Digital leisure for development: Rethinking new media practices from the global south

Abstract

Photoshopping the newlyweds’ pictures, downloading the latest movies, teenagers chatting on social network sites, and virtual gaming may seem like typical behavior in the West; yet in the context of a village in Mali or a slum in Mumbai, it is seen as unusual and perhaps an anomaly in their new media practices. In recent years, some scholars including the guest editors (Arora, 2014; Arora & Rangaswamy, 2013; Rangaswamy & Cutrell, 2012) have encountered these leisure-oriented behaviors and argued for the need to emphasize and reposition user practices within larger and contemporary discourses of media consumption. Yet for the most part, studies in information and communication technologies for development (ICTD) have duly relegated such enactments as anecdotal. This is partly due to the fact that much of this research is driven by development agendas with a strong historical bias toward the socioeconomic realms.