Doctoral dissertation project of Susanne Ebner
Digital India: The smartphone as a game changer (working title)
Imagine connecting 1.25 billion people to the Internet. That is one of the main ambitions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India campaign. The vision is to transform India into a digitally empowered society. As a German Anthropologist, I believe, that India stands at a turning point when it comes to growth in its Internet user base. Besides the economic opportunities, mobile Internet might help marginalized groups (such as women or poor people) to play a vital role within the society as new technologies facilitates the access to bank accounts, state support and of course education. In that sense, the Internet has great potential to reach out to the people. Furthermore, it might be easier for the Indian population to get in touch with state officials – for example via Twitter or through governmental social media platforms like mygov.in. My doctoral thesis should document this process by describing and observing the use of mobile phones in India.
Short biography
Since June 2017, I am a EUmanities fellow at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities Cologne. a.r.t.e.s. EUmanities is a pioneering programme, co-funded by the European Union and the University of Cologne in the framework of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Horizon 2020: MSCA). Until May 2017, I worked as an editor on political and digital topics at the “SÜDKURIER Medienhaus” in Constance, a prestigious regional media publisher in Germany. During the course of my graduate studies in European Culture (MA) I spent half a year at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi (DAAD scholarship). From 2003 to 2007 I finished my B.A. program in Literature, Art, Media and Sociology in Constance and Lyon, France.
Contact:
Cover photo: Susanne Ebner // Portrait photo: Patric Fouad
a.r.t.e.s. EUmanities has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 713600.
Details:
Call: H2020-MSCA-COFUND-2015 | Proposal: 713600 – artes EUmanities
CORDIS: http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/203182_de.html