[gender-it] FW: [Gender&ict] NEW BOOK: Women & Internet: Croatian Perspective

"Hoofd Ingrid Maria" <g0201759@xxxxxxxxxx> · Thu, 15 Jul 2004 14:12:20 +0800

Apologies for cross posting.
Ingrid.

-----Original Message-----
NEW PUBLICATION:

Women & Internet: Croatian Perspective
by Kristina Mihalec and Nevenka Sudar, 2004
ISBN 953-6967-08-1

The authors had the unique opportunity to document and publish what
occurs with women's Internet use in a transition and post-war country,
specifically in Croatia. The formation of Croatia as an independent
state began approximately at the same time these two seemingly separate
aspects may actually mirror one another in their development. The book,
Women & Internet: Croatian Perspective, looks at how women and the
"women's movement" use the Internet within Croatian society by
incorporating various analytical perspectives.  Thus, the research links
theory and analysis with everyday lives and realities of women in
Croatia and (South) Eastern Europe. The goal was not only to contribute
to the international discourse on women and ICTs from a regional level,
which is often times missing, but also to identify problems and create
"new" theories from a local perspective.

Chapter 1 introduces an international overview of ICTs discourse in the
Eastern European region, and gender indicators used as a method of
analysis and evaluation. While Chapter 2 focuses on Croatian statistical
data we gathered, Chapter 3 - Women-Owned Websites -  also looks at
quantitative in addition to qualitative data, specifically what women in
Croatia are expressing via web sites and why. The way women's
organizations and activists use ICTs can be found in Chapter 4 - Online
Activism. While typical research addresses lack of resources as playing
a large part in limiting women's use of ICTs, Chapter 5 looks at
indirect aspects of society, - the portrayal of women and new
technologies in mass media - which can influence people's perspectives
of women' s ICT use even when resources are available.  The final
chapter is a collection of interviews, offering a space for women who
are in some way connected to ICTs to share their stories and experience.

By looking at the expectations and potentials the Internet can provide
to a society in transition we can measure the status of new democracies
by evaluating how the Internet, as a tool of and for an open and free
society, is being used by women. Are democratic attempts to incorporate
women's human rights and greater public participation on a political and
cultural level being achieved in everyday lives of women?

As this book is  the first of its kind, it represents a starting point,
a work in progress that will hopefully lead to more in-depth research or
similar follow up studies.

The research book was funded through the European North America
WomenAction
(http://www.enawa.org/) program entitled "Effective E-Feminism." The
author's would acknowledge the financial support from IIAV's
(http://www.iiav.nl/) International Department (L.McDevitt-Pugh@xxxxxxx)
via HIVOS (http://www.hivos.org/  -  t.hansma@xxxxxxxx).

Regards,
Kristina Mihalec
kristina@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_______________________________________________
genderandict mailing list
genderandict@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://mailman.let.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/genderandict

Other related posts: