Flew (2002: 89) states that ‘gender has often been seen as a central marker of difference and inequality in access to online media’. World Wide Web user surveys conducted in 1994 found that only 10% of users were female. Male users were found to be, on average, considerably more experienced in their use of the Internet. These inequalities of access would overlap with male dominance in areas such as science and technology that are most associated with the development of ICTs and a computer culture that has been largely targeted at male users and consumers.
Researchers predicted that the unique characteristics of computer- mediated communication would mitigate gender differences. The recent increase in participation of women on-line provides an opportunity to investigate this prediction. A review of the literature leads to the conclusion that women's communication in cyberspace often mirrors that of face-to-face communication, linguistically and relationally. However, on-line communities can offer women a unique communication opportunity, allowing for the development and display of a distinct relational and cultural style.
In the past two decades of CMC, women's voices have been very limited (Frissen, 1992). The past few years, however, have seen a rapid rise in the numbers of women using CMC to communicate on-line. Recent reports put female participation on the Internet as high as 33% (Sherman, 1996), while others report that such private commercial servers as Prodigy have a 40% female subscription rate (Braill, 1994). This significant increase in women's participation on-line offers an ideal opportunity to investigate whether CMC does indeed democratize communication, and break down gender barriers.
An area on-line that remains similar to F2F communication is topic choice. Yet topic choice remains a male prerogative on-line. Males monopolize on-line conversations, and even when women do contribute, they are often driven to silence by the adversarial style of male responses, either ceasing to post messages or withdrawing from the discussion (Collins-Jarvis, 1995; Herring, 1994).
REFERENCES
Braill, S. (1994) "Take back the net!" On the Issues, p.40-41.
Collins-Jarvis, L. (1995). "Explaining gender group
discrimination in computer-mediated communication: A social identity
approach. Paper presented at the meeting of the Organization for the
Study of Communication", Language and Gender, p.21-29.
Flew, T. (2002) New Media:an introduction,South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195508599
Frissen, V. (1991)"Trapped in electronic cages? Gender and new information technologies in the public and private domain: An overview of the research", Media, Culture, and Society, vol.14, p.31-39.
Herring, S. (1994)"Gender differences in computer-mediated communication: Bringing familiar baggage to the new frontier" Paper presented at the American Library Association Annual Convention, Arlington, TX.
Sherman, A. (1996)"Where the girls are" Available:
http://www.cybergrrl.com/ under "Articles I have written."
Annabel Johnson 19:54, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)
