This project explores cyber harassment as a phenomenon at the intersection of (perceived) age, gender, religious, cultural and political identities. The study will be conducted on a diverse group of professionals young academics (preferably social sciences), social media influencers, public figures and activists/advocacy leaders in the digital space in India. The primary focus of the project will be to study the online experience of women (she/her) SM users particularly to investigate the following:

• Typology of cyber harassment experienced 

• Typology of perpetrators 

• Understanding the impact on victimization on female victims. (degree of risk perception, access to justice, job opportunities, higher education etc., impact on awareness and usage of legal recourse, attitude and behaviour changes)

This is an exploratory study of social media engagement among low-income youth in Delhi, the self-presentation strategies and how it relates to their aspirations of social mobility. These aspirations will be studied vis-a-vis the socio-spatial transformation of Delhi, and how and where these young individuals position themselves in this evolving landscape. The main goal of the study is to explore social media (gendered) usage and internet socialities among low-income youth in Delhi.

• What are the ways in which they present themselves?

• What aspects of social life and physical settings do they incorporate in these presentations?

• How does this engagement reflect their desires for mobility and pursuit of cultural capital?

• In what ways does the city feature in these desires?

This project is a cross-collaboration between constellations. It includes a socio-political commentary on cultural diplomacy, particularly in regards to inter-industry collaborations and representation of China and its people in Bollywood. The paper explores a media-driven construction of public opinion regarding China is studied in context to the changing geopolitical relationship between the countries. It seeks to understand why unlike Bollywood, China has not been able to encash on its industry’s soft power in the global platform, and particularly in India. The study elucidates the soft power of the film industry in enforcing political relations in public consciousness and thereby, their opinion on foreign policies.

The new cyberculture has allowed for multimodal creation and sharing of information, leading to a number of bottoms-up discourses and a supposed democratization of public participation in the cybersphere. Through the Hijab controversy of 2022, this project studies the unrestrained, participatory nature of social media communication that has enabled expression and dissemination of various discourses and beliefs that reinforce feminist, patriarchal and religio-cultural identities, that in turn build social norms, values and public morality. This study feeds into another cross-constellation project on the same theme.