[Badgirlz-list] : Feminist Media Studies

> Deadline:    23 May 2003
> Length:     1,000-1,500 words (5-6 pages typed,
> double-spaced)

>       The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS)
> is holding its
> first
> meeting later this year in Geneva, with a follow-up
> conference in
> Tunisia
> in 2005.  Working under the aegis of the United
> Nations, this global
> body
> seeks to address issues that are of immediate
> relevance to scholars in
> the
> field of communication: the 'new world order'
> created by global flows of
> information, the impact of IT on the first
> world-third world
> configuration,
> the information gap and its effects on practices of
> democratic
> governance
> and civil society formations, and numerous other
> related topics.
>       Given this timely consideration of the role
> and place of IT in our
> lives, we now seek to identify the various ways in
> which gender is
> implicated in this brave new world, using the
> criticism and commentary
> section to highlight gender as a crucial variable in
> this debate.  Too
> often discussions of such global topics are
> enveloped by wide-ranging
> and
> global policy concerns, where such a focus tends to
> ignore the real and
> material effects that policy has on the lives of
> women and men.
> Therefore,
> we want to highlight the ways in which gender is
> implicated in both
> information technology processes and in the access
> to and use of IT. In
> other words, through a focus on gender we want to
> render visible the
> opportunities and challenges afforded by the
> development of the
> Information
> Society and explore the ways in which the rhetoric
> of empowerment masks
> the
> perpetuation of existing gender hierarchies.
>       We are seeking short papers which address any
> aspect of gender and
> ICTs, along the lines of our interest identified
> above. There are
> numerous
> examples from developing world countries that
> highlight the positive
> outcomes of information technology on individual
> women's lives.  For
> instance, the Grameen Phone initiative in Bangladesh
> has offered new
> avenues of economic empowerment for rural women. 
> Similarly,
> téléboutiques
> in Senegal and Morocco, and phone shops in Ghana
> have helped some women
> bridge the digital divide and participate more
> actively in
> male-dominated
> arenas of civil society.  Notwithstanding the
> utopian vistas opened up
> by
> new information technologies, especially in the
> economic arena, there
> are
> numerous difficulties which the WSIS must also
> confront.  These include
> the
> obstacles to women's access to ICTs, the specific
> ways in which women
> are
> mobilized within circuits of cyber-trafficking and
> pornography; and the
> impact of new information-gathering techniques on
> women's work (women's
> participation in data entry jobs, teleworking, the
> digital glass
> ceiling,
> etc.).  Issues of universal and equitable access and
> the use of IT in
> public health, particularly around HIV/AIDS, gain
> new salience in
> discussions of democratic governance in the
> Information Society.