WS 445 Final Project

I had the chance to do a great project for my women's studies class called 'Women and Computers.'

Part one was about visual aids and activism. Click on the link to check out my prezi. I published the videos in my blog before, here and here. I found that there was no research to see how much just how visual aids effect activist causes, but I did a good job trying to see what the effect would be.

Part two was about visuals about -isms. I wanted to see what google images turned up for the words I choose. Were they accurate representations? Sometimes. But sometimes it wasn't. Check it out. I was orginally inspired to do this part of the presentation, by "What does feminism look like?"

Happy Exploring.

Digital Divide && Connection to Gender Roles

This is part 2 for my 2/23 assignment. I found that Angie's assignment summary was about what women do online compared to what men do online.

She listed 2 facts that caught my eye at first. They were all related. And that is why I was so interested in them:

1. More men use the Internet to pursue hobbies; more women use the Internet to communicate with family and friends.

2. There are a greater number of women than men on social networking sites.

Digital Divide && Common Source

I found that this site was listed on many fellow classmates assignments. So I decided to start analyzing from this point of view.

This study was analyzing if gender was a role in influencing the internet. Women are found to be more 'online' so to speak than men. Does that make them influence the internet more? Although the articles says it does, I care to disagree.

The author defines influence

as the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command.

If women are more likely to be involved in the social network, what effect is that producing? What is it changing? And if the previous study we read is correct, and that men are sharing more political views over Facebook, they may be more influential than woman even on Twitter.

Overall, it doesn't matter which gender is on twitter or Facebook or the internet more. It matters what they do on it that cause influence. And if men are not on Facebook/twitter/internet as much as women, but when they are: they choose to make political statements, share current news articles and run more websites. Then they still have all of the influence.

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