WhatsApp is used by over half a billion people in India today in all fields – in business, corporate and informal sectors, in government, for education and among friends, families and acquaintances. This book critically explores the social messaging app’s rapid expansion in India and its growing influence and looks at whether, as a form of horizontal communication, it poses a challenge to more traditional structures of communication. The book examines WhatsApp’s spread in the personal and professional lives of Indians and the myriad ways in which people in India are using the app in social and business interactions, including among people living with disabilities. Using case studies, interviews, surveys and in-depth research, it analyses key aspects of WhatsApp’s massive popularity and its impact on how people communicate. It also explores its impact on the psycho-social dynamics in India, including the dissemination of fake news and politically motivated content, and the consequent need for media regulation in the country. One of the first books to analyse the pervasiveness of WhatsApp and social media apps in different areas of Indian society, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of media studies, communication studies, digital media, cultural studies, cyberculture studies, sociology and social policy and media law.

In the 2010s, as chat apps became a primary mode of communication for many people across the world, WhatsApp quickly outpaced rival messaging apps and developed into a platform. In this book, the authors provide a comprehensive account of WhatsApp’s global growth. Charting WhatsApp’s evolution from its founding in 2009 to the present day, they argue that WhatsApp has been transformed from a simple, ‘gimmickless’ app into a global communication platform. Understanding this development can shed light on the trajectory of Meta’s industrial development, and how digital economies and social media landscapes are evolving with the rise of ‘superapps’. This book explores how WhatsApp’s unique characteristics mediate new kinds of social and commercial transactions; how they pose new opportunities and challenges for platform regulation, civic participation and democracy; and how they give rise to new kinds of digital literacy as WhatsApp becomes integrated into everyday digital cultures across the globe. Accessibly written, this book is an essential resource for students and scholars of digital media, cultural studies, and media and communications.

India is connecting at a dizzying pace. In 2000, roughly 20 million Indians had access to the internet. In 2017, 465 million were online, with three new people logging on for the first time every second. By 2020, the country's online community is projected to exceed 700 million; more than a billion Indians are expected to be online by 2025. While users in Western countries progressed steadily over the years from dial-up connections on PCs, to broadband access, wireless, and now 4G data on phones, in India most have leapfrogged straight into the digital world with smartphones and affordable data plans. What effect is all this having on the ancient and traditionally rural culture dominated by family and local customs? Ravi Agrawal explores that very question, seeking out the nexuses of change and those swept up in them. Smartphones now influence arranged marriages, create an extension of one's social identity that moves beyond caste, bring within reach educational opportunities undreamed of a generation ago, bridge linguistic gaps, provide outlets and opportunities for start-ups, and are helping to move the entire Indian economy from cash- to credit-based. The effects are everywhere, and they are transformative. While they offer immediate access to so much for so many, smartphones are creating no utopia in a culture still struggling with poverty, illiteracy, corruption, gender inequality, and income disparity. Internet access has provided greater opportunities to women and altered how India's outcasts interact with the world; it has also made pornography readily available and provided an echo chamber for rumor and prejudice. Under a government determined to control content, it has created tensions. And in a climate of hypernationalism, it has fomented violence and even terrorism. The influence of smartphones on the world's largest democracy is pervasive and irreversible, disruptive and creative, unsettling and compelling. Agrawal's fascinating book gives us the people and places reflecting what the internet hath wrought. India Connected reveals both its staggering dimensions and implications, illuminating how it is affecting the progress of progress itself.

In the ever-changing information environment of the early twenty-first century, citizens and journalists alike are eagerly adapting to new technologies, and India is no different. The country’s communication revolution in the post-liberalization era has led to one of the largest media markets in the world. Further, changes in media ownerships and the blending of news with opinions have impacted established practices of reporting. Given the breadth and scope of India’s media, there is little meaningful literature available about journalism practised in the country today. Indian Journalism in a New Era brings together informative and critical contributions about contemporary Indian journalism from twenty-one Indian and global scholars and journalists. The book is divided into four different sections, each addressing one relevant aspect: history and evolving changes; social media and e-journalism; marginalization; and pedagogy, ethics, and public sphere. The contributors address issues like changes in journalism practices, socio-economic conditions of the Indian state, and minority politics. Holistically, the volume focuses on the ways to approach and analyse the enormity and scope in Indian journalism, media technology, and global relations.

Is there a fundamental new catalyst that can significantly enhance access, affordability and quality of products and services to hundreds of millions of Indians? This catalyst is in the form of a new generation of start-up founders who are leveraging technology platforms, smartphone access, and rapid digitization of the Indian consumer. These young founders don't carry the baggage of the past and are attracted to the opportunity of breaking open the massive market of Middle India-the next 400-500M Indians just below the top of the pyramid. This book is about this new and powerful force of change blowing across India-what it takes to harness this and reshape the destiny of this country.

‘Exemplary’ Ravish Kumar 'A wonderful selection’ Rana Safvi For generations, domestic servants in India have been subjected to neglect, apathy and cruelty. Though they are known nowadays as the domestic ‘help’, ‘aid’ or ‘staff’, often merely to meet the requirements of political correctness, their condition remains unchanged for the most part as the country’s privileged classes have failed to truly address the most pervasive inequalities in their households. In Lesser Lives, Nitin Sinha and Prabhat Kumar collect short fiction from the Hindi heartland that turns the gaze onto these continuing disparities. The eleven stories in the book, including Premchand’s ‘Maidservant’, Mahadevi Varma’s ‘Rama’, Saadat Hasan Manto’s ‘Blouse’, Amarkant’s ‘Bahadur’ and Shekhar Joshi’s ‘Dajyu’, offer both timeless classics and little-known literary gems, some of which have never been published in translation before.

The news is a public good and needs to be handled with care and integrity. Even though lies and misinformation campaigns have been around for years—maybe since the dawn of journalism—the rate at which fake news is being spread these days is both alarming and preposterous. Almost every institution—public or private—uses fake news to further its own agenda. Governments and corporate houses spread fake news either through their own agencies or by influencing the popular media. In the business sector, fake news manifests itself in the form of exaggerated company returns and false data. This book analyses the impact of fake news both on products and personalities. Foregrounded in rigorous research, it examines how fake news is used by companies, political parties, and leaders to create, amplify, and even tarnish a brand’s image and equity. It emphasizes how the customers' perception of a brand impacts and influences its reputation, and acts as a decisive force in them gaining or losing competitive advantages. Elucidating how brands can interact both directly and indirectly with fake news, it brings to the readers' notice how sometimes brands are the victims of fake news and other times, the purveyors.