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SelectedWorks

Payal Arora

2012

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Walled Gardens: Privacy Within Public Leisure Space Online And Offline, Payal Arora Oct 2012

Walled Gardens: Privacy Within Public Leisure Space Online And Offline, Payal Arora

Payal Arora

Social network sites are the new urban parks where people congregate, socialize and exercise leisure. Its web architectures however are being walled in, dictated by market systems and State ideologies. These cyber-enclosures are justified along the lines of privacy that garners protection, efficiency and functionality. There is significant concern for the potential irrevocable loss of the ‘public’ and ‘open’ character intended of internet infrastructures, fearing the fostering of social segregation, homogenization and corporatization of leisure and a loss of civic sense. This paper addresses these concerns by looking at contemporary material architectures that are shaping public social and leisure space, …

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Typology Of Web 2.0 Spheres: Understanding The Cultural Dimensions Of Social Media Spaces, Payal Arora Sep 2012

Typology Of Web 2.0 Spheres: Understanding The Cultural Dimensions Of Social Media Spaces, Payal Arora

Payal Arora

It has taken the past decade to commonly acknowledge that online space is tethered to real place. From euphoric conceptualizations of social media spaces as a novel, unprecedented and revolutionary entity, the dust has settled, allowing for talk of boundaries and ties to real-world settings. Metaphors have been instrumental in this pursuit, shaping perceptions and affecting actions within this extended structural realm. Specifically, they have been harnessed to architect Web 2.0 spaces, be it chatrooms, electronic frontiers, homepages, or information highways for policy and practice. While metaphors are pervasive in addressing and normalizing new media spaces, there is less effort …

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Rural Poverty = Information Poverty? Computers As New Knowledge Brokers In Rural India, Payal Arora Mar 2012

Rural Poverty = Information Poverty? Computers As New Knowledge Brokers In Rural India, Payal Arora

Payal Arora

No abstract provided.

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Museums 2.0: A Study Into Expertise And Culture Within The Museum Blogosphere, Payal Arora, Jessica Verboom Feb 2012

Museums 2.0: A Study Into Expertise And Culture Within The Museum Blogosphere, Payal Arora, Jessica Verboom

Payal Arora

While studies on popular culture have a more vast understanding of the impact of the participatory culture on experts and expertise, there is a dearth of literature on the impact of Web 2.0 on museums, which are established authorities within the cultural field. We aim to answer the following research question here: who are the experts and what is the nature of their expertise in the museum blogosphere? In addition, we look at the spatial culture on these museum blogs and its role in shaping expertise. We address this question by conducting a content analysis on a sample of the …

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Arm Chair Activism: Serious Games Usage By Ingos For Educational Change, Payal Arora, Sorina Itu Jan 2012

Arm Chair Activism: Serious Games Usage By Ingos For Educational Change, Payal Arora, Sorina Itu

Payal Arora

The battle between educators and entertainers continue when it comes to gaming. While this is so, the edutainment battleground has expanded to include actors outside formal schooling agencies, namely International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs). These actors employ digital games with the aim to educate and activate towards specific social causes. These serious games are viewed to have tremendous potential for behavioral change through their interactive and persuasive aspects. This paper examines serious games deployed by certain prominent INGOs and analyzes the educative aspects of such new media platforms. What is revealed at the design, audience, and content level compel us to …

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Your Kool-Aid Is Not My Kool-Aid: Ideologies On Microfinance Within An Ingo Culture, Payal Arora Jan 2012

Your Kool-Aid Is Not My Kool-Aid: Ideologies On Microfinance Within An Ingo Culture, Payal Arora

Payal Arora

Development investigations focus on synergies of institutional cultures for policy and practice. International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) currently enjoy a privileged position as harbingers of world culture unity. While there is contestation on INGOs as monolithic entities, few studies delve into the voices of actors within INGOs to provide for a more pluralistic perspective. This paper separates the actors from their institution by examining their different socio-cultural takes that drive them. This emphasises that as projects and visions come and go, institutional actors draw on their own philosophy that does not necessarily mirror their institution's stance. Here, the focus is on …

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The Folksong Jukebox: Singing Along For Social Change In Rural India, Payal Arora Jan 2012

The Folksong Jukebox: Singing Along For Social Change In Rural India, Payal Arora

Payal Arora

In designing digital literacy content for marginalized demographics, we need to garner local resources to structure engaging and meaningful media experiences. This paper examines the socio-cognitive implications of a novel edutainment product in rural India on learning, stemming from an e-development initiative funded by Hewlett-Packard. This product encapsulates a multiplicity of media forms: text, audio and visual, with social-awareness folk themes endemic to the locality. It uses the karaoke ‘same language subtitling’ feature that won the World Bank Development Marketplace Award in 2002 due to its simple yet innovative application that has proven to have an impact on reading skills. …

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