daily update was my touching base with my left-liberal self. But, there was more: This was my commitment to the alternate news. In a way, I don't trust big media for all its worth. After Al Jazeera , it is plain to see what they are up to. For example, the BBC and the CNN completely omitted the news of the protests in Kuwait, which was in a way the first among the Arab democratic movements, may be just slightly ahead of its time. My daily media consumption is Huffington Post and Al Jazeera , the left wing editorials coupled with irreverent reporting. So, the sale of Huffington Post to AOL, which is only slightly better than its sale to Rupert Murdoch, feels like one relationship severed. There is no reason to feel that way, indeed: The Press Release says that it will remain business as usual, with full editorial indepen...

This is the nearest thing to a Liberal Arts college I can get to do in the Private Sector. So I am interested: In fact, I am completely focused on this now. This is an interesting turn in my life. Six months ago, I made a career transition into higher education - but did not exactly know what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach, do research and write a bit, but living inside a Private College 24x7 meant more than that. I entered with an open mind, never said no to any work and learnt many things. About now, I am ready to pursue my ideas yet again. This is an interesting and scary time in British private education. Government clearly wants to shift to private funding of higher education. They have come up with a middle of the way review report, which seems radical and slightly woolly at this time. (Alan Ryan in Times Higher Education is sceptical that the recommendations will ever be implemented) But I would rather take Browne report as a statement of intent and a hint rather than a poli...

The news from Iran is getting grim by the moment. The deep division in the Iranian Regime is now in the open. I am optimistic that we are seeing the beginning of the end of the Iranian Regime, and its power will prove to be fictitious like that of other dictatorial regimes of the past. An iconic figure - Neda - has emerged in her death, an young lady shot by the hired assassins of the state, and hopefully the amateur images of her dying moments will stir an otherwise indifferent world into action. The lesson that the world's dictators don't seem to get is that technology has moved forward and the usual methods of gagging - banning the journalists, stopping the newscasts - are no longer good enough. As Iran continues to dominate Twitter and the blogs, and as the street videos shot on mobile phone keep leaking out on the Internet, the evil men of Myanmar will surely call the Iranian Elite to offer an word of advise - we told you to keep Internet out! We have seen this before,...

I have just finished Bringing Nothing to Party: Confessions of A New Media Whore , a rather brilliant story of the author's venturing into the new media/ web 2.0 business scene. Yes, despite its title, which may put off many people. But, then, it is true to the spirit of the people it talks about, and talks to, and I guess those new media types will still want to read it. Including me, of course. One rare book which I managed to read from start to end. Primarily because of Mr. Carr's caustic, very British sense of humour. Mr. Carr starts from his law school days of Nottingham, first book deals, his time with the Guardian and finally into his projects like Friday Projects and Fridaycities , which will finally become Kudocities . On the way, he talks about the new media business scene in London, its people, its rituals and its hopes and disappointments. Most of it is very real and other parts very enlightening. On my part, I have some experiences of raising funds in London, thoug...