How Culture and Technology Create One Another: Ramesh Srinivasan at TEDxUCLA
Published on Dec 13, 2012
Ramesh Srinivasan, Associate Professor at UCLA in the Department of Information Studies, studies and participates in projects focused on how new media technologies impact political revolutions, economic development and poverty reduction, and the future of cultural heritage.
He recently wrote an op/ed at the Washington Post explaining the complex nature of social media in revolutions and riots, such as those in Egypt and in London, and also a column for the Post's Sunday Outlook section on the 5 Myths of Social Media. Additionally, he has written multiple front page articles for the Huffington Post, including a piece on Internet Freedom for the Huffington Post.He has had his work featured on the front page of the UCLA and USC websites. Recent public outreach has built on his response in the New Yorker (from his blog: http://rameshsrinivasan.org/) to Malcolm Gladwell's writings critiquing the power of social media in impacting revolutionary movements. He has worked with bloggers, pragmatically studying their strengths and limitations, who were involved in recent revolutions in Egypt and Kyrgyzstan, as discussed in a recent NPR interview.He has also collaborated with non-literate tribal populations in India to study how literacy emerges through uses of technology, and traditional Native American communities to study how non-Western understandings of the world can introduce new ways of looking at the future of the internet. His work has impacted contemporary understandings of media studies, anthropology and sociology, design, and economic and political development studies. He holds an engineering degree from Stanford, a Masters degree from the MIT Media Lab, and a Doctorate from Harvard University.About TEDx, x = independently organized eventIn the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)