This page will speak about one of my projects
Domestic Media Consumption amongst Urban Indian Middle Class
The project focuses on middle classes in India to understand choices influencing consumption of domestic media. Of particular focus is the home computer and the mobile phone. We investigate how the mobile phone and the PC become objects representing social mobility and modernity in middle class families that are also responding to a resurgent and globalizing Indian economy. We map cultural patterns that emerge when India’s low to middle-income homes use and adopt the mobile phone and PC into their lives. Using qualitative ethnographic methods, we explore and foreground particular socio-cultural contexts and behavioural practices of Indian families shaping decision making to buy and use domestic ICTs.
So far, we are conducting studied in metropolitan cities of Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi and smaller cities and towns in the state of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh
Selected Publications and Presentations
Rangaswamy, N (2009) Personalizing the shared mobile phone, panel paper on Mobile Money: Design for Inclusion, Internationalization, Design and Global development, HCII 2009, 19-24 July San Diego
Rangaswamy, N (2007) The Aspiration PC: Home Computers and Indian Middle class Domesticity, 9th International Workshop on Internationalization of Products and Systems, Merida, Mexico, June 2007
Rangaswamy, N, Singh, S, Nair, S, "Shared Use of New Media in Urban Lower Middle-Income Households in India" Journal paper in submission
Rangaswamy, N (2007) " Paying for ICT's: Allocating for a Changing Communication Repertoire in Middle Class Indian Homes", Paper presented at the panel on living and livelihoods at HOIT2007: Home/community oriented ICT for the next billion, August 23-25, IIT Madras, Chennai, India. Presentation
Rangaswamy, N. (2005) Consumption Patterns of the Urban Indian Middle Class. International Conference on Ethnographic Praxis in Industry, November 2005, Seattle, USA
Interesting Links
New Media and Society (journal)
