Shriram Venkatraman has academic and industry career tracks that both sit at the intersection of big and thick data. He has a background in Diversity and People Analytics with Walmart Stores, Inc., USA and a PhD in Digital Anthropology from UCL, London. He is currently an Assistant Professor - Centre for IT and Society and the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (IIIT-Delhi).

He is the author of a monograph 'Social Media in South India' (UCL Press) and co-author of a comparative book 'How the World Changed Social Media' (UCL Press). He has publications in peer reviewed journals and has presented in several international conferences. He has co-taught a MOOC course on the 'Anthropology of Social Media' on Futurelearn (currently on its seventh run) and has coordinated the MOOC course in Hindi and Tamil with UCL eXtend.

In today’s episode we talk to Shriram about Social Media (esp. Facebook) and Culture in India through the lens of his research as part of the Why We Post Project. We talk about how different social classes and/or genders in India access and form sociality on Facebook. We also cover children, guilt and mothering via WhatsApp. We talk data and ethics on social media and how the project can be accessed by technology and social media developers like Facebook. Lastly we cover his perspective on the applied anthropological sector in India.

Mentioned in podcast:

• Why We Post Project http://www.ucl.ac.uk/why-we-post

Shriram’s work:

Social Media in South India (UCL Press)

How the World Changed Social Media' (UCL Press)

Contemporary Comparative Anthropology - The Why We Post Project

Social media or other links:

Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi (aka. IIIT-Delhi or IIIT-D)

Twitter: @venkatshriram

Shiram Venkatraman - LinkedIn