We Media Conference - observations
I'm typing this up quickly during the conference; it's noisy and distracting here, so forgive the typos and lack of, um, cohesion... ;)
One of the things that struck me today during the conference was that the most prominent European and North American bloggers appear to be men. In the "western" world, which is the cradle of the modern feminist movement, the blogosphere appears to be mostly a boys' club. I don't read many North American female bloggers, but just off the top of my head I think mainly of women who blog about their babies (Dooce), or that woman who blogged about working her way through the Julia Child cookbook in a year (didn't she end up with a book contract in the end?).
On the other hand, when I think about my favourite Middle Eastern bloggers - the ones I read regularly because they are creative, intelligent, insightful, opinionated and daring - I realise they are mostly female. And they don't write exclusively about babies, cooking and kitty cats, either. I mean, they do write about those subjects, when they are part of their lives - but they are not the raisons d'etre for their blogs.
Neha said the same is true of the Indian blogosphere - that the best, sharpest blogs are written by women. This, from the land of arranged marriages, dowries and bride burning.
And we both noticed, too, that female bloggers are more likely to be flamed than male bloggers. That is according to our observations - if you think (or have experienced) differently, please say so in the comments.
How did it happen that two region of the world that are not exactly well known for promoting and protecting feminism have managed to produce so many serious, fearless female bloggers?
Meanwhile, one of the most famous female British bloggers writes about why her boyfriends is "a twat" (and yet a former prime minister and current head of state are women).
The United States produced Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem ('though not a female president), but its most famous female bloggers are writing about cooking French food, raising a child (and dealing with chronic constipation) and the trials of finding a husband.
What does this mean?
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the war: edited by Michael Totten This Month
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Wednesday, May 3
Men, women and cultural anomalies
by
Lisa Goldman
on Wed 03 May 2006 05:43 PM IDT
Do you trust the media?
by
Lisa Goldman
on Wed 03 May 2006 01:58 PM IDT
 Surprise! I'm in London, attending the We Media conference. Today we're at the BBC complex in West London, talking about the issue of trust and the media. Do you trust the media? Do you think you can obtain accurate information from the television news and morning newspapers? Do you think that blogs are a more reliable and/or accurate source of information than the so-called mainstream media (MSM)? How are blogs and citizen journalists changing the way you understand and analyse the news - if at all? During the second part of the morning session we heard an excellent talk from Nitin Desai, special advisor to the UN for the World Summit on an Information Society. He spoke about how technology, bloggers and the conventional media can work together to effect regime change. I'll write more about his intelligent and thoughtful analysis of how conventional media + technology + online communities = people power that can (and has) effect regime change. At one point Mr. Desai used Neha and Dina's tsunami blog (wiki here) as an excellent example of grassroots disaster reporting. Neha is sitting beside me right now, by the way; we met this morning for a pre-conference coffee near my "simple" hotel (Desk clerk to irate me when I arrived to check in at midnight: "But Madam, in London it is very common to put hotel rooms in the basement. The room is very clean, very nice"). The last time I saw Neha, who is GVO's regional editor for South Asia, was in December, at the GVO conference; we talked each other's heads off then, and just picked up where we left off this morning. I'm finding it very difficult to simultaneously blog about this interesting event and pay attention to speakers, so for now I'm going to focus while you peruse these links: Live chat from the conference The conference blog The conference site (includes list of speakers and their bios; Jeff Jarvis is here, and so is the actor Richard Dreyfuss - take a look at the article I linked to his name, it's very interesting). I'll be updating later on today; stay tuned for more info as soon as there's a break. Your thoughts and observations, please! My blog is on live feed to the conference participants and Global Voices, so this is your chance to make your voice "heard" (as it were). |
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