Digital youth cultures in small town and rural Gujarat,India

Location 1: A public school, District Himmatnagar, North Gujarat

This school was selected as a location because though the town slightly exceeds the population limit for a small town, many children in the school come from nearby villages. The school was started in 2006 with a special mission to provide high quality education in an English medium to children who otherwise would not have access to it. Run by a charitable trust, the school has a very good infrastructure including a library, computers, and internet access. The students mostly come from upper-middle and middle income backgrounds with a small number of students from lower income groups.

Location 2: A village school run by a religious sect, District Jamnagar, Saurashtra

The school is situated in a village in the Saurashtra region. It is about 15 kilometers from the city of Jamnagar. Though it is not far from an urban center, the village has poor infrastructure. This Gujarati-medium school run by a well established religious sect receives good donations. As a result, the school has its own bus, a computer lab, and a library. The students, typically from middle to lower-middle class backgrounds, come from other nearby villages that either do not have schools or have very poor quality government run schools up to 7th grade.

Location 3: A village school, District Vadodara, Central Gujarat

The school is situated in a small village in the taluka Dabhoi of Vadodara district. The town of Dabhoi is located 25 kilometers away from the urban center Vadodara and the village is a further eight kilometers interior from Dabhoi. Students studying in this Gujarati-medium school belong to mostly low income families from several surrounding villages. It is a region without many transportation facilities, and it takes about 30 minutes to travel from the village to the main bus stand. The students have very limited access to new media technologies at home. Though the school has a library with books and a computer lab, only one or two computers have internet connection. In fact, it is the only school in the surrounding region to have computers as the other schools do not have any computer facility.

Location 4: A coaching class in a village of taluka Mota Minya Mangrol, District Surat, South Gujarat

The coaching class is situated in a village with a population of 5000. The village has a bus service to nearby larger villages and towns and also to the city of Surat, India’s eighth most populous city and a major business center. It is also connected through railway to a junction from which other rail connections are available. There is a state board Gujarati medium high school from grade 1 to 12 in the village, but students who want an English medium education according to the Central Board (CBSC, which has national standards) attend the school at an industrial complex 10 kilometers from the village. All the participants in the focus group study at this English medium school and attend the coaching class for extra tutoring.

Negotiations around play and work

Responses of participants suggest that they first and foremost associate new media (especially computers and internet) with work, primarily knowledge and information. This perception seems to come from the media and other external sources, rather than directly from personal experiences with new media technologies because when they talked about their own practices, playing games on computers and cell phones was the most frequent response. Discourse around new media technologies suggest to these youth that knowledge and information are ultimately connected to upward mobility and being a member of a global workforce/network society (McMillin, 2009). Parents get drawn into these discourses too (Pathak-Shelat, 2010; Rangaswamy, 2007). Economic uncertainties and competition for limited lucrative jobs, unemployment, rising aspirations, next-door success stories of computer programmers and software engineers – all this “talk” in their immediate social networks and media push parents to think “we should not be left behind.” Several young people in the study indicated that the family bought a computer when an older sibling entered college or that the family had decided to buy a computer and a scooter once the child completed high school.

Schools are another important element in connecting the new information technologies and computer with education. Though there is no research-based evidence that computers are connected to higher academic achievement, computer education is rapidly becoming a part of school curricula all over India and many schools charge extra computer fees. Even many comparatively poor schools boast of at least one or two token computers. The English-medium public school from our study subscribes to Educomp software for academic subjects and pays hefty yearly fees for it.

Yet for all the “talk” that computers are important in influencing upward mobility, parents and youth also see computers as potential distractions from studies. Both parents and youth are aware of the potential that youth will “play” with new media technologies, and this generates interesting negotiations as parents and children try to find agreement and strike a balance between playtime and work time on digital media. Many children indicated their parents limit media use at home until after they had finished studying or as a short break from the work at hand. These limits apply to new media as well as television, as the following excerpts show.

In some situations, parents felt that their children could be so tempted to waste time on the computer engaging in games or entertainment that they chose not to have such technology in the house at all.

Perception of youth as a period of preparation for adult life is entrenched in Indian society. Education (for those who can afford and especially for boys) is a central aspect of this preparation. Traditional Indian culture does not see youth as a time of rebellion and experimentation. The ceremony of Upanayan sanskar in some castes symbolizes a boy’s entry into the formal education system and is considered an important milestone in life. Young people in our sample are very aware of these expectations from them. Media also project youth as change agents, as responsible for the upholding of Indian culture and for the development of the nation. These rural youth have professional ambitions – doctor, pilot, police officer, teacher, politician and scientist were among their chosen future careers – and believe they need to study intensively, even if it means foregoing play, so they can live up to these expectations.

Across the board, we found that students were unquestioning in the idea that using computers would be a distraction from studies. Students in the 10th grade, who were getting ready to take board exams that would determine the type of school they could attend next, were particularly concerned that using computers would take away from their ability to focus on what was really important – textbook studying. It may be with good reason that students and their family members see computers as distractions from academic work. While the influence of discourses encourages students to think of computers as “work” things, in practice the rural youth that researchers spoke with who have access to the internet or cell phones often want to use computers and other new media technologies for play. Students talk about playing games, downloading music, voting for such polls as Indian Idol, sending messages, and getting information about their favorite hobbies, such as football, dance, and swimming.

Yet these youth also show some signs they use new media technologies in ways that blend work and play for them. Some use the internet to seek information for school projects or personal fulfillment, and they are familiar with such sites as Google, Pogo, Disney, and Yahoo!. A number of them talk about using video-conferencing or Facebook to communicate with relatives who live geographically far from them. Such uses can’t be categorized solely as “play” since the students speak of such practices as a type of work that is necessary to maintain or enhance relationships. Also the initiative and approval of this kind of media use lies with parents or other older relatives.

Nixon (1998, p 23) points out that, in an Australian context, “what is discursively produced within the global cultural economy as digital fun and games for young people, is simultaneously constructed as serious business for parents” (Italics original). This observation is relevant for India. Media, information technology companies and schools constantly call out to parents to be “smart” parents. This means that parents have to make sure that it is work and not play, study and not games that remain the chief functions of computer and internet at home. Children’s use of new media has to be supervised. This brings us to the second aspect of negotiations – power and control.

Negotiations around power and control

Digital technologies are marketed as youth-oriented technologies giving “power” to youth (youth agency), but we observed a web of school and parental controls surrounding their use. Traditionally, obedience to parents and teachers is highly valued in Indian society. West-inspired global youth culture, however, has influenced the current generations through media images, music and travel. Notions of youth as an age of adventure, identity experimentation and autonomy are slowly making inroads into Indian families.

Yet parents, schools, and media work to maintain control over the youth through various means, including spreading fear among youngsters about the dangers of new media use. Schwittay (2011, p.359) and Ravindran (2009, p.98) have noted how moral panic agents are using the (Tamil) vernacular press. As the authors point out, sensationalist headlines read, “Cell Phone Revolution: Satan in Palm,” “Tragedy Caused by Cell Phone: College Student Arrested for Killing Co-Student,” and “Seller of Cell Phone Memory Cards with Obscene Pictures Arrested.” As these headlines show, the social changes brought about by the use of cell phones are presented as scandalous and dangerous. Ravindran (2009) argues that this is part of the emergence of an Indian surveillance society that seeks to monitor and control transformations brought about by the use of new media technologies. These narratives that permeate Indian culture at large have seeped into the accounts given by Gujarati youth of their media experiences. “Panic” stories about the westernization of digital media and the risk and misuse of digital media by youth was prevalent in focus group discussions. What our data show corresponds with the ambiguities of the discourse prevalent in the media and shows that youth internalize the risk discourse. Students talked about their fears of developing cancer from such media technologies as cell phones. They also expressed concerns about interacting with strangers through new media technologies.

Our study, however, shows that the youth are neither wholly obedient to their parents, nor are they openly defiant. As mentioned earlier, they rarely question rules that parents or elders have established regarding how much time one may spend using media. In fact, they have internalized the idea that media use is a distraction, perhaps as a way of feeling some control over parental decisions to restrict use.

It’s not just parents but also older siblings who restrict students’ media use. It was common among many of the families to share cell phones among family members, and the youngest children often had the least access to this technology. While a number of them know how to engage in such activities as casting votes or downloading music using cell phones, many of them aren’t able to do so at will.

Still, students are developing ways to work around the controls that adults have established. When faced with the thought of losing all access to media in the home, they first announce that they would obey the orders but then gradually come up with a number of ideas in which they would find ways to use new and traditional media. They may “go out and play quietly, and then go to a friend’s or a relative’s house” or “leave the village.” Another student would get his parents “so absorbed in talking, then I’d quietly start the TV and watch it.” Although families and adults create rules and these youth generally comply with them, they are negotiating ways of asserting control over their lives and media technologies. However, they prefer to work around rules rather than openly challenge them.

Even in school they do not always accept the top-down approach to computer use. The students from Location 4 discussed their resentment towards a newspaper blog that they had made as part of their comprehensive evaluation.

Rural youth who have access to new media technologies are making choices that may conflict with established discourses, even if they aren’t all doing it all the time. They are beginning to challenge ideas that the rules laid out for them may not always apply. They friend people they are unfamiliar with, they try friending popular Indian film and television stars on Facebook, and they choose not to friend people – such as distant relatives – whom traditional and popular discourses tell them they should. Some of them have tried participating in commercially sponsored schemes and been frustrated with the experience. Still others in these focus groups had little to no knowledge of networking sites or any websites. The following section considers how rural youth negotiate their aspirations with limitations.

Negotiating aspirations and structural and infrastructural limitations

The discourse in media about digital technologies creates aspirations in young people to be part of the global network society, but these aspirations are severely constrained by structural and infrastructural limitations. There is also another set of aspirations fueled by urbanization and transnational migration. In popular media discourse a “village” is represented ambiguously. On one hand, a village is the space where the soul and heart of the nation reside in its pristine innocence, unadulterated by corrupt urban influences. At the same time it is a space that is backward, doomed, and made unattractive because of the lack of amenities and glitter that a city boasts of. On one hand, the digital media are seen as potential equalizers because geographical spaces are not important any more when you can connect with the world in virtual space. In reality, however, issues of access and availability of new media have widened the urban–rural gap. Participants’ responses show that the gap between aspirations and on-the-ground realities is another area of negotiation.

The global multinationals interpellate Indian youth in two ways: as a trained and inexpensive workforce and as an attractive market (McMillin, 2009). These interpellations are very visible in the advertisements that young people are exposed to. Without an in-depth analysis of historical factors and geo-political imbalance and inequities, these look like win–win situations for the corporations as well as youth. According to the dominant discourse, digital media are the media of the future, the media of success and mobility and global connectivity. Indian youth is constantly reminded that India’s resurgence potential as a world power rests on the Indian youth. Many current role models (apart from Bollywood and cricket) for Indian youth, like Narayan Murthy, Ajeez Premji, Sabeer Bhatia, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates, are associated with information technology. Their success stories circulate across media. India’s success as a software giant, successful Indian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, and the exciting work opportunities in information technologies are the themes oft repeated in media that resonate with the efforts of the Indian state and market to position India as a viable and competitive IT hub in the global market. The Gujarati newspapers that many young people in the study read – Gujarat Samachar, Sandesh and Divya Bhaskar – all frequently carry stories about digital media. Each Monday, Gujarat Samachar publishes a science and technology supplement that is called science@knowledge.com. The special weekly supplement of Sandesh, iTech, is full of new media content. Many of the students in these focus groups read at least one newspaper, watch television, and follow popular culture and cultural expectations. They see people engaging with the internet and new media tools when they watch television but have little or no first-hand experience with much of what they see.

Consider the following headline from Sandesh under the section of “career”: “Computer Program banao, paisa kamao” (make computer programs and earn money). Another iTech edition covers stories about mind control gadgets by IBM, wireless cameras for home security, President Obama and his MacBook, and adding photos in Facebook chat. Visits of relatives and friends who have migrated to North America, the Middle East, and Australia fuel the aspirations of young people to own the coveted material goods, as well as new media gadgets that expats possess and the aspiration to “conquer the world” as a global Indian.

Juluri (2003) asserts that the preferred meaning of globalization in Indian music television reverses the widespread assumption of globalization as a process of foreign (and particularly western) incursion. According to him, although the “invasion” metaphor, and the phrase “cultural imperialism” had some public currency in the 1990s (prior to the Indianization phase of satellite television), these ideas have since declined, if not altogether disappeared, in mainstream media discourses. In Juluri’s study of audiences of Indian music television, most middle-class participants characterized globalization as “India – Indian people, Indian culture, Indian media, Indian products, Indian services – going out into the world, and the world-stage, as it were” (Juluri, 2003: 94). Take, for example, a text that has gone viral on email and Facebook (My Dreamland India, 2012).

Incredible India…10 Amazing Facts about India

Vinod Dham invented Pentium chip (90% of today’s computers run on it).

The numbers in the text may very well be exaggerated but its pathos cannot be missed. Infrastructural (and other) limitations, however, quickly deflate many of these young dreams. Youth in these focus groups note a number of ways in which their interests in connecting to a global network are limited, from the costs of internet service, to access to computers, to time limitations with new media due to sharing of devices, to the struggle to download information. Not all students had access to computers at school. Those schools that do provide computers and internet access restrict usage by time and/or by age. As reported by students in Location 2, the formal computer class time in school was half an hour every week in which they learned Word, Paint, PowerPoint and Excel etc.

Many of the students expressed that they value news and information and know that the internet provides them opportunities to learn and experience. Several students said that the internet can make them “aware of what is happening in the world.” But the limited computer instruction they receive and limited access to the internet make them immature users likely to struggle with negotiating their way through the flood of information available.

While some students in three of the four villages had internet access at home or at friends’ homes, youth at a fourth village (Location 3) had no access at all. This particular group of youngsters uses Bluetooth mobile technology to transfer music between cell phones but don’t download songs directly. When making choices about what media to use and consume, they say their choices are “based on availability of media.” Because their choices are extremely limited, what they know about new media technologies often is limited to what they are told.

But not everyone feels the need for more new media in their lives.

About one-third of the youth indicated they have home access to the internet, and they use broadband or USB sticks to connect online. Well over half use cell phones, and a small number say they can connect to the internet with these. Yet their desire to surf the web from their mobiles often is not matched by the infrastructural capabilities.

Having access to computers and wireless technologies has costs that can put strains on these families. Three boys told the stories of how they had ruined or lost their first cell phones and after that were not allowed to buy another cell phone. Youth say cybercafés are too expensive to use regularly; only a handful mention having visited them at all, and none do so regularly. Students and their families have devised ways to work around some expenses. Youth may call parents, hang up before answering, and then have their parents call them back to save money. They say they use various “schemes” to save on instant messaging.