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This book makes a case for acknowledging the importance of information infrastructures in our lives, the factors that have contributed to India's development as an Information Infrastructure hub and why we should not take access to information infrastructures for granted.
List of contents
- Chapter One
- 1: When Infrastructure Studies meets Digital India (DI)
- Chapter Two
- 2: Empire Infrastructure
- Chapter Three
- 3: The East India Company, the Victorian Internet and Information Anxieties in India
- Chapter Four
- 4: Broadcasting, and Infrastructure Politics in post-Independent India
- Chapter Five
- 5: The Satellite Infrastructure
- Chapter Six
- 6: The Infrastructure of Oceanic Cable
- Chapter Seven
- 7: 1. The Platformised Information State: Infrastructure, Anxieties and Contestations
- Chapter Eight
- 8: Interpreting Information Infrastructures
About the author
Pradip Thomas is Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland. His previous books include Empire and Post-Empire Telecommunications in India: A History (OUP, 2019).
Summary
This book makes a case for acknowledging the importance of information infrastructures in our lives, the factors that have contributed to India's development as an Information Infrastructure hub and why we should not take access to information infrastructures for granted.
Additional text
In Information Infrastructures, Pradip Thomas sets his attention here to the multi-layered material history of media in India, detailing the imperial visions and national achievements, along with the political contestations, social fissures and inevitable shortfalls that have arisen with each wave of media technologies. Firmly grounding media systems in their material conditions, social responsibilities and political compromises, Thomas expertly weaves together a narrative from the days of the Company and the telegraph to the consecration of Digital India and the rise of Reliance Jio. In each era, Thomas excavates the hubris and anxieties of the state, the national and international impetus of media economy, and the aspirations and ingenuity of India's people.
Adrian Athique, A.Prof., School of Communication and Arts, University of Queensland
