About the Contributors

Gwendolyn Beetham has worked as a researcher on gender issues for the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, at the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations at UN Headquarters, and at the National Council for Research on Women in New York City. She has spoken and written on feminist issues both nationally and internationally, most recently in an article on feminist research methodologies for the journal Gender & Development (forthcoming, July 2007). She is also a contributing author to The Women's Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism and periodically writes on international issues for feministing.com. She is a co-founder of the REAL hot 100, a project that aims to change the perception of young women in the media. Gwendolyn holds a Masters degree in Gender from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor's degree from Kenyon College.

Tracy L. M. Kennedy is a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto, where she is completing her dissertation research entitled "The Digital Home in Canadian Context." Her research is part of "The Connected Lives Project," which uses quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the prevalence of the Internet in Canadian homes, and investigates the implications of the household Internet use on social interactions and relationships between household members. Currently, Tracy is researching rural Internet use in Chapleau Ontario, which has recently had high speed and wireless Internet implemented. She explores the socio-cultural implications of high speed Internet on local residents. Tracy has attended the Summer Doctoral Program at the Oxford Internet Institute and the University of Maryland's annual WebShop. She is also a lecturer at Brock University and the University of Toronto on the subjects of media, cyberculture, information & communication technologies, education, family and gender.

Hosu Kim is a doctoral candidate at City University of New York, The Graduate Center. As a native of Korea, she came to the United States in the early 1990s. Her research interests are Adoption, Media Studies, Performance Studies and Korean Nationalism. She is currently finishing her dissertation, entitled Performing Loss: The Emergent Figure of the Korean Birthmother. Her dissertation examines the cultural politics of loss deployed in various figures of Korean birthmothers in popular media, such as television search shows and the Internet. In addition, she has produced and performed auto-ethnographic pieces. One of them, part of "Still Present Pasts," a multi-media art exhibit on Korean Americans' collective memories about the Korean War, is currently on a national tour of major US cities.

Patricia G. Lange is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California. She holds a PhD degree in anthropology from the University of Michigan and a Masters degree in International Policy Studies from Stanford University. Her research combines theories and methods from cultural and linguistic anthropology to understand online interaction. Areas of interest also include gender, semiotics, film, and video. She has written extensively on issues related to identity performance and technical affiliation in online communities. Her current work involves semiotic analyses of video production, sharing, and reception on sites such as YouTube and in the video blogging community.

Mary C. Matthews is a writer/producer/editor with a background in comedy writing for television and the web. She has written & produced for Buena Vista Television, American Movie Classics and FUSE and maintains original online series 39 Second Single, Idol Critic and Video Pancakes. With producing partner, Liza Persky, Mary launched Pound Productions for the development and production of original programming for television and the web.

Shireen Mitchell has twenty plus years of technology and human services experience. She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of a non profit organization located in the Metropolitan Washington DC area named Digital Sisters/Sistas Inc. Digital Sisters is a 501 (c) 3 organization focused on using technology to access self-sufficiency tools for women and children who are traditionally underserved. In her role at Digital Sistas, she has combined tech support, planning, web design, education, and workshops in supporting individuals with developmental disabilities, women, seniors, and youth. She continuously advocates and supports underrepresented communities and is currently focused on issues of diversity, technology and family literacy. Mitchell is also the author of the essay "Gaining Daily Access to Science and Technology" in 50 Ways to Improve Women's Lives. She serves on several local and national boards of nonprofit organizations. Her awards include: Young Woman of Achievement Nominee in 2002, Outstanding Community Technology Leader in 2003, and The March of Dimes' Heroine in Technology. She continues to speak and writes on various topics and issues related to underserved communities and technology across the country. Mitchell is a graduate of the University of the District of Columbia and continues to advance her education towards a doctorate specializing in Human Computer Interactions.

Chris Nolan is the founder of Spot-on.com, a web-based syndication service designed to provide news outlets with independent, intelligent and insightful commentary and analysis on current events and social issues. The site, founded in 2003 is the current home of 11 writers. As Spot-on's founder and editor, Nolan speaks and writes frequently on the impact of "stand-alone journalism"—a phrase she has coined to describe the work that experienced and professional journalists are doing on the web—and how the networked news environment is changing journalism. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Republic, Fortune, Business 2.0 and Conde Nast Traveler. Before moving to San Francisco 10 years ago to cover Silicon Valley, Nolan lived and worked in Washington, D.C., and covered Congress and the FCC. She holds a BA degree from Barnard College, Columbia University.

Tedra Osell received her PhD from the University of Washington. She teaches eighteenth-century British literature at the University of Guelph in Ontario, where she is also currently running a pilot program to train graduate student TAs. Her essay, "Tatling Women: Rhetorical Femininity in the Eighteenth-Century Essay Periodical," was published in Eighteenth-Century Studies last year. She is seeking a publisher for a completed manuscript modern edition of The Female Tatler. She has several projects underway about eighteenth-century and contemporary pseudonymous publication, which she works on when she isn't spending too much time online.

Clancy Ratliff is an assistant professor in the Department of English at East Carolina University. Her dissertation, "Where Are the Women?" Rhetoric and Gender in Weblog Discourse, examines the recurrent inter-weblog conversations about the representation of women among popular political bloggers. Her general research interests include gender and technology, composition studies, modern rhetorical theory, and copyright and intellectual property. Her work has been published in The Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology, edited by Eileen Trauth, and The Women's Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third Wave Feminism, edited by Leslie L. Heywood. She has been an active blogger for over five years at Kairosnews and CultureCat.

Deborah Siegel is a writer and consultant specializing in women's issues and a Fellow at the Woodhull Institute. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild (Palgrave MacMillan, June 2007). With Daphne Uviller, Siegel co-edited the literary anthology, Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo. A founding editor of The Scholar & Feminist Online, her work on women, sex, contemporary families, work/life, and popular culture has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, USA Today, O, Psychology Today, Pink, Ms., Time Out New York, and more. Siegel received her PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin. Read more about her work at www.deborahsiegel.net and http://www.girlwithpen.blogspot.com.

Shira Tarrant is Assistant Professor in the Women's Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach. Her work has appeared in academic and mainstream media. Her book When Sex Became Gender explores the development of feminist theory during the post-World War II era (Routledge 2006). Her forthcoming anthology Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power will be published in November 2007.

Rebecca Traister is a staff writer at Salon.com, where she covers women in politcs and media, and was a founding contributor to Broadsheet. She has also written for The New York Observer, Elle, Vogue, New York, and The New York Times. She lives in Brooklyn.

Jessica Valenti, 28, is the founder and Executive Editor of Feministing.com and the author of Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters. She has a Masters degree in Women's and Gender Studies from Rutgers University and has worked with national and international women's organizations. Jessica is also a co-founder of the REAL hot 100, a campaign that aims to change the perception of younger women in the media and the blogger for NARAL Pro-Choice America. Her writing has appeared in Ms. Magazine, Bitch, Alternet, Salon, Guernica Magazine and The Guardian (UK), as well as the anthologies We Don't Need Another Wave and Single State of the Union. In 2007, she received a Choice USA Generation award for her commitment to reproductive rights issues and was named one of ELLE Magazine's 2007 IntELLEgentsia.

Marie Varghese is a doctoral student in the department of Anthropology at Columbia University and currently serves as the Scholar Selection Coordinator for the Rashawn Brazell Memorial Scholarship. She is pursuing her graduate certification in Feminist Scholarship through the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia and holds a graduate certificate in sexuality studies from the University of Amsterdam. Before coming to Columbia, Marie worked for several prominent social justice organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the Indian American Political Awareness Council, and The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute. In 2003, Marie was awarded the Lionel Cuffie Award for Activism and Excellence at Rutgers University. Her poetry, articles and short stories been featured in publications as wide-ranging as Kerala Deepam, $pread Magazine, The Journal of Black Poetry, and Beyond Polarities. Most recently, Marie has taken an interest in studying international sexual rights advocacy movements and her intellectual pursuits integrate law and culture, queer theory, transnational feminist organizing and South Asian diasporic studies.

Gillian Youngs, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication, Leicester University, UK, has been researching and participating in international networks on women and information and communication technologies (ICTs) for nearly a decade, and has been involved in related projects supported by UNESCO and NGOs. She has published numerous articles and chapters in academic journals and book collections on feminist theory and women and ICTs and contributed to policy documents and debates in national and international contexts. She has recently completed a monograph, Global Political Economy in the Information Age: Power and Inequality (Routledge, 2007).