Web 2.0 and Me
by Ruthana | September 12, 2011 at 10:50 PM
I have never heard of Web 2.0 before. Not until signing up for the 2011 VOF Application Classroom. I looked up Web 2.0 on Wikipedia this week and realized I had been using some of its tools all along both personally and at work.
I believe that Web 2.0, or rather the use of Web 2.0, has ensured that women are not just consumers of information created by the media or by others. It has ensured and guaranteed a space for us women to also be the producers of information and to add our voices and views to the global women’s empowerment movement.
The tools available with Web 2.0 and its potential outreach are unfathomable. It is the solution to the ‘voicelessness’ and ‘facelessness ‘ of women and the critical issues affecting their lives, their children, their families, their own personal and human development and their participation in society – be it social, political, religious or economic, or just as a human being with rights. With Web 2.0 technology, women have the opportunity to be a more visible, more vocal and more interactive citizen in her country, in her region, and in her world.
As I write this, I realize I have been a somewhat passive user of this online technology and perhaps even a little bit ignorant of the power Web 2.0 tools have to change or advance a life, a group of people, a country or a world. I see how World Pulse is using Web 2.0 and what has and is being achieved; the global connections it has made possible, the space’s, the rooms, the markets, it is creating for women to interact and to share knowledge and resources; most of all, the millions of women from all over the world, from different cultures, different religions, different political backgrounds - all journey here - overcoming vast land, oceans and skies - in this one place called World Pulse, to share their needs and to tell their stories, without suppression or oppression. Web 2.0 has made miracles for women who need a space to make their voices heard and I hope I will be a part of this miracle.
Comments
Web 2.0 did it
You're right it all diversities journey through web 2.0 and that is great!
Amie
Hi Amie
Hi Amie and thank you for your comments. Thanks so much too for visiting my journal to read my post. I was thinking about how on World Pulse I am reading something about everyone from all corners of the globe and just felt this total awe on how this was even possible. Web 2.0 is really a miracle of a tool!
Again tagio tumas (thank you),
~ Ruthana ~
Is a tool, but most important what we do with this tool
Dear Ruthana,
I can see how you feel a passive user, this is powerful to identify that you were, and to decide get in action and not be more passive but Active instead.
Digital media is becoming the next classroom for this World School, is just marvelous what we can do with it, if we decide to use´t, and I think you decide to use it. Good for you!
With this words I feel you are talkign to a big audience. I wonder if you could write to a small audience or to an individual, make it more personal, how could sound?
Rocío
THANK YOU
Dear RocioG,
Thank you for your view on how I've identified myself with Web 2.0. I certainly feel empowered already. As I was writing my assignment, I couldn't ignore my passivity with this internet technology despite having used it over recent years. Everything became sorely obvious to me after my every visit to World Pulse.
I dream about writing to a smaller audience all the time, more particularly to women and girls in my country. I'm a radio journalist by trade working in the mainstream media here, but I've always wished I could do more to make womens issues more visible to the national audience, and other audiences, but with a depth that would create change.
Many women, my elders and my peers, who know my work are encouraging me to write apart from radio and I hope to use my experience here to diversify my skills, and not to mention the confidence, to write. I'll certainly take your comments on board and start practising writing to a smaller audience or to an individual.
Again thank you for your views and thank you too for taking the time to come to my journal.
~ Ruthana ~
Ruthana, I enjoyed reading
Ruthana,
I enjoyed reading your writing. Maybe you should think about what web 2.0 can do for you and the women in your community and country. This will make the writing more personal.
Tait
THANK YOU
Dear Tait,
I really appreciate your comments. Thank you too for taking the time to come here.
My mind is already swimming with storylines and ideas on how I can use Web 2.0 and what it can do for my fellow women here. I must admit being a journalist has sort of put me at a distance in all of my scripting and reporting. It seems to be a requirement in this trade, no matter how strongly I feel about an issue and everyone who knows me here know I am very vocal and participate with passion in debates over the issues facing our women here, especially with male relatives and co-workers.
You are the second person to mention the word 'personal' and I can see and appreciate the power this style of writing holds and what it can achieve.
Again, thank you and I appreciate your comments and the time you spent here.
~ Ruthana ~
Great article!
Very true and I wish it was available to more women.
Kind Regards,
Bina Patel
Group Whynot, LLC
www.groupwhynot.com
THANK YOU
Dear binapatel33,
Thank you for your comments. As I read your comment I am reminded of the hundreds of thousands of women in our rural areas who do not have access to the internet, let alone the knowledge of how to use it. Our country has not had a national survey done on women and ICTs and so there is no policy direction, let alone planning in this particular area. But over recent months, after our government opened the telecommunication market to allow another competitor here, more and more women have access to mobile phones and to affordable communication services. I hope internet access will be made more affordable in the near future. More Solomon Islands women should use Web 2.0 to get their stories out.
Again, tagio tumas (thank you) for your comment, and most especially for taking the time to come here to my journal.
~ Ruthana ~
This is great Ruthana - where
This is great Ruthana - where exactly are you located?
Kind Regards,
Bina Patel
Group Whynot, LLC
www.groupwhynot.com
Your inspiration
It´s just amaizing how many different things could empowert different people, just thinking about those things we have in comun as a human being, and at the same time so many different things that inspire us!
keep working in this inpirations yours Ruthana.