I found out yesterday that my abstract to AoIR was accepted. Yippee. I can’t wait to get started (even though I have to – thesis and all). It seems there will be a lot at AoIR on YouTube… and the theme – Internet:Critical is great! I can’t wait to meet f2f the people I have been citing and really discuss digital tools critically. I will be the first to admit my addiction/love to all things cyber, digital, (or shiny?), but while writing about blogs, and about how the digital has been used as a surrogate social network, I have seen a need to look at the way we use these tools more critically. USE the tools, but use them in your best way.
Rather than post the abstract here, I will just let you guys know that I am going to talk about how Swedish youth remiediate physical spaces through the art of Parkour and YouTube. More about that soon-ish.
I have recently finished an application on the use of the Internet as a means of social support for victims of domestic abuse. Reading into the field and wading through the personal stories may have been one of the hardest things I have ever done. And maybe because this application is still fresh on my mind, when I watched the video for the new site, ifoundyourcamera, I could only think about how this could really hurt a lot of people. People you don’t even know you are hurting. What if a mother, or a father, has finally found a safe place where her children are no longer hurt, where she is no longer hurt, and after her child’s birthday, she loses her camera. Pictures of the birthday party are put online and suddenly there is a reunion of a terrible kind. Yes, it sounds melodramatic. Yes, it sounds like a LONG shot. But I encourage you to listen to the stories of victims that were found through a facebook profile loop hole, or through their phones gps, or by an errant tweet. The tools that bring us closer need to be thought about critically. This is not a rant saying not to use these tools – not at all. But before we put pictures of other people’s children online, we need to ask ourselves if that one child who is found is worth the price of all those lost cameras. Put up the other pictures, but take down the ones with the kids in it. The potential, even if it is small and a long shot, is too great. You don’t know these people. You don’t know their stories. You need to think before you post.
The project was helped by postsecret, which is a site I LOVE. But there is a big difference between the two. The people that send in their postcards send them in with the knowledge that they will be posted. They made a choice. ifoundyourcamera takes that choice away.
Today is Ada Lovelace day all over the world. It is a day that we celebrate excellent women in technology – and I am sure that if you google Ada Lovelace you will find thousands of tales of phenomenal women in blogs and on twitter, and maybe a tribute or two on YouTube. This is wonderful! But it is not how I am going to commemorate Ada Lovelace day. I want to talk about the other side – the darker side of technology that takes power away from women (and men and children too).
I want to start a conversation about the uses of technology in domestic abuse. Using the Internet allows victims of domestic abuse (DV) to reach out to others to get help, plan their escape, or even just to receive information and to inform. But the same technology traps cookies, saves browsing histories and can allow your abuser to stalk you through email (both by reading yours or sending you email) or GPS. In a recent survey of 479 DV victims aged 15-74, 25% of those had their browser history monitored. 24% had been repeatedly threatened, insulted or harassed by email. 18% had their email monitored. Did you see those numbers? At least 1 in 4 victims had technology used against them as a tool to continue abusive patterns.
Why do I bring this up on a day that we celebrate women in technology? Because an overwhelming number of DV victims are women. And an overwhelming number of those are exposed to the affordances of the Internet as a tool of abuse. So my celebration today is more a call to arms. We need strategies for keeping ourselves safe online to percolate through our school, our shelters, our book circles and cafe chats until they become part of the popular knowledge. Not only to protect ourselves from the rare boogey monster lurking in the chat room, but for the much more prevalent threat of the boogey monster in our beds.
For those of our friends in the States, check out The Technology Safety Project developed by the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Abuse. They really are doing amazing things at the WSCADV. They get that the answer is not to not use the tools, but to empower the victim to use the tools well.
On Ada Lovelave day, I want to celebrate all women in DV relationships that dare to use technology as a tool towards freedom and as a tool to heal. You rock. Now, share with your friends your strategies for doing it safely.
Hello. My name is Stephanie – and I move furniture. I guess it started when I was 12 or 13. I would be at home, my mom would come in from a hard day’s work and we would both grab an end of the couch and pull. The entire room would be stripped, cleaned, and furniture would be replaced in a slightly different order than before. And the stress – gone. But the more I moved, the less time between reorganizations I could handle. As soon as the stress built again, the room had to be moved around.
Yeah, this still happens today – to the amusement/dismay? of my partner. When the stress gets to be too much, I move around the furniture in the house. It really helps! And I am beginning to suspect that there is a link with my stylesheet changes. Every time I need a break, to cut through an activity before it becomes overwhelming (and the furniture has recently been moved around), I will change my stylesheet – or make a new site. So, just in case you were curious about the new stylesheet (which I really like, actually) it is due to a bit of writers block. And now that I have cleaned out the cluttered blog, I can get back to writing. Whew.
Yesterday I embedded the blogumentary. Now that I have watched it, I can recommend it. It is an hour, but there are quite a few good little tidbits in there. It feels a bit old (time passes so quickly online :-P), and a bit romantic. Be that as it may, he makes a lot of good points and blends a chronological look at blogging with a thematic one. This will definitely be cited in the thesis.
Today is 
