New Media Feminism

Abstract

WAM! WOMEN, ACTION AND THE MEDIA CONFERENCE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS MARCH 28-30, 2008 WAM! Women Action and Media Conference took place March 28-30, 2008, at Masschusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Stata Center as a weekend of media activist crosspollination among 600 (mostly) women journalists, media activists, bloggers, and producers. This weekend of kinetic shareware mimicked the positive aspects of Web community technology, with intergenerational women surfing Second Wave, Third Wave, and rogue waves of progressive ideas. Topics included the changing millennial media terrain, girl geck-doms, youth activism, alternative and mainstream publications, analogue and on-line publishing, and multi-platform marketing. WAM! is the brainchild of Laura Zimmerman, former Executive Director of the Center for New Words, an independent community bookstore with a clear mission: To use the power and creativity of words and ideas to strengthen the voice of progressive and marginalized women in society. Now in its fifth year, the WAM! conference has been amped up by a range of co-sponsoring organizations and publications including the MIT Program in Women's Studies, Bitch Magazine, Feministing.com, Nation, In These Times, Seal Press, Women In Media and News, and many others. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Participants from across the United States and Canada met for a marathon of downloadable ideas via workshops, breakout sessions, and how-to networking. While daily virtual gatherings light up myriad electric conversations from the computer screen, the conference's face-to-face encounters with entire collectives of media visionaries writing, producing, sparking, and creating provided another version of 3D community. Adventures in Girl-pedia wikis of generosity proliferated at WAM!, along with sessions on DIY New Media, optimal blogging, book proposal writing, and screen-loads. Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas delivered the Friday night keynote address with quote gems that included My adrenaline is outrage. Dubbed by Ann Friedman of Feministing.com in her introductory comments as The Patron Saint of Not Shutting Up, Thomas spoke to a packed house about her experiences in a ringside seat to history, covering nine presidents over more than forty years, beginning with John F. Kennedy (the most visionary) and the current President Bush, who in her opinion has done end runs around the constitution. Summing up the foreign policy of the current administration, Thomas declares You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun. In response to her courageous articulations, the packed house gave the octogenearian reporter not one, but three separate standing ovations. Clearly, Thomas continues to serve as First Amendment incarnate. Saturday morning began with a keynote talk by Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi novelist, political commentator for the Guardian in London, and weekly columnist for al-Quds newspaper. …