DIY Series #3: Blogs and Blogging
Blogs, or web logs, have exploded in number in recent years and have grown
to millions on the web. Blogs have become part of mainstream politics,
been banned in some countries, broken media stories, and been thoroughly
reviled and also lauded for providing space for anyone to publish their
thoughts on the web. This workshop is for anyone interested in writing
blogs, reading blogs, and/or looking at blogs analytically. Topics
covered, using examples of existing blogs: political possibilities and
limits, types of blogs and blog communities (personal/ political/
informative/ issue-based/ identity-based), safety (confidentiality,
anonymity, online personas, tracking readers, online relationships),
radical online culture, interdisciplinary writing, blog rings, blog
carnivals, blog design. Participants will be encouraged to looks at blogs
through different analytical lenses: as possible radical alternative
spaces; tools for diasporic cultures; forms of media with implications for
social movements and democracy; and sites of anonymity, (in)authenticity
and fantasies of freedom. Participants will explore these pitfalls and
possibilities of blogging through applying these lenses to a blog design
of their own.
About the Facilitator: Rabea Murtaza
Rabea Murtaza is a community worker, facilitator and writer. She has
worked in the areas of peer counselling, online support groups, magazine
publishing, feminist anti-racist queer-positive crisis counselling,
employment services and youth engagement. She works to create inclusive,
radical, creative and fun spaces for people to write, make art, connect
and explore new possibilities.
Everyone is welcome to attend. Yummy refreshments will be served! RSVP at
resourcelibrary@opirguoft.org (preferred) or leave a message at
416-978-8201.
Where: Centre For Women and Trans People, 563 Spadina Ave, Rm 100 (just
north of College)
When: Thursday, March 1st, 2007, 6:30-8:30pm
Cost: FREE
**we are wheelchair accessible**