Mediatization of Politics: The Role of ICTs in Women Empowerment

Maria Strati and Christine Rüschenschmidt conducted a study about the role of information and communications technologies in the women empowerment. The study focused on the case of the European Women’s Lobby.

ABSTRACT: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) shape the communication practices among individuals and organizations. The omnipresence of media led to the interrelation of politics and media. The strong dependence of media and politics could be described by the concept of mediatization of politics. Political organizations have been urged to incorporate ICTs in their daily activities and adapt to the communication norms of the new media platforms. Moreover, media technologies may give a voice to some social groups, such as women, to debate about politics. The goal of this paper is to examine whether the ICTs may contribute to women empowerment to advocate for gender issues and participate in the political life.

Keywords: mediatization, politics, new media, ICTs, women, European Women’s Lobby.

Find the paper HERE

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“Did you know?”

 A video by Economist which highlights the  phenomenon of technological convergence.

New media and technological convergence is a reality. Online and offline coexist. All kinds of information and communication are digitalized so 0 and 1 are not just two digits. I am wondering what kind of digital skills should we develop to cope with the opportunities and challenges of the digital society? In addition, programmers, computer engineers and other IT professionals tend to be the elite of our society since they know how to assemble and encode all this information and communication.