IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/sprchp/978-981-16-5268-4_6.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

(De)polarizing ICT Debates of Reservations and Affirmative Action Policy: A Plea for Reparations in India and the U.S

In: Causes and Symptoms of Socio-Cultural Polarization

Author

Listed:
  • Kofi-Charu Nat Turner

    (University of Massachusetts)

  • Nagaraju Gundemeda

    (University of Hyderabad)

  • Sabiha Sultana

    (Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Ministry of Education)

Abstract

This paper explores the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in exacerbating social polarization in India and the United States. The paper aims to examine the role of ICT in shaping public opinion and group convictions about the reservation policy in India and the policy of affirmative action in the U.S. The proliferation of ICT platforms has meant the widening of spaces of social articulation across gender, race, religion, and castes whereby supporters and critics of these policies represent their claims and contestations. This widening creates concomitant insulation in “echo chambers” where exposure to content consistent with individual and group opinions reinforces existing beliefs, attitudes, and the resulting behavior. In both India and the U.S., the ideological systems and social values of dominant races and castes tend to dominate the multiple ICT platforms sowing further (mis)trust in the state-sponsored development policies aimed at educating and empowering subjugated groups such as Blacks in the U.S. and Dalits (ex-untouchables) in India. The paper argues that ICT mediated ideas of equality and justice fail to recognize centuries of racial and caste oppression and based on the content analysis of the data, a reparations policy in both nations that works towards the democratization of virtual spaces to represent the voices of the voiceless is one of the best remedies.

Suggested Citation

  • Kofi-Charu Nat Turner & Nagaraju Gundemeda & Sabiha Sultana, 2022. "(De)polarizing ICT Debates of Reservations and Affirmative Action Policy: A Plea for Reparations in India and the U.S," Springer Books, in: Israr Qureshi & Babita Bhatt & Samrat Gupta & Amit Anand Tiwari (ed.), Causes and Symptoms of Socio-Cultural Polarization, pages 133-148, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-16-5268-4_6
    DOI: 10.1007/978-981-16-5268-4_6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-16-5268-4_6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.