Women and Everyday Uses of the Internet : Agency and Identity

Women & Everyday Uses of the Internet investigates the forms and codes of the Internet as a popular medium and the ways in which women figure as users, content producers, and target audiences. Interdisciplinary and international in scope, this book addresses issues of gendered identity and agency in the wider framework of consumer culture and uses of new media. Individual chapters explore personal and commercial web sites for women, constructions of lesbian identity, communities of female consumers and Vietnam veterans, women's web cam sites, educational experiences and information society agendas, the possibilities of design, conceptions of digital television, as well as wider media attention to the Internet and women. These case studies provide rich insights into the uses of the Internet as an everyday medium and the varying locations and forms of its gendered use. Contents: Steve Jones: Foreword - Mia Consalvo/Susanna Paasonen: Introduction: On the Internet, Women Matter - Susanna Paasonen: Gender, Identity, and (the Limits of) Play on the Internet - Kate O'Riordan: Windows on the Web: The Female Body and the Web Camera - Johanna Dorer: Internet and the Construction of Gender: Female Professionals and the Process of Doing Gender - Noemi Sadowska: Women's Internet Sites: A Search for Design Strategies to Engage the Female Viewer - Mia Consalvo: Selling the Internet to Women: The Early Years - Leda Cooks/Mari Castaneda Paredes/Erica Scharrer: « There's 'O Place' Like Home: Searching for Community on Oprah.com - Karen E. Gustafson: Join Now, Membership Is Free: Women's Web Sites and the Coding of Community - Virpi Oksman: « So I Got It Into My Head That I Should Set Up MyOwn Stable...: Creating Virtual Stables on the Internet as Girls' Own Computer Culture - Jennifer M. Tiernan: Women Veterans and the Net: Using Internet Technology to Network and Reconnect - Jamie M. Poster: Trouble, Pleasure, and Tactics: Anonymity and Identity in a Lesbian Chat Room - S. Elizabeth Bird/Jane Jorgenson: Extending the School Day: Gender, Class, and the Incorporation of Technology in Everyday Life - Marja Vehvilainen: Gendered Agency in Information Society: On Located Politics of Technology - Liesbet van Zoonen/Chris Aalberts: Interactive Television in the Everyday Lives of Young Couples.