T T Sreekumar holds an M.Phil. in Applied Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (CDS/JNU),New Delhi and a PhD in STS (Science, Technology & Society) from the School of Humanities & Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong. Currently teaching at the Department of Communication, EFL University, Hyderabad, India, he has previously taught at MICA, Ahmadabad, the Communication and New Media Department, National University of Singapore (NUS), and Division of Social Sciences, HKUST, Hong Kong.
He is the author of the book "ICTs & Development in India: Perspectives on the Rural Network Society" (Anthem Books, London, 2011). Widely published in National and International Journals, Sreekumar has research experience in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore and has presented research papers in major Communications and Social Science Conferences/Seminars held in Asia, USA, Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Canada and Latin America.
He has been the Editor in Chief (2013-2017) of Journal of Creative Communications (peer reviewed, international Sage Publication), and is currently the Associate Editor of Media Asia (Taylor & Francis). He also serves as member of the editorial board and as manuscript reviewer for several other prominent journals.
His research interests include New Media and Technoculture, Impact of Internet in Developing Countries, Mobile communications, State Civil Society relations, Political Economy of Development; Religion and New Media, Cyberculture and New Social Movements.
A writer and columnist in his mother tongue Malayalam, Sreekumar has authored/edited 10 books and written over 300 articles in the language. He is also closely associated with several civil society organizations in India.
'ICTs and Development in India' provides a critical account of the impact of the use of Information Technology in development projects in India, focusing particularly on E-governance and Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) development programs initiated by Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). Sreekumar challenges the conventional wisdom concerning the potential of ICT to provide unprecedented social and economic opportunities for vulnerable groups such as women and marginalized communities by highlighting its failure to bridge social divides. He argues that in addition to reinforcing existing social divides, the patterns of ICT deployment and control have in certain cases created new divides. Given such tensions and contradictions, this book questions whether it is appropriate to consider civil society as an independent realm of social action separated from State and Market.
Technoculture in Developing Asia: The study is based on fieldwork in six countries in Asia— India, Bangladesh, Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia: The study looks at how young people engage with new media technologies in small and medium Asian towns highlighting new technological dimensions of Asia's encounter with modernity.
Islamic Home Film movement in Kerala, India: This study looks at the refractions of religious experience as they are articulated through new media technologies, focusing on the popularity of Home film movement among the Muslim community of North Malabar, Kerala, India. The study has now been extended to include the Muslim Diasporas' reception of the Home film movement in the Middle East.
New Media and Citizenship: Online communicative spaces and identity-based political mobilizations: The research proposes to probe the online strategies of identity‐based movements and the tensions involved in such mobilizations leading to questions concerning both identity and citizenship. The study revisits theories of identity and citizenship to analyze the differential impact that online communicative spaces bring into the life experiences of marginalized communities.
Online political memes and young citizens in Singapore: Looking specifically at the way online memes are being used by political actors in Singapore and how memes are perceived in terms of their political significance, the study attempts to conceptualize the engaged citizen in place of the fashionable notion of the digital native.