gender and internet
For those with access to the internet, Wikipedia is the benchmark of common knowledge. The processes of knowledge production are inevitably fraught with imbalances of power: Who gets to write and gets written about? Who gets to speak and who among them is heard? What gets illuminated as authoritative and credible knowledge; what gets dismissed as unverifiable or insignificant? Who gets erased from collective human memory or is represented only through one-sided versions? Take, for example, a ...
The new freedom of expression brought by the internet goes far beyond politics. People relate to each other in new ways on a medium that offers the cover of anonymity but also deception. However, information technology and the internet are rapidly transforming almost every aspect of our lives - some for better, while others for worse. Ghana has in recent years been celebrated for achieving a number of development milestones, despite these achievements, there are still deep-seated inequalities...
The Dynamic Coalition on Gender and Internet Governance was a unique panel at the 2018 IGF, not only because it was one of the few to have full focus on gender rights, but also because it was a participatory session with presentations from panellists and also engagement by the majority of audience members present. With the intent “to look at some of the emerging issues at the intersection of ...
Since 2014, the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), a Ugandan-based think tank, has being convening the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica) in collaboration with other partners. This year, in collaboration with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MWFA), participants from different parts of the continent and beyond were brought together ...
I remember flipping through magazines as a teenager and wondering why none of the girls looked like me. In the makeup and hair sections, none of the advice applied to me because I did not fit the categories of slender, fair, blonde, brunette, redhead etc. Instead, I had (and still have) black skin, a booty, and coarse, ethnic, African hair – not ideal for silky high ponies or chic messy buns....
In 2011 a study by GroupLens revealed the gender imbalance on Wikipedia, and there was an outpouring of articles in the global media about the notorious absence of women in the world’s largest virtual encyclopedia. At that point the Wikimedia Foundation set in motion an ambitious plan to try to incorporate more women. Above all, user groups appeared, making it their business to get more women...
Affordability is one of the primary barriers to internet access, and particularly to optimal use. Knowing this fully from our previous research, Research ICT Africa (RIA) conducted focus groups in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Rwanda in November 2016. The task at hand for this Mozilla-funded research, part of the Equal Rating project, was to obtain qualitative information that refl...
When once I registered for the 2017 Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia, I was added to a mailing list which had a constant flow of information on the festival and the activities related to it. Even before the schedule came out, the festival sounded fascinating, and distinctly different from other conferences, both national and international, which I have attended as of now. The board was div...
Elisabeth Jay Friedman offers a critical perspective of the use of the internet by feminists, arguing that the positive use of the internet for social change depends on shifting social contexts, and that the strength of the use of the internet – like any technologies – depends on its conscious and creative use to bring about social change. She argues that the internet is “no more inherent...
