[iDC] On Silence / Off Silence

[Radhika Gajjala]

Anne,

I've been meaning to reply for a while. Its nice to see you post - for me
you are a voice from the past in
an odd kind of way.  You were one of the few feminist scholars working on
Internet and technology related areas of research (with published work) when
I first began my dissertation research in early 90s
- even though you dont actually "know" me  (we may meet at  MLA soon on a
panel, I think).

During those days I was heavily steeped in Usenet cultures and listserv
cultures - and I have to agree that
they were not very welcoming to women or anyone outside of a certain
aggressive, longwinded framework
of articulation. Susan Herring has written about this in her early work -
the gendered nature of how people post
to email lists.

I ended up working with the Spoon collective and starting lists as part of
my explorations online. But my main dissertation
theorizing is based on my experience within a women only south asian email
list.

I come to the idea of participating or not on lists from another angle - the
context for participation on listprocs is different
nowadays with so many people blogging, tweeting, face-booking, gaming,
youtubing and so on... where "flaming" has somehow become weaved into the
everyday almost... and various online spaces form around niches so that
there are enough gendered comfort spaces as well (knit podcast, etsy,
ravelry, feminist gamers.... ).

Most of the time when I dont post
to a list it is because i am basically overly "list-proc-ed" and cant keep
up with all the many places I feel I can
contribute to the conversation...

So I continue to lurk...:)

(which in my past life I would have found difficult to do ).



-- 
Radhika Gajjala
Director, American Culture Studies
Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies
101 East Hall
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH  43403

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik
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