The 4th International Conference on

Social Media and Society in India

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

April, 2024

The University of Michigan is hosting a hybrid conference on Social Media and Society in India April 8-9, 2024 , featuring a host of speakers to discuss various ways in which social media is impacting contemporary life in India. The event is in its fourth iteration at the University of Michigan and is a premier venue for conversations around social media and society in India.



Link to last years' (2023) proceedings: https://dx.doi.org/10.7302/7881

Speakers

Speakers include academic scholars, practitioners and digital influencers

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Dhanya Rajendran is the co-founder and Editor-in-chief of TheNewsMinute. She has multiple awards in her career, including the Red Ink award for journalists, and has previously worked with Times Now and The New Indian Express. Her Instagram account offers a glimpse into the world of journalism.
Editor, The News Minute
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Kunal Purohit has been a journalist for nearly two decades, writing on issues of development, politics, inequality, gender and the intersections between them. He is an independent journalist and has, in the recent past, reported closely on hate crimes and the rise of Hindu nationalism across the country.
Investigative Journalist
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Shilpa Kannan is a policy and editorial lead with over two decades of experience in international journalism, tech platform and scaled information integrity operations. She is a presenter, commentator and broadcaster. You can connect with her online at LinkedIn & Twitter.
Tech Executive and Journalist
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Parth MN is an award winning independent journalist based in Mumbai, India. He reports predominantly from rural India, covering agriculture, health, economy and politics from the lens of marginalised communities. His work has appeared in several Indian and international publications, including People's Archive of Rural India, WIRED, LA Times, Washington Post and Al Jazeera, among others.
Indepedent Journalist
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Sanjay Sharma is the founder of the 4PM News Network and has been active in journalism in India for over two decades. He has founded the channel and built it up to over 3 million subscribers in 11 Indian states.
Journalist and Anchor
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Shephali Bhatt is a tech reporter. She chronicles how the internet transforms the way we live, and how corporates adapt to those changing ways. She doesn't know if she was born to be a journalist, but after 14 years into the profession, she certainly wants to die a journalist.
Internet Culture Reporter
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Disha Wadekar is a Fulbright scholar and an LL.M. student at Columbia Law School. She has seven years of litigation experience working on various constitutional law and discrimination law matters in India. She has also taught at law schools in India and founded CEDE, an organization that addresses the lack of representation in the legal profession.
Lawyer
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Mohd Talha Rashid, CoFounder at Discourse Consulting, oversees research and political communications wing. With a background at the Centre for Policy Research, he has engaged with various political parties & candidates, including Bharatiya Janata Party, Indian National Congress, and Aam Aadmi Party. As a political author and commentator, he often contributes to prominent publications.
Journalist and Anchor
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Gunjan Arya is the CEO of OML Entertainment, a leading celebrity management and entertainment production company. She has helmed initiatives such as multiple creator-brand partnerships, which has put the company at the forefront of the growing creative landscape in India, while keeping artists in the center of it.
Brand Management Executive
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Dr. Ambarish Satwik is a Delhi based vascular surgeon, Director of the Vascular Cath Lab at Sir Ganga Ram hospital and Professor of Vascular Surgery, GRIPMER. He is the author of the critically acclaimed 2007 novel Perineum: Nether Parts of the Empire, and his columns, miscellanies and opinion pieces on a variety of subjects have appeared in India Today, The Times of India, Outlook, Open, Tehelka, Time Out and Hindu Business Line.
Vascular Surgeon
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Rajshri Deshpande is an award winning Indian actress, activist, and filmmaker. She is the founder of the Nabhangan Foundation as a response to challenges faced by rural communities including agricultural produce crises, farmer suicides, climate-related resource degradation, and poor health markers. Her organization has adopted 20 villages in Maharashtra, where it focuses on sustainable development efforts.
Actor and Social worker
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Amitabh Dubey is a Political Consultant renowned for his insightful analysis and strategic planning in the realm of Indian politics. His expertise encompasses electoral strategy, public policy analysis, and voter behavior studies, combined with deeply analytical, data-driven insights with an acute awareness of cultural and regional nuances.
Policy Analyst, All India Congress Committee
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Anushka Rathod is India's first female short-form finance creator, the co-founder of the branding consultancy, The Influence Club and an honoree of the Forbes 30 under 30 list. She is also the author of Cash Course, a graphic book on personal finance launching in April 2024. YouTube, Instagram.
Finance Content Creator
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Balram Vishwakarma is a storyteller and content creator whose focus has been on highlighting the underlying infrastructure of daily life in Mumbai through the stories of everyday people. He uses Instagram as a space for short-form storytelling to bring out less known narratives. About the city and what keeps it going.
Storyteller
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Hana Mohsin Khan is an Aviator, whose social media work focus on advocacy for diversity and inclusion within the aviation industry. Her online work focuses on breaking stereotypes and pushing for gender equality in professional work for women in India and beyond.
Aviator
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Hussain Haidry is an Indian spoken word poet, screenwriter and lyricist credited for his work on films Gurgaon, Qarib Qarib Single, Mukkabaaz and Taish. He is publishes some of his poetry and thoughts on Instagram and Twitter.
Poet
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Rafiul Alom Rahman is the founder and director of The Queer Muslim Project, South Asia’s leading digital and cultural platform for queer, Muslim and diverse voices. Through his work, Rafiul has pioneered an approach to countering extremism that utilizes alternative narratives around faith, sexuality and gender expression
Activist
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Shahana Sheikh studies elections, political parties and voters. Her work examines how new communication technologies affect the behavior of political parties and of voters in India.
PhD Student, Yale University
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Venkatesh is a graduating PhD Candidate at the University of Washington. He investigates accessibility gaps experienced by blind or visually impaired developers, and contributes real world systems and new ways to interact with developer tools to increase their accessibility.
PhD Student, Universtiy of Washington
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Ding is a senior researcher at Google research, responsible ai team. Her research focuses on the responsible processes involved in data production for machine learning systems.
Senior Researcher, Google Research
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Kiran Garimella is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers university, the state university of New Jersey. His research develops tools to study large scale societal issues such as misinformation and political polarization on social media.
Assistant Professor, Rutgers University
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Prof. Matthew Hull’s research focuses on the nexus of representation, technology, and institutions. His ethnographic and historical work focuses on the Indian Subcontinent, especially India and Pakistan.
Professor, University of Michigan
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Omolade Adunbi is a Professor Anthropology, Afroamerican and African Studies. His current research is at the intersection of energy practices, climate change and social media.
Professor, University of Michigan
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Pranav Malhotra is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan Department of Communication and Media. His research focuses on how the affordances of social and mobile media intersect with cultural and relational norms to influence how people engage with information and each other in mediated spaces, especially in understudied social and political contexts
Assistant Professor, University of Michigan
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Prof. Sunandan Chakraborty's research involves building computational models that leverage vast data sets and applying them to a broad spectrum of problems in social and environmental science, agriculture, health, and other fields. He draws on diverse data sets and uses tools such as big data analytics, machine learning, information extraction, and time series analysis to compile information and discover knowledge that can lead to solutions.
Assistant Professor, Indiana University
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Bilal Butt is an Associate Professor of Environment and Sustainability and by courtesy in the Department of AfroAmerican and African Studies. His research interests are in the political ecology of environmental violence and critical geopolitics
Associate Professor, University of Michigan

Organisers

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Joyojeet Pal is a professor of information at the University of Michigan, working on issues related to technology and development, social media focusing on the Global South.
Associate Professor, University of Michigan (UMSI)
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Todd Stuart organizes events at UMSI, including symposiums, workshops, guest speakers, orientation, convocation and commencement among others.
Events Manager, University of Michigan (UMSI)

Student Organisers

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Arshia Arya
University of California, San Diego
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Sarah Khan
University of Michigan
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Soham De
University of Washington
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Anmol Panda
University of Michigan

Event Sponsors

  1. School of Information, University of Michigan
  2. Center for South Asia Studies, University of Michigan
  3. Wallace House Center for Journalists, University of Michigan
  4. Department of Communications and Media, University of Michigan
  5. Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing, University of Michigan
  6. Digital Studies Initiative, University of Michigan
  7. Neely Center, Marshall School, University of Southern California
  8. Department of Film, Television, and Media, University of Michigan