Digital Archiving as Social Protest

Abstract

The relationship between journalism and social marginalization is a relatively understudied area in digital journalism studies. Our case study of Dalit Camera (DC), an online news archive and chronicle based in India, examines how historically disadvantaged Dalits, or “Untouchables,” are leveraging digital tools to narrate their oppressive past to the outside world parallel to the rise of political censorship in India. As part of its archiving process, DC is preserving footage of Dalit resistance against hegemonic domination by caste Hindus. Through their grassroots network of citizen journalists, DC is also engaged in reporting caste-based discrimination and violence today, contributing to the Dalit social movement for equality and justice. Our study provides the first examination of Dalit social protest as a function of digital news archiving, in the process bringing a non-Western subject typically reserved for Subaltern Studies to digital journalism studies as a potent example of citizen journalism and participatory online culture in a censorious media climate. We argue that the growing field of digital journalism studies must leverage productively with area studies scholarship, such as Subaltern Studies, in order to advance a deeper understanding of journalism cultures in the Global South.

Keywords:

• citizen journalism
• Dalit media
• Dalit movement
• digital archive
• digital journalism studies
• India
• online social movements

Geolocation of Study

India.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Subin Paul

Subin Paul, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa, Iowa, USA. E-mail: [email protected].

David O. Dowling

David O. Dowling (author to whom correspondence should be addressed), School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa, Iowa, USA. E-mail: [email protected].