Feminist Media Studies 3(3) Criticism and Commentary Section Deadline: 23 May 2003 Length: 1,000-1,500 words (5-6 pages typed, double-spaced)
The World Summit on the 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. The deadline for this call is 23 May - please submit your contributions by email attachment to both of us. If you would like to discuss submitting a contribution to this volume, please email us at: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] We look forward to receiving your essays in --. Please pass on this CFP to anyone you think might be interested in contributing. As always, please feel free to submit book or film reviews which you think would be of interest to the FMS readership. The following website contains the style guideline for Feminist Media Studies: http://tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/r-authors/fmsauth.pdf ===== Boulou E. de B'beri - http://boulou.fr.st - Editor: Ecritures dans les cinemas d'Afrique noire, CINEMAS, V0l.11-No.1 - Director & Producer: Looking for my Pygmalion: Mémoires - http://www.drm-associations-management.org/film%20english.htm ___________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? -- Une adresse @yahoo.fr gratuite et en français ! Yahoo! Mail : http://fr.mail.yahoo.com --- You are currently subscribed to african-cinema-conference as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, forward this message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
