Nalini P. Kotamraju - Academia

Nalini P. Kotamraju

The Academic | The Capitalist | Official Berkeley Page

updated 11 january 2008

nalinik@berkeley.edu | 415.358.4228 Voice
Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Barrows Hall, 4th Floor, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Ph.D., Sociology, 2007, University of California at Berkeley
M.A., Sociology, 2001, University of California at Berkeley
B.A. cum laude, Social Studies, 1992, Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges
B.A. cum laude, Women's Studies, 1992, Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges (Senior Honors Essay: Negotiating Identity: Multiracial People Challenge the Discourse)

RESEARCH

Research Interests
    sociology of communication and information technologies, sociology of culture, sociology of work, technology and society, social stratification, identity
Dissertation: Living Like Me: Lifestyle, Social Stratification and Technology

    Sociologists are increasingly claiming that people’s lifestyles – their consumption and leisure activities – are replacing traditional anchors of identity, namely social class, in contemporary Western societies. Yet lifestyle research has traditionally addressed only a part of people’s lives, namely their artistic and aesthetic-related practices. My research pushes the boundaries of lifestyle research to show its relevance to an arena of life that is less artistic and less aesthetic: information and communication technologies (ICTs). Using factor analysis and standard linear regression analysis on a large data set representative of the U.S. and Canada, I analyze four major lifestyle dimensions: socially active, career-minded, trend-conscious and fun-focused. I show that people’s lifestyles, even when controlled for their social background characteristics such as education, income, gender or age, shape their use of computers, the Internet, mobile telephones and email, in statistically significant and sociologically meaningful ways. Moreover, people’s lifestyles better explain their online activities than do their social backgrounds, which better explain adoption-related practices, such as computer ownership. This research contributes to sociological work by recognizing non-aesthetic consumption and leisure practices, supplementing traditional social background–particularly class–analyses, and broadening understandings of ICTs beyond the digital divide debate.
New Media & Skill: Web Site Design

In my Master's Thesis (see Publications), I investigated the evolution of web design skill in the new media industry. Using ethnographic fieldwork and classified advertisements, I traced how both employers and employees defined skill in a rapidly changing technological environment, arguing that "keeping up" is a primary way that flexible workers reinvent their skills.

Mobile Phones & the Cultural Worlds of Young People

PUBLICATIONS

Peer-Reviewed Publications & Conference Proceedings
[2008]. Data-driven Persona Development. Co-authored with Jennifer S. McGinn. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), Florence, Italy, 5-10 April.
(2002). Keeping Up: Web Design Skill and the Reinvented Worker. Information Communication and Society 5(1): 1-26.
(1999) The Birth of Web Site Design Skills - Making the Present History. American Behavioral Scientist Nov-Dec, 43(3): 464-474.
 
Book Chapters
(2003) Art versus Code: The Gendered Evolution of Web Design Skills in Society Online: The Internet in Context, eds. Howard, P. and S. Jones. Sage.
 
Book Reviews & Short Essays
(2005) Book review of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold. Social Forces 83(4): 1765-1767.
(2004) Gender and Feelings” Contexts. 3(4):8.
(2004) Price Check on Condoms!. Contexts. 3(4): 10.
(2004) The Values of Kids These Days. Contexts. 3(1): 8-9.
(2004) Be All That You Can Be.Contexts. 3(1): 11.
(2004) You Buy What You Think You Are. Contexts. 3(1): 12.
(2003) Book review of Work in the New Economy by Chris Benner. Acta Sociologica 46(4).
(2002) Reach Out and Write Someone.Contexts. 1(4): 10-11.
 
Papers-in-progress
Pushers, Plumbers & Pediatricians: Symbolism of the Pager in the United States (1975-1995)
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley.  Lifestyle and the Sociology of Consumption, (Fall 2007).
Graduate Student Instructor, "Sociology of the Family," Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Professor Arlie Hochschild (Spring 2004).
Graduate Student Instructor, "Introduction to Sociology," Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Professor Raka Ray (Spring 2001).

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS & SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

ATTENDANCE AT INVITATION-ONLY WORKSHOPS & CONFERENCES

(2005) Re: activism, A Conference on 21st Century Activism and Technology. Budapest, Hungary, 14-16 October. Invited Panelist.
(2005) Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium. Redmond, Washington, USA, 24-26 April. Invited Participant.
(2004) Wireless Communication Workshop: Inspirations from Unusual Sources, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, 27-29 August.
(2004) Street Talk: An Urban Computing Happening. Intel Research, Berkeley, California, USA, 16 July. Invited Participant.
(2004) Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium. Redmond, Washington, USA, 29-30 March. Invited Participant.
(2004) Urban Mobilities Workshop. INCITE, University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom, 14-15 January. Invited Participant.
(2002) Illinois Institute of Design. ON/OFF. Managing Personal Accessibility in a Wired World Workshop. Chicago, Illinois, USA, 11 December. Invited Participant.
(2002) Mobile Devices and the Cultural Worlds of Young People. Annenberg Center for Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA, 10 October. [Conference Organizer]
AFFILIATIONS
PRESS