"Social media offered new opportunities for politicians to engage with the public.However, little research has explored public perceptions of women politicians and their role in women’s empowerment, especially in non-Western contexts. This study used a qualitative methodology to explore how young
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Emirati women made sense of gender and other identities in their discussions of Emirati women politicians on social media. Drawing from intersectionality theory, the study looked beyond gender, exploring other identities that may play a role in Emirati women’s perceptions. The results offered insights into the family and ethnic identity as they interacted with gender. The findings also highlighted the challenges of personalizing messages in a patriarchal society. This study contributes to international political communication research and practice by understanding the complexity of women’s sense-making of social media and women politicians in a non-Western context." (Abstract)
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"Amid the proliferation of a range of new and ubiquitous online platforms, YouTube, a video-based platform, remains a key driver in the democratisation of creative, playful, vernacular, intimate, as well as political expressions. As a critical node of contemporary communication and digital cultures,
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its steady uptake and appropriation in a social media-savvy nation such as the Philippines requires a critical examination of its role in the continued reconstruction of identities, communities, and broader social institutions. This book closely analyses the diverse content and practices of amateur Filipino YouTubers, exposing and problematising the dynamics of brokering the contested aspirational logics of beauty and selfhood, interracial relationships, world-class labour, and progressive governance in a digital sphere." (Publisher description)
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"This report summarises learnings from BBC Media Action’s landscaping study of the gendered dimensions of social media access and use in India. It addresses 10 questions that have implications for designing digital solutions for women’s empowerment in India." (Page 2)
"The Girls Online (GO!) Cybersafety project (GO! Cyber) aims to equip young women and girls with the skills and resources to participate meaningfully and safely in cyberspace. The project is implemented by CARE Vanuatu and Sista with the support of Australia’s Cyber and Critical Tech Cooperation P
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rogram and ABC International Development. The GO! Cyber project started with a series of co-design workshops, supported by Portable Design Studio, with young women aged between 18-30 years old to understand how young women and girls navigate cyberspace. While there have been interventions to enhance cyber safety in Vanuatu in recent years, there is little research to understand the experiences and behaviours of young women and girls in cyberspace. The guiding principle of the GO! Cyber project is recognising young women as experts of their own experience, so they led the identification and exploration of cyber safety rights, experiences, and issues. The young women then proposed contextually relevant, needs-based and practical solutions for their online safety, which included a series of informative videos and this booklet." (Why this booklet, page 6)
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"This report, based on research conducted with women's empowerment collectives (self help groups, co-operatives, rights-based groups, trade unions) in India in late 2019, explores the relationship between the expansion of women's social networks in collectives, their growing empowerment, and their a
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doption and meaningful use of digital technologies." (https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction)
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"Governments are missing out on hundreds of billions of dollars because of the digital gender gap. Closing this gap in the next five years gives policy makers a $524 billion USD opportunity. Across the world, millions of people are still unable to access the internet and participate online — and w
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omen are disproportionately excluded. Men are 21% more likely to be online than women globally, rising to 52% in Least Developed Countries. Various barriers prevent women and girls from accessing the internet and participating online, including unaffordable devices and data tariffs, inequalities in education and digital skills, social norms that discourage women and girls from being online, and fears around privacy, safety, and security. While digital exclusion limits the opportunities for those women and girls unable to connect, it also has broader societal and economic impacts that affect everyone." (Executive summary)
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"We surveyed over 26,000 girls and young women in 26 countries. 91% of girls and young women surveyed are concerned about misinformation and/or disinformation online. 40% of those surveyed are extremely or very concerned. Misinformation and disinformation are having a negative impact on 87% of the g
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irls and young women we surveyed. 46% of girls feel sad, depressed, stressed, worried or anxious as a result of online misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation and disinformation restrict girls’ activism: 1 out of 4 girls feel less confident to share their views; 1 out of 5 girls stop engaging in politics or current affairs. 7 out of 10 girls and young women have never been taught about how to spot misinformation/disinformation at school or by family members. There was no single online source of information that the majority of girls and young women surveyed actually trusted." (Key findings, page 6)
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"Although the internet facilitates connection, participation, and engagement, there is a need for new and innovative strategies for closing the gender digital divide in Uganda. A socio-economic, political, and robustic legal approach is needed to close the gender digital divide. This requires regula
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r reviews of existing legal frameworks to ensure they are aligned with the latest technological trends and issues, evidence-based research conducted, strategic litigation and guidelines for the government in formulating national policies in closing the gender digital divide in Uganda." (Conclusion, page 8)
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"For the past decade, internet connectivity has been praised for its potential to close the gender gap in Africa. Among the many benefits of digitalization, digital tools enable groups that are marginalized across the intersections of gender, race, sex, class, religion, ability and nationality to pr
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oduce and access new forms of knowledge and conceive counter-discources. However, the internet, once viewed as a utopia for equality, is proving to be the embodiment of old systems of oppression and violence. In order to understand experiences of African women in online spaces, this violence must be viewed on a continuum rather than as isolated incidents removed from existing structural frameworks. Discriminatory gendered practices are shaped by social, economic, cultural and political structures in the physical world and are similarly reproduced online across digital platforms. In this paper, we research the online lived experiences of women living in five sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate that repeated negative encounters fundamentally impact how women navigate and utilize the internet. This in turn, strengthens the argument for a radical shift in developing alternate digital networks grounded in feminist theory." (Opening, page 3)
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"1. While gender gaps are observable in most aspects of ICT access, skills and leadership, the picture is complex. There are large regional variations: some countries are close to parity or have even reversed the gender gap on some indicators, while others still have persistent gaps. Individual coun
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tries can have both large and small gaps, depending on the indicator being measured. Interpreting the gaps requires careful and contextualised analysis.
2. Barriers to gender digital equality are generally related to one or more of the following: 1) availability of infrastructure; 2) financial constraints; 3) ICT ability and aptitude; 4) interest and perceived relevance of ICTs; 5) safety and security; and 6) socio-cultural and institutional contexts. Most of these barriers cut across issues of access, skills, and leadership, although they may manifest in slightly different ways. While research has documented these barriers, the evidence from different sources is sometimes contradictory, even within the same country contexts.
3. There is no one conclusive strategy for eliminating gender digital inequalities. Recommendations generally call either for targeting specific contributing factors of gender digital inequality (such as affordability or recruiting practices), or for reshaping deeply ingrained social norms and practices (such as gender stereotypes) that are at the root of gender inequalities. As with the evidence on barriers, research results are sometimes contradictory or nuanced.
4. The dominant approaches to gender equality in ICT access, skills, and leadership mostly frame issues in binary (male/female) terms, thereby masking the relevance of other pertinent identities. Insufficient research has been done on the implications of ICTs for intersectional identities. Data collection should move from binary sexdisaggregation towards finer degrees of status disaggregation in order to recognise multiple and interacting identities (such as sexuality, poverty, class, education, age, disability, and occupation).
5. To ensure privacy and safety as well as full participation in the digital economy, women should have equal opportunities to develop adequate basic and advanced digital skills. Cyberstalking, online harassment, image manipulation, privacy violations, geotracking, and surveillance can compromise women’s and girls’ safety both online and offline. In addition, some evidence suggests the digital transformation of labour may be widening gender wage gaps. These outcomes can be averted with the right types of training combined with social and institutional change.
6. Developments in digital technologies open new pathways to gender diversity and inclusion; however, lack of attention to gender dynamics and differences hampers the potential for true progress. For example, evidence suggests that most women’s work in the digital economy, particularly in the Global South, reinforces existing social divisions. Moreover, artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, designed largely by men, tend to ignore the negative gender implications of their designs. Research, government policy and design principles should include gender awareness and analysis, for example by building in data and privacy protections and avoiding gender stereotypes." (Key findings, page 19-20)
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"This book investigates ways in which global media coverage of conflicts affects the worldviews of the social and cultural values of nationals from the war regions. It identifies the cultural patterns in remote communities that have been 'diluted' by IT and the extent to which the changes impacted t
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he values of the indigenes. It also describes the role that IT especially social media and broadcast media play in the understanding of war among residents in highly wired and remote communities, respectively." (Publisher description)
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"The term “Africa Rising” is used in popular and academic discourse to describe economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Increased mobile phone ownership and access to the Internet figure prominently in this optimistic narrative. However, aspects of this story are being questioned, in particular w
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hether this economic growth benefits Africa’s rural areas. In this article, we extend this critique to the optimism surrounding access to the mobile Internet by detailing rural women’s experiences with mobile devices. Drawing on data from our long-term fieldwork in Western Kenya, we describe how secondhand handsets, misinformation about social media, and gendered allocations of time constrain women’s access to the mobile Internet. We then discuss how the materiality of mobile phones, seasonal changes, and other factors must be considered when developing technological interventions in rural areas. We conclude that rural women’s lived realities merit more attention within growth narratives about Africa." (Abstract)
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"This toolkit is aimed at a wide range of audiences interested in conducting both qualitative and quantitative research on women’s internet access and use. The primary target audience are researchers and research agencies who have skills and practice in conducting quantitative and/or qualitative r
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esearch. They can use this toolkit as a guideline for incorporating gender into their research studies, helping deliver comparable data on this topic that can build a global picture of the internet access and use gender gap." (Page 6)
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"We found that knowledge around digital security amongst women in Kampala is quite low. A high proportion of women have been victims of cyberbullying without any obvious routes to seeking justice against perpetrators. There is an urgency for law enforcement and government to hand down stricter penal
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ties for offenders and to provide measures that protect women from online gender-based violence. Furthermore, there is a large role for service providers and civil society to play in building the capacity of women to take precautionary steps to protect their online identities as well as to advocate for regulations and policies that can readily address the growing and changing threats to digital safety and security. As more women continue to access the internet, we must focus on keeping the internet a safe space where these women can benefit rather than become victims of violence and fraud." (Conclusions)
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"Over 68% of countries in Africa have a Universal Service and Access Fund (USAF) in place; 62% of these funds are active. Just 3 of the 37 countries with USAFs have universal access policies that explicitly aim to connect women and girls through the fund. Just 23 African countries openly publish det
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ails on their USAF activities. There is US$177 million sitting unspent in USAFs across the 13 African countries where these financial details are available. Across all 37 USAFs in Africa, unspent funds total an estimated US$408 million. This amount could bring approximately 6 million women online, or could be used to provide digital skills training to nearly 16 million women and girls. Disbursement rates for USAF funds are low, averaging around just 54% in 2016. Just four of the USAFs studied carry a zero balance: Cote d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda." (Executive summary, page 3)
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