Good morning! Memes and the visual economy of images in contemporary India

Journal article

India is one of several developing nations – including many in Africa – where mobile phone use has grown exponentially since c. 2005, and where for many millions of people access to the internet is via smart phone, not computer. According to the Telephone Regulatory Authority in India, mobile phone ownership stands at an estimated 1.1 billion (in a population of 1.3 billion) as of 31 January 2017 and is growing all the time. While the federal government is exploring the use of mobile telephony to eliminate all cash transactions, I am interested in Indian people's use of mobile telephony to make and maintain new forms of sociality. I focus in particular on the ‘good morning' meme which, sent in its millions each morning across the country, threatens to break the mobile phone networks.

Authors: Banks, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Anthropological Society of Oxford
• Journal: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford Online
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 47-62
• Publication date: 2022-01-01
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-g7k0gj5be
• ISSN: 2040-1876
• Language: English
• Keywords: memes; India; WhatsApp; authenticity; JASO; smartphones