[Air-L] Survey : Digital Natives with a Cause?

[Vishal Makhija]

Hello,


Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

Founded in 2008, The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is a
Bangalore-based independent, non-profit, research organisation which is
involved in research on the emerging field of the Internet and its
relationship to the society. CIS brings together scholars, academics,
students, programmers and scientists to engage in a large variety of
Internet issues like governance, privacy and freedom of expression,
etc. 

CIS works in the areas of histories of the Internet, digital natives,
and a reader on the Wikipedia, enhancing higher education for the
downtrodden, and accessibility for the disabled, openness, telecom and
Internet governance. CIS runs different academic and research programmes
and is receptive to new ideas and collaborations, projects and campaigns
from the public. 

CIS, in collaboration with Hivos' Knowledge Programme, launched a
project, Digital Natives with a Cause? in 2008. As younger generations
growing up in emerging information societies learn to engage with their
geo-political and socio-cultural environments, a form of
technology-mediated identity, popularly dubbed as the Digital Native,
has been the discussion of a growing public and intellectual debate.
These digital natives are transforming the ways in which they understand
themselves as well as the world around them while engaging with Internet
and digital technologies. Young users of technology are moving towards a
reconfiguration of the world, where questions of identity, political
participation, social transformation, cultural production, education,
and livelihood are being restructured. The Digital Natives Research
Programme focuses on producing new knowledge frameworks, vocabularies
and lexicons to understand, investigate and support these new citizens
or netizens rather who shall be the agents of change in the future.
After the initial research (click here for a free download), CIS will
gather responses from young users of technology to help us understand,
document and support different practices aimed at social transformation
and political participation more efficiently.

We believe that the world we live in is changing rapidly and the rise of
Internet technologies has a lot to do with it. As young users of
technology (as opposed to young users who use technology) adopt, adapt
and use these new technologised tools to interact with their
environment, new ways of effecting change emerge. This survey is an
attempt to capture some of the information which gives us an insight
into who the people are using these technologies, the ways in which they
use them and what their perceptions and experiences are.

The survey will not take more than seven minutes of your precious time
and it will help us get a better sense of the way things are. Please
click here to start the survey. We would also appreciate if you could
share the link to the survey with your friends and relatives via your
blog, tweets or other social networking pages. Your help would go a long
way in enabling us to find out how the youth of today are shaping the
society and influencing the political/social scenario around them.
Please note that the data collected as part of the survey would be
anonymous and not used for any commercial purposes. We would also
acknowledge your help in preparing the final report. 

In case you need any further information or clarifications, please feel
free to call us at +91 - 080 - 25350955 or write to us at
nishant at cis-india.org

 

With best compliments,

Vishal