ABSTRACT
Blogging has become a major tool for people to interact and make known their various perspectives on life and the world at large. The study investigates the usage and practice of blogging by Ghanaian women.
Using the theory of technology diffusion and adoption, liberal feminist theory and the sense of agency and community, the study establishes that Ghanaian women are actively engaging with blogs by creating personal journal blogs, writing on diverse themes but predominantly on love, among others. The qualitative content analysis was employed to analyse 50 blog posts of Ghanaian women in order to come out with the findings.
Background
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
The advent of massive technological advances in the world has brought about several forms of media. One of such form of media is the phenomenon of blogging. Blogging has become a major tool for people to interact and make known their various perspectives on life and the world at large. Kenix, (2009) asserts that blogs can discuss any topical issue in society or in the life of the blogger. Blogs have become a popular form of online self-presentation and self-expression through the use of the internet (Guadagno et al., 2007). Kobayashi (2011) asserts that blogs are one of the instruments making online social networking popular.
Individuals are able to publish their opinions or views, receive comments or feedback to each blog post, archive past blog posts and connect to other bloggers through blogs. The ease with the creation of blogs without necessarily having an experience or expertise has caused the blogging phenomenon to be widespread. The blogging phenomenon which started in the Western world around 1997 has transcended to the other parts of the world and no longer famous only with the Western world (Kobayashi, 2011).
Due to the ubiquitous nature of blogging there has been a rapid growth and increase in its usage now. In March, 2005 Technorati (a blog analysis and search engine) reported the doubling of blogs every five months and approximately 7.8 million blogs and 937 million links in the blogosphere (Sifry 2005). By December 2007, Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs. Blogpulse, another popular blog analysis and search engine, on July 13, 2009 found 112,326,499 blogs in the world. About a year later, on 3rd August, 2010, Blogpulse identified
144,217,571 total blogs (Kobayashi, 2011). According to Blogpulse, the number of blogs that have been identified as of January 2012 is 182,397,015.
The doubling of blogs every now and then is overwhelming and interesting. One is left to wonder why the increase in the usage of blogs or what is the cause of the increase as well as its usefulness to users.
Huffaker (2005) defines blogs as personal journals made up of chronological entries, not unlike a paper diary. The word blog is the shortened form of weblog, a term that was created by John Barger, according to Nardi et. al. (2004). Nardi et. al. (2004) claim that, blogs were born in 1997 but were not widely known until the launch of Pitas, a blogging tool, in 1999 that allowed people to easily create their own blogs. After the launch of Pitas which brought the phenomenon of blogging to the forefront, there has been the creation of enormous blogging softwares that enable people to easily create blogs (Pedersen, 2007). Examples of these softwares are the Blogger, Movable Type, Xanga, Blogspot, WordPress and Radio Userland. Some of these softwares enable bloggers to track who is reading their blogs as well as the number of comments and links a blogger has.
According to Stavrositu & Sunder (2012), there are two categories of blogs: the filter blogs and the personal journal blogs. The filter blogs talk about social, political and economic issues that are not directly personal or related to the blogger, while the personal journal blogs document the blogger‟s personal and intimate life issues, for example, the blogger‟s challengers in life, work, family, etc. Stavrositu & Sunder (2012) assert that the filter blogs have wider and non intimate audiences while the personal journal blogs have smaller and intimate audiences.
Blogs have also been categorised as subject-specific blogs, news and current affairs blogs and then personal diary-style blogs by Somolu (2007). The categorization of blogs as personal, filter,
etc. is usually based on the content of the blogs. It is possible to find a whole lot of categorization of blogs because there is an enormous growth of blogs. However, the dominant types of blogs are the filter and personal journal blogs.
As the blogging phenomenon develops, a community of bloggers called the blogosphere has been created where bloggers interact with each other. The growth in the usage of blogs has brought about the need to relate with other people who share similar ideas and concerns, hence the creation of the blogosphere. The blogosphere comprise both male and female and old and young (Technoratti, 2012). However, the content of each blog differs from one gender to the other as do attitudes towards blogging. According to Trammell and Keshelashvili (2005), men produce more filter blogs than women and women equally produce more personal journal blogs than men.
There have been several debates about the usage of blogs by both men and women and the debates about gender differences in blogging are growing alongside the blogosphere. Researchers to some degree tend to explore the content, uses, motivations, etc of blogs of both men and women bloggers. This is to be able to know empirically the various gender differences in the usage of blogs so as to contribute meaningfully to the debate. Most of the research conducted concluded that female blogs are less prominent or important as compared to male blogs. This is because women are associated more with the creation of personal journal blogs. And also women are not in as many top positions in professions.
The extent to which the gender debate about blogging seems to devalue women blogs has caused a number of feminist bloggers to showcase and highlight more blogs by women to counter these assumptions. Group blogs such as Misbehaving.net, Ms.magazine.net, Feministe and
Feministing have taken it upon themselves to elevate women‟s blogs and present them from a feminist perspective thereby countering the gendered nature of the blogosphere.
Women are now actively involved in the blogosphere and using blogs to speak their minds. Blogging has become a major tool for women all over the world to make heard their voices on various issues, especially those issues that affect them or relates to their femininity, regardless of the tags associated with them, and they have continued to produce personal journal blogs (Somolu, 2007).Somolu (2007) goes on to say that blogging is one of the computer and internet based ICTs that can be used to empower women.
        Women and ICTS
The world has been taken over by Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), and ICTs are a major tool for developing most nations. Most of the developed countries are ahead of others because they appreciate the use of ICTs and have opened their doorways for its usage and therefore ICTs have been incorporated in every aspect of developed countries‟ development process (Gurumurthy, 2004).
Compared with men, women‟s use of ICTs is limited and this is because of the unequal access or opportunities in the usage of ICTs for women (UNDAW, 2002). UNDAW (2002) reveals several factors that restrict women from engaging actively in the global usage of ICTs. These factors include physical access to infrastructure, social and cultural issues, education and skills and financial resources.
In Africa, ICTs have not been embraced totally despite their ability to speed up development. Africa is now gradually embracing the holistic usage of ICTs except that some factors like
infrastructure, access and supportive enabling environment is hindering its growth in ICT usage (Africa Partnership Forum, 2008).
In Ghana, not much attention had been given to ICTs in the past especially their ability to speed up development, as well as empowerment of women through their usage (Kwapong, 2008). However, in recent years, some efforts have been made in Ghana to project ICT as a development tool. In 2003, Ghana announced the Ghana Integrated ICT for Accelerated Development (Kwapong, 2008). It is a policy aimed at using ICT to enhance socio-economic development in Ghana.
Among the objectives and strategies of the Ghana Integrated ICT for Accelerated Development are to increase women‟s access to ICTs by ensuring a gender balance and positive discrimination in favour of the girl child. A key strategy in the accelerated development policy is to strengthen women‟s networking initiatives and community based activities that defend and protect rights of women to participate equally in civil and public life (GoG, 2003).
The objective of the Ghana Integrated ICT for Accelerated Development is imperative because women in previous years have had little opportunity to build themselves through ICT usage.
Several factors account for the lack of women‟s engagement with ICTs in Ghana. According to Genardis (2010), societal roles or gendered roles of women in Ghana have been a cause of women‟s alienation from ICTs. Traditionally, women in Ghana are expected to work in the home by doing all the domestic work, which does not enable them to engage with ICTs (Genardis, 2010; GINKS (n.d)). This restriction makes it difficult for women to get into the ICT arena and has made ICTs in Ghana the reserve of men, causing most women not to be engaged in the usage of ICTs.
According to GINKS (n.d), another mitigating factor against the participation of women in the information age is the inferiority complex that some women tend to have. And this is a result of the value society places on women in Ghana. Also, financial barriers are a factor for women lacking access to ICTs, since women are mostly engaged in unpaid labour.
The low literacy rate of women in Ghana is another factor that excludes women from ICT use (Genardis, 2010). According to a Food and Agricultural Organization (2012) report, the literacy rate for women in Ghana is 46 percent while that for men is 67 percent. Most women in Ghana do not have any form of formal education or ICT training; therefore, they cannot make use of ICTs.
Due to the gender gap in the usage of ICTs, there have been several debates about the gender of ICTs. Some scholars have argued that ICTs are masculine (Eriksson-Zetterquist, 2007, Oudshoorn et al., 2004, Kusku et al., 2007 as cited in Surgevil and Ozbilgin, 2012) while others argue that ICTs are gender neutral, neither masculine nor feminine (Gurumurthy, 2004). One scholar has equally argued that the gender of ICTs is dependent on the social and cultural context in which the technology finds itself (Madanda, 2007). Madanda (2007) claims that the socio- cultural context will determine the gender of ICTs, therefore, the gender of ICTs vary from society to society.
It has been argued by UNDAW (2002) that men benefit more from ICTs than women. Inequality between males and females is therefore evident in the access and use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in most countries. Consequently, especially in developing countries, women are less likely than men to have computer skills (Somolu, 2007).
Maier and Nair-Reichert (2007) and Gurumurthy (2004) have also argued that ICTs, whether computer, internet, telephones, cell phones, radio, television, among others, can play an
important role in the empowerment of women in developing countries. They describe ICTs as
„potential goldmines‟ for women‟s empowerment.
It is not surprising that a lot of women organisations and civil society groups promoting gender equality are using ICTs as a platform to carry out their advocacy for gender equality, thereby empowering women. The empowerment of women is imperative for the development of societies because women can contribute to national development if they are empowered.
Kwapong (2007) explains that empowerment can be seen as the ability and freedom to make choices in social, political and economic arenas. As such ICTs are now deemed as a crucial factor in the effort to empower rural women so as to enable these women to make choices that will help them. Hence, there is a need to engage women in the study or usage of ICTs in Ghana. Women must be given the space in the area of ICTs.
Despite the several factors militating against the involvement of women in Ghana in ICTs, some women have broken into the ICT sphere and are exploring it. Women in Ghana are embracing the blogging phenomenon to make their voices heard on various issues. A look at BloggingGhana (a blogosphere of both male and female bloggers in Ghana) shows a substantial number of female bloggers in Ghana, even though the blogosphere does not contain the list of all women bloggers in Ghana.
It is against this background that this study seeks to find out how women in Ghana are engaging with blogs.
        Problem statement
Several studies have explored the phenomenon of blogging in various parts of the world and between genders (Herring et al. (2006)c;hlSer et al. (2005) ; Pedersen and Macafee (2007); Li and Lin (2012), etc). These studies looked at the motivation, purpose, type, usage by both gender, etc of blogs in the world. Little is known however about African women and blogging. Therefore, there is little knowledge on how Ghanaian women are engaging with the blogging phenomenon.
As such, the problem of this research is to contribute to knowledge and literature on Ghanaian women and blogging.
        Aims and Objectives
The primary aim of this research is to determine the nature of the blogs created by Ghanaian women bloggers in order to know who is blogging, how they are using the blogs and the content of their blogs.
The objectives of this exploratory study are to:
- determine the social demographics of Ghanaian women who are blogging.
- determine the purpose (s) of the blogs which are created by Ghanaian women.
- determine the subjects which are being blogged about by Ghanaian women.
- determine how Ghanaian women treat heir themes/subjects.
- determine the type of blogs created by Ghanaian women.
        Research questions
Research questions are formally stated questions intended to provide indications about something; it is not limited to investigating relationships between variables (Wimmer and Dominick, 2011). Wimmer and Dominick (2011) argue that research questions are appropriate when a researcher is not too sure about the nature of the phenomenon under study.
In order to investigate Ghanaian women bloggers and find out how they are using the blogs, the study sought to answer the following research questions:
- Which kinds of Ghanaian women are blogging?
- What is (are) the purpose(s) of Ghanaian women‟s blogs?
- What subjects/ themes are Ghanaian women blogging about?
- How do Ghanaian women treat their themes/ subjects?
- How often do Ghanaian women update their blogs?
- What type of blogs do Ghanaian women create?
