http://francesbell.com/2008/07/20/women-bloggers-worth-a-look/
Jack Schofield asks the question “Which women bloggers are worth a look?”
with regard to the current Blogher conference in San Francisco. He uses the term ‘influential’ that is an interesting one - Does it mean most significant influence? in terms of quality or quantity?
Blogher demonstrates that there are plenty of women bloggers, most of whom couldn’t care less about whether or not they are deemed to be influential in terms of an award. They probably do care about their audience (whatever its size) however.
Here are a few women bloggers who have influenced me (and reinforced their paid work along the way):
- Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne http://www.masondixonknitting.com/ who met on knitting forums, got together via blogs, have a blog and a funny/useful book on knitting (new one out soon) and a large and faithful following. If you don’t believe me google or search flickr.com for Mason-Dixon. You are in for a visual treat and an object lesson in media convergence - not to mention some inspiring images of colourful and functional dishcloths.
- Josie Fraser http://fraser.typepad.com/socialtech/ who blogs about digital literacy, digizens and other important issues for young people and those who care about them.
- danah boyd http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/ whose blog ranges around her current interests – recently health, politics, but mainly the use of social networking by youth (her PhD topic).
- Kath Sierra http://headrush.typepad.com/ whose immensely popular and influential blog ceased as of 7 April 2007, as a result of nasty personal attacks.
On a personal note, what I find encouraging is that women are being effective in using emerging technologies to organize themselves, communicate and even make a little money (cf mommyblogs, ebay and etsy.com). However, women’s voice in public discourse is open to question – an issue that cannot rely on technology alone. People ….. society ……. history …..
