Chapter 8 in Girl Wide Web 2.0, “We Wanted Other People to Learn from Us: Girls Blogging in Rural South Africa in the Age of AIDS”, was a authentic reality check to me because it’s amazing to see the immense power the internet has in our country as well as these third world countries and the jeopardizes they face on a regular basis. These girls are able to blog about issues such as HIV and AIDs which I’ve learned affects so many young girls, compared to young boys. The idea of blogging allows a way to vent and as the book said “make public issues around gender violence”. Blogging allows these girls to personally describe, narrate, and illustrate their life with feelings, emotions, and communicate to others. The key factor that sets it apart from just journal writing is the fact that they are communicating their worries, and life to others who choose to listen and participate. These girls in Africa rely on this kind of communication to make people aware of the suffering their lives constantly experience. It is really sad that issues such as these are still as bad as they are especially with the type of technology at the hands of young females.
In “Making an About-Face: Jammer Girls and the World Wide Web” the article gets into a lot more detail on how the young females generate their identity, an important factor on how they get their information across. However the criteria listed in the article seemed to differ incredibly to the information the girls in Africa choose to communicate. The author of this article lists questions such as do I look fat, am I worthy, does he want me, etc as making up a girls internet identity, especially into the two categories of being a bad girl or a good girl. I feel this differs entirey from the girls in Africa who are blogging about their lives, and how they have dreams and hopes to fulfill while they battle a life threatening illness. Technology has a way of pointing out cultural differences.
It is interesting to see the blogs being compared to journals, and to see how much more they can do than your typical journal. It reminds me of he diary of Anne Frank that we all had to read in high school. We learne about the experiences that happended during the Holocaust but we weren't able to see it until after everything had happened. With blogs turning into the "new" journals, we are able to learn about things happening to girls right now. We can see what the girls in South Africa are going through and learn from them and try to come up with a solution while the problem is happening.
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