Jack Schofield asks the question “Which women bloggers are worth a look?”
with regard to the current Blogher conference in San Francisco. He uses the term ‘influential’ that is an interesting one - Does it mean most significant influence? in terms of quality or quantity?
Blogher demonstrates that there are plenty of women bloggers, most of whom couldn’t care less about whether or not they are deemed to be influential in terms of an award. They probably do care about their audience (whatever its size) however.
Here are a few women bloggers who have influenced me (and reinforced their paid work along the way):
- Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne http://www.masondixonknitting.com/ who met on knitting forums, got together via blogs, have a blog and a funny/useful book on knitting (new one out soon) and a large and faithful following. If you don’t believe me google or search flickr.com for Mason-Dixon. You are in for a visual treat and an object lesson in media convergence - not to mention some inspiring images of colourful and functional dishcloths.
- Josie Fraser http://fraser.typepad.com/socialtech/ who blogs about digital literacy, digizens and other important issues for young people and those who care about them.
- danah boyd http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/ whose blog ranges around her current interests – recently health, politics, but mainly the use of social networking by youth (her PhD topic).
- Kath Sierra http://headrush.typepad.com/ whose immensely popular and influential blog ceased as of 7 April 2007, as a result of nasty personal attacks.
On a personal note, what I find encouraging is that women are being effective in using emerging technologies to organize themselves, communicate and even make a little money (cf mommyblogs, ebay and etsy.com). However, women’s voice in public discourse is open to question – an issue that cannot rely on technology alone. People ….. society ……. history …..
4 responses so far ↓
1 Josie Fraser // Jul 20, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Thanks for the heads up Frances, really appreciated, even though I’m probably more of a microblogger these days and most active over at twitter.com/josiefraser
I’d add a couple to the actually massive list:
Beth Canter - who focuses on the non-for-profit sector:
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/
& world class edtech bloggers Barbara Ganley:
http://mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/ganley/bgblogging/
Catherine Howell:
http://connect.educause.edu/blog/166
Art-tech blogger Regine Debatty is up there too:
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/
I’m sure many others will be able to contribute, since there’s certainly no lack of excellent women blogging.
The question ‘where are the women bloggers?’ has been doing the rounds for a while now. It strikes me that the question is on it’s way out, probably because all of our online activity is becoming more & more distributed, as the read-write web continues to be transformed by social networking services and practices. The question I’m interested in is does distributed practice reinforce gender inequality & make it even harder for women to establish presence and reputation? Or are there opportunities to amplify presence in connecting the small pieces?
2 Frances // Jul 20, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Good points Josie. How could I forget Beth Kanter and also Nancy White http://www.fullcirc.com/wp/ ?
I am just wondering if distributed practice (if done in a problem-solving , community fashion) equates to women doing emotional labour rather than influencing policy by a presence with ‘gravitas’.
3 alan // Jul 21, 2008 at 8:57 am
To see really exciting new multimedia literacy try out Inanimate Alice. http://www.inanimatealice.com And its a free online resource!
More an interactive piece of fiction than a traditional game, Inanimate Alice: Episode 4 continues the story of the young game animator as she leaves her home in Russia and travels abroad. Inanimate Alice serves as both entertainment and a peek into the future of literature as a fusion of multimedia technologies. The haunting images and accompanying music and text weave a remarkably gripping tale that must be experienced to be believed.
And better still for schools there is a piece of software now available that allows learners to create their own stories. Valuable for all forms of literacy and this is being sold as a perpetual site licence for schools at £99 ! http://www.istori.es
4 ruthdemitroff // Oct 26, 2008 at 11:26 am
Some blogs are excellent but are a bit like speaking in a foreign tongue. Canadian and American culture have a lot of sharing going on but they have their differences as well. My favourite bloggers tend to be Canadian because it’s easier to read without having to do the translation. Even when the issues are identical, one can only influence change in one’s own country within its unique structure. This international monetary crisis may result in more global regulatory bodies with a redistribution of influence based on the various blocks of countries that identify with each other and how much financial clout those blocks have but in the meantime, we operate within a narrow range of context. Even if I were able to read Chinese or Russian or whatever, those countries have legitimate concerns that my experience isn’t cosmopolitan enough to grasp or appreciate the philosophy behind their words. I’ve never even owned a passport so I don’t expect the international blogging community to see me as anything but what I am - a rural Canadian housewife. In the last 25 years, I’ve spent approximately a dozen days in the United States and I’ve lived right on the Alaska/Yukon border for 6 years and the Detroit/Windsor border for 10 years.
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