SOCIAL MEDIA & DIGITAL PRESENCE

Where research, photography, writing, and everyday reflections meet the public.
I create and curate stories across multiple platforms — blending critical insight, visual
narratives, and a distinct online voice.

Sharat chowdhury — Since 2006

Pioneering blogger • First-generation social media editor • NORAD scholar • Early predictor of Shahbag • MEXT-funded researcher of Shahbag • Public writer • Photographic storyteller

I began writing online in 2006 as “Sharatchowdhury,” (শরৎ চৌধুুরী aka অন্যমনষ্ক শরৎ) becoming one of the early and influential voices of Bangladesh’s pioneering blogging era on Somewhereinblog.net.
For four years, I worked as one of the first-generation social media editors of the
platform—curating conversations, moderating communities, and helping shape one of
the earliest digital public spheres in the country.

As a NORAD scholar, I conducted one of Bangladesh’s first academic investigations into
emerging online civic engagement: “The Internet as a Public Sphere: Blogging ‘Liberation
War vs Jamaat’ Issue in Somewhereinblog — A Case Study.” Completed on 25 June 2012,
this research identified new forms of online activism and collective sentiment—patterns
that accurately anticipated the Shahbag movement that erupted on 5 February 2013.

This early foundation informed my doctoral research as a MEXT scholar at Hiroshima University.
My PhD dissertation, “Resistance Sociality in the Shahbag Movement: A Critical Understanding
of Social Media, Sociality and Resistance in Bangladesh” (2019), offers a deep ethnographic
account of how digital platforms, affect, and collective memory shaped one of the defining
social movements of contemporary Bangladesh.

That early voice continues—now evolving through research, photography, social media
analysis, teaching, and public writing.