Communications in South Asia: History, Mobile Phones and an Information Revolution?
Professor Robin Jeffrey
Date: Tuesday, 14 June 2011 – 5:00-6.15pm
Location: Graduate Seminar Room 2, Old Arts, University of Melbourne
In this presentation, Professor Robin Jeffrey argues that the mobile phone is the most important personal communications device since shoes, and that mass distribution of the mobile phone is even more disruptive in India than in other places. He will explore the nature of communications in India from the Mughals to the time of Indian independence in the second half of the twentieth century. He will examine the interests behind the rapid expansion of mobile telephony in India from about 2002 and attempts to identify areas in which the mobile phone has had “revolutionary” effects.
Professor Robin Jeffrey is a leading academic analyst of Indian cultural history and politics. He is a Visiting Research Professor in the Institute of South Asian Studies and the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, and an Emeritus Professor of La Trobe University (where he taught in the Politics Program for 25 years) and the Australian National University (where he was the Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific). His research interests include the politics of media, development and pluralism in India and South Asia. His numerous publications include Media and modernity: communications, women, and the state in India (2010) and India’s Newspaper Revolution: Capitalism, Politics and the Indian-Language Press, 1977-97 (2000), and he Dr Assi Doron of the Australian National University are currently writing a book about how the mobile phone is changing India.
