As Hurricane Isaac passed through New Orleans today, we couldn’t help think about what happened seven years ago when Hurricane Katrina wreaked extraordinary damages and losses on the Louisiana city. And when we think about Katrina, we can’t help but also recall how traditional media outlets depicted African American survivors as looters and “refugees” (thus ignoring their […]
Author: Tara L. Conley
Tara L. Conley is the founder of Media Make Change. She's currently a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University, studying Computing, Communication, and Technology in Education. Tara writes about Internet technologies, including digital and social media, and representations 'self', narratives, and citizenship by way of these technologies.
The Women and People of Color Who Invented the Internet
A Sunday New York Times article by David Streitfeld has the feminist and tech worlds up in arms. Reporting on a sexual harassment suit filed by a junior partner in a venture capital firm, Streitfeld begins by proclaiming that “MEN invented the Internet” (those CAPS are his). I came across Streitfeld’s article after a friend […]
The Pinterest Problem
Recently, Pinterest, the newest billion-dollar social network, has been overwhelmingly characterized by online journalists and bloggers as a women-centered social media platform. While there have been discussions, most notably by Johanna Blakely, which suggest that social media neutralizes gender when it comes to marketing demographics, some of us, like my friend Goddessjaz, still wonder if/how […]