abhidas's blog

About Abhimanyu Das

Abhimanyu Das was born and raised in Kolkata, India. His interests in new kinds of media texts such as computer games, graphic novels, and serialized fiction began to push against the outer limits of proscribed curriculum in his undergraduate English department. His struggles with core questions about transmedia storytelling, the audiovisual elements of texts and social context of genre narratives led him to develop a secondary concentration in film studies, during which he did archival research at the British Film Institute and also read a lot of comics. His relevant professional experience includes writing about film and literature as well as a brief stint in publishing. He hopes to pursue a thesis project that studies “the confluence of postcolonial influences and the effect of globalization on two rapidly expanding media movements, the Indian independent film and the Indian comic book.” He has a B.A. in English from Franklin and Marshall College, and is a M.S. candidate in comparative media studies at MIT.

Posts by Tag

Youth and Civic Engagement: The Advocacy Project

Submitted by Abhimanyu Das on November 23, 2007 - 1:52pm.

A central aspect of the future of civic media is the induction of younger generations into the front lines of civic engagement. Numerous civic-minded organizations around the world exist in which training young people to work in this space is a top priority. An example of such an organization is the Washington-based Advocacy Project.

A civic media success story: examining the BBC Action Network

Submitted by Abhimanyu Das on November 3, 2007 - 1:43pm.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has a long history of innovation in civic media. One of the more intriguing instances of this tradition is the BBC Action Network, a grassroots online civic engagement initiative.

Civic Engagement and Fan Communities: The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Submitted by Abhimanyu Das on October 19, 2007 - 1:24pm.

Given the possibilities suggested by the Center’s goal of developing new technologies for communities that need them, it is easy to forget the ways in which pre-existing groups are utilizing older tools to further the cause of civic engagement.

John Coate speaks on Civic Media

Submitted by Abhimanyu Das on September 27, 2007 - 12:21pm.

John Coate spoke to the Center for Future Civic Media yesterday about the relationships between online and physical communities, and his experience with related projects he was involved in pioneering. The focus of the presentation was the importance of fieldwork, practical applications and face-to-face networking in the process of constructing civic media technologies and online communities.

Ellen Hume speaks on New England's Ethnic Media Landscape

Submitted by Abhimanyu Das on September 25, 2007 - 5:23pm.

Last week, Ellen Hume spoke to the MIT Center for Future Civic Media about her latest project, NEWz, a site for New England ethnic news. The website offers a sampling of the best news stories published in a week in over 100 ethnic publications across New England.