Assignment 3 – Resource Guide
1. “Subramanian, Sujatha Is Hindutva Masculinity on Social Media Producing A Culture of Violence against Women and Muslims?” EPW (2019)
In the discourse produced by the social media accounts of the Bharatiya Janata Party, its leaders, and the Prime Minister, Hindutva masculinity incorporates ideas of technological progress, military might, and physical strength, all deployed towards the protection and progress of the nation. Through such use of social media, technology becomes a site of and tool for producing violence against those considered as the other of the Hindu male, particularly women and Muslims. What remains consistent across these performances of masculinity on social media is the valorisation of a Hindutva male ideal that serves to challenge the hegemonic masculinity of the West as well as to demonise the masculinity of the Muslim other. As citizens invested in the health of our democracy, we must constantly analyse and disrupt sites where the Hindutva male ideal assumes the role of the protector and the chowkidar of the nation. In the article “Commanding the Trend: Social Media as Information Warfare” written by Jarred Prier argues that messages designed to influence behavior have been around for centuries but became easier as methods of mass communication enables wider dissemination of propaganda. For propaganda to function, it needs a previously existing narrative to build upon, as well as a network of true believers who already buy into the underlying theme. Social media helps the propagandist spread the message through an established network. A person is inclined to believe information on social media because the people he chooses to follow share things that fit his existing beliefs. That person, in turn, is likely to share the information with others in his network, to others who are like-minded, and those predisposed to the message. With enough shares, a particular social network accepts the propaganda storyline as fact.
2. Jensen Robert and Oster Emily, The Power Of TV : Cable Television and Women’s Status In India, Oxford University Press (2009)
Cable and satellite television have spread rapidly throughout the developing world. These media sources expose viewers to new information about the outside world and other ways of life, which may affect attitudes and behaviors. In the reading, “On Television” (1998), Bourdieu argues that television’s influences and its power cause problems for print news media and culture. First of all, TV is able to attract audiences much more than any other medium. TV and journalists affect media culture with their strong power. Therefore, journalists have to be ethical and for the media should not fluctuate with audience ratings, economic and political pressure. This paper by Robert and Emily, explores the effect of the introduction of cable television on women’s status in rural India. Using a three-year, individual-level panel data set, they argue that the introduction of cable television is associated with significant decreases in the reported acceptability of domestic violence toward women and son preference, as well as increases in women’s autonomy and decreases in fertility. They further explore, suggestive evidence that exposure to cable increases school enrollment for younger children, perhaps through increased participation of women in household decision making.
3. Bal, J. Toxic Masculinity and the Construction of Punjabi Women in Music Videos. Gend. Issues (2020)
Toxic masculinity fosters the domination and devaluation of women, often resulting in overt violence. As Punjabi women within Punjab and in diaspora have moved into the digital space, so has the reproduction of their womanhood. This paper serves to look at one of the many complex overlapping and intersecting trends that contributes to these constructions; Punjabi music videos. This reproduction of the identity of Punjabi Woman in the “New Media” is marked by the emergence of the “Web 2.0” which first began circulating in 2003, these include : Facebook, YouTube, Spotify, Twitter, LinkedIn, Terry Flew, talks about this Web 2.0 and its impact in his reading : “New Media” .The author looked at the top 20 most viewed Punjabi music videos on YouTube and major themes included that women were powerless, were objects to be acquired, were in need of saving, and were unable to consent. As an alternative to these toxic representations, the author suggests that the political potential of the multitude can be used to imagine digital spaces as sites of resistance where women reclaim telling their stories. The Punjabi music industry, while demonstrating complete disregard for the input of women in storytelling, has only received small amounts of pushback. Female and femme folks from Punjab and in the Punjabi diaspora hold a political potential that can use the same digital spaces as this industry to reclaim telling their own stories.
4. Gurumurthy, Anita, et al. “Unpacking Digital India: A Feminist Commentary on Policy Agendas in the Digital Moment.” Journal of Information Policy, 2016
This article is a feminist commentary on India’s national digital agenda in the current political context. The analysis pursues three main policy strands—social welfare, democracy, and economic growth, unpacking the narrative of technology, gender, and development that characterizes the particular complexion of authoritarian neoliberalism reconstituting Indian democracy in digital times. The article explores transformative content of gender politics. Under the circumstances, it is imperative to produce alternative feminist imaginaries of social, political, and economic discourse nationally and globally. The Indian narrative represents how the agenda of gender equality and digital empowerment in national information societies is reduced to a neoliberal political rationality of boundless connectivity and opportunity (the new freedom), uncoupled from structural justice issues. The global digital marketplace, meanwhile, produces a version of women’s digital empowerment that seeks to assimilate women as consumers into the homogenizing global discourses of depoliticized access. Women’s access to digital technologies is thus a product of the compacts of convenience between global digital capital and patriarchal nation state.
