I. TED Talk on Social Media and the End of Gender
Johanna Blakley believes that social media will “free us from absurd assumptions about gender”. She thinks this change is possible because social media transcends the old demographics that media corporations used to sell back to us. Blakley points out that, worldwide, women outnumber men in the use of social media technology, which could drive a change in the media landscape. She also describes that social media allows technology to return some level of human individuation.
I think her analysis of how media companies are not making the assumption based on broad demographic categories will be interesting for our DCNM class discussion. Her talk will inevitably lead us to imagine a media atmosphere that isn’t dominated by lame stereotypes about gender and other demographic characteristics.
URL: https://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_social_media_and_the_end_of_gender?language=en
II. Community Videos- Digital Green
Digital green is a global development organization that has been training rural communities to produce videos on best practice related to agriculture, livestock management. Frontline extension workers from within the same community also taught by Digital Green disseminate these localized videos among the smallholder farming communities who depend on agriculture and livestock for their sustenance. The Digital Green approach, currently deployed in India, Ghana, and Ethiopia, was founded in a belief that video can be a powerful tool to increase the effectiveness of agriculture extension.
In my opinion, Digital Green in this course helps us to see the green side of the digital culture. The use of digital video as a powerful medium tool and its effect on the environment can also be focused. These videos will spark the curiosity of people to take small steps towards green the planet.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP4Z8ZJgim8
III. Gender-Specific Behaviors on Social Media and What They Mean for Online Communications
This SocialMedia Today post was published on Nov 6, 2016 by Aleksandra Atanasova. This post looks at some of the gender-specific behaviors on social media, the motivations behind such actions and also what it means in broader understanding of social behaviors. The findings of this post are exciting and relatable. The author beautifully summarizes that men and women communicate differently in real life, which naturally reflects how they use digital media. They post about different things, prefer different platforms and even use language creatively.
I think that this post will surely add some notable findings to the DCNM course. This addition helps people to understand the basic of gendered media and behaviors.
URL: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/gender-specific-behaviors-social-media-and-what-they-mean-online-communications
IV. Gender, technology, and visual cyberculture: Virtually Women
This chapter examines simulation of femininity through commercial digital media products, drawing on Ananova, a simulated newsreader, and other figures that have formal similarities. This discussion also links representation on the web with mobile communications and wireless networking. This chapter says that conflation of sex and gender into a specific template is not useful and it reproduces sexed hierarchies of difference and reintroduces one-dimensional understandings of gender, in a world where we have the need, and opportunity, to understand that gender and sex are constituted through multiple manifestations, variables and processes. This chapter ends with some questions which will force readers to think and also motivates to find solutions for them.
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